Bobs continuing attempts to stay alive

[Pug118]

Bob was sick of marching back and forth across this bloody desert!

And what made it worse, was that this time he and the others found themselves doing the Realms dirty work for them.
They were at the head of a mercenary army, fighting a battle to suppress a revolt by a jumped up mini state.
(Or reppressing a population that was fighting for freedom and autonomy.)

Still, the one thing he was sure of was that Alat (the twat) and his minions weren't overly interested in the welfare of the locals.
As a god of war his primary goal seemed to be to keep them fighting and dying.
The Realm might have it's faults, slavery not least amongst them, but at least it seemed to provide some level of stability and protection for its citizens.

Bob new enough about history though to know that whatever happened it was going to get ugly. The innocents who wanted nothing to do with the fighting would get caught up in it all the same. All they could do was try to keep their troops restrained and hope that the bonuses they had offered to pay for good behaviour would be enough to keep the majority in line.

So here he was, blowing up gate houses, picking fights with minotaurs and trying to goad a god into a fight. Again.

He had no idea how they were going to get home.
He was worried for Fran, who needed something to keep her busy and off the drink.
He was worried about Laura, who seemed to think that a lack of "red tape" balanced off all the killing. 
He was starting to agree with the others that they needed to do something, he just had no idea what it was.

Still, at least the beer was good.   

[Pug118]

Well here they were, at the end of yet another march across the desert!

Things had turned out better than Bob could have expected.

They had won the battle, mined the wall and taken the town.  
The casualties had been heavy but not as bad as they might have been.
Frans efforts, and the bonuses they had offered, had kept the civilian casualties to a minimum. They had left the civilians (mostly women, children and old men) under the care of their water goddess who had sworn to oversee a peacefull recovery.
The Realm troops would arrive within the month, and if they were smart would bring someone like Tiholu with them to organise the recovery and demonstrate some of the benefits of the Realm.

Mind you, it had been a close thing.
They had all been lucky to survive the battle with the Son of Alat and his Thousand Wives. (Heaven new that must keep him busy!)
Fran and Laura had almost died fighting a Southern King.
If it hadn't been for the arrival of Evocative Thought, Mist and the other Small Gods things might have finished badly.
But they had aided Fran and Laura and pulled them back from the brink of death. (Thank the Gods.....Literally!)

From all of this they had been able to draw a few conclusions and many more questions-

Their new companions Anarith and Alixdar had proven themselves true and capable allies.
Though Anariths motivations were still unclear.

Mennemon Jaxut lived, but had been rescued or abducted by a mysterious shadowy figure?
 
The Son of Alat had lived and escaped to the north, but what would he do next?

Bob had to admit that the stone trick was weird, but he'd felt something else when he'd seen Fran and Laura fall.
A sort of desperate building of energy. What that meant he didn't know and he wasn't sure he wanted to know either!

Laura seemed to be recovering, but she kept whistling and looking strangely at he and Yofahu.
He hoped her near death experience hadn't cost her her wits!


So now they were headed to the heart of the Realm and from there on to the North, to aid Alixdar in whatever small way they could.

Still, there might be time for a beer before they left.  

 
 

[Pug118]

So here they were, in a Garrison town safe and secure.
Yofahu had received a well deserved promotion and they were all well received by his commanding officers.
So why did Bob have this feeling that things were about to get really dangerous.

It might have had something to do with their meeting with the “Pepper Merchant”.
He hadn’t been openly hostile towards them, at least not on further discussion, but he seemed convinced that they would be drawn into the regions politics, whether they liked it or not.  So said the astrologers.
Even stranger had been the revelation that they were not the first to have travelled between worlds / ages. Some poor young officer had found himself here, driven mad by his experiences.
These men from Lucshai had also confirmed their rescue/abduction of Mennemon Jaxut. The notion of Jaxut “working off his debt” made Bob smile.
And so in the end they had acquired another useful companion (hopefully an ally), who would help them keep a “balanced perspective”.    

So what next?

Alixdar seemed to believe they needed to travel to the far north, which as far as Bob could tell was as good a direction as any.
They would travel through the Realm, going north, hoping (with the aid of Ledaal Kayoba) to glean some clue as to how to return home.
What their part in all this would be was a mystery. One the Ledaal seemed to think the astrologers might be able to shed some light on.
Bob was more than a little sceptical about all this talk of astrologers. He wasn’t convinced Mystic Meg would be a great deal of help.  Still he was a Pisces and Pisces were natural sceptics.  

Then there were the more mundane matters.
Fran and Tiholu seemed to be working past the “4 year old twins” thing. Though that discussion might still have some way to go.
Now he thought about it, he should check up on Nellens Rache.  
She should be around here somewhere or at least have passed through.
She had been very angry.

Bob smiled.

If she were still in town, he could just imagine her reaction if they should come and go without even enquiring after her.
No, that would be too cruel.  Wouldn’t it?  

[Pug118]

Bob had decided to bite the bullet.

After spending several days in Inkosintaba Bob had decided to make the peroulous journey along the Street of Palms to Kirighast.
Armed only with an invitation to the officers ball that evening, Bob had set out to face the most fearsome, the most beligerent, the most spiteful creature he had battled since comming to this world.  Nellens Rache!

Having found the Nellens household, Bob had been shown in by a servant and greeted by Rache's father.  He was a proud looking man with a military bearing and an upright stature.  Possibly due to that rod stuffed up his ..... well. The conversation that followed could have been described as awkward or frosty, but Bob wouldn't want it to sound friendlier than it was.

Strained it might have been, but the old soldier had allowed Bob to speak with his daughter. That was where things had gotten really interesting.

Where her father had been quiet, distant and cold, Nellens Rache was outspoken, direct and firey.
She had been less than impressed with the evenings invitation, taking vast offence at the fact that she was being asked as an afterthought.
Which now he thought about it, probably wasn't very flattering.
She had taken the invitation, torn it in two and hurreled it across the room with such force and such vehemence that Bob would have sworn he saw some sort of "flare".  Except that she was not exalted, so ...... ?
She was also less than impressed to see Bob, taking his very pressence as an insult.
(This was where Bob had started to wish he had used the damned invitation in a manner familiar to desperate campers everywhere!)

At this point Bob's opinion of her father had started to change slightly.  He could have sworn he saw the old man trying to hide a smirk as he put a restraining hand on his daughters shoulder. He plainly loved his daughter but was more than familiar with her foiables.
Bob had said his bit, telling Rache that they would all be glad to here that she had been safely returned to her family.  He had barely gotten the words out before he had been escorted to the door at spear point by the household guard.  

Bob had made his way back to Inkosintaba, where he found that Laura and Anarith had bought him some clothing for the ball which weren't the gaudy nightmare he'd expected.  
He'd then had an unexpected visitor, Nellens Rache's brother, Nellens Simot.
Nellens Simot had seemed awkward and ill at ease until Bob took pity on him and offered him a drink.
He had been sent by his father to enquire after Bob's intentions towards his sister.  This had been awkward.  
Truth be told Bob wasn't entirely sure how he felt about the girl. She was a spoilt, impetous, self absorbed nightmare.
But somehow or other, since she'd started hateing him he'd found her a lot more interesting.  
So Bob swerved the issue by saying that while he was unmarried he did have family commitments amongst his "tribe".
This seemed to satisfy Simot and he had returned home.

Laura, Pig and Bob had met before the evenings entertainment to discuss the days goings on.
Bob spent most of the time insisting that Laura do somthing about Pig.  Like changing her name for starters!

The party that evening had been uneventfull until the Anathema had exalted in Kirighast.
The party broke up as groups went to investigate.  Bob, Laura and Anarith had found the Anathema killed by a single unmarked arrow.
An arrow which none of their exalted company was willing to claim! Leaving them with something of a mystery.

So much for a quiet day thought Bob. Civilisation was prooving to be one of the most dangerous places they had visited, and so far they were only touching the edges of it!

Well, tomorrow they would be traveling north and he would have to put Nellens Rache and the whole sorry debacle behind him.    

[Pug118]

Where had it all come from???

When he'd boarded the ship and gone to his cabin, he'd expected to find a small room with his few meagre belongings stowed at the foot of the bunk.
Instead he'd found the largest cabin available crammed full of trunks and boxes!

On investigation, the crew revealed that "his belongings" had been delivered to the dockside that morning by a range of merchants from Inkosintaba and the Street of Palms.

Going through the contents of the boxes Bob found a full suit of Jade Plate, an impressively embroidered robe, some fairly riskay (obscene) poetry and a wardrobe full of good quality clothing.  He'd also found a strange little chest, made of fine wood and jade and inscribed with a message saying "leave empty".

Who did it all belong to?  Why had it been sent with him on this voyage? It didn't make sense. Something wasn't right.

Bob decided to open the gift Yofahu had given him. The parting had left him feeling a little hollow.  Yofahu was the best friend he'd made since comming to this place.  He would miss the soldiers dry humour and honest manner.  He'd miss seargent Nemin and the engineer Perfect Jade too.
Perhaps, if he could not get home, Bob would give some serious thought to joining the Legion.  

Bob unwrapped the heavy and sizeable bundle that Yofahu had given him. Beneath the silk he found a hammer of impressive proportions.  The weight of the weapon felt balanced but too heavy for Bob to wield easily.  Perhaps it would grow easier if he could learn some basic techniques.  At least this was one possession he knew was given freely.

At that point the strange little chest began to glow.  Opening the chest he found a scroll, expertly penned and professing undying affection from......Nellens Rache!!???  These letters continued to arrive daily, pledging devotion and promissing more and more detailed pleasures with each installment.

Days passed and Bob found himself discussing the strange trunks with Anarith.  He'd only just begun to get to know the girl.  She was a gifted fighter and student of war from all reports, she had acted decisively during the battle at Ifonaris and seemed trustworthy enough. She'd taken the story of their origin remarkably well and seemed to be becoming sound friends with Laura.  She revealed that the embroidered robe was a grooms wedding robe, and that the other items appeared to be some kind of dowry!

Bob thought he'd settled this with Rache's family. Where this left him, he had no idea.  The last thing he wanted to do was hurt or embarrass the woman again.  Though he had his doubts about the authenticity of the letters, Rache was more likely to describe his painfull death than his rapturous wedding night!

Several days and a few bottles of wine with Fran passed. Bob trained with Alixdar and Kurush and found that the hammer gifted to him by Yofahu felt lighter and more manageable the more he used it.  He got to know the agent a little better over this period, it transpired that Kurush was "God Born" which accounted for some of his abilities.  It also seemed that the flash Bob had witnessed, when Nellens Rache had become so enraged, was indeed a sign of Exalted powers.  Perhaps if the woman was a "late bloomer", her new power might go some way towards soothing her temper, thought Bob.

That night over dinner discussion fell to the now infamous trunks. Laura suggested he take the gifts and run, but that wasn't him. As tempting and useful as the armour was, he'd decided to return the gifts to the Nellens family on the pretext that he was "going into the North to die". Hopefully that would resolve things once and for all.

Once ashore, in Arjuf, the group made they're way to the Sesus household, where Miyoxi Tiholu intended to introduce them all to his family. Fran seemed to be taking this idea remarkably well. There was no branch of the Nellens family near by to return the gifts too, so Bob was stuck with them for now.

The group arrived at the Sesus household just in time for what seemed to be a Hogmanay celebration.
Tiholu's wife, Sesus Erile, was a beautiful and charming woman and his children, while a handfull, had an infectious sense of humour.

Well, thought Bob, there are worse ways to spend a New Years Eve.