| Old and Decrepit Guiding Spirit of the Leafsta Survivors
Join Date: Sep 2006 Shard/Server: Europa
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The door of the tavern in Britain opens and an old man enters, limping wearily and leaning heavily on a crook. He has a long grey beard and wears a travel-stained gown. Going to the bar he orders a horn of mead and gulps it down thirstily. He orders a second and taking it to a vacant table in one corner, he sits down. Leaning back in the chair he sighs and appears to nod as if falling asleep.
All eyes followed this entrance. Old men are not a common sight in Sosaria, where life is hard, brutal and short. After some time he stirs, and takes out from his pack a dry crust of bread that he begins to nibble, between drinking his second horn of mead. He seems refreshed and somewhat recovered. Two young lady warriors approach his table and ask if they may join him, introducing themselves as Sundra and Moriara. He nods, indicating a chair at his table. After exchanging pleasantries they tell him of their lives and their band of comrades, and then he in turn begins to tell them his remarkable tale. Quote:
I am called Tyg Husbond, named after my father, whose first wife, Daisy Delver, was my mother. I come from the village of Leafsta in the foothills of the Serpentspine Mountains, hard by the eaves of the eastern edge of the Deep Forest (for the story of this village see The Book of Leafsta ).
Mine was a lesser family in the village heirarchy. The Husbonds - or Husbands as some called themselves - specialised in animal husbandry - herding and taming, animal lore and veterinary skills. I was born in 288 Stratics Reckoning. My elder sister, Tama, married Bellows Fretting, the Master Blacksmith and Hereditary Mayor of Leafsta, which raised our family’s standing in Leafsta considerably.
As the youngest child, I was responsible for the village herds of a few sheep, cows and goats, moving them to the high pastures each spring and down again to the forest edge in the autumn to feed on the mast that falls there in abundance before the animals are taken to their winter byres. So I was much alone with my sheep-dogs, tending the herds. It was a peaceful life, if a lonely one, and perhaps that is why I never married.
From the mountain meadows I could look up to the snowy peaks over which the eagles soar and look down on the Deep Forest at the edge of which I could just discern the smoke rising from the village hearths and forges and from the coking piles in the denser trees beyond. To the west I could follow the line of the mountain range as it trended towards the Last Bridge.
At my father’s knee I had oft heard the tale of the woegn-migration of the Minoc smiths led by Anvel "Loosefoot" Fretting to found the village of Leafsta. My parents had both made that journey as children. Little did I dream that I would soon travel that road alone, back to Minoc.
It was my herding responsibilities that saved my life, for I was away when disaster struck Leafsta one dark moonless night in the late autumn of 337 SR, my 49th year.
My sheep-dogs and I had long left the high pastures and the herds had been working the groundmast as we moved to the lower slopes, ever nearer home. We were camped for the night still some miles from Leafsta when I was woken by an unearthly cry, a wail, that filled me with terror and made the sheep-dogs whimper and whine with their tails down. This was followed by many similar wails that stood my hair on end. Climbing a tree, I could see around the lower foothills towards home, numerous sickly necrotic flashes that lit the sky with a yellowish sheen.
I kept watch in the tree all night until the sights and sounds faded and then ceased. Soon after this the night finally gave way to a pale and mist-shrouded day. It strikingly lacked the usual dawn chorus, and pervading the woods was an eirie and ominous silence that made my skin crawl. I finally found the courage to take one of the dogs and continue down to Leafsta. Approaching slowly and with great care, keeping hidden, I found to my horror that my home village was a smoking ruin with no signs of life.
First assuring myself it was safe, I searched quickly for any suvivors but could find none. A few weapons, bows mainly, but also hammers, littered the ground. Numerous gruesome finds made me shudder: burned and blackened bodies, severed limbs, heads disfigured beyond recognition. Here, too were several dead skeletons and rotting ghouls, and the occasional lik or lich. All the evidence pointed to an undead attack of unbelievable ferocity.
For a while I wandered round the smoking ruins as in a daze, stunned. Then I returned to the herds and brought them as quickly as I might to the desolation that had been my home village, which we reached at dusk. Still I did not doubt that at least some my kin would be returning from hiding in the forests. I therefore determined to stay put to avoid missing anyone.
So I began to wait, and some days passed during which I slaughtered the herd and smoked as much meat as I could. Still no-one came, and my high hopes began to fade. Winter was rapidly approaching, so I decided to stay in the ruins and make a shelter as comfortable as possible. Some of my kin would surely return, they could not all have perished – or, gods forbid – have been killed then raised as foul undead creatures. It did not bear thinking about…In the spring I would make for Minoc in the hope that some of my kin perhaps had escaped that way to find their Minoc kin.
I took no precautions, as I knew the crypts lay to the southwest of Leafsta and that way the undead must have returned. But my wait was cut short when I was surprised by 3 skeletons appearing from that direction, seemingly scouting. I sent the dogs to attack them, sacrificing them while I used the breathing space to flee west towards the Minoc Road. Two of the skeletons chased me until I managed to evade them and hide.
Now I decided it would not be safe to linger and I had neither heart nor courage to return to the ruins. So I began the long trek to Minoc with little more than the clothes on my back.
And now I have spun this tale too long. So to cut short the telling of a long and dreary journey, filled with danger and fear, I reached the road to Minoc, crossed the Last Bridge and beyond it into the cursed lands of the Chaos Hold. Progress was painfully slow. I had no fighting skills at all and hid often and long when forces of the Despised sallied forth to ravage the lands or when other danger threatened. I had several narrow escapes, losing fingers on my left hand from an attack by an ogre and a knee wound from a harpy that left me crippled with a stiff leg and dependent on my crook. It took me until the following autumn, limping on foot, to reach Minoc.
Minoc was a disappointingly mean town, little more than a glorified mining camp. But here for the first time I felt safe to rest, heal up and grieve, then to enquire after refugees from beyond the Last Bridge. But no news came. I decided to wait in Minoc in case others turned up after me, asking the healers whose guild lay on the Yew road, to bring news of whom I sought.
But I waited in vain and was about to leave when I became very ill, unable to move from a paralysis in my left arm and leg. My breathing became labored, with much coughing up of clear frothy water, and I came close to death. The healers said that my heart had weakened, and I suffered from dropsy, perhaps brought on by the sorrow and grieving, not to mention my age and my long fear-filled flight. I was given medicants but little did I know that I would spend 5 years in Minoc in slow recovery before I would be well enough to continue my search.
I had time in Minoc, lodged in the thatched dormitory of the healers guild, to now consider my next move. I knew that Agnes Fretting, my niece (my sister Tama’s daughter), had left Leafsta in 336 SR with two children: my great grand nephews Jern Fretting (my sister’s son’s son) and Smaed Fretting (my sister’s brother’s son) , guided by the elven ranger Talis, to visit my uncle, my mother's brother, Digs Delver, who lives near Trinsic, though by now he must be ancient or more likely dead.
My niece Agnes - who had foreseen the disaster but who had been laughed at and nicknamed Angst for her unreasoned fears - will surely have arrived in Trinsic. That would be the obvious next place for me to make for. But my health was failing and it was a long and dangerous journey, almost the entire length of the world: my heart quailed at the thought. And I would fain have stayed in Minoc in case survivors arrived, though that chance became ever more remote as time passed. I knew in my heart that my reluctance to leave was but an excuse to postpone the next stage of my journey.
There is little more to tell. I left Minoc in 346 SR, keeping to the roads and heading for Vesper, all the time looking out for moongates, my infirmities overcoming the fear of magycks that I shared with all Leafstans. But I found none and was loth to leave the roads to search, in case I got lost in the wilderness. I at last reached Vesper but fell ill with fever from the damp sea miasmas there and for the second time on this journey I almost died. My recovery was slow and combined with my further enquiries here this delayed my continued journey until spring 349 SR when I took the road to Britain.
So, my friends, I have at last reached Britain, 14 years after witnessing the destruction of Leafsta. But I am old and worn, being in my 63rd year, and with a weak heart and I begin to despair of ever reaching Trinsic, which I now hear is under attack by the Despised.
| Tyg is taken by a fit of coughing and then slumps with his elbows on the table, his head in his hands, his exhaustion apparent. Finally, he leans back to rest his head in his chair. He looks worn and tired and his eyes closing under blue-veined lids he begins to nod, soon falling asleep...
This account of Tyg’s Tale was recorded by the bard Rustelle, who met Tyg on the road to Britain outside Bayview Guesthouse, belonging to the band of adventurers called The Twilight Fellowship that Tyg had joined. Tyg appeared content to remain there for the rest of his days, too worn and ill to continue the journey south to Trinsic.
These words have I quilled to record the remarkable story of this old man, so far the only eyewitness account we have of the fate of Leafsta. It remains my task to seek out and find his niece, Agnes Fretting, and hand her this book. And mayhap to be the instrument of them meeting.
Rustelle
In the city of Britain
June 354 SR
*a hastily written note by Agnes*
I am so grateful to Rustelle for making it possible for me to find my uncle, and for writing up his story. Rustelle met Tyg in Bayview Boarding House, owned by The Twilight Fellowship who took him under their wing. Rustelle went north in search of me, at last finding me after many trials and much trouble.
To round the story off, I can confirm that I met Tyg briefly to wish him well in his new life. With such friends he will end his days in happiness and content.
There may be more kin yet to be discovered. We all continue to search.
Agnes “Doomsong” Fretting
Librarian of the Borough of Yew
January 355 SR
Last edited by Angst; 9th April 2008 at 09:36 AM.
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27th September 2006, 08:12 AM
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