N
Nyxx
Guest
Original poster
Rudiger
Dawn. I walk through the corpses on the battlefield, my feet crunching the hard packed snow. My breath comes out in great plumes before freezing to my beard. Overhead, crows begin to circle, cawing in excitement at the coming feast.
As the sun casts its sickly pale glow across the land, I take my first good look at my surroundings. Thousands of bodies lay before me in various stages of death and dismemberment. Decapitated heads, gouged eyes, spilled entrails and severed limbs form a bloody, gore drenched carpet over the snow, staining it a rusty brown colour.
In the distance I see my companion Bleidd working her way through a cluster of corpses. The half elf has a keen eye and even keener hearing which allowed us to follow the army undetected across the Sordkapp Mountains until they arrived here, on this vast open plain and did battle with mutant Norsemen. The battle had raged all night, Count Vorstadt's forces fighting valiantly but ultimately suffering a crushing defeat. The survivors had retreated, chased by hordes of Norsemen back into the mountains. The screams of the captured humans being tortured and killed had pierced the night and given me goosebumps.
I gaze at one of the Norsemen. Vile, mutated, barely human creatures, the Norsemen were the product of decades of inbreeding and black magic. The one at my feet died from massive trauma to its head, the axe that split its overly large skull still embedded deep in the flesh and bone. I gaze into its face and feel the bile rise before moving on.
Corpse looters, that's what Bleidd and I were now.
Bleidd:
Sensitive hearing is one thing , Hawk like vision is also perfect for jobs like these, however an exceptional sense of smell , is neither required nor recommended and by the 'Stalkers Blade' I wished for the dozenth time that I had no nose. Drenching my scarf in Lavender and Marjoram in an attempt to disguise the smell, of death and feces, I fought the sensation of my stomach attempting an escape. If I thought the Norsemen smelt bad alive, they were a positively other worldly dead. As my fingers swiftly tackled the buckles and fastenings of yet another half frozen corpse I had to wonder why the Hell I was here instead of taking the cushy little scouts job going South. Subconsciously my eyes scan the field until I find him, and sigh , the job South had been a one man affair. My attempts to convince the self important caravan leader that Rudiger would prove his worth should trouble arise fell on deaf ears. They wouldn't pay the extra fee, so corpse looting it was. ' The joys of having a partner.' That wasn't fair, the pro's far outweighed the cons , it was just right now I'd give our entire haul for a warm ale.
The harness sticks so out comes the skinning knife, a swift circular cut and the fastenings drop away. There are a few Items of Traditional jewellery most likely snatched from some victim of the last place they raped and pillaged their way through. Nothing worth shouting about, we didn't have long before the heat upped the stench brought the corpse eaters out.
I could maybe get through another three before we needed to decide if it was worth the extra trouble to hang on through the day.
Looking back up to Rudiger , I signal to know if we were still clear. We have worked together long enough to have established a series of hand signals to communicate over places like this so we aren't shouting and attracting the wrong kind of attention.
The fine layer of frost that had formed on my armour was just starting to defrost making everything feel damp. I stand up waiting for his reply , he's hardly cuts a small figure as it is , standing up on the rise with the sun coming up behind him, he looks more akin to a bear than man. Chuckling i consider I might keep that to myself, incase he doesn't appreciate the comparison.
Dawn. I walk through the corpses on the battlefield, my feet crunching the hard packed snow. My breath comes out in great plumes before freezing to my beard. Overhead, crows begin to circle, cawing in excitement at the coming feast.
As the sun casts its sickly pale glow across the land, I take my first good look at my surroundings. Thousands of bodies lay before me in various stages of death and dismemberment. Decapitated heads, gouged eyes, spilled entrails and severed limbs form a bloody, gore drenched carpet over the snow, staining it a rusty brown colour.
In the distance I see my companion Bleidd working her way through a cluster of corpses. The half elf has a keen eye and even keener hearing which allowed us to follow the army undetected across the Sordkapp Mountains until they arrived here, on this vast open plain and did battle with mutant Norsemen. The battle had raged all night, Count Vorstadt's forces fighting valiantly but ultimately suffering a crushing defeat. The survivors had retreated, chased by hordes of Norsemen back into the mountains. The screams of the captured humans being tortured and killed had pierced the night and given me goosebumps.
I gaze at one of the Norsemen. Vile, mutated, barely human creatures, the Norsemen were the product of decades of inbreeding and black magic. The one at my feet died from massive trauma to its head, the axe that split its overly large skull still embedded deep in the flesh and bone. I gaze into its face and feel the bile rise before moving on.
Corpse looters, that's what Bleidd and I were now.
Bleidd:
Sensitive hearing is one thing , Hawk like vision is also perfect for jobs like these, however an exceptional sense of smell , is neither required nor recommended and by the 'Stalkers Blade' I wished for the dozenth time that I had no nose. Drenching my scarf in Lavender and Marjoram in an attempt to disguise the smell, of death and feces, I fought the sensation of my stomach attempting an escape. If I thought the Norsemen smelt bad alive, they were a positively other worldly dead. As my fingers swiftly tackled the buckles and fastenings of yet another half frozen corpse I had to wonder why the Hell I was here instead of taking the cushy little scouts job going South. Subconsciously my eyes scan the field until I find him, and sigh , the job South had been a one man affair. My attempts to convince the self important caravan leader that Rudiger would prove his worth should trouble arise fell on deaf ears. They wouldn't pay the extra fee, so corpse looting it was. ' The joys of having a partner.' That wasn't fair, the pro's far outweighed the cons , it was just right now I'd give our entire haul for a warm ale.
The harness sticks so out comes the skinning knife, a swift circular cut and the fastenings drop away. There are a few Items of Traditional jewellery most likely snatched from some victim of the last place they raped and pillaged their way through. Nothing worth shouting about, we didn't have long before the heat upped the stench brought the corpse eaters out.
I could maybe get through another three before we needed to decide if it was worth the extra trouble to hang on through the day.
Looking back up to Rudiger , I signal to know if we were still clear. We have worked together long enough to have established a series of hand signals to communicate over places like this so we aren't shouting and attracting the wrong kind of attention.
The fine layer of frost that had formed on my armour was just starting to defrost making everything feel damp. I stand up waiting for his reply , he's hardly cuts a small figure as it is , standing up on the rise with the sun coming up behind him, he looks more akin to a bear than man. Chuckling i consider I might keep that to myself, incase he doesn't appreciate the comparison.
Last edited by a moderator: