Road to Kiev, Chapter One

Shopping

Immediately after the party split up, Reynaldo, Thorvald, Wong, Kai, Thalia, and Gunther went to buy stuff. After a lot of wheeling and dealing (but no stealing), they got a lot of needed goods for inflated prices. Goddamn war economy.

Offer

Afterwards, a Byzantine soldier came to us and asked us in Greek if we knew the languages of the North. The only two who knew Greek were Thorvald and Reynaldo, and Thorvald decided to let the more intelligent Reynaldo do the talking.
"That depends. Who are you?" Reynaldo asked.
He explained that he was looking for a party that spoke both the language of this land (Greek) and the language of the North (possibly Norse, but probably Russian).
Reynaldo said, "Sure, but I'm the only one who speaks Greek."
"You might not be the party we're looking for then, but you'll have to do."
He asked us to meet him at the soldiers' camp.

Decision

We all went there and met with Captain Constantinus (don't call him Constan-penis). He explained that the war going on right now for the empire was being lost by the loyalist army. He wanted someone to go to the Kingdom of Kiev and ask the King there to come help out the Byzantines. Reynaldo told him he had to talk it over with his co-leader, Gunther. Gunther was all for it, Reynaldo and Thorvald were totally against it, and everyone else hadn't taken up a position. Gunther wanted to lead the Kievan armies against the zombie armies some of them had seen earlier when they sojourned through that land, Thorvald wanted nothing to do with the undead and was convinced that there was no more Kiev because the zombies had killed them all, and Reynaldo just wanted to get on with the mission they had already decided on (to get the Holy Grail). Then Constantinus told them they'd get 5000 gold each for coming back with a negative response, but substantially more for a positive one. Reynaldo and Wong were immediately sold, but Thorvald kept his ground. Zombies are icky and undead, after all. We got Constantinus to agree to give us more rations and horses for the trip.

Decision part II

Next we had to decide on which route to take: the northern route, through the lands of the Bulgars and the Carpathian Mountains into Kiev, or the southern route around the Euxine Sea and through the Turkish lands up into Kiev? After much deliberation (in which length of trip, enemy forces, languages, and vampires were discussed), the northern route won out.

Travel and Meeting

We started off and as night approached, we encountered two travelers along the way: Nicolae, a gypsy, and Catarina, a Venetian (sshhh! don't tell her we burned her city down). We camped with them and introduced ourselves. Catarina mentioned she sometimes sang and a contest was held between she and Reynaldo. Reynaldo won. Everyone went to bed.

Bulgar Offer

The next day we set out and were immediately set upon by a band of Bulgar bandits. They got us to agree to stop so that we could meet with one of them. They played the old "This land is full of bandits and you need to pay us for protection" routine. Gunther talked for the party and Reynaldo translated it into Greek for him. Reynaldo misheard Gunther once and said, "Okay, we'll give you a hundred gold per person." Gunther then corrected him and Reynaldo said, "Excuse me, I misheard my companion. He says that you will give us 100 gold per head and we will let all of you go." The bandit leader smiled and rode back to his party of 48 men, and we rode as fast as we could to the small oasis of sorts we had seen in the distance so that we had a better fighting position, while Catarina sang a song of courage and valor that seemed to inspire Thalia.

Bulgar Battle

Arrows were shot back and forth, taking out perhaps three or four bandits before we got to the trees. Also, a curious thing happened: about seven of the bandits just stopped riding and fell off of their horses for no apparent reason. When we reached the trees, the fighters immediately jumped off their horses and got ready to fight, while the magic users went in a little deeper and got off of theirs. Thorvald, Gunther, Thalia, Wong, and Kai fought against the bandits valiantly while Nicolae made many of them sleep. Catarina got off a few spells as well, while Reynaldo webbed some bandits attempting a pincer maneuver from behind. And still more men just fell as if unable to move, inexplicably. Wong decapitated a few bandits with her martial arts, Gunther engaged the leader in one-on-one combat, and the rest did all they could to stem the tide. Then, the bandits' magic user came out and cast fear, catching only Thorvald, who began screaming and running around, finally cowering behind a tree.

Samaritan and End of Battle

A man in tattered clothing emerged from the wood and began fighting against the bandits, going after their magic user. The man and Kai took on the magic user, while Thalia helped Gunther take on the leader, and everyone else attempted to finish off the rest of the bandit party. The magic user fell and Kai went to help defeat the leader. The bandits' lieutenant came and took out Wong and Reynaldo before fleeing. After defeating the leader, Gunther and Thalia grabbed horses and rode the lieutenant down, shooting him full of arrows. Gunther bound him and they all returned to the forest, where Nicolae, the mysterious new man, Kai, and Catarina helped tie up all the bandits that were out, but not dead. The fear spell finally wore off of Thorvald and he looked sheepishly around for something to do. The man introduced himself as Edward the Penitent, a man of the Christian faith with God-granted powers. He was responsible for causing some of the bandits to stop moving.

Bandit's Story and Decision part III

When the lieutenant was brought back, he spoke with Reynaldo. He asked what we were planning on doing with them. Reynaldo replied, "Kill you, of course."
"Please don't do that to me. I'm not actually one of them."
"Well, you played the part pretty well."
He went on to explain that the only reason he was around these men was because they had taken his daughter hostage and he was trying to find out where she was. As the leader of the bandits had already died (before we could gloat, unfortunately), we couldn't corroborate his story. As another day came to an end, the party was undecided as to what to do with the captured bandits. Reynaldo, Wong, and Thorvald seemed to be the only ones who wanted to kill them. After a heated debate between Gunther and Reynaldo, Reynaldo said, "These are bandits. If you let them live, they will only prey on the weak again. This is what they do. You would unleash them again only to keep your hands clean of their blood. You are being selfish and naive, and are committing a greater evil by letting them go. Instead of their blood, you will have innocent blood on your hands." Gunther could only respond, "Cold-blooded murder is cold-blooded murder."

Drama

The decision has still not been made.

End Chapter One
Next: Road to Kiev, Chapter Two