Between a Rock and a Hard Place (an Averni Story)

[Ower]

Nice one I like it but you should post a map of the world ans ome pics would bee nice.

[Long lost Caesar]

haha this dude really doesnt want to give a speech. good description of the battle, hope more's to come!

P.S-Celtic Names- These are a few I know, not sure if they'll be of any help.
Male-Esca, Litivak, Crigonat and Wulfilla.
Female- erm...Marah...Boudica?

thats all man, hope it helps.

[woad&fangs]

Ower- This story is only loosely following my real Averni campaign. However, I might be able to produce a screenshot of Europe as it roughly appears at this point in the story.

LongLostCaesar- Thanks for the names.

Sorry for the delay. I've been doing other stuff lately and the creative juices haven't been flowing. Once I figure out what to do with one character(or if I should include her at all) the next scene should come pretty quickly.

[woad&fangs]

“Ei, Prasuta, I’ve got the tally of troops you asked for.”
As Ivo entered the tent a cool breeze ruffled the edges of a map at Prasutagos’ feet.

“Ivo, what does this say” he said pointing at some symbols written next to a town named Buriguza.

“It’s in Attic like a lot of my writing. It means ‘Here be Wine and Wenches’.”
Ivo sat down on the ground and Prasutagos followed suit.

Prasutagos glanced at the map again, “I’ve noticed that you’ve planned our march to go right through there.”

“Well the shortest route to Ak-Ink goes right through there.”

“But it looks like it will be faster to cross the river here” Prasuta said, pointing at another town.

“Yes, but you don’t seem to notice my note about that town.”

“I just said that I can’t read Attic.”

“That’s part’s actually in Getic”

“Well what does it say?”

“Here be a beautiful young maiden and the colossal father of said maiden who wants Ivo’s head impaled on a pike.”

Laughter from the corner the tent interrupted them. From the shadows a woman, a few years younger then Prasutagos, stood up and walked over to the map. She seemed to rise from the earth itself. Long chestnut hair, large brown eyes like that of a deer, and olive skin tanned even darker by the march from Kallatis.

“So what you are saying Ivo, is that even in the middle of an army you are still terrified by one man?” She said in the silky voice that Prasutagos adored so much.

“He’s a very big man.”

“And this is a big army.”

Prasutagos interrupted the banter before it had a chance to escalate, “Ivo was about to tell me exactly how big.”

The woman softly sat down on the ground with the two men.

“Yes, I was about to tell Prasuta that valuable knowledge before you interrupted us. Let me see… Prasuta, you have 400 Thracians, 150 Dacian falxmen, 150 Dacian pike men, 50 Scythian mounted archers, 50 assorted veterans of your campaign, and our two body guards total 47 men. So we have about 750 men in total. Esca is sending us 400 Illyrians from Segestica and I believe that we can expect to recruit about 200 Dacians between here and Ak-Ink which means that we will still be outnumbered by a bit but it shouldn’t be by too much.”

The woman spoke once again “We’ll be passing near to Singdidinum which is inhabited by Celts so I think we can find quite a few who are willing to fight for us. Silly Ivo. Forgetting our local base of power is such a childish mistake.” She chided, “Also,” she slid a piece of papyrus marked with Greek letters over to him, “In case you have forgotten, I can read Attic and I must say that you’re poetry is simply rotten. If you’re going to waste something so valuable then please use someone else’s.” She rose from her spot on the ground and leaned over to talk to Prasutagos. “I’m going to visit Wulfwilla. I’ve heard that he’s acquired some very good wine but I believe that a Greek should be the judge of that.” She ruffled Prasutagos’ hair and left the tent.

Prasutagos smiled at Ivo, “A Greek with a Celtic name who speaks nearly as many languages as you. The people of Kallatis never cease to amaze me.”

“You mean to say that Marah never ceases to amaze you, you love struck fool.”

“I’m not love struck,…”

“Then you’re lust struck. It doesn’t matter much to me but if it’s not one of those two than why is she marching with us instead of back at her home in Kallatis.”

“I needed someone more fluent in Greek than you and she volunteered.”

“Yes, because Greek is so common away from the coast.” sarcastically replied Ivo, “I’m going to go sample Wufwilla’s wine before that Greek bitch gulps it all down.” He said while replacing his insult with its Attic equivalent so Prasutagos couldn’t tell what was said. Ivo left the tent reciting some of his own poetry.

Even without knowing the meaning of what was being said, Prasutagos could tell that his poetry sounded terrible.

To be continued….
-------------------------

To those of you who are going “Gag, why is there a love story in here” don’t worry. I plan on keeping the Battles to Kisses ratio firmly in favor of battles. She’s there more to progress the characters of Ivo and Prasutagos then anything else. Cocolitanos’ side of the story will also feature at least one and probably two new characters when we return to him. However, those characters will both be guys.

Thanks again for the names, Long Lost Caesar. Marah just sounds like the right name for her. It sounds kind of earthy to me which is the visual that I’m looking for. Wulfwilla is just mentioned in passing and if his role is expanded past that it will be by unplanned coincidence.

300 views

[Reality=Chaos]

nice story so far. A map would help to clarify the situation though.

[woad&fangs]

Ivomagos leaned his head back to rest on the trunk of a gnarled old tree. He adjusted his cloak to form a cushion between his head and the trunk. Laughter brought his attention back to the fire 30 meters ahead of him. Marah lay on her side next to a small fire, a flask of wine resting in the crook of her arm. Across from her a large Celt with a shaved head and full beard was prodding the fire with a branch. He must be the one called Wulfwilla.

Wulfwilla muttered something and proceeded to stagger into the nearest tent. A few moments passed and Marah’s only movement was to bring herself up into a sitting position with legs crossed.

Ivo tilted his head backed and gazed up into the cloudless starry sky. He could hear Marah start to hum but he continued to gaze up at the stars. Tonight was too beautiful to waste spying on her. If she wanted to betray Prasuta then she could go right ahead. He was going to enjoy beauty of a good summer night. The warm air, clear sky, hushed chirping of crickets, all produced a calming effect on him.

Marah now progressed from humming to singing an Attic ballad. Ivo tried translating the lyrics but soon stopped in favor of appreciating the melody. He closed his eyes and let her voice fill his head. He had to admit, her voice was rather calming when he wasn’t the object of discussion. He focused his attention once again to the song and let it become louder and louder in his head until it felt like she was standing next to him. The song drew to a close but he kept his eyes closed to appreciate the nature all around him. The chirp of the crickets, the light brushing of cool breeze against skin, the creaking of a large low hanging tree branch. Ivo drew in a deep and exhaled. He opened his eyes-…

A pair of large brown eyes peered down at him, “Hello”.

Ivo blinked several times in surprise. “Umm, hello to you too.”

“If you’re going to spy on me then you should at least have your eyes open. You may find that, that…” She rocked gently on the branch trying to remember what she was going to say, “That, ooom,” Marah began to slide out of the tree branch. ‘wumph’ She fell off of the branch and directly onto Ivo. They both collapsed onto the ground. “I’m very drunk.” She teetered to her feet and took a few steps before she had to place a hand on the tree for support, “Could you help me?” she whispered pathetically. She wrapped her arms around Ivo’s shoulders and he led her back to Prasuta’s tent.

As he laid her down in the corner Prasuta looked up from the map he was studying. “It seems you don’t hate her quite as much as you like to say.” He remarked.

“You forget that I’m a gentleman.” Ivo replied. He turned to exit the tent but stopped just inside of the exit. “And I still don’t trust her.” Ivo left to return to his own tent.

Prasuta rolled up the scattered maps and promptly fell asleep.

To be continued....
----------------------

Sorry that the update took so long. I've had other stuff going on and I wanted to make sure that I did a really good job with this scene. I still don't think that it is as good as I want it to be but I can't take forever on it.

Sorry, but I still don't have a map. I seem to have lost my flashdrive so I can't transfer the game map from my game computer on to the computer I'm using to write this. If I can't find my flashdrive by next week then I'll make my own map since both Litanos and Prasutagos will be on the move in the next few scenes.

Hehe, the next scene will feature some nice Rhompaia vs. Rhompaia action. That's all I'm going to say about that for now.

After the next scene I'll return to Litanos and advance his plotline a bit.

Spring break starts for me on Friday so hopefully I'll get a fair amount of writing in.

Comments, Criticism, and Questions are appreciated

400 views so far

[Redz " Preatorian Knights"]

i dont know... men love your story, ive been visiting your post 3x just to know what happened to 'littanos, if you havent shown me the link well...
you know im not a critic 'cuz, hell how can, i never even write a story not even a short-tiny-little-bit one story, but i know some of us had some stories in our minds when we are playing TW games, specially when were excited about some characters, like when my hier to throne i have sent to relieved my king(all the way straight from england to egypt..10~20turns?.. which had died by the time my hier arrived and lost jerusalem to timurends... ), i decided to stop the timurends on a bridge near egpyt with 2 full stacks of armies, well cutting it short, i lost the battle worst my idiotic hier charge the timurends head-on on the bridge with there elephants rampaging!! i say wtf? sob! well he died, honorably.... after the battle, i wanted to load my games and start again and then... some stories filled my brains and just laugh about it, really wanted to do some AAR for that one but hell i dont know how to write, plus im no english boy im from philippines and my english is as broken as my pen anyway

so to you... im happy that at least you can tell your stories and your good at it, one thing that i love: the way you express the emotions of your character in a funny way-The mercenary’s eyes gleamed with delight. “Now what were you about to order, general?” ha ha ha... just hope there are more of those lines... and if i may please please dont put of the MERCS i beginning to imagine im them he he he he, i know ... but hey i just fell in love with that line.... hey how about another battle with the mercs and then maybe in the end of all this the mercs well change heart and follow 'littanos wirh devotions.. nice hu?


so general where do you want us to be??? now that we have won the battle