As of this writing, I have just finished showering. I went to the gym this morning, though my time was cut slightly short by my headphones dying (the tragedy of our time). I’m in the 260s now, and I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it a hundred times, but it’s jarring. For pretty much my entire adult life, I’ve been over 300 lbs; Hell, I was over 350 for a while. The last time I weighed this little was in high school, junior year, maybe? I can see it in my face, in my silhouette, in the way my now oversized clothes billow in the wind. Yesterday I made an early dinner, spicy air-fried flounder filets over a bed of penne/stewed tomatoes/caramelized onions, with a white cheddar Alfredo sauce drizzled on top. For leftovers (pictured), I mixed the remaining penne/tomatoes and Alfredo sauce. I think I made too much Alfredo and overdid the cheddar, but for something that was intended to use up what I had, I think I did a good job.
Yesterday evening, we continued our merry misadventures through Pictland in “Wolves Upon the Coast.” When last we left off, we had just sailed our karvi up the river to the town of Trimontium, bluffing our way past customs by pretending to be friends of the local big shot. Our medium-term goal is, of course, to hunt orcneas on behalf of Count Anger Issues, for there is nothing more reviled than the orc. As such, it was determined we needed a holy man. Thankfully, Trimontium was home to old Novice Tuck, who happily agreed to lend us his knowledge, provided we supplied him with wine.
We had ten schmucks to outfit. The problem with orcs in WUTC is that using iron against them causes the iron to corrode after three days. Accordingly, our huskarls and “henchmen paid in experience” were kitted with flint-tipped spears, wooden shields, and helmets of boiled leather. This also had the benefit of being cheaper, leaving more room for the player characters to spend. Ian got a shave and a decent haircut in an attempt to make himself look marginally less like the shiftiest man alive. Coinflip, ever the alchemist, tried producing some malignant air he called “chlorine gas,” but when my character asked Tuck to translate, the good Novice had no idea what Coinflip meant. During downtime, Tuck will be teaching my character how to speak and read Latin; it will take about half a year of in-game time. We also made sure to get enough provisions, two barrels of the cheapest wine we could find (the Homely Troll in Trimontium has been watering their wine down for years, and Tuck hasn’t cared, so we pulled the same trick) and trail rations for around two days out and about.
We managed to copy a map of the region while we were at the Dun Morbhaidh last session, and an orc camp was marked to the southeast of the fort. Since we didn’t want to hoof it on foot the entire way from Trimontium, we decided it would be best to row, row, row our boat back down the river to the fort and proceed from there. It was late afternoon when we arrived at Dun Morbhaidh and disembarked. Though the nearest camp was to the southeast, the road led due south into the woods, and we followed. Being naturally inclined to sneak, my character scouted ahead.
Ian saw in the distance a small caravan, two carts being pulled by donkeys, loaded with silver, guarded by foot soldiers and two on horseback. He also saw a trail, smallish, circular claw prints, and what appeared to be signs of something being dragged. As he was casting Exposition on the rest of the party, drawing the shape of the prints in the dirt, he heard a rustling in the distance as something fell from the middle canopy. We went over to investigate. It was the remains of an orc, dessicated and leathery, its eyes missing as if they were burnt out. It was here that Tuck regaled us with his true and accurate™ knowledge of these demons, how Almighty God created them to punish Carthage for warring against Rome, and how they were only made nocturnal after the King of Carthage repented. Now, in His infinite wisdom, the Lord hath sent giant spiders to defend the forests from the orcs, but being spiders, they prey on orc and human alike. Or something like that, Tuck being a drunkard and all. We heard clamor from the caravan in the distance and proceeded down the road to investigate.
There was an accident, and the lead cart collapsed, killing one of the donkeys. The horsemen were surprised to see us Norsemen (well, 2/3rds majority Norse), and even more surprised that we initially tried to parlay with them. They were in the service of Oswiu. The past tense is important, because one of the knights was… very guileless, let’s say. It’s probably a bad idea to point out that most heavily armed bands of reavers would see the king’s ransom of silver being transported and wouldn’t stop to help. So naturally, the negotiations were short, as Manifredi moved to lop off Sir Whatever the Easily Trusting’s head. I’ll leave the recap here, since we’re in combat, but coming up in two weeks: arson and spiders.
It’s a grey and gloomy day, a refreshing break from the oppressive heat, but I do miss the sun. I’ve been doing some light chores, which is why it’s taken me relatively long to get this post up. My throat still hurts, and I ran out of NyQuil, but I have DayQuil and some generic stuff. I kinda wanna watch a movie, but I’m not sure what, or if. The vibes have been off this weekend in a way that’s hard to pin down.
Sierpinski Tetrahedron 