[Bounty] To Die For One's Country [Moderate]

[Xarkly 17299]

=- To Die For One's Country -=

 

 

The battlefield following Courland's victory over Haense at the Battle of Elba, 1603

 

=-=

 

"Here, look at this, Eldon, this bloke still has a sword on 'im!" 

With a frown, Eldon looked up from the dead Haensetian. Were it not for the red-leather jerkin, adorned with the black-and-gold slashed badge of House Barbanov, Eldon would never have been able to tell the corpse once belonged to a Haensetian at all. He had always fancied himself as having a knack to tell where people were from just by beholding their face, but that would not be possible with this poor bloke; his face seemed to have gotten too familiar with the wrong end of a lance. His kettle-helmet, so caked in blood and mud that it looked as if it had been forged with crimson bronze rather than steel, was relatively unscathed compared to the gaping remains of a face it sat upon. 

"A sword, y' say?" Eldon queried with skepticism as he straightened back up. He cast his gaze adrift across the muddy and blood-soaked remains of the battlefield, with dead men and horses alike strewn everywhere, until his eyes settled on Patrik, his companion, who stood hunched over a dead Haensetian some thirty-feet down the road. 

"Aye, looky here!" Patrik called back enthusiastically, before he raised an arming sword into the air. In the pale light of the morning, it stood silhoeutted against the dim, grey sky, but Eldon was surprised nonetheless.

Though still uncertain, since they had not found a single decent trinket after searching through the sea of dead bodies, Eldon slowly made his way over to join Patrik. He stepped on dead soldiers and horses alike, his thick hide boots squelching as they splashed in their blood. When he had first taken to corpse-looting, not long after he deserted the Imperial Legion, he had been as superstitous as could be, avoiding every corpse unless it brazenly displayed some kind of valuable, but now he felt almost at home among their dead, glazed eyes and their decaying faces, still etched with the horrors of their final moments. During his years as a corpse-looter, Eldon had even developed an interest in examining their faces, to see whether or not they held screams or surprise -- whether they had died painfully, or quickly.

He soon made his way to Patrik after having trodden through a path of a dead. The younger, squat-faced man was smiling wickedly - this was the first time Eldon had ever agreed to take someone else scavenging with him, and he had only agreed because Patrik was his nephew. Eldon stuck out his gloved hand, and Patrik reluctantly handed him the sword by the pommel. It was an arming sword, thick and stout, and forged from solid ferrum. Idly, Eldon gave it a way few swings. The blade was light, for iron, and cut smoothly through the air.

"Not bad, lad, not bad," he concurred with a nod. "This'll fetch a penny or two." 

Patrik's face was split by a proud beam, as he straightened up. "How come there aren't any more swords, though? We've been here for nearly twenty minutes, and this is the first one."

"Couranders must've taken them all," Eldon deduced absent-mindedly as he slid the arming sword through his belt. "Same reason there are no Courlander bodies; must've been buried." 

"Oh," Patrik said, and nodded in understanding, though he did not seem pleased -- something about looting Courlander bodies specifically seemed to have pleased him, oddly enough. The pair of them silently resumed their search, their boots leaving vivid imprints in the mud and blood as they prodded and turned over dead Haensetians, searching for trinkets and blades alike.

Eldon was not sure how much time had passed, but when he looked up, he found that the grey light had been shed in favour of bright, golden sunlight that filtered through the tall pines that surrounded them and cast long shadows across the field. The arming sword remained the sole thing that hung from Eldon's belt, and towards the end of his search he had began to incessantly mutter a plethora of curses.

"Find anything, Patrik?" he asked without much hope as he straightened up, and wiped the sweat from his brow. "Patrik?" When there came no answer, he knit his brows and swept his gaze across the battlement once more. "Where the fu-..."

Eldon was not sure which he saw first - Patrik's body, or the fog. For a moment, he stood there as his blood seemed to freeze in his veins, his eyes locked on the corpse of his nephew, deep, bloody claw marks streaking the torn remains of his tunic.

And then the fog.

Though Eldon had been robbing battlefields for many years, he had never seen that fog. He had dealt with ghosts, apparitions and even mania in his time, but never the fog. But he had heard of it from wiser grave robbers, and he knew what it meant. 

He knew he had to run.

 

-=-

 

BOUNTY

 

Wanted:

Professionals capable of traversing a battlefield, and dispatching of the monsters that lurk there.

 

Threat level:

Moderate.

 

Party Number:

Maximum of five people.

 

Description of beast:

"Fog. That's all I could see, God's honest truth. But whatever went in that fog, it didn't bloody come out." 

 

Location:

The site at which the Battle of Elba, fought between Courland and Haense, was held, north of the human docks.

 

Rewards: 

400 Mina to be split among the participants. Additionally, if their morals permit it, they might find a thing or two lying on soldiers' corpses.

 

-=-

 

(( Alrighty, due to the overwhelming amount of people interested in my last bounty, I'm restricting this bounty to a maximum of ONE group of up to five or six people, or five individuals or smaller groups. If you're interested, please post below and send me a message on the forums or on Skype [sparklexarkle] and we'll arrange a time. 

 

Happy hunting. ))

[Xarkly 17299]

 

This bounty has been claimed.

[Elad™ 560]

Moved to The Great Library. It shall be sorted into the appropriate category shortly.

 

If you feel this is a mistake, please contact myself or any FM and we'll restore it.