[en] The Tavern at the Inn

[Prince Eric of the Lorah Clan]

Hi, Mama!

Your wine is served. :cheers:

[NaVatar]

NaVatar's Journal

Don't know what day it is.

How many days have past since i was thrown in this cell.....2? 7? 14? A month? A year?
I have thought of many things while being in here, like my old captain F-rankishKnight, May he rest in peace. TKS my loyal friend. Dobber and how he didn't thrust me. Angryminer, who I found in the forest.And the other people i have got the honor to meet and. I think about my family, my wife and my unborn child.Wonder if it will be boy or a girl.I try to smile as i think about that, but i can't.
Last i think of my betrayal to my comrades a long time ago which fills me with angry and sadness and it would have brought me to tears if i wasn't so dehydrated. I have silently vowed to do anything to meet my comrades and family again before i die.

I still haven't found a way to escape this foul cell yet and right know i can't barely stand up for 15 minutes before i crash down on my knees again.
Wonder what happens upstairs? I wonder if the army managed to conquer my fair city or not. I'm sure they managed to, but one never knows.The walls is so thick that i don't hear anything from outside.

The only people I seen for a long time is the one's who gives me the little food I get and ocassinally gives me a punch on the face or a kick on the stomache.
I must think out an plan to get out of here...and soon...cause i don't know how much longer i can take this

Some hours later.

I have finaly develop a plan how I will break out from this cell so the next time that cell door opens, that person who comes in here will get a suprise of a lifetime!
Hopefully my plan will work perfectly.

[Dobber]

June 7 - Dobber's log

Early morning

The watch in the crow's nest has just reported 3 Norman flags cresting the horizon, my Commander has arrived, and none to soon, for the great seagate is opening to allow us passage inside the great walls of the city. But what is this? As the byzantine ships exit to make room for us in the harbour, they are splitting to either side of my fleet. What is going on? I do not like the looks of this, then I notice the archers lining the decks. Holy sh**! Signal the other ships to full sail and turn out of here before they reach our flanks, they have discovered somehow, we are not what we had seemed. I order my ship to stand it's ground we must cover the rest of the fleet as they retreat. They must get clear and join Commander Angryminer and Sir Gersenau, so they can fight another day. Maybe we can maneuver ourselves into being able to retreat also but not until my fleet is out of danger. If the Byzantine fleet opens fire we will also. Archers to the decks, prepare the firepots. Maybe Commander Angryminer can see our ships turning and not come on in to close, or at least position themselves to cover our ships if there is pursuit.

"All hands on deck and prepare for the battle of your life!" "Give it to them! From both sides FIRE!" They seem to be trying to disable us but not sink us. I will not be taken prisoner! If we cannot escape the ship will go down and I along with it! We will make them sink us, none of the men want to rot in a Byzantine prison. The Byzantines are having to concentrate on our ship, because we are really pouring it to them. I look to see that the rest of the fleet is picking up speed and will soon be far enough from the battle to evade the Byzantine fleet should they make the effort to catch them. Maybe they will settle for the prize of the Flagship of the fleet. I wonder how the Byzantines discovered my plan, who sold us out or was it something else. I have no way of knowing what has been happening with the land campaign. Who knows everybody may be wiped out by now. It may all be over and for naught!
They have finally realized we are not going to surrender, and want no more damage to their fleet. They have rammed us with a fireship. We are going down, but the men are under orders to fight until the water rushes over them. We will give them no prisoners.
Commander Angryminer, if this log should ever make it's way into your hands, you will know that I have officially handed over full Command of the force to you! Give them H*LL! when you finally make it into battle. Find Sir Nike and tell him of my fate. I will wrap my log book in oilskin and toss it into the sea, and maybe somehow someday it will make it into the hands of my friends! Farewell my trusted friend and get word to Sakim for me also, I am sure he will want revenge!


*As Dobber prepares to toss the oilskin wrapped logbook into the sea, sail rigging and yardarms fall to the quarterdeck and knock him into the sea !*

[the knightly sword]

TKS log 7th june 1005


I KNEW IT , the normens along with there allies the italians have made a massive invasion . my border guards was killed by norish night attacks they didnt have a chance to defend themself . right now i can see an army approaching its very massive more then 20000 soldiers and 1000 of cavlary
.ive sended messenger for
help to our nearest ally mithdril i hope cant get any support from hawkknight and richard.

an hour later

they are only a couple meters from the castle i can see the army now . its gigantic . theyve got over 50000 soldiers . theyve brought everything - heavy cavlary , archers , ballistas , catapults . and heavy infarty . they wont be easyly . ive sent a messenger to request war bargain meeting for tommorow.

[Kuno of Gersenau]

@Dobber: So you're dead now? :(

Or is there still a little bit of hope? Maybe that you get taken out of the water and imprisoned?

[Dobber]

Who knows? I will not be imprisoned, as stated in my log. I have gone down with my ship, however that might appear.

[Kuno of Gersenau]

June 7 - Kunos log

noon

Today is a very sad day! The Leader of our Army, Sire Dobber left our world...:( Our three ships reached Consantinople this morning, right at time like it seemed. The seagates were open and Sire Dobbers ship was entering. Then all of a sudden the Byzantine ships started to attack Sire Dobber! The rest of the fleet could turn around, but Sire Dobber's flag ship sank...

Now Comander Angryminer has taken over the control and let the fleet go out of danger. Every man on the ships had tears in the eyes and anger in the heart, but all saw that it would be useless to attack the city now...
When we were out of danger Angryminer and Sakim went under deck to make a new plan, may god help us this time!

For this evening a symbolic burial is planned, we will give this man, who was more noble than most of todays kings, his last honor.

When all seems to be dark,
keep proudness, honor
and hope in your heart!
Then a new sun will rise!

[Dobber]

*Kuno, you might want to take out the reference to cannons from your post. I know I had mentioned cannons in my post,(I had gotten carried away in the heat of writing and wrote in the wrong time period) but I have edited my post now to reflect the absence of gunpowder(at least in the European world) in 1002 AD or 1005 AD, whichever year it is we are in.*

And somebody buy me a beer, I supposedly just died for goodness sake!

[Prince Eric of the Lorah Clan]

And somebody buy me a beer, I supposedly just died for goodness sake!

Let's all drink a toast to remember the lost warrior!:cheers:

[Traveller]

Dobber, can't you swim, goddammit? Grrr... Well, beer for you anyway! :cheers: Rest In Peace (if someone doesn't find you, that is...)! The question is if you want to leave the story or...

P.S. Southern campaign (Angry & Cie.), please, wait for me to write something. I'm gonna interfere with your part of the story!
P.P.S. A commander of the Serbo-Bulgarian army wanted! No pay, only glory and the spoils of war! For contact: Write here after my post!


Edit:

Traveller's Log - May 29th
The beginning of the end

Now I'm sure this is the one, who killed my Lord Nike! This is the evil murderer! May God curse his soul to Hell! In his small camp (just a grass "bed", actually. He didn't even made a fire, so that he wouldn't get caught), the group found his belongings. Ofcourse, there were no letters or anything that could link him directly with some of the Royal Courts of the Balkan countries. He was too smart to leave such evidence! But he couldn't go without proper clothing. He would ditinguish himself too much if he weared Roman clothes in the Bulgarian camp or Hungarian clothes in Serbia. But he needed such clothes and that's exactly what we found. He had, as I already wrote, the uniform of a Bulgarian lower officer and ofcourse his real Greek and some Serbian clothes. Some men from the camp recognized the signs of the Serbian noble Vladislav Pavlovic. Could've the Greek stolen those clothes or were they a "gift"? And was he alone? I doubt it! The Romeans have the nasty habit to use many "ways to victory". They wouldn't let only one man to do such an important job. There are probably more agents... No, not probably. I'm sure there are! I'm absolutely sure there are agents not only here, appointed to disable the command of the enemy armies, but also in the High court of Hungary. Byzantium rarely fights alone. They prefer to buy some ally to join them, like they did with the Normans, and like they obviously do with the Magyars. I'm afraid there may be even Greek spies in the Courts of Bulgaria and Serbia! I certainly hope not, but everything is possible...
Anyway, how was I so sure this is the exact assassin I was after? Easy! He may be a spy, but even spies are humans and are... how to say... fragile... The interogators managed to break him easily, without any kind of "uncivilised torture". Psychologic interogation is so much better! So, they broke him and he convinced that he was sent from the Royal Court in Constantinopol to disable the effectiveness of the Bulgarian and the Serbian armies by "getting rid" of their high commanders. He also convinced that he killed Lord Nike with a poisoned arrow in the battle at the Balkan passes. Strangely, he insisted that he wasn't responsible for Lord Xuca's death. This proves my guess that there are also other spies sent!
Well, my job here is done! After we squeezed out all we could from him, I ordered the Greek to be hang on a tree in the forest, like a normal criminal, and I personaly put the loop on his head. My master has been avenged! I have left command of the armies to their commanders, although I'm still not sure why they beared to follow my orders. Maybe because of my closeness to Lord Xuca and my service to Lord Nike. I don't know that either... Anyway, the Serbians would do the same without me, so they don't need me anymore and now I should travel south-east, to Bulgaria. I'll see how's the preparation for the great siege of Constantinopol going. How many men, armour and weapons are ready, how many siege weapons and ships do we have at our disposal and such. Maybe I'll hear something of the North and the South campaigns, too. And then I'll probably enter the Romean lands. We have spies, too, not only the foul Greeks! I'll reach Constantinopol for maximum a week after I depart from Bulgaria and there I'll look for an eventual weakness of the walls. Somewhere we could breach with ease! Because Constantinopol is a huge, self-sufficient city, with a population of over 1 million, spread on two continents, that could hardly be exhausted by hunger and it's walls are the greatest this world has ever seen. The siege would be long and bloody if we don't find an easier way to enter!

[Kuno of Gersenau]

*Kuno, you might want to take out the reference to cannons from your post. I know I had mentioned cannons in my post,(I had gotten carried away in the heat of writing and wrote in the wrong time period) but I have edited my post now to reflect the absence of gunpowder(at least in the European world) in 1002 AD or 1005 AD, whichever year it is we are in.*

And somebody buy me a beer, I supposedly just died for goodness sake!
Oh, forgot that we're in 1002...post edited!

And here a beer for the dead man! :cheers:

[Angryminer]

Cheers Dobber. :cheers:

Angryminer's Tale
Chapter 17

Disaster! The byzantine destroyed the ship of Sire Dobber!
We're clueless why they destroyed a ship that was flying the norman's flag. We had to withdraw the fleet because most of our ships aren't usefull for a seafight.
The byzantine didn't follow because they were wise enough to not be distracted from protecting their harbour. I ordered to cease flying the norman flags. Propably the normans betrayed the byzantine while we were on sea.
After the byzantine ships were out of sight I told Sakim and Kuno to come to the flagship so we can make up a new strategy.
The situation is disasterous! Sire Dobber is dead and he was the only one to know the secret plan how we are to conquer mighty Constantinople. We won't be able to fulfill our campaign without this plan.
We must find out why the byzantine attacked a "norman" ship. A spy? Unpropable. How should a spy get the information about us to Constantinople while we are seaborn? Even if a spy got the idea in Africa, he wouldn't have been able to get the information to Constantinople before we arrived there.
We will have to land somewhere soon to get new supplies. But where? The african nobles are growing increasingly unhappy with our presence and we have no other allies in the mediterranean sea. Also, it is sure that our presence in africa wouldn't remain unknown for long. Surely some of the unhappy nobles would tell the byzantine, if they didn't already send a messanger... Propably there are already byzantine warships on the way to Africa...

Angryminer

[Traveller]

Traveller's Log - June 7th
A flew over the Greeks nest

A week since I haven't entered anything in my log-book. A week since I left the army and rode to the Bulgarian tzardom to gather information and prepare for my "spying mission". A week since my revenge...
I arrived at the Bulgarian capital of Ohrid (freed from the Romean hands) to see how's the recruitment going and hear news of the war. It seems our troops have quickly stormed through the Greek peninsula and have captured almost all of it, including the rich city of Thessaloniki. Soon Peloponesos will fall too and only the Greek islansd will remain in enemys hands. And also less than two weeks had passed since the Tzar anounced he's calling all the men under his banners. But so many Bulgarians were flocking to the city! I guess they were too eager to "return the favour" to the centuries-long enemy... I even heard an interesting funny story: In one village the messenger with the news of the mobilization came at late night. The "mayor" of the town thought it's too late to wake up the men and that he'll tell them in the morning. But when he did, the men beated him saying "What were you waiting for? The Romans to come? There's no time! If the orders are "Immediate mobilization" than immediate mobilization it is!" ( :biggrin: Hehe, another real event from the Bulgarian history during the First Balkan War) And so the preparation's going well. We'll be able to gather the enormous ammount of more than 100 000 men in less than a month if things go with this speed. And ofcourse many more will join during the march south. Never before has Europe seen such an army gather to war. At the year of 917 our Tzar Simeon the Great fought a battle near the Aheloi river with 60 000 of his men and crushed the 62 000-men Romean army. This was one of the biggest and most glorious battles in Europe. But now... Now this is surely going to be the Biggest European battle, if not in the whole world even! Siege weapons are being built, ships are being repaired... Unfortunately, we'll need many more ships in order to block Constantinopol and overcome the great Byzantine navy, which numbers up to more than 2000 ships. We'll need help in that matter! I hoped that this Sire Dobber has secured enough ships and men, but I haven't received any news neither about him, nor abouth the kingdom of Mithdrill. The scouts that Tzar Samuil sent had not yet returned. That's why I decided to go down to Byzantium right away. To scout the area ahead and possibly to enter Constantinopol.
And now here I am, after crossing whole Eastern Thrace, at the shores of the Bosphorus strait... Watching the Great city and the Norman ships, waiting to enter the city and the rising Sun behind them... Hah, here they go! Those dammed Romans are getting even more reinforcements and in the distance are coming more Norman ships! But... What the heck?! The Normans started firing arrows at the nearby Greek ships and are trying to turn back and escape. What the hell are the doing? I thought the Normans were allied with the Romans! Most of the ships managed to escape in a safe distance and the Greeks don't seem to be eager in pursuing them. Hmm... I don't understand a thing... But wait! I see something shiny in the water! This might just be my new prisoner I wanted so much for Christmas! If he's not dead ofcourse... We'll see! I'm going to check it out...

[Dobber]

Dobber, can't you swim, goddammit? Grrr... Well, beer for you anyway! :cheers: Rest In Peace (if someone doesn't find you, that is...)! The question is if you want to leave the story or...



Perhaps, Dobber was knocked unconscious by the rigging and cannot swim. Could be he is floating amongst debris in an uncoscious state. Could be he sank to the bottom. At any rate his comrades aboard the other ships could not even see that he was knocked from the ship. And yes it was left, in a manner that he could resurface in the story.


*It appears Traveller is preparing to bring him back from the dead already! But it could also be something else shiny! Only Traveller knows what he is going to find.*

[NaVatar]

But wait! I see something shiny in the water!

Heheh Maybe there is a chance that Dobber survived :biggrin:

[Angryminer]

A bald, shiny head? :wink:

Angryminer

[NaVatar]

Exactly! :go:

We will see what happens soon. Is Dobber dead or not! Is he still alive, floating on some debris or have he drowned and succumed to the dark and hungry sea!

Or maybe Dobber will be resurected as a zombie with a bald, shiny head! Horror! :eek:

The exitment is overwhelming! :biggrin:

[Richard]

Hey, wait for us to get to constantinople, I want a piece of the bysantines :wink:

Knight Richard's adventure
Chap. 10 The fall of novgolods

May 30.
Early in the morning we mobilised to go back to midrill's capital. The men's moral is extreamlly high as for the great victory we adquiered yesterday. What a battle it was, deadly and bloody. I had never seen so many men die.
I thought I wasn;t going to be able to fight alone side my men since my wound still hurt, but for Hawk knight's plan to work I needed to be there commanding the infantry. Roger, what a breat guy he is, did something I can't explain. He came on to my tent and said.
" Sir, your boys are going to need you, so why aren't you ready to go to fight?"
My wound" I said " I can't ride my horse"
"Ahhh, you think you can't" Roger said with a big smile "You just need to belive you can"
Then I tryed to stand and like a miracle nothing hurted, I looked at my wound and was stil there, but I felt nothing. How he could have done this? I stil don't know, but all I know is that I ride my horse onto the battle field. First came Hawk knight with his dragons(Hawk maybe we shouldn't use so much the dragons, kinds of take the intesity of the story :wink: ) and stormed the castle. As thought this weakened the walls as the men were trying to turn off the fire. I sended the leader man and siege towers. Then came a cry, "For Glory and Death" And all the men charged across the field onto the walls. The cavarly Charge after when the men opened the gate. What a slouter it was, 1000's of men laid dead on the ground. Me and my companion guards took the King prisoner and put him in a cell later. After we won the day became black as clouds rushed and a stream of blood was formed as the rain and blood of the fallen convined in the ground. But I hadn't seen Roger during all this time, maybe he was curing the wounded?
Then out of the keep came a man with a small dagger, stained with blood. Then I saw his face and it was roger!
"Where were you?" I asked
"I was checking the prisoners sir" he answered " the king is dead"
"What, how is that"? I asked
"An accident probably sir" he said with satisfaction
"And accident? HUH! I said as i looked at the dagger, the blood was still fresh
"Don't let another such accident happen again, Do I make myself clear?"
"yes sir" he said as he went to help the wounded
I went into the cells and there the king laid, or parts of him. I remmembered what Roger had told me about what he would do to the kind if he ever had the chance. " I will make him pay for what he did to my son, the same way" the voice ringed in my head. The finger of the kinf were hacked away, so were his, his... manly gifts. I pictured everything that happened, the king had had a slowly, painfull death. It is unbelieveble what can hatred and revenge do to a simple man like Roger. So now we march onto Middrill to hear what info the spys have gather about the possible norman invasion and get new supplys, rainforcements.

[Sakim]

Journal of Sakim - 7th of June

As dawn was breaking, we caught sight of the great walls of Constantinople. The great seagates were opening and suddenly all but one of Comrade Dobber's ships were turning and heading out to sea. Ships were bursting into flames. I knew all to well the significance of the ship that did not turn. I am sure it was Comrade Dobber's Flagship!
My friend would give his life to save the lives of as many of his men as he could. I am also sure he would have had some of the bravest men in his force aboard that ship with him. Men that would proudly stand at his side until their dieing breath. I wish that I could have been there at his side, no nobler way to die than to be at the side of one such as he, one that counts it not courage or bravery, but his duty as a leader to stand while staring death in the face and daring it to bring on all it has got.
I will not mourn for him, he would not want that. But once we reach landfall and join with our alliance, the enemy will see the wrath of Sakim. This sabre on my side will sever many a head from it's body as I count coupe for Comrade Dobber. Allah, be praised!

Commander Angryminer has asked Sir Gersenau and myself to meet with him to plan our next move. He desires to know Comrade Dobber's plan of attack on Constantinople. He can forget that plan, it didn't work! There is talk that maybe some one betrayed us to the Byzantines, that someone tipped them to Dobber's plan. But that is not possible, it has to be something else. For I alone knew Comrade Dobber's plan. Once we were all back together and inside the seagates, he was to make his plan known to all his Commanders and Captains. For his plan to work we would have to be within the walls of the city. We were to accomplish that by entering the city as Norman forces sent to help in their war effort. Once inside we were going to methodically move through the city in close combat, slaughtering everyone that crossed our path, man, woman or child. The men because they are our enemy, the women because they give bith to our enemy and the children because they grow up to become our enemy.
Perhaps the Byzantines heard of the defeat handed to the Normans in Mercea and decided they wished not to be aligned with a nation that suffered such a defeat.
I must set aside my journal for now and go meet with Angryminer.

[Dobber]

A bald, shiny head? :wink:

Angryminer


Could also be an oilskin wrapped logbook reflecting the sunlight from water beaded upon the oilskin. But I am sure Traveller will let us know.