Lords of RPG

The rider slowed his horse to a trot.  His head was bandaged, and blood was seeping through the cloth.  He drank from his water flask, and followed with with a swig from a small brown bottle.  The whiskey burned his throat, and he let out a sigh of relief.  He clutched at the scroll case under his shirt, hung from a leather cord around his neck.  He had come away from the fight with his life and the message intact.

When Zacharie took the job at Riverbend as a long-range messenger, he had not fully thought through the dangers.  He liked riding horses and he wanted to see more of Othamar and the Three Kingdoms than he had seen in his childhood on his family’s farm.  It was also a chance at an occupation that would not mean dirty finger nails and a bent back by the age of 40.  His father loved working the land, but Zacharie had never seen it as more than a tiresome chore.

But, the three goblins that ambushed him in a dark copse of trees had nearly cut short his new career.  He had sliced one of them deeply with his short sword, managed to stay on the back of his horse, and had gotten free of them.  But not before a sling stone had split his scalp.  Zacharie smiled, a little blood trickling down his forehead into his right eyebrow.  It sure beat shoveling shit, or weeks of back-breaking harvest work.  

The young man urged his horse forward.  He had a message to deliver.

The quality of the land changed.  It was hilly now.  Rocky hills covered with scrub brush and stunted trees.  Zacharie let his horse choose his path over the rough road and focused on keeping his balance despite the dizziness his injury seemed to be causing him.  

The road wound through craggy valleys, and over low spots in the jagged hills.  Zacharie knew he was close, because he could smell the sea.  He crested a rise and he could see the town on the top of a distant hill.  And he could see the blue of the ocean beyond.  The small town was built of squat stone homes...less than a dozen by the look of it.  Zacharie dug in his heels and drove his horse forward.  He was almost there.

The road climbed before him, and he checked the scroll case under his shirt again.  His first message delivered.  A job well done.  

Riding into Fosk, the few townspeople he saw seemed to ignore him.  He road up to a woman sweeping dirt out of the front door of her stone home.  “Good woman.  I seek a man named Marquad.”

She ignored him.  Zacharie tossed a copper piece at her feet, and she nearly swept it out the door.  She looked up at him, and then pointed to one of the larger stone homes.  Zacharie turned his horse in that direction as the woman stooped to pick up the coin.

Zacharie jumped down from his horse and knocked on the low wooden door.  An old man opened the door and peered out.  “Hullo?”

Zacharie asked simply.  “Marquad?”

The old man nodded.  

The messenger pulled the scroll case out of the neck of his shirt, and detached it from its leather cord.  He handed it to the old man.  “A message from friends of yours, I’m told.”

Marquad took the scroll case and fumbled with the tie at one end.  “I don’t think I’ve ever received a message in all my long life.”  A rough laugh escaped him.

He pulled out the piece of parchment and and unrolled it, looking at the black ink writing.  A smile crossed his face, as he studied every detail.  A minute or two went by.  Then he looked up at the messenger.  “I never learned to read.”  He held out the paper to Zacharie.  “Would you mind?”

Zacharie took the piece of parchment from the old man, spread it open, and read it to him.

“Marquad.  Generous friend.  Kind host of strangers.  Never have we felt at home, as much as we felt in your home.  I write to let you know that the Castle in the Clouds is real.  The Lord of Lilies is real.  Princes Carrisa is real.  We found the castle, were welcomed within its white stone walls in the sky, vied for the hand of the purest maiden, and escaped with our lives and four hippogriffs to call our own.  If you are ever in Riverbend, you will want for nothing and we will share our home, as you once shared your home with us.

May Moch always provide for you and yours.

Gratefully,
Shade”