Oliver D. Bernuetz's Stories

Back to my home page - back to stories

The Fall of Corflu, Earth Season 1625

(As told by Tamerlan aka Grandpa to his old buddies)

“It wuz late Earth Season and Argrath wanted the remaining Lunars kicked out of Corflu.  Pavis had fallen due to Jaldon Goldtooth’s ancient magic and brute force.  We’d just cleansed the Grantlands of Lunars again by brute force, nasty business that.  Our defeat at the Temple of the Reaching Moon had decimated our forces and Praxians are not great fighters in swamps so brute force was not really an option.  Argrath decided that trickery was the way to go.  He commissioned a copy of the Zola Fel temple barge much to the displeasure of Bubbles the head fish priest.  On the outside the barge looked just like the real temple barge but inside it was just a big well in the middle and a bunch of hiding places.  To my honour Argrath put me in charge and he loaded the barge with as many sneaky bastards as he could find who could still swing a sword or poke a spear.  I myself wuz regrowing my left arm ripped off by that damn demon Tatius the Bright had sicced on us.  (Shudder).  There wuz about twenty of us in all, none of us completely whole but all mean as sin.

We wuz tasked wit the job of putting the Watchdog out of commission which would allow the allies Argrath promised us to land and attack the Lunar garrison.  I suppose we put a lot of faith in Argrath regardin’ this business because he wouldn’t tell us who the allies wuz or even guarantee that they’d show up but it had to be better than getting ripped apart by Lunar demons didn’t it?  Recruiting a crew of riverfolk, somehow Argrath had made good with Bubbles, we sailed south.  We made damn good time ‘cause of the season though the water wuz pretty rough at times.

We reached the Delta and approached the island Corflu is on.  There was no Lunar ships there, the poor bastards looked to havin’ been abandoned by their bosses.  Leavin’ all our gear in the hidey holes us killers hid in the reeds while the riverfolk took the barge on to Corflu.  They anchored in the deep water near the Zola Fel temple and made contact with the Reverend Sa’ar the local newtling priest.  He told the Lunars the barge wuz there.  They was pretty thorough wit their searchin’ of the barge bein’ jumpy as all hell what with all the killin’ their side had suffered from lately.  But them carpenters in Pavis had sure known their shit and that damn barge had the best smugglin’ hidey holes you ever done saw. 

Satisfied they left.  Once night had fallen we snuck out of the swamp and back on the barge.  They’d left one guard but he wuzn’t no trouble ans we done ‘im quiet like.  Gathering up the heavy gear hidden in the barge we stealthily made our way to the Corflu Trade Alliance House and snuck in.  Lost one of the boys to a warding spell, blew his head into a million tiny bits but we managed to disable that warding and did for whoever we found in the building.  Locked in a weird box we found a set of bracers and leggin’s that had were covered in Lunar runes and had pockets attached that held bits of stone.  This was the rig that Argrath had told us controlled the Watchdog through sympathetic magic.  The boys battened down all the hatches and prepared for a siege.  I donned the rig and tried to activate the magic.  I waved my arms and danced around but I couldn’t tell if anything wuz happening. But then Sunhawk, one of my boys told me he could see the Watchdog off in the distance doing the same damn dance moves I wuz.  I whooped a war cry and started walkin’ the Watchdog towards the island.  This proved hard to do in theory but we figgered this was good enough for our allies.  Another of the boys set off some kind of fireworks that shot into the sky and let the cat out of the bag for sure.

The garrison wuz on to us by now but they didn’t have no magicians wit them and they’d made this building out of stone so we felt we wuz gonna be able to hold out even outnumbered five to one.  But when they had gotten a battering ram crew organized and I had managed to run the Watchdog into a boggy spot I couldn’t get him out of we wuz getting’ kind of worried.  Wuz those allies Argrath promised going to show up?  Just when things wuz lookin’ their darkest though we heard the Lunars crying out in alarm outside.  And who wouldn’t be scared at the sight of two Wolf Pirate ships heading towards shore.  Ignoring us the marines headed off to try and prevent the pirates from landin’.  They had to split into two groups to cover both deep sea docks and tried to keep the pirates on their ships.  They formed a pair of testudos and marched out to the end of the docks to prevent any landin’.  But them pirates are a scary bunch and they launched attacks at the docks and some of them ‘em jumped overboard and swam ashore to out flank the marines.  We left the shelter of the Alliance House and makin’ a wedge attacked the nearest testudo.  It wuz all a bloody mess but eventually we managed to either drive all the Lunars into the water where they either drowned or were killed by Ludoch mermen or we killed ‘em on dry land.

Last updated August 05, 2019

Glorantha is a trademark of Chaosium, Inc. Gloranthan material on this page is copyright ©1997-2016 by Oliver D. Bernuetz or by the author specifically mentioned on an individual page. Glorantha is the creation of Greg Stafford, and is used with his permission.

Email me at bernuetz@mymts.net