Tales of Orkfia I

February 15th, 2009The Orkfian Times1 comment

Though not as bulky, the lofty object falling from the skies had the same impact on an unsuspecting Raven as that great bringer of death would have in due time. Scarcely dressed, as even its lightest feathers had been launched to faraway lands, the poor creature lied there, on the ground, an unsuspecting look still in its innocent eyes. This was a young one, prolly unexperienced in the art of dodging – which was always essential for the likes of these.

Brad Brittlewood attempted to kick the life back into it with the sturdy boots he had only finished cleaning moments ago. It resulted in no sign of life; a single feather was waving along the rhytm of the cold northern winds, as to testify its surrender to nature’s cruel lot.

“Think ye killed it, Brad”, Hamr Smashthud remarked as he lifted the Raven’s wings to have a peek what valuables it would be hiding under there. They always had something with them, some momento of battles past, a little bit of gold to survive the most disastrous seperating from the pack; it was no miracle that most of this gold generally ended up in the hands of whoever managed to get a clean shot first.
“H-ey! Whaddayamean! I was stuck with the coal all this time!” Brittlewood staunchly protested.
“Sure ye wernt…”
“-No, no!”

Brad always carried around a spyglass, of which the rest of the crew suspected him of abuse – of the naughty kind. It seemed the Brits were always busy searching for potential mates, even when high up in the sky, far away from anybody of his own kind that could even remotely socialize with Brittlewood. Sometimes this caused loss of engine power and the sort of trouble that came with that, such as crashing into unsuspecting Blackwings. Although his task was relatively simple, the rest of the crew was already discussing behind his back to have Brad lifted of his duties, and to leave him behind with merchants.

They wouldn’t bother selling him, since the Brits weren’t known for making themselves useful anyway – all they could was some vaguely techy stuff nobody really cared for. Not strong enough to work with a smith, unfit for physical labour, prone to mistakes and random killings of unsuspected Raven; the long list continued. Especially that last point was quite a sensitive one, for you never knew what moment the birds would choose to get their revenge. Nobody had senses that reflexive.

Brittlewood had joined the crew just a few weeks ago, when they found him being chased down the western plains by a wicked bunch of Half-Giants.

Even though they couldn’t even match Brad’s height if three of them stood on top of each other, armed with some of those pointy spears, they sure could. The suggestion of Artel Smashthud, the airship’s master of arms, inventor and designer of generally malfunctioning equipment nobody cared about, and brother of Hamr, to have Yallahad, himself an aging Wood Elf with a refined set of psychological problems due to his fading immortality (and the peril that generally comes with actually growing older like normal surface-dwellers, such as visibility problems) and the crew’s only person actually capable of handling a bow, fire an arrow drenched in oil and set to fire, resulted in scorching more than ten acres of perfectly arable land, the frying of a set of infamously strong Uruk Hai (among the deceased that day was Blafgratskuru, well-known younger brother of none else than the local Uruk Hai chieftain, making this area a good one to avoid in the near future) and the burning of Brad’s humanoid behind, barely saved by scooping him up into the airship thanks to a well-timed maneuver by its captain, the clumsy Canuck known only to the rest, and himself, as Iden, whose anachronistic presence in this day and age was puzzling to even the wisest High Elves of the magical metropolis Crystallion.

He would have still been an object of interest to their scientific studies were it not for the fact that the grumpy old pointy-eared chosen ones of nature temporarily had bigger fish to fry. Death from above was a bit too imminent for uncovering a lonely Canuck’s whereabouts. At any rate, as long as his lot was not tied to those living on the ground, it didn’t matter for Iden, since his conviction was that only those of royal blood had any need for knowledge of their forefathers, and he sure wasn’t one of those.

Brad had wittingly suggested that perhaps Iden had been brought into this world by time travelling Harpies, but the rest of the gang weren’t really impressed by Brittlewood’s constant rambling on various theories, not just on Iden’s identity, but also about the coming of the Comet, the reason why Artel’s inventions always turned out to be failures and general comments on the mating rituals of the avarage Brittonian, of which he sure wasn’t one.

How such a strange crew came together requires several volumes of adventerous tales, but it suffices to say that, with the exception of Brittlewood, the people aboard that airship had seen more of Orkfia than even the renowned explorer and Grassrunner Run Trailfinder. Iden knew that the events of the past were nothing compared to what the leaders of this unholy plane were facing now, and that even the Undead uprising against their former masters in the already irrevocably historic Battle of the Deathless Kings turned out to be insignificant, which only ended in High Elven defeat once, under the Magic Sun’s influence, the Vikings were able to forge weapons that were able to slay even an High Elf, regardless of his natural immortality, and passed this subversive knowledge on to the newly raised Nazgul monarchy.

These events brough the Empire in complete disarray and eventually meant the creation of the first High Elven republic, their monarchy losing the power they had held since the dawn of history. But of course, all these events had little to no meaning in a world facing impending annihilation. The Undead, and the coalition of the living, had their revenge for centuries of oppression and slavery, but it was too little, too late.

As Trailfinder, himself a Wood Elf, wrote in the Orkfian Times: “The Empire now finds itself at the mercy, not only of her former worker class, but also of fate, which has turned against her as to draw attention to the intolerable cruelties committed against her most beloved creations. It is only natural that justice is dealt eventually. It is not only Judgmant which passes laws; these are but the cold, rational equivalent of a higher, spiritual essence that binds all, ruler and servant alike”.

Yallahad was a great admirer of Trailfinder and only joined Iden because of a strong need to see the world as described by his icon. Of course, as a Wood Elf, leaving behind the treetops was considered almost heretical and thus Yallahad, declared himself to be, by these actions, unfit for service in the army or druidry. Trailfinder had, almost naturally, a great following, mostly among the younger generation of Wood Elves, who almost all were of High Elven descent.

They had long given up their immortality by wandering out of the realm entrustred to them by their ancient forefathers that had established the High Elven Empire at the Aegestidan Rift, from which the energy flows, that, over time, the High Elves learned to harnass to harmonious perfection. Nationalistic as the High Elves were, they waged war with the defectors upon discovering them along the borders of their domain, but as the Wood Elves penetrated deeper and deeper into the forgotten forests, the High Elves gave up the persuit as they dared not wander too far away from their source of greatest strenght. When the coalition of the living fought their war for, as they called it, justice and restoration of equality, the Wood Elves were highly reluctant to join the efforts and instead migrated further away from the zone of conflict that kept expanding as the populations of the various freed races exploded.

“Know what I always wondered?” Brittlewood started, taking a pondering pose while moving closer to the campfire, sitting on the anchor of the Icarain that hovered silently above them.
“Ye, we know. I jes dun care, man”, Hamr snarled.
“What is it?” Inquired Yallahad, ignore Hamr’s chronically bad temper.
“What happens if you just start digging, you know, down? All the way down?”
Artel Smashtud grabbed a piece of coal lying close to him and held it up.
“Ye’d find this, loads of ‘t”, he answered, banally, attempting to evade the real issue.
“Yeah, I know, I know! But what if you really dig down, to the end?” Brittlewood persisted.
Surely, everyone on the crew had at some point pondered on this question, at night, in bed, unable to catch sleep, or just on any occasion when there was little to do aboard an airship, occasions which probably made up quite a staggering percentage of their daily lives. Iden thought he knew, but he shrugged off most of his knowledge as simple misteachings from his time spent with the High Elves.

There was the Cradle at the center of the realm, a bunch of stars that revolved around it, then the surface of the Orkfian world, almost limitless in expanse; one could not see the Orkfia above oneself even with the best of Artel’s telescopes, which was actually not even as good as the worst the High Elves employed to search the skies. Regardless, the Cradle cast a blue too fierce to see through clearly. Unfortunately, it did not outshine the disaster that was looming years ahead.

“You know what I think’s down there? The Canuck!” Brad continued, waving his arms frantically, trying to draw attention to another one of his wild theories. Iden didn’t even look up anymore at the mentioning of the word.
“How do you imagine this to be?” Yallahad asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Well, obviously, I bet they retreated underground cause they all saw it coming and soon Comet’s gonna smash into Orkfia and they won’t even break a sweat! And I bet, as long as we stick with Iden, we’re gonna be fine, cause they’re only using him to…”
“Ye talkin the biggest ponyshit this Dwarf’s heard in…”
“Guys, guys!”

And as usual, dinner escalated into an ordinary yelling contest, arousing the attention of robbers and thieves interested in gaining a fully furnished gondola, which had happened more than once in its history. All times, though, the perpetrators could be stopped because they were stupid enough to enter the room called the ‘Room of Doom’ by the actual owners, except by of course Artel Smashthud himself, who stored his “world-famous” weaponry there, of which not even a wooden bow turned out to be quite that accurate. The only thing of real concern, though, was whether the gunpowder stored there was safe from the unintentional combustion of various devices.

Rapairs to the ship could take up days, weeks, months, since they had to rely on the same guy to fix what was destroyed. It was no miracle that the Smashthud brothers had been expelled from their own tribe – the miracle was, instead, that a bunch of outcasts this inept survived in a world so littered with dangers.