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Back to Empire on the HPe3000
... and ...
"Now, now Master Harold," the old gnome almost blushed at the
praise, "no need to tell old tales."
"You need some of that gnomish stonesweat brandy you drank
that night." Harold laughed.
"Just a small drop is all I had, to keep out the nights chill."
Ivo replied.
"A small drop for one of these giants, maybe." Harold turned to
the cuthberite priestess. "I take it you have never seen the grandest city
of the Oerth."
"Oh, I've been to Gorna." Gytha answered innocently.
"Gorna, oh you poor untraveled lass," Harold cried in a pitying
voice. "Greyhawk would fit a dozen Gorna's within its walls and have
room to spare."
"I've heard bards tales of course, but a cities greatness is more
than just its size." she replied.
"Well said." Interrupted Ivo. "Greyhawk holds many wonders but
the hills of my homeland are much more dear in my eyes than any of the
cities halls or palaces.
"Oh, the shame, that such a wonder worker as yourself fails
to recognize the greatest wonder of the Oerth!" Harold despaired.
"Thats enough of that." Harald's bass voice declared. "Pardon
this little Harold's unrelenting love for his adopted home. He was
born in Geoff, same as you and me," He told the red-haired cleric. "North
of the Hornwood was it not my friend."
"I was but a lad, I had no choice!" the halfing Harold said.
"Careful there!" The bigger Harald warned. "You do not say that
Geoff is a birthplace to bring on shame!"
"No, No..." Harold began.
"Yes, you were too young to be taken away from such a noble place
of birth. No better land to raise the young exists." Harald declared.
Gytha laughed. " No wonder such an unlikely pair as these two are
such friends. You are as just as bad." She waved a playful finger at
the greying hero. "What can Master Ivo here think of us, i'm sure
his own Kron Hills are just as fair."
"My apologies, Master Gnome." Harald gave a deep formal bow.
"And mine as well." The halfling stretched out a leg and doffed
an imaginary cap, a graceful gesture of respect.
Both Ivo and Gytha laughed at the amusing pair.
* * *
"Gather round." Talberth called them all together. "Reverent
Henri, if you will, please lower the fire so we may all gather close."
The blind priest walked unerringly across the caverns floor.
A hood from a long white robe hung halfway down his face, beneath it,
the glimmer of some golden mask, a benison from his radiant god.
He did not deign to speak but silently held out his arms, then
lowered them with perhaps a wordless prayer. The bright flame sunk until
it danced across the embers of wooden log, still bright and warm but
less than half its former size.
"Edouard, Derue!" he summoned the guards from their post. "We
have set a magic ward, no need for you to be apart."
The white blond pair bowed head to head and whispered to each
other first, then nodded in agreement.
* * *
(To Be Continued)