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Author Topic: Richemulot - Les Champs Silencieux  (Read 1982 times)

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Richemulot - Les Champs Silencieux
« on: January 06, 2023, 08:01:48 PM »
Travelers on the road share rumors of a column of beleaguered dwarves of the Schaufenbaund, making their way from Richemulot's vast forest after months of occupancy. While the sappers and pikemen are grim-faced and quiet, rumors of some falling out with the principle leadership among the Silent Field's bandit forces are far reaching. Some among the company are badly burned, and while Reirdreac Veschleepat, son and lieutenant of Captain Reikorlun Veschleepat is among their numbers, many more are missing including the captain himself. Shattered, this quarter at least of the company has quit the field after facing some calamity.

DM Indolence

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Re: Richemulot - Les Champs Silencieux
« Reply #1 on: January 16, 2023, 07:59:19 PM »
From the idllyic forests of western Richemulot, news trickles slowly to the Four Towers and beyond. Borca and Dementlieu's Expédition aux Champs Silencieux begins with all the splendor and pomp of a parade. Amid the blooming wildflowers and massive trees, however, the Expédition is blooded, first with the deaths of soldiers in the middle of the night, and then with a day-long skirmish that sees too many of their number, Borcan and Dementlieuse both, maimed, dead, or worse. After weathering a torrent of arrows fired from the trees, the forces of Borca and Dementlieu sally out, lashing against their enemies with spark, powder, and steel. The forest burns with a haze of smoke and displays of war-magic the likes of which might make proud the late Josephine Chantreaux. The Dementlieuse, led by the flower of the Serene Republique's nobility, storm the impossible position of the Serpents of Doom, a Sithican free-company led by Rurik Nisse. Under a blistering rain of arrows and ballista bolts, the noble retinues and Gendarmes drive their foe to ruin. The legendary marksman is last among his company to die upon the hill. At its base, all talk of Borcan cowardice is silenced as the mounted charge of the Vaasi mercenary company the Jorddelere is shattered amidst wine-red banners. The casualties are high on both sides, owing to the impossibility of the terrain, and yet by morning's light the Borcan numbers, nearly halved by the combat, have swollen again with fresh meat for the grinder.

The two forces pauses to recover their strength, their camps within a stone's throw and yet starkly divided. When the Dementlieuse soldiery celebrate with love ballads and toasts atop "Baudouin's Hill", the Borcans refrain with "The Proud Steed Doth Canter No More."

And yet, for all the devastation wrought against the their principle allies for over two decades, Captain Valentine Voiculet and his vaunted Bitter Flames has yet to take the field...
« Last Edit: January 16, 2023, 08:04:52 PM by DM Indolence »

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Re: Richemulot - Les Champs Silencieux
« Reply #2 on: January 17, 2023, 07:09:28 AM »
[Overnight, notices are scattered around the Borcan encampment…]

Quote
LET IT BE KNOWN THAT THE LOATHSOME SERVANTS OF THE FALSE AND TYRANNICAL CHURCH OF THE SO-CALLED “IRON TYRANT” RAISED ARMS AGAINST EZRA’S CHOSEN PEOPLE.

YET THEIR STEEL AND HORSES AVAILED THEM NOT, FOR SHE WAS WITH US. THE FEARED JORDDELERE COULD NOT BREAK US AND WE HELD FIRM BECAUSE SHE IS WITH US. WE WEEP FOR THE LIVES LOST, YET WE SHALL WEEP WITH JOY, FOR THEY HAVE BEEN SPIRITED AWAY TO THE SHELTER OF PEACE

OUR RANKS SWELL, AS WE LIE IMBUED WITH GREATER PURPOSE. A FIGHT AGAINST TYRANNY AND TYRANNY’S FAITH. A DREAM FOR A NEW HOME. A DREAM FOR A FUTURE FREE FROM THE HORRORS OF FAMINE ACCOMPANYING WAR.

YET THE FIGHT IS NOT OVER, AND THERE ARE MORE TRIALS AHEAD. OUR GUARDIAN SHALL SEE US GUARDED THROUGH ALL OF THEM, HOWEVER, AND GUIDE US IN OUR WORK.

Siobhan

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Re: Richemulot - Les Champs Silencieux
« Reply #3 on: January 20, 2023, 03:34:44 PM »
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A woman in the uniform of a de Courcillon retainer spreads word throughout the Dementlieuse and Borcan camps that Capitaine de Coucillon has called for a muster of troops not immediately engaged in their duties to present themselves at the Dementlieuse camp.

// OOC about 6pm EST
Mariana Dragavei

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Re: Richemulot - Les Champs Silencieux
« Reply #4 on: January 22, 2023, 12:51:32 PM »
After a quiet gathering of strength, the forces of Dementlieu and Borca push deeper into the Champs Silencieux from their redoubt atop Baudouin's Hill. Smoke rises from small settlements around the periphery of the conflict as raiders of unknown origin put Richemuloise farmers and their families to the sword in advance of the marching soldiery. In a long defile, the forces of Dementlieu drive hard towards the ranks of the Black Goats, a company of mercenary pikemen in league with Valentin Voiculet and his Bitter Flames. Rumors persist of the expertly issued orders delivered by the dashing Dementleiuse commander to wheel his forces parallel to the waiting opposition, spearheading a counter-ambush against the Loyal Sons forces lying in wait. Confused whispers carry tales of reanimated corpses being cut down by the Serene Republique's forces, with the latter. In the aftermath, few men among the Dementlieuse ranks speak of the horrors they struck down. The gap left in the Dementlieuse flank was filled by the mixed forces of Borca and the Company of the Bridge, who charged unflinching into the jaws of the mercenaries' trap. For their trouble, the men of the Houses of Dilisyna and Boritsi took heavy losses, but shattered the lines of their foe before crushing them under heel. In the confusion of the fray, the Darkonese heretic and captain of the Loyal Sons Gnaeus is found dead. His corpse is a horror to look upon, twisted and befouled, and yet none among the victorious ranks makes claim to the honor of having struck the man down.

The day is carried, at least for now, the bandit-mercenaries driven to the doorstep of their forest stronghold. The men of the Expédition aux Champs Silencieux pause to bury their dead and catch their breath, settling in for the long siege.

Siobhan

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Re: Richemulot - Les Champs Silencieux
« Reply #5 on: January 22, 2023, 09:20:38 PM »
Despite having to take sit down breaks often, a woman in the uniform of a de Courcillon retainer spreads hand written posters across the various Dementlieuse and Borcan encampments

Quote
Variety Talent Show


Dementlieuse, Borcans, Outlanders, and More
Sing us your songs. Tell us your stories.
Together, we are freedom's roar.

~

Not only are we soldiers, but we are men and women. Each and every one of us is here from a different life, but gathered for the SAME REASON - a freer and most just Core.

~

Jan 25th, 5pm EST
Baudouin's Hill

~

Please keep performances no longer than 10 minutes so we have enough time for everyone who wants to participate.

// OOC Jan 25th, 5pm EST countdown
« Last Edit: January 22, 2023, 09:47:01 PM by Siobhan »
Mariana Dragavei

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Re: Richemulot - Les Champs Silencieux
« Reply #6 on: January 25, 2023, 04:29:01 PM »
Despite having to take sit down breaks often, a woman in the uniform of a de Courcillon retainer spreads hand written posters across the various Dementlieuse and Borcan encampments

Quote
Variety Talent Show


Dementlieuse, Borcans, Outlanders, and More
Sing us your songs. Tell us your stories.
Together, we are freedom's roar.

~

Not only are we soldiers, but we are men and women. Each and every one of us is here from a different life, but gathered for the SAME REASON - a freer and most just Core.

~

Jan 25th, 5pm EST
Baudouin's Hill

~

Please keep performances no longer than 10 minutes so we have enough time for everyone who wants to participate.

// OOC Jan 25th, 5pm EST countdown

// OOC in 30 mins!
Mariana Dragavei

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Siobhan

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Re: Richemulot - Les Champs Silencieux
« Reply #7 on: January 27, 2023, 08:36:14 PM »
Quote
A woman in the uniform of a de Courcillon retainer spreads word throughout the Dementlieuse and Borcan camps that Capitaine de Courcillon has called for a muster of troops not immediately engaged in their duties to present themselves at the Dementlieuse camp.

// OOC Jan 28th about 5:30pm EST countdown
Mariana Dragavei

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Re: Richemulot - Les Champs Silencieux
« Reply #8 on: January 30, 2023, 01:00:00 PM »

Quote
Word spreads of a speech to be given by the Baroneasa di Falsonno inside the confines of the Borcan camp, to be directed at the condottieri. Their allies are welcome to attend, watch, and listen.

// Jan 31st about 5pm EST countdown

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Re: Richemulot - Les Champs Silencieux
« Reply #9 on: January 31, 2023, 04:29:10 PM »

Quote
Word spreads of a speech to be given by the Baroneasa di Falsonno inside the confines of the Borcan camp, to be directed at the condottieri. Their allies are welcome to attend, watch, and listen.

// Jan 31st about 5pm EST countdown

((In 30 minutes!))

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Re: Richemulot - Les Champs Silencieux
« Reply #10 on: January 31, 2023, 06:09:16 PM »
[Throughout the Borcan camp, the transcript of a speech is posted prominently.]

Quote

Make no mistake, men and women assembled before me today.. condottieri, native sons and daughters of Borca, and the auxiliaries and allies who would fight alongside us.. this has ceased to be merely the dispatching of bandits and the construction of a road. This has transformed into something more.

While perhaps it started off -as- simply that.. it has become a fight between the decent and the monstrous. A fight between order and the safety it brings, and mayhem and the terrors it sees wrought. It is now a fight between the faithful and the assembled Legions of the Night. 

No less than fifty Falkovnians, armed and hungry for blood and victims, PERFIDIOUSLY struck out against Baudouin Hill whilst we attempted to parley! 

Those who came to Baudouin Hill in order -to- parley did so accompanied by hulking monstrosities, cobbled together by the remains of fallen comrades!

This is what they would do to you, if given half the chance. This is what they would do to all of us, and still worse, should we fail here.

Yet worse things have been used by our enemy against us, and are being used against us now, as I speak to you..  our own ensign, when bringing to bear artillery and ordinance that would aid the war effort, found he and others accompanying him harassed by monsters in the pass leading into the Silent Fields.

Ensign d'Argenti is to be commended for his courage and his bravery in the face of these terrors. 

All who were with him ought to be commended for the same. 

WHO AMONG US are going to ALLOW the FALKOVNIANS and the HORRORS they have BROUGHT WITH THEM to PREVAIL?!

We have gotten ourselves this far.. through our strength-of-arms and our courage, we have brought low the contemptuous Jorddelere and helped bring an end to the debased and tyrannical Church of the Lawgiver's foul enterprises here.. 

The Black Goats sought to break us with their spears.. and we instead broke them, cooking them and turning them into MINCE!

We lost more than a few good men and women when bringing about an end to their evil.. and yet, we shall not let their sacrifices be in vain!

Our greatest trials lay before us, make no mistake about that.. what came for Baudouin's Hill, will surely come for us as well.

Yet Falkovnia's attempt to make us feel fear will not work against us. The terrors that fight alongside them will not find our bellies yellow.. 

We, instead, shall make THEM know fear.

Our Guardian is with us.. and neither the Hawk's soldiers nor the Legions of the Night will find purchase against us!

Again, I ask you, WHO AMONG US will let Drakov's bastard and the monsters he has brought to bear PREVAIL against us?!

Within EACH of us rests the spirit of a LION, not unlike that of THE lion, Leo Dilisnya himself! 

All of us shall FIGHT like lions, too.. and woe betide those who decide to get close to our own claws.

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Re: Richemulot - Les Champs Silencieux
« Reply #11 on: January 31, 2023, 08:08:53 PM »
[A series of notices written in Mordentish and Falkovnian are carried on the wind from the Borcan encampment, into the confines of the Twisting Castle.. and they read as follows...]

Quote
An Open Letter to the Defenders of the Twisted Castle


Read well, and consider our words. They are very much a matter of life and death.

To the Sellswords who yet remain in the Keep: it has become apparent that the “Free Falkovnians” are no longer using the promise of coin but instead the fear of reprisal to keep you all in line. It is threat of death and fates worse than death that compel you to stay, even in the face of complete ruin at our hand.

It need not end this way. It was a life of liberty and the dream of being beholden to none that inspired you to take up the blade and embrace the life you now live, and yet it has led you to this moment; you are now expected to fight and die for Falkovnia’s Tyrant and his bastard offspring, men who, if given the chance, would see you branded and put in irons like the rest of his subjects. There is a choice for you, though. Disarm yourselves and surrender, and safe conduct will be promised to you.

To the Concerned Citizens, Dementlieuse Revolutionaries, and their sympathizers: by aligning yourself with the Falkovnian Brute and his slavers, you have made a grotesque parody out of the causes you champion. You have confirmed everyone’s fears about you -- fears they have held for over eight years. Anyone who had suggested the Revolutionaries to be a fifth column for Falkovnian Slavery has been proven right — by you and yours. Never again will you, your comrades, and the grievances you seek redress for be taken seriously… unless you take steps NOW to alter your course and help break the Silent Fields free from the Hawk's shackles.

It does not remain too late for you. Pardons have been offered by the Lady-Governor and the Council of Brilliance for any and all past transgressions. Lay down your arms and submit, and the names of your heroes and martyrs may be spared from the acts you have done to tarnish their names.

“Free” Falkovnians: we know the truth. We know you are not truly free… and yet you could be. Richemulot accepts all who agree to pledge their swords to the Grande Dame and agree to defend it from outside aggression. Many Falkovnian emigres have already done this. You could join them. Dispatch your officers, slay those who yet hold your leash, and flee the field of battle, due west. We will not pursue you.

Dove: you lie to others and to yourself that you answer to nobody, and yet you have never been more of a pawn than in this moment. In the hopes of achieving her favor, her love, a thing you know to have only ever been a deception and a comforting lie, you act alongside the most wretched the Core have to offer.

This will be what you shall be remembered for. This is who “Dove” shall be, and nothing else. It could not have all been a lie, however. It could not have all been an act. If it ever actually meant anything to you, if ever you once thought those who you met and came to know in Dementlieu could perhaps one day be called your friend, then show us that it mattered; that any of it mattered. Even now, even for you, redemption can be found.

~ The Silent Fields Expedition

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Re: Richemulot - Les Champs Silencieux
« Reply #12 on: January 31, 2023, 08:31:06 PM »
Rumour and report quickly follows of swift, coursing shadows trailing out of Captain Voiculet's encampment during the lull of a dying night, seemingly in response to the open letter. Fearful and concerned eyes tell tale of the living dead stalking through the dusk, between the silhouettes of the deep forest in which the great tower resides, their eyes alight with cursed fire. Whatever their directive, the fleeting notices found nearby are taken inside the encampment, and the retort seems uncertain..
« Last Edit: January 31, 2023, 08:36:38 PM by Sanguine »

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Re: Richemulot - Les Champs Silencieux
« Reply #13 on: January 31, 2023, 09:19:09 PM »
Nailed to the post of the command tent in the Dementlieuse war camp:

Quote
GENERAL ORDERS 31st JANUARY 778

- "FREE" FALKOVNIAN SOLDIERS ARE TO BE OFFERED NO QUARTER.

- ANY FLEEING ENEMIES ARE TO BE PERMITTED TO QUIT THE FIELD:
DO NOT GIVE CHASE, FOCUS ON YOUR OBJECTIVES.

Signed on this day by Sieur Dorian de Sauvre,
on behalf of Captain Baudoin de Courcillon,
leader of the Dementlieuse Expeditionary Force
"The Machinery of Justice will not serve you here – it is slow and cold, and it is theirs."

 - Richard K. Morgan, Altered Carbon

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Re: Richemulot - Les Champs Silencieux
« Reply #14 on: January 31, 2023, 10:20:51 PM »
A note is left outside the fortifications of the Bitter Flame encampment, impaled into a tree nearby with a dagger-like shard of bone. The characters are blocky and simple, betraying any sense of cursive or elegant handwriting.

Quote
To the esteemed Captain Baudouin de Courcillon and his fellow retinue,

The banners under Captain Valentin Voiculet's forces request a temporary truce so that a doctor may be escorted to our encampment to provide treatment for the Dame Chaboteaux.

We request the presence of one Vasya Sarukina to this end, as his pedigree and experience are notable in the field.

We request that a parley is made at the location of where this notice is left, from which we will escort the doctor into our camp. Rest assured that during this time of short-lived peace, no harm will come to yourselves or this man.

Once the man is returned into your care, we can consider the truce upheld and nullified.

-x-

Spoiler: show
(( Placed in-game, for OOC reference the location is outside the transition to the encampment. ))

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Re: Richemulot - Les Champs Silencieux
« Reply #15 on: February 01, 2023, 11:49:39 PM »
[Several notices are placed near the Siege Line and the Dementlieuse Camp.]

Victory.

To some, this possibility may seem a distant dream.  It may seem as though the horrors we witnessed this past evening are the only outcome for us in the wake of such power and brutality.  That the only fate that awaits us is doom at the end of a Hawk's sword or destruction from their machine of war.  I, however, disagree.  There is only one possibility - victory.

Some of you are career soldiers like myself.  You fought at Ameranthe, or in the Revolution, or in any number of countless battles that have been waged across the Core.  You have seen this brutality, you have seen this horror, and yet here you stand.  And you are not alone.

Others are not soldiers of battles previously fought and this is your first taste of the sheer bloodshed and carnage of the battlefield.  You are tailors, farmers, dockhands.  You have seen this brutality, you have seen this horror, and yet here you stand.  And you are not alone.

All around us are the dead, comrades and friends that you have known for years or for days.  But we will not think of them as the dead, we will think of them as the fallen and carry their spirits with us.  The courageous fallen.  The anguished fallen.  Their sacrifice has meaning because we the living refuse to forget them.  And as we march, one final time, we will trust our successors to do the same for us.

Because my soldiers do not buckle or yield when faced with the cruelty of this world.  My soldiers push forward.  My soldiers scream out.  My soldiers rage.

To victory.




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Re: Richemulot - Les Champs Silencieux
« Reply #16 on: February 02, 2023, 12:39:02 PM »
*A bit of parchment left stabbed through the end with a ruined quill to pen it through to the mud beneath, the ink marred by the wet blood and water of the silent fields.  It is left unsigned.*

Quote

Gene,

I am so sorry. 

As we march forward, it is becoming increasingly clear that the chances of your survival are bleak.  I adapted to the presence of the violent horrors we must endure, but when I saw the beam lance through the sky, I knew then that you were in the worst place of us all and there would be no reprieve. 

I damn those who put you in front of that gun.

All you have ever done was in the service of others and you smiled. You brought a light through the window and for too brief a time you warmed the room enough that I thought maybe there was a future where I could cultivate the gentle warmth. Now I watch our future trampled under burned flesh and blood-soaked leaves. There is heat, but one of fire.

The next time I march I will know that the cost of victory isn’t what I’m willing to give, it will be whatever the world may demand. The future we make will not be the one we intended for ourselves but will be for our people.

If in the end, we do not smile together, I will smile for you.


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Re: Richemulot - Les Champs Silencieux
« Reply #17 on: February 02, 2023, 01:27:48 PM »
Quote
A handful of people wearing the Company of the Bridge uniform make their way to the front lines of the siege. They are each worse for wear, their uniforms burned and battered, caked in blood and mud and soot and ash. Still, their grim determination sees them to take positions yet again, having buried their dead and left the crippled in triage.

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Re: Richemulot - Les Champs Silencieux
« Reply #18 on: February 02, 2023, 03:18:18 PM »
Quote
Tonight, from one of the high windows in the Twisted Castle, a horned silhouette can be seen. Within it's hand, something small twinkles with a soft and gentle light. The figure remains there all night, though what it was looking for, in the darkness and the distance is anyone's guess.
Michelle Anciaux

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Re: Richemulot - Les Champs Silencieux
« Reply #19 on: February 03, 2023, 05:48:26 PM »
Drumbeats announce the return march of the men and women the Expédition aux Champs Silencieux back to the borders of the Serene Republique. Their numbers are much reduced, the bold laughter and boasts that were their escort into the shade of the forest as absent as the limbs missing from the worst of the casualties. Most of the noble retinues and Gendarmes return to whence they came; Chateaufaux, Cheateaunoir, and a half-hundred settlements, chateaus, and manor houses great and small. The Condottieri raised by Borca likewise disperse, their antiquated armor and weapons making them appear to the common Dementlieuse like some story-book anachronisms marching into the fog of another era.

Many, however, are called back to the City of Lights, headed by Capitaine de Courcillon to lay down the banners of their foes at the feet of the Council of Brilliance and their noble Borcan allies.

The forest they leave behind is wounded. Cannon fire and the worst excesses of the Arcane Sciences applied to the pursuit of warfare have shattered trees and incinerated leaves. The woodland creatures caught between the opposing forces lie as carrion upon the forest floor, at least those which were not incinerated where they huddled. The people of Champs Silencieux fare only a little better. For many, the mercenaries that lived among them were husbands and sons, and with most of the free companies wiped from the Core there are open wounds where families were ripped apart. Other settlements were easy pickings for the predations of cruel raiders, their homes left a smoldering ruin for no reason save malice and greed. There is a glimmer of hope, however, for winter is drawing to its close and promises a gentler spring. Some dare hope the ash of today will be fertile ground tomorrow. The gentry of Richemulot have already set to surveying the newly liberated land, with plans of their own.

A few companies linger yet, those reformed after fleeing the field or those seemingly canny enough to not flock to the banner of the now-dead Valentin Voiculet and his Bitter Flames. With the Twisted Castle as much a broken corpse as Voiculet himself, questions linger who will remain to stave off the return of bandits and their ilk.

For the moment, however, work begins at a breakneck pace to carve a proper road through the forest, linking the newly revitalized fields of Borca all the way to the Serene Republique’s capital. Those merchants and investors who pushed the deal stand to make a sizable fortune.

Across the Musarde, Vlad Drakov is said to brood upon his throne, his generals awaiting an order that does not come - not this day, at least. By the arrival of the next harvest, Falkovnia will face the upstart Borcans and perhaps even the Richemuloise as competition in feeding the Core. Several harvests hence, the Land of the Hawk will find its hungry talons dulled as its hegemony over the hungry souls of the Four Towers crumbles.

In Richemulot, graves are dug and the dead are buried. Mordent yet slumbers. The Dementlieuse lick their wounds and keep a ready eye across the water. In Borca, men are poisoned in silence for the right to count the mountains of silver to come.

The Four Towers stand.

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Re: Richemulot - Les Champs Silencieux
« Reply #20 on: February 07, 2023, 07:49:52 PM »
Rumors drift from the Champs Silencieux of the fate of the remnants of the Serpents of Doom and the Bitter Flames. Confused whispers say that Brocca Cantis, Lieutenant to the late Valentin Voiculet, has taken her own life atop the Captain's grave. Others say she was slain in single combat by none other than the Songbird, an enchantress reputed to have ensorcelled the Bitter Flame's Captain in his last days with her voice alone. Yet more say that Cantis herself has fallen sway beneath the fey woman's sorcery, and with her the near hundred men remaining to the Serpents of Doom and Bitter Flames. Richemuloise travelers can offer no definitive answer, and yet the stories of new free-company proclaiming themselves the Bitter Song persist. Should such a company exist, they have secreted themselves deep within the woods, and trouble neither noble nor commoner.