Aw, quit your clyping. That’s a lie and you know it.
Great fight, though. Lots of fun, would fight again. 4.5 stars. Woof woof.
7 Likes
You know, when you see a guy ( @miasm ) try to pass off his vicuna as an alpaca, you don’t expect that same guy to have FOUR FREAKING BLADES on his weapon. Tough.
12 Likes
Cuckoo Beaucoup des coupes (English: cuts), des coups (English: blows) et des cous (English: necks): the hapless huckster mortal sold neck protectors to the immortals, miscalculated how many would need them, didn’t save one for himself.
9 Likes
When I got word that Peter Pan and the Pans were touring Machu Picchu for six weeks I couldn’t help but want to get on board, I mean, pan flutes don’t weigh anything, don’t plug into anything, they’re just woodwind instruments, how hard could this be?
Well, nobody told me that there were goddamned huge mountains in Machu Picchu. I mean, just massive. So as I’m literally being spat upon by a llama (lama?) all I can think about is how little I’m being paid for this gig, breathing like an asthmatic and wondering how these guys actually play instruments at these heights. I mean, this was nuts. Like “no brown M&M’s in the tour rider” nuts. But I did pack a little surprise up my sleeve, these Incans weren’t going to know what hit them. A lot of people know about Crimea: it’s lovely seaside, their wine region, the sunflower exports, the seaport. What they don’t know is that the bustling trade region was the major supplier of fireworks in the 14th Century if you knew the right stall in the right market. And I most certainly knew the right stall in every market. When the show’s at 8 PM you don’t have time to wander alleys that are too small looking for the right kind of incense when your keytar player needs to find their mellow groove, you can’t waste that time.
One thing I hadn’t expected to find at the top of the hill when I finally got there was the kites. Apparently it’s a thing there, kites. Huge land murals, which you can only really see from above, it’s impressive, but they have these kites that fit people. Or the right amount of fireworks if you’ve got time, string, and a recent visit to the Crimean Fireworks Palace. Well, with only pan flutes to set up and sound check six hours away, I certainly had the time. A visit to the right local stall (see?) meant I had some kites (string was free, can you believe it), and, well, I had a lot of fireworks.
As I spend the rest of the day setting up it seemed like Peter Pan and the Pans were apparently a huge local hit, which I had not known. The small outdoor ampitheatre was at the bottom of a small hill and it seemed like everyone and their llaama (lamma?) wanted to come by and have a look while I’m trying to get these kites off the ground while keeping the fuses intact. I finally found a local kid who was great and he helped get everything in the air. Totally earned his tour shirt, that kid. But the sound check needed to happen and Peter was suddenly nowhere to be found. Luckily sound check consisted of the sound guy making sure the amphitheater was properly shaped and any loud noise would do, so I pulled out the axe and started in on a little Stairway, you know, just to loosen things up.
Now, I don’t know who was in charge of security, but they failed. Miserably. Maybe it was the llaammaas blocking their view or the spit, I don’t know, but this panflute superfan took objection to glancing in and not seeing Peter Pan and the Pans or something and literally started throwing anything she could my way. Knives, a sawblade, some sword, she had a variety of edged weapons that I found excessive for a calm agricultural society spending an evening listening to the dulcet tones of the pan flute. Her reckless abandon left a few openings to poke back through and, while it seemed like I had the upper hand, torrents of rain came over the mountain and I realized that my fuses would be ruined, not to mention the fireworks. I had to get the kites down or risk everything we’d worked so hard for. Security came along on a few llamamas by then a she fled while I got everything down in time to save the show.
No tour shirt for her though, security kept an eye out and she apparently never made it to the show. Too bad for her, fireworks looked kick ass. Only had one minor issue at the very end but after a full night’s rest I was okay.
10 Likes
Ah, Orleans in the spring! The birds are singing, the sap is rising and the peasants are revolting…again. The town was under siege when I arrived, some little contretemps with the English. My target, however, was inside - a sweet little wide-eyed zealot called Jean. My father had always told me “Don’t stick your thing in The Crazy, nothing good will ever come of it” but I wasn’t after being good, and there’s a lot of fun to be had if that’s the case. I had also found, in my extensive experience, that a woman crazed with battle and bloodlust was about as much fun as you could have outside of a convent on All Hallows Eve.
I found her at the Shrine to the Virgin Mary, praying for aid and succour. I offered her some of mine but she brushed off my initial advances with nary a thought. I tried a bolder gambit, complimenting the strength of her army and the beauty of her battle lines. We skirmished some and then both tried some bolder sallies. I feinted then, losing a few battles to draw her out. The success let the lust for battle rise in her blood as she grasped victory in her hand. As she finally encircled my forces I counter-attacked and pierced her defences, and we celebrated victory together.
I left her under an apple tree, smiling softly, and made my way back to the English lines. My retreat was complicated by a German mercenary who damn near took my head off with a two handed sword, at least until I tripped him off the wall. After that it was easy to get back to the Earl of Salisbury and declare that the Maid of Orleans was no more. As I left with a fat purse and a swift horse I reflected that he may have misinterpreted my words.
9 Likes
Have you ever fallen off a wall? I mean an embattlement. A fucking fort. Well I have.
Imagine my luck, taking pay to guard a wall in a back water where everything smelled nice and no one seemed to care about my lack of language skills. Next thing I know, a whole bloody war breaks out.
I finally found just the right nook to fit all my crannies in for a little “George Nappington” and some upstart feels the need to fight me.
It was strange. As he approached I felt a strong internal…something or other. It was like an excitement down below, but not really, but just kinda. Anyway, the fella spoke with a lisp like they have down in the nether regions. He probably would have cut me in two (I really got to find a sword without a broken tip), but then I fell off the damn battlements. I mean, really. Fortunately, I looked so much like death the English thought it was a sign and left me to my lonesome.
I got to find a good German town, where the walls be not so high.
Groß Wilhelm, the First of His Name
(If you squint, just right on the far right you can see me, hat in hand, falling off)
9 Likes
[excerpt from The Diaries of Other Pendragon © 2017 by TrilloCom LLC]
Is breaking one’s word to oneself as vile a wrong as breaking one’s word to another? I had vowed never again to go near a battle, and yet in less than a century… but hold, I will record the turns my life took that put me on the road to Agincourt.
Far Cathay was pleasant, and I learned much, but restlessness put me on the Silk Road once again, and brought me back to Europe, still seeking a vocation that would let me atone for my past sins. Although my efforts at physicking in Crimea had failed to heal any of the unfortunate victims of the Pestilence, I had picked up a few tricks of the chirurgeon’s art. As well, I had some modest knowledge of herbs and potions from the wise women of the region and the sages of the East. I resolved to make my way as an itinerant healer.
At the fleam market in Trieste, I bought a used set, excellently wrought and with little rust, ranging from sizes big enough for oxen right down to ones suitable for infants or the smaller livestock. A few other instruments and a variety of herbs and I was ready. I travelled the highways of Europe for the next few years, tending ever northward. It was in Normandy that I heard that King Henry (V, that would be) had brought an army from England and was investing Harfleur over some squabble with Charles le Fou of France over tennis balls*. I would have avoided such a scene, but I knew there would be work for me there, and rumour had it that a great number of Welsh archers marched with the King. The chance to speak my language again, and perhaps hear news from home, was too tempting to resist.
I arrived just as Harry was giving one of his famous inspirational speeches, to mixed responses. Lines like
"…or close the wall up with our English dead…"
just led to awkward foot-shuffling among the English, and a good deal of snickering among the Welsh:
“At last, a use for Englishmen”
“Well said, boyo, you go right ahead. I’ll shoot some arrows, shall I?”
Harfleur was soon taken, and the next few weeks passed cheerfully enough. At night we sat around the fire talking of our favourite foods, and singing Cwm Rhondda and Calon Lan. The dysentery was bad enough that at any time fully half the choir was at the jakes, so I had to switch from baritone to tenor as needed. And so we came to Agincourt.
The next morning Harry launched into one of his famous speeches again, going on about Saint Crispin, and how showing one’s stump to the wenches back home was a sure way to get laid. How that man ever got anyone to follow him is beyond me.
I must confess. There was a moment, with the noble knights of two nations facing each other (and a goodly number of Scots on the French side—typical), with banners flying and sunlight glinting off armour, with the echos of “Welshmen will not yield” dying away, there was a moment when my heart stirred, though I knew better.
Then the front ranks of the French lowered their lances, and the faint trumpets from their lines were drowned out by the serjeants’ shouts of, “Draw”…“Loose!”, and the arrow cloud arched up like the beginning of a rainbow whose end was not gold, but dead Frenchmen, and I withdrew to the chirurgeons’ tent and laid out my bone saws and cauterizing torches.
We had a busy time of it for a while, but casualties were lighter than I had expected. (I hear that turncoat traitor Dafydd Gam died as he had lived—sucking up to the English king.) My poultices were running low, and I was on my way to the baggage train for more fennel and rosemary when I saw a number of French men-at-arms approaching, obviously intent on looting the king’s treasure. At their van I was astonished to see the big simple Scottish fellow I had last glimpsed on the streets of Avignon shouting “NESSIE!”. He was easily three hands taller than any of the Frenchmen, and he still carried his by-Our-Lady wooden sword, three fathoms long, that looked as if he had whittled it out of a caber. His bare chest was painted blue, and he wore a scarlet cap emblazoned “Make Aquitaine Gallic Again”.
“NESSIE!” cried this woad warrior and raised his sword. “Give you good day, Sir Nessie,” I replied, saluting with my seax, “My name…”
“NESSIE!”
“…is Other Pendr…”
“NESSIE!” he roared, and launched a great swing at me that I caught on my shield, but which knocked me sideways twenty feet or more. I rolled aside just as his next stroke descended, and the duel was on, I trying to get inside his swing and he trying to keep me at his sword’s point. I got in a couple of good stabs, but then one of his fellows shouted “Nessie! Leave that! We don’t have enough mules. Haul this wagon for us.” “NESSIE!” he answered, seizing the wagon tongue and running off. I had my medical duties to attend to, and so the encounter ended there.
*[biographer’s note: Sir Other is oversimplifying here.]
9 Likes
Are you focking kidding me?
FAKE NEWS!
Anyone who’s ever cared to follow my act knows for cert that aye’ve built an entire back catalogue out of me being non-Christian. Like I’m a proper non-christlike christ-figure I am. I’m the one to save you from the savior.
Elevator pitch: meta-javiour. That became Micka Jagiour as people got lazy with focking scots pronunciations.
So, there is no way in heaven that I’d fight for the buzzantines. Who got their name from the french bee-oligarchs that pupetterred their cause.
I stand bull, not constant ignoble. That was mine lyric. B4 it got perverted by hipsters of the future.
And, to make matters worse, why would I want to fight 3 women…
that’s just not my style, ya dig?
…
…
.
Oh, I need some laudanum.
I just can’t fucking wait till that gets invented
5 Likes
Whoops, transposition error. Corrected! ETA: Double corrected!
3 Likes
It’s been around since before Zero (@daneel) and I were kids. Just have to know who to ask.
you’re welcome.
–Mr Collins
10 Likes
The code of chivalry, as you may know, forbids any questions regarding gender, or indeed species, self-identification. Since in your aspect of NESSIE you presented as masculine, I was bound to respect your wishes.
https://bbs.elsewhere.cafe/uploads/default/original/2X/b/b085061166b2f35550043853fe6b9e4afc7c8486.jpg
If I have misconstrued your preference in the matter, I do humbly apologize, and do beg the boon of a small hint, if you are comfortable with offering one.
Other Pendragon
Knight
5 Likes
Narrator’s Note: This photograph depicts those who stumbled across Nessie’s buried sword in modern-day Russia. It is unknown whether Nessie perished nearby - no other artifacts or remains were found - or simply abandoned the sword after obtaining another.
8 Likes
I’d have though a thicker grip would have made holding with a flipper easier.
I do hope I have a chance to witness NESSIE’s prowess on the battlefield. It would be interesting to see what school of sword fighting he favors.
4 Likes
Narrator’s Note: Nessie dropped out of finishing school and is confused by chivalrous courtesy. Being the only of her kind, she is also confused by gender and sexual identity.
10 Likes
My account stands. I know what I saw. Given the length of your neck, presenting as a large Scotsman was a tactically astute move on your part.
Oh shit.
7 Likes
Mr. Collins and I went to Spain to save some innocents. I thought he would make a nice travel companion since he wears velvet. Oooh soft. But the guy just wouldn’t shut up. Instead of saving people he was busy calculating their statistical odds of getting caught. So I decided to crack his head off. After I cracked off three limbs he peed his pants and begged for Mercy. My pet Moe pointed out that there were three priests behind us and that clerics make a very satisfying noise when you crack their heads off. So I turned my attention elsewhere. It’s a shame that being an immortal , mr. Collins will be able to grow his limbs back so easily. I rather enjoyed watching him drag himself across the ground with one hand.
7 Likes
Ha! A good tale, Shemp, but keep to mind the talky man can be very dangerous in his own confusing ways… do not underestimate him.
Eh? what’s that enchanting tune…
slowly twirls off humming
5 Likes