Winds of Change

The guilt didn't leave me, not as the others promised it would. They'd said it was just how the world works, and that the deed would never get traced back to my name anyway. Yet still I knew that the responsibility was mine alone. It was my choice and I had gone through with it.




Days earlier, I had spotted a human on the outskirts of our city. I observed him for a while to see if he was a threat. He didn't seem particularly dangerous. He wore simple clothes and was surveying the land looking for veins of iron to mine. It seemed he'd been at this for quite a while..and that's when the thought entered my head.



Recently I'd become fixated on gathering massive amounts of iron. My vault was full of hundreds of rock shards, ready to be smelted down and turned into armor for the clan. Whenever Team Stormfront ventured out, I'd bring a mining pick with me, spending more time mining than actually fighting.


I was steadily becoming a skilled craftsman. I'd mastered art of making chain mail and scale mail. With some more iron, I might have been able to improve my skills enough to make plate armor. But metal was hard to find, and often times while I was out on gathering trips I'd get hunted down and robbed by raiding parties. But now...

I wondered just how much iron ore he had in that pack already. If I were to take it from him... In truth I'd been thinking it since I first realized what he was doing. I knew right away this stranger wasn't a real threat, but still I tracked him, letting the thought wrestle its way to the top of my thoughts. When I finally did give voice to the quiet idea of murder, my mind flew into a tumult.

He's defenseless!
Yes exactly, this is a dangerous world, I should teach him to be more careful.
But what if I drive him to become a murderer like so many of the others.
A murderer, like I may be?
Well, what if he's stronger than he seems, and I get myself killed?
Then I should call the others in, make sure he doesn't get away.
There's no honor in that...
There's no honor in Agon.


I waited until the man started digging into a new rock pile, and then quietly rushed back to town to consult Publius. Everything he said just reinforced the conclusions I'd reached on my own. Then he closed the door for discussion. "I'm going to go out there myself and try to confront him with or without you. But.. you're right, he might be dangerous. Come with me just to be sure. You wouldn't want me dying out there." I'm sure Publius would have had no problems hunting the man down on his own. He was just playing against my pride to convince me to go through with killing this man. Sighing, I pulled a longsword off the rack and followed him.







Together we crept back to the glade I'd found him in. He was working on a different pile of rocks now, oblivious to his impending danger. Pub ducked in the trees to the north while I approached from the south. I crouched down and inched forward, slowly...quietly...

The man stopped mining and cocked his ear in my direction. He hadn't seen me yet, but the tension was too much for my shaky nerves. I jumped up and charged, scoring a deep cut across his back. With a cry Publius ran in from the opposite side, slashing as he came. Our victim dropped his pick and fled into the trees to lose us.




I stayed behind him, harrying him forward while Publius ran around to cut him off. The man kept sprinting, now and then turning to look at me with bulging terrified eyes. He never noticed that I'd herded him into a clearing, where Publius waited, staff at the ready.




Publius lit up the forest. The the echoing thunder of the spells and the fire was too much. The man panicked, unsure of where to run next. I raised my hand to finish him, but I hesitated. Pub saw me pause and with a solid swing I caught the man on the back of the head. The human went down in the dirt, bleeding out. Publius stood over him for a moment and then drove the point of his sword straight into his heart. With a final cry, the nameless man perished.

"It's just the way the world works Sig." He clapped me on the shoulder and together we started rifling through the man's pack. His pack had a decent amount of ore, but not as much as we were hoping for. Not enough to make me feel good about my part in the day's events.



And so that was my state, numbly forging armor out of my ill gotten gains, mind not on the task, when Blarggy returned to the city with news.

"Well everyone, I know we've talked it before, but it's finally happening. Team Stormfront has found an alliance willing to take us in. They're called Dominion, and they have a well defended city on the coast with plenty of resources within and without. We'll be able to follow them out on missions and get some real experience in large scale combat!" We were all fairly interested in this, but I had some reservations... until he said "Oh yes, andthey have one of the most powerful navies on Agon. So, what do you all say?" A smile split my face, guilt over the recent murder got pushed down for now. I exchanged glances with Piratejim, whose eyes had gone wide as plates.

"Absolutely. When do we leave?"

None of us knew that day that this new forged alliance was the death knell for Team Stormfront.

The First Voyages

The first weeks with Team Stormfront went by in a rush. Everything that I struggled to do on my own became so easy. There was a bounty of reagents in our clan bank, we had weapons and armor to spare, we even began to gather enough materials to start crafting our own wares. Piratejim made weapons, I made armor, Pangalactic studied enchanting, but dabbled in just about everything. Publius took to potions, but soon got wrapped up in a secret project.

Each time we ventured out into the world, there was still the fear of death, but the fear of losing all our hard earned loot was blunted by the knowledge that our vault was full of replacement gear. And so, we became bold.




Using our old raft, we took to the sea and explored all the far off islands we couldn't reach before. Some were plentiful with ore, and I marked these places down for future reference. Such out of the way mining spots were hard to come by. Other islands held small villages or hamlets. We saw one island far away to the east with an ancient Nithron fortress built on top of it, patrolled by reanimated guardians. Atop this castle was a glowing purple portal. I marked this island down on my sea chart as well, curious to explore. But the islands we spent our most time on were patrolled by hulking behemoths called golems.




One morning, Redham and I were out sailing when I spotted one close to shore. I shouted for Redham to steer away. He saw the golem and a familiar madness crept into his eyes. "I bet we could bring it down," he said slowly; already anchoring the raft.

I looked at the huge metal beast, shaking the earth with each step. "There's no way, not with just the two of us. And I'm not abandoning the raft!" Piratejim merely shrugged and hopped into the water. "I'll keep the sails up for a quick retreat," I called after him, but he didn't turn; just continued swimming.



Piratejim had a staff, and some bone and leather armor. Nothing more. Before him a giant hulk of a creature paced about the island. It was three times the height of a human, and looked to be made of a solid mass of seamless metal, in a vaguely human shape. From the bushes, the mad pirate fired off a flimsy manna missle. It impacted the monster, and the fight was on.

I watched in amazement as my ally ran circles around the golem, blasting it in the back at every chance. The golem tried to keep up, and even fired some spells back in return now and then, but they hit the trees Piratejim was ducking behind far more often than Piratehim himself. If he did become too hurt he simply ducked out of sight, or went down into the water for a time. He worked at the golem tirelessly and sooner than I would have expected, the monster was down and Piratejim was jogging back over to the raft with a sack full of materials he'd cut off the monster's corpse.

I was in stunned silence as he took the wheel of the raft and set sail back towards our home. I think I remained so until we were well out to ocean. When I finally came to, a torrent of barely coherent words poured from my mouth, "Fool! Fluke! Luck! Lunatic! Divine intervention!" Piratejim smiled and whistled as we sailed home.






The illusions of the world were beginning to crumble as tasks we once thought impossible were opened to us. Team Stormfront began to regularly raid the golem islands, and reap their rewards. All throughout these excursions, we were rarely bothered by others. The sea was vast, and within it breadth, safety and wealth.



We attacked the golems relentlessly, and drove them back from civilized lands.






The next time we were all back at the Mirdain city we called our home, Blarggy took the resources we'd gathered and crafted them into dangerous new weapons called Battlespikes. "Do you know what we could do with these?" he said, waving the small explosive in front of a very nervous looking Publius. "We can attack some of the coastal villages! If we control of those villages then we can get a nice flow of gold from taxes!"

It sounded like a good plan, one that would take all of us to execute. We geared up in our finest, with our packs full of these spiked metal balls of fire and death. We sailed around Agon, waiting for one of the coastal villages to be left unguarded. After a half hour of scouting we found our target. The village of Eltaria.



Team Stormfront crept silently into the city from different directions, searching for any hidden defenders. Pangalactic gave the all clear and we set ourselves up in vantage points overlooking the central stone of the village. I piled my battlespikes before me and took a calming breath. "You just throw them?" I asked. Blarggy nodded and raised his hand in the air, held it there briefly, and brought it down.

"Fire!"




The sound was deafening as six battlespikes smashed into the stone before us. The ringing had hardly faded before more explosions ripped through the echoes of the last ones. We continued throwing. Bits and pieces of the stone was breaking off. The magical field protecting the village began to weaken. I threw until my arm burned, trying to quickly grab more battlespikes without stabbing my own hand, or worse, dropping any. We were all tense, knowing that the sounds of our attack would bring any murderers within a mile right down on top of us. But we had chosen our village well, none came.




With a final explosion the rock crumbled and the magic field dissipated. The village belonged to Team Stormfront. "Haha! See, nothing to it!" Blarggy shouted. I ran off to look at some of the houses with Publius while the others packed the remaining battlespikes. Most of the doors were locked but one house was open and inside we found a strange machine. It had a slot for gold coins a wheel with rotating symbols on it. Pub tossed some coins in, the pictures whirled, and when they stopped more coins came out!

"Let me try, move move!" I shoved Publius aside, but wasn't as lucky. The machine ate my newly earned money quickly, returning none of it, and Publius tried to pull me off. I had to keep going, pouring more of our winnings into the machine, until I came out with a profit. It wasn't my greatest idea but I was still elated from our victory and I didn't want the day marred by a run of bad luck. Eventually, I managed to come away with more gold won than lost, but the rest of the clan banned me from using the device ever again, said I had a "problem" or something. I don't think anyone actually minded that day; winnings in hand, we sailed for home.