Spartan Bricks
Burning Horizons | A Fractured Kingdoms RPG Build
“That can’t be a good sign,” Aearonor whispered to himself as he eyed the otherwise peaceful night sky above the mountains being split with fiery light and sometimes revealing licks of flame bursting over the snowcapped peaks. A short time after the tunnelers had finally breached through the Dividing Mountains into the northern territory of Melikroth, the mysterious flame had sprung up, burning night and day. No Alborne scouts had yet been able to determine the source of the light, but Aearonor had a feeling it was something related to war preparations on the part of the Meliks. The dwarves had been alerted to the breach in the mountains, an important bit of intel that had been brought by a harried-looking army scout who had just barely escaped a group of dwarven soldiers.
Aearonor had arrived at the inland military staging ground the previous day, about a week after departing Trienhelm. His garrison, now organized into a formal battalion for combat duty, had just finished a 70 mile three-day march from their coastal landing spot on the southeastern shore of Alborne’s boundary at the bay south of Lonsere. Before that, on the voyage from Trienhelm to the coast, their convoy of ships had encountered a bitter squall that set them back a day due to losing navigation capabilities for a short time. And it had been glorious. Just being on the sea made Aearonor feel far more alive than he ever had before and set a fire in his heart to get back to the ocean as soon as he could.
Upon arrival to the staging ground, he noticed there was already an established base of operations and marshalling ground on the shore of a sizeable lake, which had been reduced to a muddy mire and stripped of all trees for their wood by the thousands of soldiers trekking through it over the past few weeks as they set up camp and prepared their equipment for war. Colonel Faron had then ordered the battalion to set up camp at a currently empty spot on the shore directly next to the main dirt road leading from the staging ground to the tunnel entrance. Aearonor promptly set about doing his mundane resupply boy tasks like collecting wood and moving crates.
He recalled the incident from earlier in the night, when some of the battalion’s outer pickets had spotted a lone Islorien scout attempting to sneak through the grasslands between the mountains and the lake. The pure Islorien elves, to common knowledge, had not crossed the mountain border in a century, which led Aearonor to think that perhaps this fellow didn’t simply stumble across the Dividing Mountains. Perhaps the elves had somehow learned about the covert tunneling project and sent scouts over from the Elkmire to investigate. The pickets had brought the elf to Colonel Faron for interrogation and information extraction, which was proving very difficult to get out of him, despite his apparent young age and frightened temperament.
“Why are you here? What is an Islorien army scout doing on this side of the mountains??” thundered Faron.
“I-I-I…I can’t t-tell you that” the elf stammered back.
“Well, pointy ears, you have very few options left to choose from now. Either you reveal to me exactly why you are here and who sent you, or you and your precious ears are going to find each other forcefully separated. I’m not in the mood to wait on you to share information on your own time.”
Aearonor listened to the ongoing interrogation with only half attention as he walked across the main path to the breach carrying a hatchet and a small log he had just chopped off of a dead tree. Looking to his right, he could see a company of raiders embarking from the assembly ground and making their way down the main road to the breach to begin making updated maps of Melikroth and possibly bring back some dwarf prisoners for interrogation. He didn’t envy them. He would much rather be out at sea exploring some new land than fight short bearded madmen in the cold on land. A grimace slipped across his face as he imagined the possibility of new orders coming in for the battalion to make a foray into Melikroth and that he might have to join those raiders in the cold soon. But for now, the standing orders were to sit tight at the lake assembly point and prepare equipment for a large scale invasion.
He breathed a deep sigh and continued on his mission to bring the log to the carpenter’s station as the mysterious fire blazed off in the distance. This would be a long night.
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If you read all that, most impressive! Thanks for reading. That was a lot of text, but I’ve been really enjoying writing the stories for these FK builds so far. I was initially planning to make this build a full MOC, but when I had the idea for flames illuminating the night sky, I just had to do another scene 😉 I think that since I’ve already done two scenes for FK, I might as well continue the trend and keep every build in this group to a scene, to continue developing my forced perspective skills and maintaining the immersion within the universe I’m trying to build with Aearonor’s story.
Maranatha!
Burning Horizons | A Fractured Kingdoms RPG Build
“That can’t be a good sign,” Aearonor whispered to himself as he eyed the otherwise peaceful night sky above the mountains being split with fiery light and sometimes revealing licks of flame bursting over the snowcapped peaks. A short time after the tunnelers had finally breached through the Dividing Mountains into the northern territory of Melikroth, the mysterious flame had sprung up, burning night and day. No Alborne scouts had yet been able to determine the source of the light, but Aearonor had a feeling it was something related to war preparations on the part of the Meliks. The dwarves had been alerted to the breach in the mountains, an important bit of intel that had been brought by a harried-looking army scout who had just barely escaped a group of dwarven soldiers.
Aearonor had arrived at the inland military staging ground the previous day, about a week after departing Trienhelm. His garrison, now organized into a formal battalion for combat duty, had just finished a 70 mile three-day march from their coastal landing spot on the southeastern shore of Alborne’s boundary at the bay south of Lonsere. Before that, on the voyage from Trienhelm to the coast, their convoy of ships had encountered a bitter squall that set them back a day due to losing navigation capabilities for a short time. And it had been glorious. Just being on the sea made Aearonor feel far more alive than he ever had before and set a fire in his heart to get back to the ocean as soon as he could.
Upon arrival to the staging ground, he noticed there was already an established base of operations and marshalling ground on the shore of a sizeable lake, which had been reduced to a muddy mire and stripped of all trees for their wood by the thousands of soldiers trekking through it over the past few weeks as they set up camp and prepared their equipment for war. Colonel Faron had then ordered the battalion to set up camp at a currently empty spot on the shore directly next to the main dirt road leading from the staging ground to the tunnel entrance. Aearonor promptly set about doing his mundane resupply boy tasks like collecting wood and moving crates.
He recalled the incident from earlier in the night, when some of the battalion’s outer pickets had spotted a lone Islorien scout attempting to sneak through the grasslands between the mountains and the lake. The pure Islorien elves, to common knowledge, had not crossed the mountain border in a century, which led Aearonor to think that perhaps this fellow didn’t simply stumble across the Dividing Mountains. Perhaps the elves had somehow learned about the covert tunneling project and sent scouts over from the Elkmire to investigate. The pickets had brought the elf to Colonel Faron for interrogation and information extraction, which was proving very difficult to get out of him, despite his apparent young age and frightened temperament.
“Why are you here? What is an Islorien army scout doing on this side of the mountains??” thundered Faron.
“I-I-I…I can’t t-tell you that” the elf stammered back.
“Well, pointy ears, you have very few options left to choose from now. Either you reveal to me exactly why you are here and who sent you, or you and your precious ears are going to find each other forcefully separated. I’m not in the mood to wait on you to share information on your own time.”
Aearonor listened to the ongoing interrogation with only half attention as he walked across the main path to the breach carrying a hatchet and a small log he had just chopped off of a dead tree. Looking to his right, he could see a company of raiders embarking from the assembly ground and making their way down the main road to the breach to begin making updated maps of Melikroth and possibly bring back some dwarf prisoners for interrogation. He didn’t envy them. He would much rather be out at sea exploring some new land than fight short bearded madmen in the cold on land. A grimace slipped across his face as he imagined the possibility of new orders coming in for the battalion to make a foray into Melikroth and that he might have to join those raiders in the cold soon. But for now, the standing orders were to sit tight at the lake assembly point and prepare equipment for a large scale invasion.
He breathed a deep sigh and continued on his mission to bring the log to the carpenter’s station as the mysterious fire blazed off in the distance. This would be a long night.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you read all that, most impressive! Thanks for reading. That was a lot of text, but I’ve been really enjoying writing the stories for these FK builds so far. I was initially planning to make this build a full MOC, but when I had the idea for flames illuminating the night sky, I just had to do another scene 😉 I think that since I’ve already done two scenes for FK, I might as well continue the trend and keep every build in this group to a scene, to continue developing my forced perspective skills and maintaining the immersion within the universe I’m trying to build with Aearonor’s story.
Maranatha!