SHEgamI
Sitting with one leg hanging over the edge of the parapet, high atop Gilman’s north tower, she watched as 1¢op walked away, she sighed. The sound of the trap door opening behind her pulled her away from the sight of her departing friend. She turned to see AnrKEY approaching, “1¢op just left.” AnrKEY said.
SHEgamI nodded towards the river, “I saw.”
“I’m sorry she didn’t come and say goodbye to you.” AnrKEY said.
“Eh,” SHEgamI shrugged, “It just reinforces that were colleges, not friends/”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m not. She never opened up to me, keeping it all very business like. I always felt, I don’t know, a sadness.” SHEgamI said, “Not from her words, more I saw it in her mannerisms when she thought no one was looking.”
“I didn’t spend nearly as much time with her as you did, I can definitely see that, the sadness I mean. She’s a dedicated Blue soldier that’s one thing you have to give her, right?” AnrKEY said.
SHEgamI laughed, “It’s funny you say that. I was with her when she made that decision. But man after, she was all in. I was caught up in her enthusiasm.”
“Are you still in? Will you stay here and help me defend Gilman? I could really use your bow.” AnrKEY made eye contact.
“Sure,” SHEgamI shrugged, “why not?”
“Hold!” Toadanaga called from below, from the Blue controlled side of the river. But his call came from the wrong direction to be challenging the Red Army. AnrKEY turned and moved quickly to that side of the tower. SHEgamI stood up on the parapet and while putting an arrow to her bow string, she pranced atop the parapet to sand next to where AnrKEY looked down to the base of the tower where Toadanaga stood. His feet were planted and his knees slightly bent, he had drawn his sword partially out of its saya.
SHEgamI scanned the clearing, looking for what had raised Toadanaga’s heckles. It didn’t take long to find it. It was a squirrel wearing a green button down shirt and a dapper feathered green cap, she was to far to see his name. The squirrel walked into the clearing between the towers followed by two other principles. The sound of a door closing came from below, AwholeROD joined Toadanaga.
Watching the two Blue Army soldiers, SHEgamI noted that the three they spoke with all were decorated in green in some form or another. This thought barely had time to register, when Toadanaga drew his sword and AwholeROD started forward towards the advancing three.
The leading principle, the squirrel, made a gesture and the other two principles stepped forward. One, a short hooded figure, raised one hand chest high, palm up. Then it did something with its hand, it was too far away for SHEgamI to see what, The ground around Toadanaga suddenly seemed to boil, the five tentacles shot from the earth surrounding Toadanaga. With another gesture from the hooded principle, the tentacle collapsed like a fist, Toadanaga stopped struggling immediately.
AwholeROD didn’t fair much better. He rushed the third principle, a hobbit in green overalls and bare feet. The hobbit held something to it’s mouth, a spot that glowed red. As AwholeROD moved forward, the hobbit exhaled a cloud of smoke, which billowed around AwholeROD’s head. AwholeROD stopped moving forward, his head dropped, he seemed to now be looking intently at the ground. The hobbit stepped forward, then it leapt up and hit AwholeROD on the chin with an uppercut. When the hobbit’s fist connected to the centaur’s chin, it made a ringing “ping!” and AwholeROD was launched into the air. At the apex of his flight, the centaur almost reached the height of the battlements where SHEgamI and AnrKEY watched. At that apex he hung for a moment before returning to the ground, landing in a broken pile.
The battle, if that what that was, was over before SHEgamI thought to draw her bow. After the sound of AwholeROD crashing to the ground, the clearing was silent for a moment. The squirrel looked up to the tower and call out, “Come on down you two, we won’t hurt you, we want to talk.”
On the top of the tower AnrKEY turned towards the door. “Are you going down there? You can’t possibly trust that squirrel's word.” SHEgamI asked, surprised by AnrKEY’s movement.
AnrKEY shrugged, “I’m curious I guess. You don’t have to come,” she turned and walked down through the trapdoor. SHEgamI looked down at the three principle, who were patiently waiting, below. Then she put the arrow back in her quiver, and followed AnrKEY down into the tower.
She exited the tower blinking at the transition from dark inside to bright outdoors. When her eyes cleared, she focused on the three principles in green.
LizZard HughNKry Fangophile
Level 3 Level 4 Level 3
Wallet-3Au Wallet-10Au Wallet-5Au
“I’m so glad you chose to come down to talk, that tower looks difficult to storm.” The squirrel, HughNKry spoke first.
“You were going to storm the tower if I didn’t come out?” AnrKEY said.
“To be perfectly honest, I hadn’t made up my mind.” HughNKry laughed.
“Here we are, what do you want?” AnrKEY was not softening in the face of HughNKry’s jovel tone.
“Funny story. My compatriots and I, formed the Green Army.”
“Green Army!?” SHEgamI was so surprised by this she said spoke out loud.
“Yeah, none of us liked red or blue that much. We all like green stuff, so we started our own thing.” HughNKry laughed again.
“So, What, you’re like the leader?” AnrKEY asked.
“No, nothing like that,” HughNKry replied, “we don’t have a leader. This the minister of earth. And this is the minister of air.”
“We’re all marry men.” Fangophile, the hobbit, spoke while exhaling smoke. A pipe stem was placed back in his mouth, the glowing red in the bowl and puckered cheeks indicated that he was inhaling. Taking the the pipe out of his mouth he smiled and smoke trickled from the corners.
“Right, we’re equals, you dig?” The third principle, LizZard, pull it’s hood down as it spoke, revealing the flat head of a gecko. He winked at them then licked his eye.
“Okay, I get it, no leader. That doesn't answer the question. Why are you here?” AnrKEY spoke.
“We need a place to hang out,” LizZard was the one who answered, “I used to have a place but, it got too crowded. Now we need another space. Fangophile had heard about this space. It sounded cool, so we thought we would come and check it out.”
“We really didn’t want any violence,” Fangophile said, “we did want the Blue Army out.”
“Fangophile had a bad experience at the hands of the Blue Army,” HughNKry said, “He really doesn’t like them. We gave those soldiers an opportunity to join us, they chose the other path.”
“So you killed them.” AnrKEY said flatly.
“Pretty much,” Fangophile said, “But we didn’t want too.”
“And we don’t want to kill you.” HughNKry said.
“We love peace, man.” LizZard injected.
“Right, but if we don’t join you, you’ll kill us, doesn’t feel like much of choice,” AnrKEY said.
“No.” HughNKry said quickly.” If you want to defect from the Blue Army we would be happy to have you, but you need to be willing. No you don’t have to defect, but you do need to leave, if you don’t give up the base we will kill you.”
“So if I want to stay at Gilman I have to join your army?”
“Gilman?” LizZard asked.
AnrKEY gestured to the towers, “the base,” she said.
Fangophile nodded, “good name.”
“We would really prefer to have you join us.” HughNKry seemed to look inside of SHEgamI’s head as he said, “Will you join us?”
The words range heavy in SHEgamI’s ear, and it suddenly seemed to be the best idea she had ever had, she heard herself say, “yes, of course I’ll join you.” Next to her AnrKEY was saying the same thing.
HughNKry beamed at them, “Wonderful, welcome to the Green Army! Now if we only had some TZ we could drink on it.”
AnrKEY snorted, “there is at least a barrel full inside. Why don’t we all sit down and get to know each other.” She opened the door and held it open while the four principles filed in.
