Thoughts of the paladin

[DoS Archive]

From: gudarien@aol.com (Gudarien)
Date: 06 Jun 1999 17:45:01 EDT

Sitting in the afternoon sun, he watched as the survivors of the family he had helped rested and ate the stew hae had cooked for them. His thoughts drifted to the arena. a place where he could practice his swordskills, and not put himself or anyone else at risk of injury. He loved the compitition, the dueling was well mannored compared to fighting for ones life as he had
done with the orcs, not an hour earlier.
Orcs were nothing to Gudarien. Slow and predictable, not a single blade or axe touched his skin. he did however have a small rip in his shirt, a closecall with a nasty double bladed axe, but that orc fell with a swift reverse swipe of his own longsword.
Gudarien looked to the youngest male of the family, he probably wasn't more than fourteen. He had watched an older brother and a friend of the family die before Gudarien had arrived, the look on the boy's face showed the horror of that event, even after all was said and done. The boy had even had a hand in saving his father's life. Gudarien leaned back against a wagon as he looked at the young man. He slowly gazed to the rest of the family, the
woman who seemed to be the mother, her mind was not with her. The attack had come so quickly and without provocation. The orcs had apparently decided they wanted a few human women, and since they seen these travelers, they made good targets. Her husband laid near her, sleeping soundly and recovering from his near death experience. Two older boys sat apart from the rest, they were twins, even though they didn't look alike. They had taken it upon
themselves to lookout for the family while Gudarien tended the needs as a healer. the pair were only moments apart in age of course, gudarien figured them to be around twenty-one or twenty-two. They were independant and seemed highly intelligent, along with the fact they had an unbreakable bond. Gudarien even thouht that they might even be able to read each others thoughts. The way the worked as a team impressed him. He shook his head slightly,
looking back to the small bowl of stew he had gotten for himself, and let his thoughts go back to the arena.
"Grand Master" He spoke softly. "Respectable enough in itself as an accomplishment, but not good enough." He looked to the sky as he swalloed a bit of stew, thinking of winning a warlord's tournament or something grand like that. He had partisipated in one warlord's tournament. Twice he had held the rank of warlord, but his skills in the ring were not sufficiant to keep him there. Gudarien felt dueling in the ring carries a different attitude than
when something such as ones life is at stake. He figured perhaps that was his problem, perhaps it was all in his head. "I will be a warlord in the next couple weeks." he stated to himself. He knew he would have to make time from his schedule, but the possibilities warrented the abcense from his normal duties that he volunteered for. He had done enough good that he hoped the people he helped would understand.
He glanced to the pile of orc bodies. They needed to be burried or burned. Gudarien hadn't decided what to do with them. Burning seemed the best bet, he was too tired to dig a grave that large by himself, and the family was in no shape to help. Nor did he think they would help do anything but burn them. He shook his head slightly as he finished his stew. "This is the smelly part" He whispered to himself as he set out to pile the bodies for
burning...

[DoS Archive]

From: aspenminds@aol.com (AspenMinds)
Date: 07 Jun 1999 10:50:07 EDT

::read post, get half way through the second and fall forward onto the board:: ZZZzzzzzZZZzzzzZZzzzZzzzZzzzzzz