Labyrinthine Spiral

[X][Com] Build Militia Gear
-[X] Commit 1 Expertise
[X][Com] Build Hamlet Church
-[X] Commit 1 Labor
[X][Per] Study Skill - Dungeonmaster
[X][CALLOM] Contact Baron

Baron Horvic of House Chevin-Bluth-on-Dore was about typical for the barons of Firbag: poorly educated but shrewd, having ambitions but knowing his limits. Where the counts and the duke oversaw actual economic activity, the barons of the province were basically in place to keep the swamp dwellers from going complete bandit on the important bits of trade. While on parchment the barons of Firbag had the most generous grants in the entire kingdom, the fact of the matter was that any parts of their estates they could not personally visit on a regular basis more or less paid no regular taxes, and produced so little in the way of trade that there wasn't any wealth their either. Horvic basically had enough income to support his retainers, keep the pile of wood and stones he called home intact, and more or less everything else left over went to paying his own taxes. The smarter of his ancestors might squirrel some wealth away to get some magical equipment or better trainers for their heirs, but the dumber of his ancestors - his grandfather being the most recent case - had a bad habit of drinking those little attempts to better the fief away. His own father had been a bit of both of those extremes, in that while he was certainly intelligent and sober, he also had pursued a number of over ambitious schemes and had nearly triggered a revolt before the count had stepped on him.

The most common way for a baron in Firbag to die was of bog fever at age fifty, and the second most common way was an arrow to the back in the opening salvo of a peasant insurgency. The counts knew this and very much resented having to send in support when they could be doing more significant things with the limited resources they had available, like participating in actual glorious battle with the enemies of the kingdom, attending tourneys, or getting to participate in a labyrinth patrol, with all the honour and rewards those brought. In some ways a knight on peregrination was in a better situation than a Firbag baron saddled with responsibilities.

Sitting around his manor waiting for winter to end, Horvic half wanted something interesting to happen. The late winter to early spring was always the most dull time because everyone was still bunkered down for the season and travel was the least reliable, so both merchants and bandits just stayed put, and there wasn't even the energy of the planting season to distract from the boredom. Horvic and his knights at least had the option to train if they were really bored, but many days they preferred to just do the minimum of work and rest by the fires to try to ward off the chill and damp.

However, when on the cusp between winter and spring one of the headmen from an outlying village came to him, Horvic immediately began to regret his idle wish, which had clearly been transformed by the whims of the divine into a horrible curse. He had wanted maybe a sighting of a particularly large boar or a bear up and about unusually early, maybe an ogre wandering into the area, not the emergence of a new labyrinth!

This was bad. This was incredibly bad. He was going to have to send immediate missives to his lord, his lord's lord, and the king directly. He would have to figure out who to leave in charge while he went to go talk to Count Maervick about what they would need to do, and then the king and duke and the nearest bishop would be organizing their own responses and he would have to be figuring out how to host them and then...

Oh God, he would have to make sure his family records were in order! While on the one hand he didn't want to be anywhere near a dungeon, if he was going to get kicked out he wanted proper compensation for it, and if anyone challenged his ancestral claims he and his family were screwed!

Okay, okay, first order of business: send Reinner to this Bairglad with a with yeomen scouts. If it was a legit situation the yeomen could make it back safely while Reinner made sure the labyrinth didn't belch out a dragon or something, and it if it was some sort of elaborate prank they should be able to fight and/or sneak their way back. Then get the village priest and a merchant to go over everything to make sure they were all rock solid and in order, and by then they should know exactly what is going on. Send the missives and set up a meeting with Maervick, then travel there and he would figure things out from there. Ugh, this was probably going to take until summer before he knew what was going to happen, and while there would be reinforcements trickling in before the main response, there would also be troublemakers and all the problems a labyrinth brought.

---

By the time Callom got back to the hamlet with the knight Reinner, the foundation for the new church they were building had been laid down. It was on the ridge of solid rock near the entrance to the labyrinth, the hard stone not normally worth building on because of how quickly it turned into an unstable slope of soft moss. For something that could actually hold at least half the hamlet population at once they would need to go through the effort of digging down to the stone in a long line to get the exact slope to build upon. The progress on the wood and stone cutting also slowed as Jellic had assembled together as much iron as the community could spare to hammer together a few messers, war scythes, and some cookware plate that would offer a little protection for vitals.

Reinner, with his maille, gambeson, four-mirror-plates, arming sword and round shield was clearly not impressed, but he also had a few good things to say about the initiative on display. However, when Callom took the knight to meet with Katrin, she had some immediate bad news.

"I've been trying to understand and connect to the labyrinth, and I've come to realize that it is growing," Katrin explained.

"They do that," Reinner said with some authority after a moment's hesitation.

Fenrick nodded and said, "That is a constant part of the old tales and scripture."

"Yes, but this one got deeper right away. I can feel... how to describe? The labyrinth is like... like a mat of wool laid within a stream, only for spirits. Sometimes they leave behind gold, but mostly they leave behind the mud of sin upon them to pass through as cleaner waters. It's constantly changing with new channels being eroded or deposited, and worms can grow in the mud. And a new, bigger channel that bigger and more dangerous worms can fit in opened up. I think. Does that make any sense?" Katrin explained.

"We'll need to check and understand more about what is going on," Reinner stated. "You haven't gone in yet?"

"No, we've been getting things ready mostly," Callom admitted.

Reinner considered it for a moment. He'd never actually been in a labyrinth, but he had received his childhood training from an old adventurer who had passed on information.

"We need to keep an eye on it. I will work out some scouting for the near future and then some training for your militia, and we'll go scouting," Reinner announced.

Currently Have 2 Community Actions and 1 Personal Action for Katrin
Knight Reinner has announced Intent to Explore Labyrinth this week