Prologue (may or may not be continued some day)
Gaius began to think that this wasn´t such a bright idea after all. He had wandered for months, just to get away from the hive of scum and villainy that was his hometown, but the lack of easily available food and company took its toll, and even though his physical abilities increased formidably from all the outdoor sport he couldn´t think of anything else but a nice comfy bed and giant steaks. A town named Hiverton was supposed to lie somewhere along the river he was following, but so far he hadn´t seen a sign of civilization since he left his home, if the term civilization was even applicable for that. All he could see was water, trees, smoke, the sky... smoke? Huh, that´s a new one. He did a double-take and assured himself that yes, there indeed was smoke rising to the skies directly ahead. Pictures of barbeques popped into his head, and with newly found vigor he accelerated his pace. However, as he came closer to the source of the smoke his ears picked up some decidedly not barbequesque sounds. The bangs of swords clashing, screams of children slaughtered and gurgles of men dieing gave him the feeling that his much-deserved rest and relaxation won´t come so soon after all.
Now standing clear of trees, his eyes confirmed his worst fears: In what was presumably Hiverton a gruesome battle between undead and humans raged, and the latter seemed to be losing it. Gaius has not been noticed by the ghastly creatures yet, so he still had a chance to just turn around and run for his life. However his sense of honor got the better of him and so he charged into battle, hoping that he could at least save one or two innocent lives before his death. He was never much of a fighter, but he still grabbed a sword from a dead soldier, and not a moment too soon: He barely parried a strike from one of the undead, but began taking steps back as the monster continued its attack. Luckily its movements were slow and predictable so that even he could make short work of it with the few skills he had in sword fighting.
Unfortunately the undead had numbers on their side, and now they came by the dozens for him. He slowly retreated into the city, knowing he was outmatched, and looked for alternative ways to dispose of his pursuers. Glancing above he noticed a rather large bale of hay hanging from a crane about two stories up. Thinking quickly he ran a few steps back, spoke a short prayer to whichever god it may concern and threw his sword up. With more luck than skill he managed to hit the rope holding the bale in place, cutting it through and burying the pack of undead under a ton of hay. His relief was short, as there was still movement in the mass of dry grass and body parts. If he didn´t do something the creatures would sooner or later climb out of it. Gaius needed to destroy them permanently, and he already had an idea how to do it: He ran into a nearby building that looked like a Forge but was greeted with the swing of a a sword that barely missed his head when he entered.
Consarn it boy! Ah´d almost smitten ya! Ya´ll alright?, the man holding the weapon asked him after he realized that the intruder wasn´t one of the undead. I´m fine, Gaius replied, and continued: Do you have a piece of wood and some fire I could borrow? There´s a bunch of undead trapped under a lot of hay out there and I would like to properly take care of them before they can escape.
Shoot, d'ya think that is really such a good idea? Sure it´ll take care of these hellspawn there, but ah reckon tha fire´ll spread like, well, wildfire.
If you´ve got a better suggestion, I´m all yours.
Meh, alrigthy then, fortunately there´s a huge water pipe leading ta mah roof in case a fire emergencies, so ah s´ppose ah´ll just cut it open if it looks like tha flames are gonna spread to tha buildings around it.
The craftsman let Gaius put a pair of his work-gloves on and reached for a burning piece of wood from his chimney which Gaius accepted and ran out with to set fire to the bale of hay. After he made sure that the smith was on the top of his forge to put it out when the undead looked dead enough or the fire got out of hand, he asked if he could borrow one of his swords and for directions on where to look for persons of authority, both of which the smith provided.
Armed with a brand new sword the young man went to find the town hall, killing undead where he found them alone and sneaking past when they were in larger groups. The rare survivors he found were all separated from him by crowds of undead, so he chose to ignore those poor souls and doubled his pace-...
And the men working on the special project directed by Dionys are happier, and able to work more effectively...
if I go all that way the tent will be undefended but I'm not much of a defender with just this tiny Bow.
