Characters and details that need to be named in a fitting manner:
Mr.X - a mercenary warrior type strong guy = Maxxeem
Ms.Y - Hyperborean hybrid stubborn slave girl = Isinga
Some successful warlord: dameeti
Some scholarly type rich baddie: Assad El Horgast
THE BIG CITY : where Scholar1 lives.
The night was cold outside, but in the tent of Dameeti the fires roared and insence sticks burned exotic instruments play by drunken minstrels to celebrate yet another victory. All the lavishing tapestries were raided by him and other men. Slave-girls scurried about in tiny costumes or nude, some old, some new, but many enough for a man to have a new conquest each night.
Maxxeem spotted a glimpse of white hair wave past him, and by casual impulse scooped his arm around the curvy frame of the girl to pull her near.
SLAP! – Flinged a fair hand a response to the intrucion to the tall man’s cheek, quiker than Maxxeem could blink his eyes. Maxxeem laughed and returned the gesture in kind, whipping the girl’s behind with his wide palm and sending her skipping out of his reach. “Ha! I’ll tame you yet, little cobra!” Maxxeem caught only a brief sight of the red print of his hand on white shapely rump, and the white hair flaying by breeze before the girl disappeared into the lively crowd. He did not chase her. He had other things to do tonight.
Maxxeem goes to assassinate Dameeti, but gets a surprise.
He found Dameeti dead on his bed. There was a deep cut wound across the whole length of his bare chest, from his adam’s apple to his manhood, that still stood upright, much more alive than the rest of him.
Soon someone else steps in and sounds alarm. Maxxeem realized his peril to be at hand. This was the man who he was ment to kill, and yet, now he received the blame even without him doing so. Assad El Horgast had asked him to bring Dameeti’s signature dagger to him as proof of the successful kill, but Maxxeem has no time to search for it.
He took the first mount he could find and rode into the desert.
In the desert he soon came across horse-track, heading the same route he was. Another day he found the horse dead. It was skillfully skinned and it’s blood collected along with some meat. Foot-prints continued from there on and he followed them. Once he thought that he saw a glimpse of someone walking on the dune in the horizon ahead of him, but it was only a vision of a moment, before it disappeared again.
The next day he finds a strange camp, a shelted made of the fresh skin of the horse, rich of blood that had dried stiff and reeked of death. Not too far from it, he saw a figure laying face-down in the sand. The figure was covered with layers of dried blood to such extend that the sun couldn’t burn through it to the fair skin of the nearly naked girl, but he could still recognize the white hair, and the very familiar shape of the rump to belong to the girl on the previous night.
When he got closer, he got the instinctive sense of peril, and hesitated to approach the seemingly dead woman, and he was right with his precautions. As soon as he nudged the side of the round buttocks with the flat of his blade, the girl leaped up from the ground, in her hand a dagger that she had hidden in the sand beneath her palm. She flung at him, and then tried to skip to his horse and gallop away, but Maxxeem was quik enough to stop her and toss her back to the ground.
The girl got up quikly, ready to defend herself with her knife.
She was white-haired, with clear bone structure that hinted of Hyperborean descent, but too short to pass for a true Hyperborean woman. The rest of her was feminine and pampered, but the way she carried the layers of dry blood on her made her seem more savage than a pet. Maxxeem also notes, that the dagger she holds is the signature dagger that belonged to Dameeti and what he was ment to take to Assad El Horgast.
Maxxeem rides around the girl and scowl her for stealing his kill from him, but leaves the need for the dagger unmentioned. He mocks her bodypaint, despite knowing that it likely saved her from the burning sun of the desert.
The girl was quiet and still defensive. She seemed to wait for him to make his move. Her aggressive demeanor didn’t seem to fit with her tender appearance and the glare of her jade-green eyes made Maxxeem feel uneasy about the serious silence that she wore. He continues to trot a circle around her and mocks her about her height now and her clear hybrid bastard descend. That seems to work.
“I’m still tall enough to slap you! You must grow a little taller yet, barbarian, before you are safe from me!” There was a clear counter-mockery and a bit of jest in her voice that breaks the ice.
Maxxeem laughs, and says that perhaps he ought to leave the girl to the desert then, if she was going to treat him so poorly. He had thought of taking her to Kamurlaria
and sell her in the market, but seeing her bad temper she might be more trouble than she’s worth.
That seems to soften the girl enough. Clearly she had suffered her share of the desert and didn’t like the idea of beign left behind. She now begs kindly for the delivery, and agrees that he may take her, and sell her in the Kamurlaria. She’d put out her best performance to ensure that Maxxeem got a price worth the effort for delivering her.
Isinga gives up her dagger and mounts Maxxeem’s horse with him. They head together towards Kamurlaria.
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Maxxeem agreed to take her to the Kamurlaria, where Scholar1 waited for the news of Dameeti’s death. While they ride towards Kamurlaria, Maxxeem mentions that he was going to see Assad El Horgast. Isinga tries to persuade Maxxeem to not go to see Assad El Horgast, and tells him about a treasure. The dagger that she took from Dameeti and then had to give up to Maxxeem is a key to the treasure chamber, and that is why Assad El Horgast wants it. Isinga tries to suggest that Maxxeem doesn’t take the dagger to Assad El Horgast, but comes with her to the north instead, and claim the treasure together.
Maxxeem doesn’t believe her at first, atleast he pretends not to believe her.
When they arrive to Kamurlaria, Maxxeem makes a stop by a fountain to let Isinga wash the blood off herself before going to the market. He measures the dagger in his hand and his two options for a moment, distracted only for a second by his thought. Isinga slips away, disappearing from Maxxeem. Maxxeem curses about it, but doesn’t waste time on looking for her. After all, he got his kill and the dagger, which was what he needed to claim his reward. The possibility of Isinga telling the truth tickles his mind, and he lingers in the markets of Kamurlaria for a night.
The next day Maxxeem goes to see Assad El Horgast, in his temple/tower(?). The news of Dameeti’s death has already arrived, and now Assad El Horgast urgently asks for the dagger. Maxxeem gives him a dagger and collects his reward for killing Dameeti. He overhears Assad El Horgast to give an order to his henchmen to prepare his ship for a journey to the northern wastes for tomorrow. Maxxeem is convinced that Isinga spoke truth.
After that he leaves casually, but in fact, he hastens for the next ship towards north.
He had given Assad El Horgast a copy of the dagger that the tinkers of the Kamurlaria had prepared for him the night before, and gave the decoy dagger to Assad El Horgast. He kept the original one to himself! Now he hastens to the harbors to find a boat.
He meets Isinga in the harbor and gets a steady grip on her hair.
Isinga tells Maxxeem that she was expecting Assad El Horgast to travel north, as soon as he gets the dagger, and that she planned to attempt staying one step ahead of him, and stealing the dagger from Assad El Horgast along the journey.
Now they are both one step ahead of Assad El Horgast Maxxeem has the dagger, and Isinga knows where it belongs. Maxxeem depends on Isinga’s knowledge, but she can’t get anywhere without the dagger. Maxxeem has to keep an eye on the dagger aswell as his own neck for the whole journey with her. After all, she’s killed a man before to get it.
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As they sail north, Isinga tells a story about her ancestor, who was a lord logn ago, before the lands of Hyboria took their shape and draw their borders. A Witch who worshipped forgotten gods and practiced secret arts. With the power that he gained from his magic he established his kingdom, and with the favor of the gods he made his kingdom prosperous. Gold and jewels piled up in the temples to the satisfaction of the witch and his masters, who traded them for greater and greater divine services. Eventually there was more gold in the temple than there was gold in the mountains, where it was dug out from. The hunger of the gods never ceased, even the riches of the land were running thin. They demanded more, even if the Witch was uncapable of providing.
The Witch began to rob his own people to sacrifice all they owned to the gods, and their lives, when all wealth had already been given. The temple of gold was painted scarlet with sacrifice to the hungry gods. In the end, the people became desperate, and a riot rose against the Witch. Under the looming peril, the Witch collected the treasure to a secret temple, and sealed them into the stone in a secret place. The dagger was a key to the temple’s door, and with that same dagger the Witch took his own life, to deny the angered people the joy of killing him.
Without the strength of the ruler and the magic of the witch that provided the favor of the gods, the land soon fell apart and it’s people scattered and found their own tribes and ways of life. Much of what used to be was forgotten.
The dagger, aswell as the secret of the temple’s location was kept by the Witch’s wife, and his four daughters. They were taken away and sold as slaves to different corners of the world, but the women passed the tale to their children, from generation to generation. Their lives were in the hands of others, but they tried, as much as they could, to find the lost key to the hidden temple. Through their lives, the young ones were taught in secret by their slave-mothers to know and recognize this dagger by memory, and know the way to the treasure that would once make them queens.
Then Dameeti began his raids to the treasuries of the less-well-known lands, and picked up the strange dagger as any loot from some naïve tribesman’s belt. However, him carrying a dagger like that as his signature became known, and that is how Assad El Horgast (and Ms.Y) heard about it.
Isinga used to belong to Assad El Horgast, who had by prophecy or magic become aware of the treasure and the key to the temple. Since then he had kept his eyes and ears open for finding the key. He did not know that one of his favorite pets was the very descendant of the great Witch, and also on the look for the dagger. As soon as the rumor of such a dagger being carried By Dameeti was brought to Assad El Horgast’s ears, Isinga heard it too. She escaped Assad El Horgast, and hastened to claim the dagger from Dameeti before he could.
Dameeti had no idea what he had got his hands on. He thought it a mere pretty knife, fitting for a king or warlord, that he used for boasting with. He died for his mistake.
“Would one be proud of such an ancestor that robs and kills his own people? “ says Maxxeem doubtfully.
“What ruler doesn’t rob his own people?” counters Isinga. "Is a warlord that takes land by force and murder any better righted to his gain? Is a king who builds wonders with the blood of hundreds of slaves deserving of his glory?”
“Certainly, but you? A mix-blood slave-girl? You don’t even look like the spawn of an ancient Witch-king” mocks Maxxeem.
Isinga grows angry.
“Who are you to question my line, or my worth, bastard mercenary! Even if my ancestor was a wicked man, his power is for none to question! It is true, that my mother and grandmother were raped and bred by lesser men, but my blood sources from deeper flows that such shallow touch can’t spoil! Riots took my ancestor’s glory, but I carry it within me! Gods abandoned his realm, but I will raise it! Raiders and thieves took away the temple’s key, but I’ve found it! Men like YOU took my honor a long time ago! May the heavens launch their judgement on me! May the generations of slavery have their bite on my lineage, but they wont turn my blood! May Wizards and seers haunt my tail and demons from hell stand in my way, but even then! Even then I will have what is mine!”
“And by Mithra, so will I!”Maxxeem grabs the girl. “I told you that I would tame you yet, and so I will! I might aswell start right now!” Maxxeem is impressed by Isinga’s proud speech and feels his masculine urges grow. He seeks to kiss her, and she allowes it, but then stares and glares at him, unimpressed and with such a demeanor that would catch it’s cold on a fire demon’s heart. Maxxeem desides to not press his urges, concidering that Isinga still wanst the dagger and doesn’t need him, and she had already slan a man during the act to get it. He couldn’t watch over the dagger and his own life while in lustful abandon with the girl, and he still needed her to show him to the treasure.
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They come ashore at the northernmost reach of the sea, some days after. From there they treck north, always north, following what seems to be an wide canyon, maybe the base of and ancient river. Maxxeem begins to think that Isinga can’t know where she is leading them, but eventually hills begin to rise around them, and they come to a place that Isinga seems to recognize. It is the crowned head of an ancient king, carved to the stone of a cliff. Erosion has eaten it so badly that it would hardly be recognized for a face unless one was looking for it. From there, Isinga heads to the direction the king was looking, and finds another bare Cliffside. Against the cliff leans a large, natural boulder that creates a narrow gap between the boulder and the cliff, a shelter from rain and wind. In this gap Isinga finds the outlines of a door in the shadow, but sees no hole for a lock. They attempt to push the door in. Maxxeem gets to show off his manly muscles. The diir gives in an moves in with a heavy grumble, opening a pass into a narrow corridor.
They follow the way into the depths of the hill and come into a round, wide room, built of rare white stone that glisters like salt and illuminates every glimpse of light. The two can’t tell where the light was coming from, but it was bright and cold, like midwinter’s day, even brighter than outside by this hour. The floor of the room was detailed with symbols of magical meaning, and on the walls were carved stone images, strange and horrific faces of demons or monsters, placed in a neat row like trophies on a hunter’s wall.
Isinga sticks the dagger into the narrow mouth of one of the stone faces on the wall, and twists like a key in a hole. The wall next to the face opens up with a roar of the boulder, and whispering moans in the air like invisible laborers were pushing the stone aside. Once silence set again Maxxeem and Isinga dared to step forward. They came to a wide chamber that was piled from floor to bottom with, Glistening gems and idols of gold and primitive jewelry made of finest materials ever seen.
They begin hauling the treasure. Isinga can carry a smaller load at once, so she leaves the room for a moment while Maxxeem stays a moment longer before having the fill of his carrying capacity.
While he is at it, he hears Isinga scream in the previous room. When he gets there, he sees that Assad El Horgast has arrived, together with a dozen armored spearmen.
Assad El Horgast has Isinga by the golden bead around her neck and shakes her, urging. “How did you get here, she lynx!? Answer me!” He trethens Isinga with his copy of the key-dagger, and the sees Maxxeem. Without question he commands his men to kill him, while he unleashes his astonished rage in murderous attempt on Isinga. He is about to strike her with his version of the key-dagger which he happens to be holding in his hand, when he is suddenly halted by a horrific sight!
One of the monstrous heads on the wall begin to move, and extracts itself from the wall with a hideous, long body following it and twirling out of the worm-hole where it was hidden. The emerged giant stone-centipede begins to harvest the spear-men with good appetite, reaping their flesh with it's scythe-ike mandibles and numerous thorned legs!
Maxxeem is trying to hack his way past the same troops to save Isinga from Assad El Horgast’s knife. Isinga gets to saving herself first, and strikes HER key-dagger from her hip to the chest of the Assad El Horgast. Assad El Horgast dies with a WTF expression on his face, seeing the same dagger he was about to kill the woman with now being plunged hilt-deep into his heart.
Isinga has one moment to gather herself after Assad El Horgast has gone down. She picks up his dagger, now wielding 2, to defend herself and just in time! The giant centipede grabs her and lifts her frail body from the ground in attempt to bring her up to it’s hideous shredding mouth. Isinga slashes back like a cat with her 2 daggers, in wild desperate rage trying to dodge the chopping and slashing mandibles and other razor-sharp extentions that seem to strike at her from every direction. Her arms become bloodied with slash-wounds and finally she gives up her defence and strikes both of her daggers into the black wide-set eyes of the monster. The creature looses it’s sight, but gets her to it’s jaws and bites her hip before dropping her to the ground.
Maxxeem begins hacking on the blinded monster, breaking cracks to it’s solid armor until he finally gets through and manages to draw oozy blood. Isinga scratches from below, unable to stand due to her broken hip. She keeps on striking in the vulnerable underside of the centipede. Finally the centipede begins to reflexively roll into a twirl, and curls around itself into an unliving knot.
They spend a moment in the blood-filled room, measuring their situation and the options.
“What a shame. I had some plans for those hips.” moans Maxxeem with a grin.
“And I had some plans to make a cap out of your foreskin!” Isinga hissed and gasped. Then she was quiet and very still for a moment while she adjusted herself to best resting position. “Maybe another time”.
There is so much treasure that they can’t take it all with them. They deside to take as much as they can, and leave the rest.
“My master is dead, and with only this that I have with me now, I can ensure my life as a free woman. But now that I have it all, I cannot think what else to do, what else to want? You were right, mercenary, I may be of the line of kings and witches, but have I the knowledge to be a witch? Have I the wisdom to be a queen? I do not feel it in me, but one day, perhaps. I will return south with you, and see what the world and freedom can teach me. One day, I will know better, and make my own treasure and my own world around it.”
They re-seal the temple, and both take 1 dagger of the now existing 2. Agreeing that whichever of them gets back there first with a better plan and a better purpose, will claim the rest of the treasure.