Maerquin 25: Storm op Komst*

[janestarz]

As I was preparing for this weekend, I was very afraid the plot would not be for me. Everyone was called to fight the orcs invading the barony, but Marianne found ways to make herself useful.


Dramatis Personae
Marianne den Schrijfster - a scribe played by me;
Victor - Aide of Marianne, played by Regin (Indewarrus);
Polomeus - a priest of Eleena, played by Eric;
Roosje - a fighter, played by Madelon;
Ellenora Lelie - a priest of Anmarack, played by nathreee;
Elizabeth - a follower (priestess?) of Ranaa, played by Margriet;

Friday
Our journey neared its end but as we approached the farmstead Geelvaeld the threat of encountering Orcs grew. Nevertheless, we decided to press on to get to safety in stead of spending the night in the forest, and so we found ourselves in the forest after nightfall, with movement to our left. Our group - Jinni, Edith, Dabbet, and of course Victor among them, walked on quickly, but there were more orcs ahead and we were surrounded. The orcs attacked us, and I was struck twice by an orc axe before Victor jumped in between the beast and me. Someone helped me up and we ran, ran to safety, the sound of orcs fading behind us.

I clutched my side, panting in my bodys, and we counted heads and soon found that Dabbet was missing. Jinni and I stayed at the side of the road, the farmstead lights shining in the distance. Presumably we would be safe here, surrounded by the fields, or at least we would see the orcs coming. The rest returned to the woods to retrieve Dabbet.

Jinni made no move to heal me, and I didn't ask, clutching my side in pain, the blood staining my hands.
There was a rustling sound behind us and suddenly a dark shape loomed over us. It was Polomeus! He bent over me and Jinni and mumbled a spell that stopped the bleeding, helped me up and walked with us to the farmstead. "Go on, it's safe inside." he said. "I'll go back and help the others."
"Please be safe." I whispered. Jinni and I walked the last bit to the gate of the farmstead. It was a sturdy gate, at the end of the known world, the end of the barony. Some people ushered us inside and the first thing I noticed was a well in the middle of the courtyard.
Inside the farmhouse, it was chaos. A woman holding a bow asked us who we were and a cook had blocked the door with a large cupboard. Once he saw we were human, and we were women, we were allowed to enter.


Orcs! - photo by Gwendolijn

The inside was in disarray. Shattered crockery, bleeding bodies, and paper littered the floor. Chairs and tables were upturned and a maid was hiding under the tables of the bar, shaking a rolling pin at us. Orcs had broken inside, killed a few, and left through the fields.

Slowly more people arrived. Gambo started clearing away some rubbish and the dead Roodlaars^**, and order returned to the farmhouse. I sat idly by, clutching a cup of tea Victor had brought me when he arrived. Some people joined my table later, and they introduced themselves, although one of them wasn't speaking. Her name was Elizabeth; lucky for her, she still wrote down some things and she could communicate to some extent.
Coenraad came up to our table and noticed her writing. He asked her if she would be willing to perform some duties for the Roodlaarzen regiment, and Elizabeth nodded. I wasn't too happy with this, because being a scribe is what I do best, and if I could act as a scribe I might not need to fight. Besides, Elizabeth was toting a large sword and could fight, whereas I would be terrible with a sword, having never learned the skill.

I finished my tea and returned my cup, and followed Coenraad outside. He went to a smithy in the courtyard, where he was discussing with several Roodlaarzen. I stood by until he noticed me, and only when he turned to me, did I speak.
"I uh... heard you required a scribe, sir." I said softly. "I was wondering if perhaps I could help." I stared at my boots.
"Ah, yes!" Coenraad remembered me. "You performed a service for me a little while back, I remember it." He turned to face the others. "She is very neathanded. Miss..."
"Marianne." I softly said.
"The other woman doesn't seem to speak." Coenraad said. "It might be handy to have a scribe who can ask questions."
The Roodlaars who seemed to be in charge nodded. "I'll let you know later whom I decide on."
With that, I was dismissed and went back to my table inside, nodding to Elizabeth and Ellenora who were still seated. Us ladies, I thought, should probably stick together.

Ellenora looked like a rich widow, dressed in blacks and a white corset accentuating her waist. There was a black lace veil in her hair, but it was pulled back over her hair, which was pinned up. Elizabeth wore greys and whites, and her cloak held a white raven, the insignia of Ranaa. I assumed she would hook up with Hugo and Thorfinn, who were also servants of Ranaa.

Soon enough, Lotte Molenaarsdochter came up to our table and looked at the ladies. "You're the scribe?" she asked me, and I shyly nodded, looked furtively at Elizabeth. "Fine. I need you to go around the place, and write down everyone here. I need their names, and whether they can handle a sword, and if they can do magic and what kind."
I rummaged around in my writing chest and nodded. "I will."
I took out parchment, a small calligraphy pen, and my ink, and carefully juggled these items while I went about the room. It was hard to walk up to people and speak to them, but most noticed me hovering just next to them, and included me in their conversation.

Suddenly my work was interrupted when a Roodlaars captain ordered us to all come outside. There, the captain of the Roodlaarzen inaugurated the man I saw earlier. He had to swear an oath, and was named Lieutenant. His name was Warder Bloedvuist.
Immediately after, Lotte ordered me inside and, as per the instructions of Warder, we set about dividing the people into 'swords', or regiments. Barak the dwarf, Polomeus, Edith, and Hugo all would be named corporal, and would lead a sword of troops. Edith would be in charge of the healers, and Polomeus would be leading the mages. As soon as I saw my chance, I wrote Victor's name down in Edith's department. Although he wasn't a healer, he could help move the wounded, and it would keep him mostly out of harm's way.

As people were coming up to our table and Lotte decided in which sword they would be placed, I realised that my mind was drifting. I looked down at the parchment and where I had wanted to write the name Rafael, now was a sentence bracketed by his name. It read "Find the secret of the farmstead". It was like the sentence had written itself down while I was writing a name.
'Not again...' I thought.
I glanced at Lotte, who was still discussing with the next person at the table, and struck the sentence from the page. She hadn't noticed it yet, so I was lucky. But again, and again it happened. "Warder is a traitor." read one of the messages, and I was adamant to strike it from the page. "Find the flower with the sword and make her search for the secret of the farmstead".
When Lotte touched my papers, my heart jumped. There had been much crossing out of names, as people wanted to be placed in a different sword, so the strange sentence were not the only things crossed out. But I relaxed when Lotte sighed "I can't read, so remind me again which swords are now complete?"

I quickly told Victor about the messages when he was near, but he didn't know either. The flower with the sword? The secret of the farmstead? He promised to keep his eyes open and left me to my work.
In the end, Lotte said we could stop even though we hadn't written everyone's name down. Hugo was making trouble for himself (again) and it was getting late. Warder had visited our table several times, but left us to our work. Lotte sighed, weary with the task. "We'll check over the swords tomorrow morning, and then make more alterations if need be."
With that, I was dismissed.

Saturday
People stared at me somewhat. In the middle of breakfast, I had suddenly said in a loud voice "Roosje^***!" and it made little sense to them. I apologised blushingly, and bent towards Victor who was mutilating a sandwich next to me. "Roosje is the flower with the sword. It's not Ellenora or Elizabeth, it's Roosje!" I said enthusiastically.
"You're right." he said drily. "Will you tell her?"
I nodded. Roosje had been keeping a secret of mine, and she had done well. I was sure I could persuade her to find the secret of the farmstead without too much trouble. She was young, but adventurous.

I told Roosje I had gotten a message. She was curious on how I got that message. Hugo had delivered some mail from Orkenslacht the night previous, but it was nothing like that. I told her it was still just as important that we'd listen to the message. "Alright, I'll try." she said. "But I don't know how much time there will be. I also have to go on patrols."
Shortly after I had spoken to her, the owner of the farmstead approached me. "You can write." she said, her hands shaking with age. "I need to make an inventory for the Roodlaarzen. Can you help me write it down?"
I went into a storage room with her, and decided to hear her out about the farmstead. I hardly need have bothered, as she herself told me on how as a young girl went looking for hidden passageways and secret tunnels, but she never found any. Just before we were done and I left the storageroom, my eye fell on a hatch in the floor. I counted three hatches in total, but didn't mention them and left again. I looked for Victor, and we pried each of the three hatches open. They all revealed dry and dark tunnels, a staircase down into the ground.


Dwarf soup - a quintessential part of Maerquin. Photo by me.

I got Roosje, Ferrat, Polomeus and a lantern, and stepped down into the tunnel. It led to a dark room, but some symbols glowed on the cavernous ceiling. Several were on eye-height, some a little higher, but we could make them out clearly. Roosje and I wandered around the room, making notes of the symbols and I drew a map of where they were located.
Then we found the tray of sand. Roosje suggested drawing one of the symbols in the sand and started on the first one, a diamond on top of two horizontal lines and flanked by a third horizontal line on both sides. As soon as she was done, a splash of water came from out of nowhere and hit her in the face. Roosje shrieked because she was startled, but seemed to think it was fun, and wiped out the symbol only to start on the next.
One of the symbols she drew down made an arrow of energy, and it sparked off Roosje, hitting her full in the chest before it bore into my torso. Polomeus bent over me, and used a healing spell to help me.

After trying each symbol in turn -- and no further surprises, we found a splash of water, the energy arrow, the making of a hole in the table, a small flame appearing, and one last effect that I have forgotten already. Since it yielded no further results, we returned to the storage room and we tried the second hatch.
This was a longer tunnel and it ended up in a large caverous room. We could hear the sound of dripping water and some birds whistling. But when we came closer, we could see it wasn't birds, but large fish creatures. They had human heads, and they were swimming in a large basin in the cavern. From above we could see sunlight filtering through, and I realised we were underneath the well.
But the well was empty, or so they'd said. I saw a pile of rocks in the lake, underneath the opening in the ceiling. Maybe the fish creatures had placed them there, I don't know. But it would stop the bucket from getting into the water, so that everyone would think the well was empty, or blocked.

On the opposite side of the water we could see a table of rocks, and on top of it was something, but as soon as we tried to get into the water, the creatures would attack, snapping at our legs. Ferrat asked something in a strange language. "Hungry." he simply said, as Ferrat is a man of little words. Polomeus went back up to the storage room and into the kitchen to ask for a loaf of bread, while Roosje kept the fish creatures at bay with some chocolate. We were safe enough on the ledge, but they wanted to cross.
When Polomeus tossed the bread into the water, the creatures started eating, and Polomeus and Ferrat and Roosje crossed the water. However much I wanted to go there, my bodys would seriously limit my ability to swim, the water looked cold, and my dress would soak up the water and drag me down, and there was no telling how deep the basin was. I opted to stay on this side, taking care of Roosje's bag.

Apparantly there was some sort of puzzle on the other side, and while I took care of Roosje's bag, the others tried to solve the puzzle. They were at it for a long time, and fish creatures stuck their all-too-human heads out at us over the water all the time, keeping a close eye on us on either side of the water.
When they finally gave up, Ferrat had a solution to get back across. I couldn't make out what he said exactly, but all of the fish creatures suddenly attacked one of their own, and Ferrat also jumped into the water to attack the creature, but Polomeus dragged him back and they went across with little incident.

But there was one tunnel left, and this was the smallest and shortest of them all. It stopped suddenly at a rock wall, but Roosje found an opening and squeezed through. "There's a man here. And he is dead." she said matter-of-factly, and she crawled back out, clutching a pile of paperwork. We sat down on the rocks, reading the papers. Most of them were letters, or descriptions of creatures like niyades, who are water dryads. We decided to take all the letters along with us, but one of the papers refused to come along. Polomeus said it would be a dangerous paper, and that we couldn't leave them lying around like that. He told Roosje to rip it up.
"But maybe we can use it in the war against the orcs." Roosje said, after tearing the paper in two. "Maybe we shouldn't destroy it."
"I think maybe she's right. Perhaps it's dangerous to leave it lying around, but we can't destroy it either." I piped up shyly. Polomeus agreed to leave the papers in there, and we crawled back out. We must have looked strange indeed, coming out of the storage room, three of us dripping wet.


Swords of armed fighters were sent out to patrol the woods; Aladin (Sander), Hugo (cabaray) and Gambo (Jozef) - photo by Gwendolijn.

Meanwhile, the war was still on. The Roodlaarzen had organised swords of troops, and the swords were sent out into the woods on patrol, to gather wood to create a barrier or to reinforce the gates, and they had to train. What surprised me the most is that so far, Marianne was left alone, and wasn't directed to a corporal or assigned to a sword. But one of the commanding officers, I think Coenraad, came up to me to instruct me now. He told me that the corporals would be coming to me to report how many orc ears they had gathered, and that I was to write these things down.
Of course, I would obey him. I might fudge the records a bit, but I would write it down. However, I never had any intention of staying out of the rooms downstairs.

First though, I started to write a little something in my booklet. The puzzling 'messages' in my writing appeared to have stopped, but they warranted a mentioning in my diary. And where was Theodoor? We could have used his help very much with these intriguing mysteries in the basement, but he had said very little, and traveled to some unknown destination alone. Perhaps he was at the academy, or maybe he was just sent to a different camp to fight against the orcs...
I didn't have time to finish writing though, and finally gave up trying to form a coherent sentence, promising myself to continue later. Outside, the Roodlaarzen sent swords out on patrols, to reinforce the gates and to create a barrier.

In Theodoor's absence I had to make do with other wise men, but Claudius was probably out on patrol. I did have a list of most people and their skills, and I ended up with two of the Van Katsheuvel children: Reina and Kenda. I also asked Roosje and Elizabeth to join us, and Victor as he had not yet seen any of the rooms down in the basement.
We went straight to the room that would be most important for them, the room with the symbols. There was some discussion and Roosje demonstrated how the sand 'worked', and Reina and Kenda started discussing the possibilities. They started the theorise that maybe we should write down other things in the sand. Roosje wrote her own name down, but nothing happened for a moment. Slowly though, she closed her eyes.
"What's wrong Roosje?" one of the Van Katsheuvel daughters said.
"Headache." Roosje said. She cleared the sand of her name, and she told us that slowly the headache was retreating.

We tried several options: Roosje writing down her name, Victor writing down the name he got at his birth, and Roosje writing down someone else's name. Victor never got a headache, but Roosje did. When Roosje wrote my name, nothing happened. But I was onto a theory, although I didn't want to try it with them reading over my shoulder. When they returned to the tunnel, I lingered in the middle of the room, and as soon as they turned to leave I went back to the sand in the corner. I wrote down five letters.
The effect was instantaneous, and a blistering headache set between my ears, very quickly followed by a stabbing pain in my body. I fell to my knees at the table, but not before I had erased what I had written from the sand. Victor helped me up. "You shouldn't be doing that, you know." he chided me, with a smile in his voice as usual.
We also showed them the second room with the fish creatures, but Roosje said that maybe we should figure out what the solution to the puzzle was, before trying to cross the water again. But Reina saw something we had not seen before. On the stone table on the opposite shore, some light was playing. It wasn't a reflection of the light from the well, and it seemed to rotate through the colours of the rainbow.

When we got upstairs again, Reina and Kenda insisted we would visit the smallest chamber as well. But Polomeus' warning wasn't in vain. I knew Kenda was a water mage, and her brother Kennet was a fire mage. The manuscript describing how to combine the two could be very dangerous.
"But Polomeus said you shouldn't read it!" I gasped softly.
"Kenneth and Polomeus have had an argument. Of course he says we can't read it." Kenda sulked. Reina, being a bit older than her sister, had a better argument. "I always stand between the two. I can't perform any rituals with both of them in it. If I can combine their magics, perhaps I can stop them from fighting, from hurting other people inadvertently."
I sighed. "I don't know anything of magic." I said softly. "And you act as if I am the one to say you can go. But I only know what Polomeus said...and I can't say you can, or can't."
I heard later they did go down to find the parchment, but they didn't know Victor and I had preceded them, and that I had hidden the two halves of the parchment somewhere on the body of the corpse. I had intended to copy the manuscript and burn it, but I couldn't read the words any longer, and they danced on the page. (I also know, OC, that they probably only found one half of the manuscript, har har har.)

When we returned outside, everyone gathered to hear the words of a proclamation of the baron. A herald was standing on a table, bringing us the good news of a birth! The baron had a son and a daughter. The herald, stoic, read the words, and then looked over the rim of the parchment, thawing as she looked at us. "I've seen them, and they're so sweet!!"
We all cheered for the Baron, our morale rising.


Victor and Marianne - photo by Gwendolijn.

Jacoba, the owner of the farmstead, had awoken. Someone had told me she had received books from Hugo, and one of them was a book on prismas and light. Now that she was awake from her nap I asked her about them. And I could borrow them!
I sat down at the table to read them, but soon enough I was again wishing Theodoor was with us. These scientific books were horribly complicated, and I couldn't make heads or tails of it. Victor was browsing through the other book, and pushed it over to me. "Read this."
I read the page, and nodded. "That sounds like our fishies."
He tapped the book. "If this is correct, we can slip past them tonight, when they are mating in the moonlight."
I took a sip of tea. "But you're forgetting that it's a thieves' moon tonight. If there is any moon at all, it'll be very small."
"It says here, it should be a waning moon. Perhaps we're lucky."

And of course, as I had been given instructions, you couldn't keep me away from the tunnels with a stick. I went down into the tunnels later that night again, accompanied by Falco, Lona and Roosje (and some others, probably), to the room under the well. Elfie and Lona wanted to see the fish-people, and when we returned to the staircase under the pantry, I heard voices. Roosje and I shushed everyone, and I listened carefully and recognised Coenraad's voice. But he kicked the hatch closed while we were down there, because there was some sound that disturbed him.
Coenraad was shouting at someone, but there were three people in the room and Roosje recognised Guus' voice. They were investigating a theft. But before we could hear more, a rat startled Roosje and she screamed. Afraid to be found eavesdropping, we ran back down the tunnel, towards the basin under the well. But I was a bit careless at the edge, and one of the fish creatures attacked me. I managed to take a few steps, but then I fell down and it was black.
I came to in the storage room, Raphael the doctor standing over me. Falco had lifted me out, and the doctor had helped me when everyone was looking the other way.

Elizabeth, the woman who never spoke... she made one exception. After a dangerous fight in the courtyard, her sword was sent out on patrol. Because she thought she wouldn't return, she trusted her letters to me, to send them should she die. Her voice was husky from unuse, but melodious. Marianne wanted to ask more, but there was no time -- but there's more of a story there.

And then... it was already time for dinner! Another glorious victory in which Marianne shows the world you actually can eat spare-ribs without using your hands. (I also ate wheat rusk (beschuit) with knife and fork at Sunday morning breakfast. There is no limit to the daintiness of a lady.)

After dinner, I went down into the tunnel to pray. I had tried to get outside the gates, to find a truly dark place to say a prayer, but the people at the gates turned me back. So I took a lantern, and whispered my prayer when I extinguished the flame. "Lead me through the darkness. Guide my steps. I do not fear when I am covered in your mantle."

I went down the tunnel, following Roosje who had gone on ahead. Perhaps we should have done more with the other puzzles as well (I finally had some good ideas about this yesterday, but that was too late), but the well-puzzle, if I may use the term, drew us the most. Dabbet, Victor, Reina, Hugo followed quickly enough. The fish creatures were still swimming around and the ledge around the basin that had been too narrow to walk on before, and too dangerous with fish snapping at your ankles, looked like it had been attacked and the rocks had crumbled.

Although we had not checked the state of the moon before we went down into the basement tunnels, soon enough we noticed a difference in the behavior of the creatures. The sound they made was different and they started to converge on the small pool of light underneath the well.
Everyone but Dabbet and me went over to the other side, and I saw that the water level seemed to have dropped. I could probably wade across if I hoisted my skirts up high enough.
And I did, when the people on the other side told me they had exhausted the options.

My shoes and stockings were soaking wet, but I tried my best. I took the book about light out of my writing chest and tried to read what the scribblings in the margins said by the light of our single candle. We tried different combinations, and continued to puzzle, but to no avail.
At some point, Victor took me aside and pointed out that the wall had an engraving. It was very hard to see by candlelight, but I remembered my old lessons at school and closed my eyes, trusting only the touch of my fingers. I felt the image of a prism breaking light into four, I felt plants or flowery scrolls, springing from an unknown, triangular image. I felt an archway over the entire image.

Dabbet, still on the other shore, was growing restless, sticking his head underwater to observe the mating fish creatures. It seemed reckless, but he was probably just bored.
And still the puzzle wasn't solved.
I sat down with my back against the wall, reading the book, cradling my head in my hands, and wracking my brain over the puzzle. In the end, it was someone else who finished it.
The archway, the wall with the scrolls, disappeared, and behind it was some strange contraption. Roosje lifted it over her head and we all returned to the other shore. I shook the water from my shoes and sat at one of the tables to try and get warm.


An indecent proposal to Edith done decently by Polomeus - photo by Gwendolijn.

The table slowly filled up. Edith, Hugo, Fedor, Ellenora and others joined us, and Polomeus sang a song he had written for Roosje. Everyone laughed, it was a very funny song, portraying Roosje as being violent, while she is just a young girl that is very adventurous. But the mood was set and soon Polomeus tried to explain to me what an indecent-decent proposal was, and how it was different from a decent-indecent proposal.
Fedor, who had shouted until his throat was raw, had an edge with his husky voice. The man had been bitten by a cat-like creature and had been exhibiting strange behavior already, but this purring voice rumbling deep in his throat was perfect for the indecent-decent proposal.

Soon, we were all roaring with laughter, although Marianne tried to hide her smile behind her hand. And slowly, the conversation on our side of the table turned to different matters. Polomeus had tried to explain the differences between decent and indecent proposal, and soon we found ourselves deep in conversation, for as much as that is possible when one person is as shy as I am. Furthermore, Lona and Elfie kept interrupting us to ask if Polomeus would sing the song "Huwelijkstijd" with them, and whether he was getting married yet.
Meanwhile, the conversation continued, despite all interruptions, and I played with the gems of the prism we had uncovered from the well. Polomeus chided me for that.

Our conversation finally took us outside, to the tables on the patio of the farmstead, where I rested my back against the wall and we talked for a very, very long time, until we finally went to bed at five am (!!!).

Sunday
Against all expectations I was awake and dressed before Victor, and I had a big breakfast after such a long night. The Roodlaarzen were intent on making our life miserable with morning musters before coffee, but so far I'd escaped their attention; except for being their scribe I was not at all involved in the war. And rightly so: with only a dagger to protect myself, I would make a very poor soldier indeed.

Victor handed me a scrap of parchment he'd found littering the bar, and on it was a depiction of the house insignia, which was a small statuette on the mantelpiece: a breastplate with five swords in it. I walked over there, and let Victor and Ellenora fiddle with it. Soon enough, it turned out that it was another secret tunnel. Despite his earlier experiences underground, Polomeus joined Victor and me, only because Edith came along as well, and the four of us walked the tunnel. It was long, and there were treeroots brushing our hair. Silently I followed the wall with my hand, so I wouldn't bump into something.
We ended up deep in the forest, a hatch that had been hidden by loose soil and moss. Polomeus said he'd close and hide the hatch from the outside and go back on his own, while we would take the tunnel back to the farmstead. It would make an excellent escape route, if push came to shove and we would be besieged in the farmstead, but I feared for any person trying to escape alone. There were a large number of orcs around...

While Victor, Edith and I tried to return to the farmstead, disaster struck. Victor was walking as the first man, and the tunnel had started to collapse. It started as just small bits of sand falling down, but suddenly Victor was buried underneath a layer of sand. Edith managed to pull him out, and he coughed the sand from his lungs.
There was nothing to it: we had to get out on the forest side. And Polomeus was nowhere in sight anymore. Lucky for us, there were no signs of orcs yet either, but our luck would never hold here in the border regions.

Luckily, we found Hugo and his sword before the orcs found us. They were a bit surprised we came from the woods, but I don't think any of us offered any explanation. Marianne was just too scared to speak, and only breathed easier when we were back in the farmstead. I took a seat not too near the fireplace.
It wasn't long before the orcs found the tunnel...
When they stepped from the secret door behind the fireplace, I forgot myself and screamed in terror. I ran to the other side of the inn, only to sit down next to the tables holding lunch and lay my head in my arms. The night previous, during a particularly brutal orc attack, I had crawled under the table and created my own 'wardrobe' by wrapping my cloak around me. The utter darkness of my hood over my eyes was very comforting. But I wasn't wearing my cloak now, and I only calmed down because Victor put his hands on my shoulder.

Victor had calmed me down sufficiently, and I gathered my wits. Victor set me down next to Fedor, whom I trusted enough to protect me. At the next table Hugo, Gambo and Thorfinn were talking to the magistrate of Dendermonde, and it sounded like they were chided. The magistrate startled me by slapping his long, wooden cane loudly on the table. I was impressed by his appearance, and his behaviour reminded me of the teachers back at school.

I realised that the collapsed tunnel would be easily penetrated by orcs as they can melt into the earth. I stepped over to Coenraad boldly (for Marianne, it was bold...) and waited until he saw me. He was a bit disgruntled, but heard me out.
"Fine, why don't you go and look." he said.
I was shocked. He would send me out there alone, unarmed and unable to defend myself? I held my hand to my breast, shocked at his suggestion. "I...?"
Then Coenraad's attention was focused on the captain of the Roodlaarzen, I sneaked away. I was angry at his assumption, and I had no intention of following his orders, so he would feel the consequences if the orcs attacked again.

We were soon called outside for a proclamation by the captain of the Roodlaarzen. Warder Bloedvuist was indeed a traitor, and was to be apprehended, preferrably after a fight with orcs and not during. Victor smiled at me. "What a surprise..."

It wasn't long before the orcs attacked in earnest...


More orcs! - photo by Gwendolijn.

... as Marianne hid somewhere in the farmstead, I stepped outside to take pictures. I am glad I didn't see what happened, for the orcs rose from the earth in the middle of the courtyard and attacked our guards in the back. Once they had taken the barricades, Thorfinn and Hugo broke through, trying to get to the Van Katsheuvel children still inside. "Save the children!" seems to be their battle cry.


Once again, Maerquin proves to be the best larp I've played. What happened on Saturday with Polomeus is too hard to describe, though I might try my hand at it later in a more private post.

Despite the main plot about the war not being my thing, it created a lot of tension. Marianne has been dodging soldiership, and could, technically, be accused of desertion. I got away with it too! And next to the war, there was still a lot to do.
I didn't describe the wonderful atmosphere. The dwarves, the 'bulldozers' as I like to call them, just rampage in the background and make soup, forge iron, and repair armours. I touched briefly on the underground well... this was the most impressive thing. The slanting light from the windows, the water, the rocks, the fish costumes...

But what makes Maerquin the best event for me is its players. I've another favorite moment for my larp top 10, and though it wasn't as heartbreakingly touching as the aftermath of Nieske's death, what happened on Saturday night was really, really quite intense. I'm sad I can't relate it here for all to see, because it would spoil too much about my character, but maybe one day in the future I can add it.
But how many events do you know that you can play until five in the morning, just two people, staying IC for all those hours and never growing bored...?

I've gained many insights into Marianne. What drives her? What makes her tick? I've got plans for a Codex Marianna, a book containing all the background, all the stories of what she's been through (my LJ-posts), and the roleplay hints, insights and revelations I've had over the past weekend.
Soon.

Let's see if we can find Theodoor again. Victor and Marianne travel with Polomeus to find him, provided they go to Driekant first, to visit the temple of Eleena.

-----
*) Storm op komst = "Storm is Brewing" in English.
**) Roodlaars = 'red boot', a military organisation founded on the principles of Volkmar, the God of Battle. Plural is "roodlaarzen".
***) Roosje = 'little rose' in Dutch.

Comments

[margrietje.livejournal.com]

Great story.
I love reading it.
I had a great time this weekend and hope to see more of you next time.
Maybe the 'baravond' wil allow us some 'conversation'.

[cabaray.livejournal.com]

That was a very nice read indeed. Hopefully Marianne can put some things right at the side of Polomeus in the Temple of Eleena, for Hugo has heard what terrible things have occured and grieves for it.

I am happy that the good deeds of the Ranaa Paladins are noted, for the higher ups did there best to crap all over us. I applaud your ways of dodging them. I have to make a purple dress for myself, seems to be good camouflage :-)

But kudos for your story!

[alhandra-s.livejournal.com]

It reads like a book! very nice!
it is a story that really happened and I was there too! only if I read this I realize that I missed a lot of it :-)

thanks for your story!