DireRanger

Hi everyone, long time lurker here. This is my latest story, I hope you enjoy! Kha'naar and the Big Badger Tribe - Chapter 1 I set off heading south. Suul , as the spirit asked me to call him, told me that there is an old abandoned tower a month's walk from here. Using my simplest spells I am able to significantly shorten the journey, managing to limit encounters to a minimum along the way. I observed the plains below me and the villages that dotted them, letting myself be carried away by the winds that descend from the mountains; on the back of a bird I passed the marshy marshes that followed and passed the peaks of the high gray mountains that separate the New Lands from those inhabited before the Great Cataclysm, which had occurred centuries before. After other days of travel in the parched and still smoking expanses - the only thing left after the terrible cataclysm - he finally managed to reach the tower around which some members of a local tribe, the last survivors of those who "chose" to stay in the Terre Vecchie, they rebuilt their temporary camp. These men and women are brutalized by a life spent in constant search for the minimum necessary to survive: they are illiterate, they mostly cover themselves in skins and rags and have been led for generations to dream of a simple and peaceful life, far from drought, famine and wild beasts . I introduce myself to their leader, a tall, athletic woman who, although no longer young, sports thick raven hair and a slender, well-defined body that make her beauty almost dazzling. The entire tribe is made up of no more than thirty individuals of which only a sixth is made up of men, which due to the risks run - between hunters and defenders - is destined to be further reduced. The chieftain is called S' haar and takes care of most of the aspects affecting the tribe: from the search for food to the organization of defenses, to the rationing of resources in times of crisis. The first encounter with the tribe, which calls itself "Tasso largo", was not the most friendly: spears drawn, war cries, arrows flying and all the rest of the repertoire. It was enough for me to conjure a laden table in front of them that their spirits calmed down. They must have come out of a long period of famine, if they launched themselves in such a rapacious way towards the hundreds of dishes displayed in front of their eyes. Three times I had to cast the same spell to stop bothering me and when their bellies were finally sufficiently round and their gazes slow and satisfied, I was able to cross the threshold of the tower. It took me the whole day to explore the old tower which showed the sign of the abandonment of the centuries and I reached the top when the darkness was already starting to fall and the broad Badgers were starting to recover from the long and unexpected meal due to which they still showed their bellies spread out and round. A few days of hectic work passed. I had managed to reach an agreement with the tribe: however remarkable my magical powers, erasing the mark left by the centuries of abandonment of the tower would take months and months just to free it from the debris. I asked for an audience with the chief of the tribe, who at the time maintained a certain distance, to offer her a perfectly laid table 2 times a day in exchange for their muscles to help me restore the ancient splendor of the tower. The woman was waiting for me sitting on her seat of wood, bones and skins. The shape was probably designed to instill fear in the chieftain's interlocutor because it represented, albeit in a rather sketchy way, the open jaws of some predator, whose upper fangs formed the back and the lower ones the seat. S' haar was limply stretched out on the large bench -probably inherited from the previous sovereign, given the size- her long bare legs were wrapped in brown leather around the ankles and feet, a leather band secured at the waist by a large gold clip it stopped halfway between the bust and the knees, while the breast was partly covered by a light fur vest that fell on the sides and left a large portion of the belly uncovered which, however muscular and athletic, showed a slight softening immediately above the waistline where the gold clasp secured the skirt. On the woman's wrists gleamed two gold bracelets inlaid with who knows what representations of hunting that paired with the circle, also in gold, that encircled her head keeping her thick raven hair more or less in order and falling on her pretty shoulders. Beside her, two daughters of the tribe took care of her needs: the first, in a long dress of light fabric, rhythmically waved a fan of brushwood, moving the dark curls of S' haar's long hair, while the other, covered only by skins patched together, he took care to welcome me according to his lady's orders. I left the tent only after a few hours, with an agreement in my hands and a special table laden with elaborate desserts from the Terre Nuove for S'haar and her maids. The tribe's work began the same day, as soon as S'haar , who came out of her tent with icing sugar on her lips, announced to her tribe the end of the famine and the beginning of a new era of plenty . Thus I was able to devote myself in total tranquility to the search for the ancient tomes preserved in the library and the spells hidden in them. Check my DA profile for more chapters: https://www.deviantart.com/direranger