Poll 002. July 1 2020: (Patreon)

 Poll 002. July 1 2020:  

With gentle reasoning, various subtle implications and a few choice observations, primarily about spears and spear heads, you have successfully compelled Kaamran to part with not just one but two of his precious wares!
 

Within days the Hunnic horse archer and the Zorastrian librarian would be eating out of the palms of your hand, but their story has already been told!
 

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On returning to your domain you find it dimly lit, as is right for a frugal warlord. Why waste precious lighting fluid on servants? What is somewhat abnormal is the sounds emanating from within your stronghold. High pitched shrieks and yelps welcome you as you step over your mantel and the servants best accustomed to manning your doorway hardly recognize your presence, their heads instead turned backwards to gape at the figures in the hall.
 

The two strangers are engaged in epic “discourse”, a pantomime of real conflict favored by irritating western peoples. By all appearances the two were about to come to blows.
 

On the left was a tall red head, blue eyed, freckled and fierce. The long red tresses of her hair turned this way and that way and hung in thick bouncing clots. These strands were especially twisted where the other woman held them in a vice like grip. Her form, and what a form it was, was plainly visible through the thinnest of white robes. A rare material that you  have come to know as “silk”. The opposing woman was blonde haired and brown eyed, though you suspect that her hair would have normally been covered by the thick veil that currently dangled off of her left ear. She was somewhat waifish, but under her thick black robes you suspect there could be any manner of bounties.
 

The blond had a firm grip on the red heads hair, but you realize with some amusement that the two only share a height because the red head had a firmer grip on the girls robes and was pulling her upward, with one hand no less. She was preparing to deal the levitating girl a rather severe blow with her long white staff.
 

You may not know the woman but their job titles are as plain as day. The red head in sumptuous garments of white and wielding the great staff was a druid. The sour faced, but young and innocent blonde with the modest head dress was a nun.
 

You might be content with this contest. Clearly the men in your hall are. However as you straddle towards your vacant throne in the inimitable style of a conqueror, a wincing servant girl carrying a platter covered in apples finally notices your presence. She nearly drops her tray but recovers and with a thin long whistle she draws the attention of everyone in the hall.
 

In a twinkling the screaming stops and the dim sconces are fully engorged in chemical fire. Everyone was bathed in gleaming, golden light, whether they deserved it or not. The Druidesses white garments’ proved to be gloriously transparent, while the secretive nun’s austere black swaddling  horse cloth concealed all what lay within. The two woman, deciding rather arbitrarily that they are your most pressing matter at this mid day hour form a rank in front of you, each trying vainly to repair their disheveled appearance.
 

The Nun is prepared to speak first but the Druidess slams her white stave into the ground with an irritating clunk and seizes the initiative.
 

“I am Deiotara of the Scordisci!” A smirk crosses your face immediately and it’s hard not to laugh. Those people had been swept away ages ago, by the Huns in the living memory of your clans eldest members, by the Goths in your great grandfather’s time and by many other powers in the duration since.  
 

You muse to yourself, glancing at your unassuming Hunnic pony girl, practicing her first clip clopping footsteps in your stone hall. “Is this a reunion?” you ask your new steed. The Hunnic pony did not answer, she remained oblivious or unconcerned with the intrigue around her. Or rather she was plotting intrigues of her own, for she was eyeing the servant girl carrying the platter full of apples with an envious rapacious lust that was rare even in the open steppe.
 

“I know I know” the Druidess stated, well aware that her peoples stock had fallen. “We still exist in hidden cloisters and there are more of us than you might think! I’ve come here to open up an embassy, perhaps take a few servants from among the local stock, if they should prove worthy. Perhaps our people could come to some kind of agreement!”
 

“HERESY” The nun screams out of turn.
 

Without turning to look at her she begins her tirade
 

“You should not fall for this temptress! She is unclean, immodest and uncivil! I am Abess Avina  I come representing a prioress from among the Scirians, the former and future rulers of Rome!”
 

This time you audibly snort, lower your head a little and shake it left to right laughing. “What is this a lost and found?” You state. The great chieftain of the Skirians, Odoacer had been dead for ages and enough time had transpired for it to become clear that no further great chieftains were going to emerge from among their ranks.
 

The girl continued in slow winding sentences that gradually turned into rather ambiguous sounding words
 

“I would like to build a convent, and impose cleansing…. uh… healing…..   well justice…. And chastity….”
 

Her gaze had turned to Kushnuma, your newest librarian and newest acquisition. All what she wore that wasn’t metal, was transparent. More so than even the Druidesses fine robes. The nun blushed furiously, and then looked away, catching sight instead of the Hunnic pony girl, who frolicked, sniffing aggressively over the wincing servant girl with the apples.
 

“oh….” The Nun gulped. She fumbles for her necklace, a symbol of the Christ god, with a neat collection of beads wrapped about it. You think you can make out a hoarse “my god” under her breath, but you know enough of her customs to recognize that this a rather notable faux pax.
 

Normally you wouldn’t care about such irritants, rather you would welcome them to stay in your realm for as long as they could demonstrably improve the land, or pay for your time and energy.
 

A Sacred Grove seemed like a worthy distraction from your day to day life, and a quaint little nunnery full of wide eyed blushing girls like the one before you sounded promising but the two emissaries’s before you refused to co exist harmoniously!  
 

It occurs to you that you could do all sorts of things with the two, however, international diplomacy was afoot. You can afford to irritate the tattered remnants of the Scordiscii, or even the Scirians living in the shadow of their long deceased king but irritating both factions could back fire…
 

Your servant girl, assailed by your steed, loses her grip on her platter and spills apples about your throne room. They roll this way and that way. One bounces off your boot.
 

Your servant girl, what was her name? Egilona? Gailavira?  Ruothilde! Yes Ruothilde! She worked in a manic frenzy trying to retrieve the fallen apples and inspect the fallen silver platter for any life threatening dents or divits. The pony girl doing her part to stride across the court room and separate Ruothilde from the fallen apples so as to preserve her own hard won supply. Ruothilde’s efforts were ill timed and ill fated. Twice more did she drop apples and so it came that soon every man, woman, child, and horse were within an arm’s reach of the fruits.
 

Deiotara with her luxurious red lips takes a bite out of a Green apple and holds the rest to you rather seductively.
 

Abess Avina holds a bright Red apple, cautiously and away from her, as though fearing a snake.
 

and Ruothilde, clutched her reward, a late ripening yellow apple close to her chest. It was  perhaps an apple plucked to soon, but one that might as well be ready all the same.

Of the three apples before you, which one do you suspect will be in the best taste?



(This is our second poll! Vote carefully, vote wisely, Some of these characters may be gone forever!)