(Continued from Ch 38, Rampage of the Trolls)

The Chronicles of Rapina
Chapter 39, An Intellectual Giant


Several mornings after Rapina returned from Daelrath, Thane got up from the breakfast table ending their magic lesson a few minutes early. He then told his apprentices to meet him in the lounge in a few minutes.

"Rapina, if I ever had any doubts as to your value as a servant of Mortaebius, you have utterly dispelled them. Your work in Daelrath turned out magnificently and you put yourself at great personal risk to accomplish it. You may only have been guessing when you pulled your little coup and made yourself a deaconess, but your logic was impeccable. The order has access to church records, and they are aware of your latest deeds. As a deaconess in the church, you are no longer an outside contractor. If an order wishes to make use of your services, it is customary for them to ask you to join." Thane handed Rapina a scroll.

Rapina rolled out the scroll, read it and smiled. "Do I sign it in blood or something?"

Thane handed Rapina a quill. "Ink actually, blood could identify you, and The Order of the Shroud is a secret organization. Just sign Rapina; the idea is to sign with the name other members are to address you by."

Rapina carefully signed the document.

"Welcome to the Order of the Shroud, Deaconess Rapina," Thane said.

"Welcome chess mistress," Rames chuckled. "It is good to have you on our side."

"Thank you Guardians," Rapina beamed.

"Actually I believe It was very fortunate that you were able to deaconize yourself and obtain the favor of the order," Thane said.

"Really?" Rapina asked.

"Yes, now that you are a member of the order, I can allow you to read more of my books on necromancy and you will be able to help in nearly every aspect of my laboratory work except those aspects that are purely clerical. It is well that you will be able to. Our duties are expanding with the conflict, but thanks to the giants we saved from the trolls and Red Jack, I believe we may be able to buy ourselves some respite.

"How's that?" Rapina asked.

"Thane chuckled, "I had some luck using a minor language translation spell that formerly belonged to Nordula on the giants. It is supposed to work on humanoids, but it has so far been a dismal failure on trolls. Mayhap I am simply not adept enough at the background skills required to do a thorough casting, but in any case, it did work upon Giants. We tracked a large group of trolls right to the scene of a battle with four giants. Our combined forces were able to best the trolls with the loss of only one giant, and we packed the trolls away for our foray against the Avengene settlements.

I asked the giants if they knew where any forts were and surprisingly they did. They knew where Keep Daelrath was and they knew that it was the home of a troll-hating tribe of humans. I told them that they were indeed correct and that I knew about the man who led that tribe and he greatly hated trolls. They also knew of other forts to the east that belonged to an orc-killing tribe of humans. I told them that I had heard much about the leader of that tribe. In any case I told them he was a greedy trouble-maker who attacked other human tribes as well as the orcs. Rames even taught them to say Avengene," Thane chuckled.

"During the battle one of them impressed the others greatly because of the damage he did with a two-handed sword Rames gave him while he was down and I was transferring life force to him from a troll body. It turned out that they wanted such weapons as the sword, but were afraid to work for the orcs destroying forts to get them, because so many of their brothers had died doing just that. I told them that forts were something like trolls. If only one giant tried to kill many trolls, he would die, but if many giants went, they would win. This seemed to make sense to them. Furthermore I told them that forts had special weapons that were dangerous to giants, and that if the giants destroyed these weapons first by throwing boulders at them from behind cover, the forts would be much less dangerous.

I was also able to discover which orc tribes normally hired the giants. I am planning to get a hold of some giant weapons from an area of the world where fire giants battle dwarves and humans. I will make sure that one of these tribes of orcs manages to find them in a tomb I have Kent and the ghouls preparing. The ruins atop the tomb were built on a grand scale suggestive of giants. When the weapons are discovered, my belief is that the orcs will use them to entice the giants, and the winner will be the church of Mortaebius," Thane said.

"I get it, you are hoping if Avengene looses enough forts he will have to make up for it with extra troops to protect the areas in question. Thus he may be unable to spare the men for a winter campaign against the church of Mortaebius," Rapina said.

"Exactly! We have an enormous amount of work to do, and I hope this maneuver will buy us the time we need," Thane said. "Evidently Red Jack once had several ships, but they were wiped out by a mercenary fleet. He had been building up from that setback when you originally found him. Roger has been kind enough to give me the location of the river battle in which Red Jack took heavy losses and lost all but one commandeered ship. I hope to locate some deceased pirates to man the longship I have sunk in my cove. I should just barely be able to move such a vessel with a lengthy casting of the graveyard mists spell. We will be able to use it to pick up bodies and to dump tailings from the new abode into the sea. Moreover we can use it to pick up necessaries for the abode at port cities if I can find a way to disguise the undead mariners. We must, however, create a water corridor in the new abode complete with water-entombed bodies, and consecrate it as a graveyard."
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This ends, An Intellectual Giant, chapter 39 of The Chronicles of Rapina.
The story continues in chapter 40, The Old Grind.

Copyright 2001 by Rapina