Camp - the road to Portsmouth
81 Winter 217
Warbler
Warbler and his company of dangerous outlaws have been heading south for a few days after leaving the mill town an hour outside of Northgate. It’s been another uneventful stretch of miles, and there is an uneasy peace that hangs over the journey. The aftermath of the losses in the city wrap like a fog around the roadside banter, which has been somewhere between somber and surreal. The travelers occasionally break the silence with questions or observations. The first mate of the Beauty has suggested that the nearby stretch of woodland is as good a spot as any for a rest. “All … all of our dogs sure are barkin’ huh,” Ringo says timidly. Apparently referring to the pain in his feet from the long trek as he kicks off one too worn boot.
Most everyone is unpacking and setting up camp when Tarth’s voice can be heard saying “This here’s some bullshit Warbler! Next time I pick the game, and it’ll be one that makes sense!” There’s a clatter as a wooden slab covered with small objects is knocked aside, and Tarth heads over and sits next to the small fire muttering “fuckin’ seeds and rocks n’ shit …”
Ethan
Ethan stands, unconsciously brushing the crumbs of his ration into the flames. Stepping away from the low campfire he approaches Warbler and helps him collect the rocks and seeds from the thin layer of snow that they were scattered into. “I had a friend teach me some games when we were kids. Got pretty good at chess at one point,” he said offering a small stick he mistakenly took for a piece of the Halfling’s collection; Warbler shook his head and Ethan tossed the twig aside. “I’m always up for learning new games…” he glances over at Tarth who seems occupied with warming his hands. “…even ones that don’t make any sense.” He wasn’t smiling, but his eyes suggested his interest was genuine enough.
Warbler
Ringo chuckles as his face forms into a huge grin. He cups a hand over his mouth as he quietly states “Don’t be too hard on Tarth. He’s going through a lot … through something I can’t even fathom … and, and to be fair, Glenhollow Junction can be pretty frustrating at first.”
Ringo waves a hand across a rectangular slice of stump. It is old and cracked, and the intersections between the rings and the fractures form something akin to an organic grid pattern, but twisted and swirled like a game board reflected in a rippling pool. ”… Chess, huh? That’s the one where you hit different pieces together to take them off the board. Then you try to corner the king, right? This game’s goal is … different.”
Warbler pauses, gazing upward as he considers his next words carefully knowing that his intentions and words rarely coalesce in the way he wants them to “This game isn’t about the pieces. It’s about the board.” He taps the slice of stump. “Here I’ll show you. I’m no teacher, but I’ll try to explain it like my Uncle Jin explained it to me when I was little. You can be stones, and I’ll be seeds.” He drops a linen pouch filled with a couple hundred pebbles on the side of the board nearest to Ethan. “Have a seat.”
Ethan
Ethan cocks an eye brow; it was funny to him that somehow - in spite of all the death, despair, and loss that filled his life until this point - some part of him could still muster indignation upon hearing the halfling’s description of chess. It was the tiny injustices (it would seem) that abraded one’s soul. He said nothing though, dutifully taking a seat on the stump, elbows on knees, his chin resting atop the knuckles of his two clasped hands. He studied the board and the pieces as he prepared to listen.
Warbler
Ringo’s eyes brighten as he sits up straight and traces his thumb around one of the central rings on the board, and then crosses over it with his index finger along a crack in the wood. “You see where the splits in the wood and the rings intersect? That’s where either player can place or remove a piece. Those are called crossings. Stones always place first, and then we’ll take turns placing or removing a seed or a stone at the crossings until we both pass. Uncle Jin would say…”
Ringo furrows his brow and shifts his face into a slanted grin as his voice lowers into a deep gravelly tone. “The trick is to know the board. You need to see all the paths and crossings at the same time.” He raps his knuckles once across the board. “Knock!”
He leans forward as he shifts out of the impression of Jin, and back to his usual expression. “The goal is to occupy or surround the most area at the end of the game … Oh yeah! And, um, don’t get too caught up with the pieces and forget about the spaces in between!” Ringo shrugs, scratches his chin, and says “I think that’s all of the rules. The best way to learn is to play … Your move, stone”
Ethan
Ethan started by placing his stones in a long circle, the stones forming a chain around the outside perimeter of the board. Occasionally, the chain was broken when Warbler removed a stone and replaced it with a seed. He watched and listened as Warbler continued to describe the game.
Warbler
Warbler nods slowly, “That’s good! Good, thinking! Surround and conquer, but you’re still playing the pieces not the board … I probably could have explained it better. Oh, and remember you can never make the same move twice.” Another seed is placed this time at a crossing in the central ring. There is little to no visible pattern to the arrangement of the seeds on the board. “You said you learned chess growing up? No offense, but it’s kinda hard to imagine you ever being a child. Where are you from again?”
Ethan
“…from a small town about a year south of Northgate. Roux, Lumotu, Bax and me grew up together… along with some others. We came to Northgate about two years ago? Maybe two and a half? We made the trip for a couple reasons; partially, we were trying to outrun the Inquisition.”
Ethan changed tactics and began replacing each seed on the board with a rock. “You?”
Warbler
Warbler frowns slightly then states, “A little mill village to the southwest called Glenhollow. Left a few years ago after learning it was a border town. Heh, didn’t even know what kingdom I was in …”
Warbler cocked an eyebrow, and looked up at Ethan. “If you follow my moves. I’m just going to lead you where I want you to go … Try a little less thinking, and more instinct. Take in the pattern of the board then just move; be unpredictable.”
Warbler placed another seed in a seemingly nonsensical location on the board.
Ethan
Ethan pauses for a moment, his eyes focus on the board. His head tilts slightly to one side as he reviews the game, a stone held in his hand but not yet placed.
“Let me see if I’m following the rules so far… Stones always go first. On a turn, a player can either place a new piece on the board or replace an opponent’s piece. The goal, at the end, is to occupy the most area by the end of the game, and you can never make the same move more than once per game… Is that correct…?”
Warbler
Ringo nods emphatically, “You got it, and the game ends when we both pass our turn.”
Ethan
He cocks an eyebrow. “Then… Stones should always lose. Whoever places their pieces second should simply replace the opponent’s pieces as they place them on the board. The first player cannot repeat their steps, so they’ll have to choose a new space every time… which is then replaced with a seed…”
Warbler
“You’re still thinking about the pieces, not the board. Here … look at this.” Warbler arranges four seeds in a small square then surrounds them with stones. “Who occupies this space? Seeds or stones?”
“Maybe … maybe occupy is the wrong word. Who controls the space?”
Ethan
Ethan smiles bemusedly. “Well, based on my understanding of the rules of this game… I have no idea. But based on observation, I’d say that the Seeds occupy the space, while the Stones are surrounding it; in a metaphorical sense, the Seeds would control what occurs inside while the Stones control the borders.”
Warbler
“And because the seeds are completely surrounded the area inside is owned by the stones. Just like the lines on a map determine who owns the spaces in between. Based on the rules stones take the points at the end of the game. Now …”
Warbler removes a stone from the corner and replaces it with a seed “If I replace this stone it breaks the control and it becomes about counting the crossings. If you break the right stones it can change the whole board.”
Ringo’s eyes dart from side to side, and he fidgets nervously as he says “You said that You, Bax, Roux, and Lumotu … you were trying to outrun the Inquisition? Have you ever thought about going back home?”
Ethan
“No, it was destroyed. Those who weren’t killed or conscripted by the Painted Swans resettled in neighboring villages. Nothing to go back to…” he described the events factually, as though repeating a history lesson of a long-dead civilization.
“We can keep going but if we start again I’m going to win the game every time…”
Warbler
“The Painted Swans,” Warbler said curtly, as if he was spitting a bad taste out of his mouth. “They were the ones who taught us that Glenhollow was a border town. That we were a part of this, this … Kingdom. I remember when I first saw them. I was awestruck … we all were, we thought they were heroes. I would listen in the treetops to their camp stories after I’d finished working in the orchard. Just a few of them at first …”
“We gave them free lodging, free food. They were the toast of the damned town. Then more showed up, we ran out of room, and helped them set up camps in the pear grove. Hands turned to grasps as more and more kept arriving. They were there to protect us. We were part of their kingdom …”
Warbler shakes his head as if this would remove the stench of that memory, of the smoke, the ash … the fall.
Ethan
Ethan listens, waiting for Warbler to continue…
Warbler
Ringo rubs his twisted left leg as an old pain shoots through it. He looks up at Ethan, a grin on his face, but a faint mist at the corner of his eyes and says “You’re probably right about winning. I’m not clever like you, or strong like Roux and Tarth. I don’t really expect to win. I just want to change the board.” Warbler taps the slice of stump and the rings and fractures shift like ripples across a pond forming new patterns and crossings. “Thanks for not killing me when we met in the woods. Best two out of three?”
Ethan
Ethan watches the ripples roll across the board. He sees how a shift could change up almost any strategy an opponent was using. Knowing the outcome of the board was, in many respects, like knowing the cards of another player. He studies the halfling on the other side of it, noting the pain misting at the edges of his eyes. “Like you said,” Ethan agrees. “The board’s the most important piece…”
His face is stoic as he stares intensely at the relatively unknown man. “Warbler, why are you here? I don’t need it all - don’t expect it. But I need something. Changing the board can mean a lot of things… We’re not the safest company, not by a long shot. And, in case you haven’t noticed, recently we’re not the happiest lot on the block either.”
“We have a long and dangerous journey that’s taking us towards a place that - if reached - is said to dwarf the only city you’ve ever seen.
“I know why I’m doing it. And Roux, Astarael, maybe even Tarth, to some extent.”
He looks away for a moment, trying to ease back the intensity of his inquiry. He liked the halfling. He wasn’t angry. But he felt as though he needed to know something of the man they were traveling with, something to understand him a little. “I’m happy you’re with us - you’re useful. Make good company.
“But I gotta know… why?”
Warbler
Warbler gazes up at the treeline and ponders the question carefully. “Huh … why …”
Somewhere in Northgate roots stretch through stone foundations. Gradually growing and shifting, finding small cracks to expand through. A pillar shifts ever so slightly, a few pebbles fall from the roof of the sewers, plink, plink onto the floor. A cornerstone eases ever so slightly out of place.
“… Be-because the Painted Swans, that we welcomed with open arms. That, that we fed and sheltered and shared our stories with. They set up camp in Glenhollow, in my home, because it was on the edge of some important crossing between kingdoms. Because we were at the end of a board we didn’t even know we were on.”
“I was sleeping in my favorite tree, the big old one, that seemed to have knots and burls that were built like a ladder just begging to be climbed. Back then sleep came easy; it seemed like all I had was time …”
“I woke up to wind, or at least what I thought was wind, and a lung full of smoke and ash. Just in time for the ground to rush up and greet me as that centuries old pear tree crashed down.”
“A fall from that height … should have killed me. I’m lucky all I got was this.” He stands and knocks on his twisted left leg. “I limped away, never even looked back. I still don’t really know what happened that night.”
Warbler pauses, calming himself, and resets his tone to something calm, like a summer breeze. “But I do know this, what burned wasn’t just an old orchard. It wasn’t just trees that had been there for centuries. What burned was the center of Every. Single. Story. Of my home, of my people. Everything we were was turned to smoke and ash, while I was taking a fuckin nap!”
“Why am I with you? I’m with you because you’re dangerous, because I saw you fighting back after I’d spent years wandering the woods following Swans. Asking myself why everything I’d known was so, so, small …”
“With all of you I saw a chance to find out why, to to change it, to stop it …” Ringo’s words catch in his throat, as he closes his eyes takes a slow deep breath, and sees a path through the thicket of his thoughts.
Warbler sets his jaw and snarls out the words. “I’ll help you get your friend back. I’ll help you fight Swans. I’ll help you steal a boat. I’ll help you with whatever you need. I can’t change the board until I know it. Thank you for showing me Northgate. Just get me to Galoring.”
A pillar groans, shifts, tilts and then crashes with a cascading then explosive sound of stone on stone. Bells ring, echoing through Northgate.
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