ToastyPigeon/SpringDragon · Datasets at Hugging Face

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The three of you settle in as you begin your assignment at Fort Defiance.

Year 18

"Kane watch out!" you shout as the wind whips around you and the snowfall nearly blinds your vision.

You can just make out the figure, which you know to be Kane roll out of the way of a club strike from an ogre attempting to attack him from behind.

You look around and see the bloody dead bodies of several members of your team and the ogres that ambushed you. You knew that patrolling the Kragen Pass during a blizzard was a stupid idea, but Captain Ian insisted that you had to go and do it. It's no wonder progress hasn't been made up here with the captain making inept decisions at every turn. He's not like Captain Pollo, but he's not much better. You are starting to seriously wonder about how the Empire keeps allowing such incompetence to pass through.

You run as fast as you can in the snow to help Kane battle the last two ogres. You cleave at the legs of one of the large monsters causing him to fall into the snow then finish him off with another strike through his head. Kane dispatches his own ogre opponent and the battle is finally over.

"Looks like we're the only two left again." Kane says.
"Yeah, I'm getting used to that scenario. Come on, let's head back. This blizzard isn't letting up and we've done all we can here."

You and Kane leave behind the bodies and make your way through the blizzard in silence. It's times like this you half expect Edgar to start going on about how well he did in battle, of course he hasn't done that ever since you lost him in that battle against some giants last year. You never exactly approved of his reckless ways and it's ultimately what got him killed, but you still miss him sometimes.

You are almost at the end of the pass when a large rumbling is heard. You look overhead and even in this blizzard you can see the large figures looming on the cliffs and it's what you originally were concerned about when you had to patrol this path.

"GIANTS! RUN!" you yell and the pair of you attempt to make it out of the pass. Large boulders crash down along side the cliffs with an equally large amount of ice and snow. Kane runs faster and makes it ahead of you, but this only results in you seeing him crushed completely by a falling boulder. You are engulfed in snow and swept up and buried in the stuff. You're disorientated, tired, freezing and slowly suffocating, but with determination, you manage to dig yourself out.

Unfortunately several giants face you when you do dig yourself out. You're out numbered and trapped in the pass. You know that this is most likely going to be your last battle.

You draw your sword and walk towards the giants. It will be a good death, but your only regret is that you will not survive to serve the Empire for longer than you would've liked.<\|end_of_text\|>
<\|begin_of_text\|>Unfortunately Pollo is right, the only decision that makes sense is to leave Gerald behind.

Still, you aren't fond of the idea though not necessarily for the moral reasons that most would be. This is an unproductive use of your team's talents and pointless in the scheme of things. You can't believe the Empire would allow such a petty man to be in charge of the safety of a province and why isn't the Emperor aware of such inefficiency?

"Very well."
"I knew you'd see things my way. Have fun playing with the kobolds. You're dismissed."

You leave Pollo's office where your team is still waiting for you.

"Gerald, I regret that you will not be coming with us on this mission. The Captain wants you to stay with him." You say.
"What?! But I'm ready to fight!" he protests.
"There will be other missions, I promise you. We will prove ourselves so well on this one, that they will have no choice but to send us out on a regular basis. However, your orders are clear in this matter, you are to remain here with Captain Pollo."
"B…yes sir."

Just before Gerald goes into the captain's office, you whisper into his ear.

"Accidents happen."

He's a little puzzled by this comment, but you and the rest of your team proceed to your assignment and nobody says anything more about it.

When you finally get to the town, it's a sorry sight. A lot of the buildings are damaged and the streets are filled with debris. There are a few people attempting to clean up the place, but it's clear that they're all very demoralized.

'Oh, I see the Empire has finally decided to help us; well you're too late! The kobolds raided this town last night and as you can see completely trashed the place!" says a disheveled man.
"The Empire has many places it has to protect citizen. It is regrettable that your town was attacked, but we are here now to eliminate the problem."
"You're here now? Where the fuck were you last night when my wife was killed by those ugly little bastards?" the man says getting in your face.
"Calm yourself citizen, this will not help your situation."
"My situation? I just said my wife is fucking DEAD! I don't give a shit about my situation anymore you fucking Empire dickhead! Fuck you and your fucking Emperor!"

It is at this point the man unwisely pushes your chest with his hand and you instantly grab it and break his whole arm. He predictably crumples in excruciating pain, screaming as the bone juts out of the skin and blood runs out of his body into the mud. All the other towns people who have seen this back off or hide, as they are rightfully worried about what you're going to do next.

"Now listen up citizens of Dalt! I understand that you've all been through a lot, but that is not a reason to give in to insolence! You are all Empire subjects and you will show proper respect or what's left of this town will suffer in such a manner that you'll think what the kobolds did was a birthday party."

The man whose arm you broke begins to scream more obscenities at you in between his regular howls of pain. You look at Kane and nod. Kane finishes the man off by quickly decapitating him. You take his head and throw it before one of the crowd of peasants who look on in horror.

"Remember this." You say.

You remain in the town of Dalt for the night and get rooms from an overly cooperative innkeeper. He also tells you a little information about the kobolds such what direction they came from, what sort of equipment they were using and how many there were during the attack. Before getting some rest you spend a little of the time discussing strategy with your team. You all don't show it too much, but you are all a little excited about tomorrow.

The next day you set off towards the wooded hills, it doesn't take long before you see a kobold patrol wandering around. They look exactly like how you've seen them in books, sort of like scaly goblins, but from what you've heard, a lot more cunning.

Your team attempts to be stealthy, but perhaps it's due to the excitement of this first "real" battle. Edgar isn't as silent as he should be and clumsily steps on a few twigs alerting the patrols.

The kobold patrol sees all of you, yell excitedly in their language and run away. Edgar is about to chase them, but you knock him to the ground.

"What the hell?" he says wondering why you stopped him.
"Trap, Edgar. Look." You say and point to a tripwire that would've triggered a spiked log that he almost stepped on.
"Oh." He says.
"You were trained better than that Edgar and we went over this last night! This area is probably going to be filled with traps. Now come on, we don't have the luxury of a surprise attack any more."

The remainder of this attack is a tedious exercise in cautiousness broken up by quick battles. The kobolds really have set up traps everywhere and take full advantage of your team's slow movement to launch periodic ambushes themselves. Fortunately they are very poor warriors even in large numbers and you easily dispatch them. All your fighting eventually leads to a cave, which you sort of figured it would. You warn your team that this place is probably going to be a maze and heavily trapped as well.

"Should we split up so we can cover more ground?" Brenda asks.
"No, we're going to be neck deep in them when we go into that cave. They may be poor warriors, but even enough of them could overwhelm one or two of us. If we stick together we'll be fine. Besides, we're going to be here awhile anyway."

There "awhile" isn't an exaggeration. You spend the remainder of the day and night killing kobolds. Your team seems to enjoy it, but you eventually start to get bored of the monotony. You don't even bat an eye when you come across what seems to be a breeding chamber and you exterminate all the female kobolds and their young. Eventually you reach a large cave clearing where you meet the leader.

"Sssss! Defilersss! Murderersss!" a slightly larger kobold hisses at you from some sort of primitive throne and then orders his guards to attack. It's rather pathetic, as they fare no better than the rest. A few quick sword and axe blows and this kobold chieftain is alone.

While the rest of your team is eager to kill him like the rest, you have a slightly better idea for him. You engage him in singles combat, which is over pretty quickly. You then subdue him with some rope you have in your pack.

"Why are we taking him as prisoner? We're Eternals! We don't take prisoners!" Edgar shouts.
"Yeah, we also aren't supposed to miss obviously placed traps either, so there's a first time for everything. Besides I've got a good idea for this one."

You drag the kobold leader back to town who curses you the whole time in a mixture of his language and yours. When you arrive it is now dawn and the townspeople are surprised to see you back, let alone with a kobold in tow.

You tie the kobold leader to a tree near the center of the town and address everyone.

"Citizens of Dalt! The kobold nest has been completely destroyed. This…thing was the leader of this particular nest and most likely orchestrated the raid; do with him as you will. There of course are other kobold nests in this province, but the Eternals will be taking care of this long overdue problem. All the Empire needs in this matter is your continued obedience and loyalty."

After giving this speech you and your team take your leave and hear the screams of the kobold leader as the villagers torture and rip him apart.

When you arrive back at Fort Glory, other soldiers are surprised to see all of you back alive. It was assumed that at best, half of you would be dead. There is a possible thought of whether you actually succeeded and didn't just come back in failure, but given that Kane took it upon himself to take "trophies" his gruesome necklace of kobold ears makes it pretty clear that the job was done.

When you report however, it seems the fort has undergone a change in leadership

The three of you settle in as you begin your assignment at Fort Defiance.

Year 18

"Kane watch out!" you shout as the wind whips around you and the snowfall nearly blinds your vision.

You can just make out the figure, which you know to be Kane roll out of the way of a club strike from an ogre attempting to attack him from behind.

You look around and see the bloody dead bodies of several members of your team and the ogres that ambushed you. You knew that patrolling the Kragen Pass during a blizzard was a stupid idea, but Captain Ian insisted that you had to go and do it. It's no wonder progress hasn't been made up here with the captain making inept decisions at every turn. He's not like Captain Pollo, but he's not much better. You are starting to seriously wonder about how the Empire keeps allowing such incompetence to pass through.

You run as fast as you can in the snow to help Kane battle the last two ogres. You cleave at the legs of one of the large monsters causing him to fall into the snow then finish him off with another strike through his head. Kane dispatches his own ogre opponent and the battle is finally over.

"Looks like we're the only two left again." Kane says.

"Yeah, I'm getting used to that scenario. Come on, let's head back. This blizzard isn't letting up and we've done all we can here."

You and Kane leave behind the bodies and make your way through the blizzard in silence. It's times like this you half expect Edgar to start going on about how well he did in battle, of course he hasn't done that ever since you lost him in that battle against some giants last year. You never exactly approved of his reckless ways and it's ultimately what got him killed, but you still miss him sometimes.

You are almost at the end of the pass when a large rumbling is heard. You look overhead and even in this blizzard you can see the large figures looming on the cliffs and it's what you originally were concerned about when you had to patrol this path.

"GIANTS! RUN!" you yell and the pair of you attempt to make it out of the pass. Large boulders crash down along side the cliffs with an equally large amount of ice and snow. Kane runs faster and makes it ahead of you, but this only results in you seeing him crushed completely by a falling boulder. You are engulfed in snow and swept up and buried in the stuff. You're disorientated, tired, freezing and slowly suffocating, but with determination, you manage to dig yourself out.

Unfortunately several giants face you when you do dig yourself out. You're out numbered and trapped in the pass. You know that this is most likely going to be your last battle.

You draw your sword and walk towards the giants. It will be a good death, but your only regret is that you will not survive to serve the Empire for longer than you would've liked.<|end_of_text|>

<|begin_of_text|>Unfortunately Pollo is right, the only decision that makes sense is to leave Gerald behind.

Still, you aren't fond of the idea though not necessarily for the moral reasons that most would be. This is an unproductive use of your team's talents and pointless in the scheme of things. You can't believe the Empire would allow such a petty man to be in charge of the safety of a province and why isn't the Emperor aware of such inefficiency?

"Very well."

"I knew you'd see things my way. Have fun playing with the kobolds. You're dismissed."

You leave Pollo's office where your team is still waiting for you.

"Gerald, I regret that you will not be coming with us on this mission. The Captain wants you to stay with him." You say.

"What?! But I'm ready to fight!" he protests.

"There will be other missions, I promise you. We will prove ourselves so well on this one, that they will have no choice but to send us out on a regular basis. However, your orders are clear in this matter, you are to remain here with Captain Pollo."

"B…yes sir."

Just before Gerald goes into the captain's office, you whisper into his ear.

"Accidents happen."

He's a little puzzled by this comment, but you and the rest of your team proceed to your assignment and nobody says anything more about it.

When you finally get to the town, it's a sorry sight. A lot of the buildings are damaged and the streets are filled with debris. There are a few people attempting to clean up the place, but it's clear that they're all very demoralized.

'Oh, I see the Empire has finally decided to help us; well you're too late! The kobolds raided this town last night and as you can see completely trashed the place!" says a disheveled man.

"The Empire has many places it has to protect citizen. It is regrettable that your town was attacked, but we are here now to eliminate the problem."

"You're here now? Where the fuck were you last night when my wife was killed by those ugly little bastards?" the man says getting in your face.

"Calm yourself citizen, this will not help your situation."

"My situation? I just said my wife is fucking DEAD! I don't give a shit about my situation anymore you fucking Empire dickhead! Fuck you and your fucking Emperor!"

It is at this point the man unwisely pushes your chest with his hand and you instantly grab it and break his whole arm. He predictably crumples in excruciating pain, screaming as the bone juts out of the skin and blood runs out of his body into the mud. All the other towns people who have seen this back off or hide, as they are rightfully worried about what you're going to do next.

"Now listen up citizens of Dalt! I understand that you've all been through a lot, but that is not a reason to give in to insolence! You are all Empire subjects and you will show proper respect or what's left of this town will suffer in such a manner that you'll think what the kobolds did was a birthday party."

The man whose arm you broke begins to scream more obscenities at you in between his regular howls of pain. You look at Kane and nod. Kane finishes the man off by quickly decapitating him. You take his head and throw it before one of the crowd of peasants who look on in horror.

"Remember this." You say.

You remain in the town of Dalt for the night and get rooms from an overly cooperative innkeeper. He also tells you a little information about the kobolds such what direction they came from, what sort of equipment they were using and how many there were during the attack. Before getting some rest you spend a little of the time discussing strategy with your team. You all don't show it too much, but you are all a little excited about tomorrow.

The next day you set off towards the wooded hills, it doesn't take long before you see a kobold patrol wandering around. They look exactly like how you've seen them in books, sort of like scaly goblins, but from what you've heard, a lot more cunning.

Your team attempts to be stealthy, but perhaps it's due to the excitement of this first "real" battle. Edgar isn't as silent as he should be and clumsily steps on a few twigs alerting the patrols.

The kobold patrol sees all of you, yell excitedly in their language and run away. Edgar is about to chase them, but you knock him to the ground.

"What the hell?" he says wondering why you stopped him.

"Trap, Edgar. Look." You say and point to a tripwire that would've triggered a spiked log that he almost stepped on.

"Oh." He says.

"You were trained better than that Edgar and we went over this last night! This area is probably going to be filled with traps. Now come on, we don't have the luxury of a surprise attack any more."

The remainder of this attack is a tedious exercise in cautiousness broken up by quick battles. The kobolds really have set up traps everywhere and take full advantage of your team's slow movement to launch periodic ambushes themselves. Fortunately they are very poor warriors even in large numbers and you easily dispatch them. All your fighting eventually leads to a cave, which you sort of figured it would. You warn your team that this place is probably going to be a maze and heavily trapped as well.

"Should we split up so we can cover more ground?" Brenda asks.

"No, we're going to be neck deep in them when we go into that cave. They may be poor warriors, but even enough of them could overwhelm one or two of us. If we stick together we'll be fine. Besides, we're going to be here awhile anyway."

There "awhile" isn't an exaggeration. You spend the remainder of the day and night killing kobolds. Your team seems to enjoy it, but you eventually start to get bored of the monotony. You don't even bat an eye when you come across what seems to be a breeding chamber and you exterminate all the female kobolds and their young. Eventually you reach a large cave clearing where you meet the leader.

"Sssss! Defilersss! Murderersss!" a slightly larger kobold hisses at you from some sort of primitive throne and then orders his guards to attack. It's rather pathetic, as they fare no better than the rest. A few quick sword and axe blows and this kobold chieftain is alone.

While the rest of your team is eager to kill him like the rest, you have a slightly better idea for him. You engage him in singles combat, which is over pretty quickly. You then subdue him with some rope you have in your pack.

"Why are we taking him as prisoner? We're Eternals! We don't take prisoners!" Edgar shouts.

"Yeah, we also aren't supposed to miss obviously placed traps either, so there's a first time for everything. Besides I've got a good idea for this one."

You drag the kobold leader back to town who curses you the whole time in a mixture of his language and yours. When you arrive it is now dawn and the townspeople are surprised to see you back, let alone with a kobold in tow.

You tie the kobold leader to a tree near the center of the town and address everyone.

"Citizens of Dalt! The kobold nest has been completely destroyed. This…thing was the leader of this particular nest and most likely orchestrated the raid; do with him as you will. There of course are other kobold nests in this province, but the Eternals will be taking care of this long overdue problem. All the Empire needs in this matter is your continued obedience and loyalty."

After giving this speech you and your team take your leave and hear the screams of the kobold leader as the villagers torture and rip him apart.

When you arrive back at Fort Glory, other soldiers are surprised to see all of you back alive. It was assumed that at best, half of you would be dead. There is a possible thought of whether you actually succeeded and didn't just come back in failure, but given that Kane took it upon himself to take "trophies" his gruesome necklace of kobold ears makes it pretty clear that the job was done.

When you report however, it seems the fort has undergone a change in leadership