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`Apr. 25, 2025` · [[Horseapple]] · #Fragment #Characters #Warband
> [!custom-callout]- All mentions, including keyword *“npc7”*
> *Pulled from* [[2-strings-(Warband)]]
> - “Captain -- Deshavi has set off on some sort of expedition, which she says that you countenanced. She says that she will go about the villages of this land, telling the poor villagers that once you are {king/queen}, you intend to hang all thieves and bandits. {Sir/Madame}, I am a merchant's daughter, and know well the scourge of banditry. I also know that Deshavi has suffered great wrongs. But surely you do not intend to hang men indiscriminately. There must be some place for mercy in your kingdom.”
> - “Yes? Keep your distance, by the way.”
> - “My luck? You could say that.”
> - “It was my bad luck to be born to a weak father who married me off to a drunken layabout who beat me. It was my bad luck, when I ran away from my husband, to be taken by a group of bandits. It was my bad luck that the only one among them who was kind to me, who taught me to hunt and to fight, inspired the jealousy of the others, who knifed him and forced me to run away again.”
> - “But I do not count myself unlucky, stranger, no more than any other woman of Calradia, this fetid backwater, this dungheap among the nations, populated by apes and jackals.”
> - “I have been wandering, looking for work as a tracker, but it has not been easy. Calradians are mostly ill-bred, lice-ridden, and ignorant, and it is not easy to work with such people.”
> - “I might be. I could certainly use the money.”
> - “But let your followers know that I do not suffer louts and brutes. Anyone who misbehaves around me will quickly find an arrow in their gullet.”
> - “All right then. I will come with you. But I want a payment of {reg3} denars first. You aren't expecting me to work for free, do you?”
> - “Captain -- I do not like to see us {s21}. Such are the actions of a common bandit chief, with no regard for his followers.”
> - “Captain, I have done my best to put up with your followers' rude talk and filthy habits. But that one who calls himself {s11} is beyond tolerance.”
> - “I do not care for how he stares at me around the campfire after a meal, as he picks his teeth. I believe I recognize him from my days as a bandit. He is base and ignorant. I do not care to travel with such people.”
> - “Captain -- I have been searching my mind trying to remember where I have seen {s11}, the one who calls himself a baron. As I watched him in action during that last battle, I suddenly remembered. He is a good fighter, but also a vicious one.”
> - “Back when I lived in the ravines, we would sometimes fight with a rival band called the Brethen of the Woods. Captain -- I would not trust any man who hides his origins, and particularly would not trust a common bandit who calls himself a lord.”
> - “Captain. I was just talking to {s11}. She may be a bit savage, but I believe that she is a faithful friend.”
> - “At some point in the future, if you have no need of our services, she has promised to go back to the ravines with me and find the bandits who murdered my lover, and help me take my revenge. It was a kind offer. I am glad that she is with us.”
> - “I am tired of this squalid life of endless warfare, seeing men debased by fear, greed, lust, and a hundred other sins. I have money in my purse. I am going overseas to look for a better land than Calradia. I assume that you will fare well without me.”
> - “Captain! It is good to see you. Forgive what I may have said when we parted. I took a ship out of Wercheg, bound for the east, but it was taken by pirates and after my ransom I was set ashore back here. There may be better places in the world than Calradia, but I have yet to see them. So I think, if it is my lot to live here, then your company is as good a livelihood as any. Will you have me back?”
> - “Do you smell that? Salt fish, rotting flax and river mud. The smells of my childhood. I want to retch.”
> - “Before I was married off, and before I was taken by bandits, I lived here. I was born in a hovel and spent my childhood in the fields. Our landlords were Nord, but we never saw them, merely their cursed minions and overseers. My father, coward that he was, cringed before them.”
> - “We were allowed to fish the river, raise pigs amid the reedbeds, and grow whatever we could in our private plots, but in the open fields we were only permitted to grow flax, to be taken to Sargoth and woven into linen. So we were always hungry, and weak, and never had the courage to rebel.”
> - “I was born in a hovel in the fens, not far from {s21}.”
> - “Aye -- you'll do well. You know how to treat bandits and ruffians.”
> - “Yes, captain, I would. A {king/queen}'s duty is to keep the roads safe for decent folk, make it so a woman can gather the firewood or draw the water without being accosted by some drooling, scabby ape of an outlaw. Anyway, you've split the skulls of a number of such brutes in your time. Men would fear to even meet the eyes of a woman on the road, if you were {king/queen}.”
> - “I'll tell you what, captain. Give me a few weeks and I'll go to some of these villages -- stinking hovels that they are, but I reckon I can take care of myself these days. I'll tell the people there that once you unify this land, you'll wipe it clean of banditry. You'll erect gallows along the roads and keep them well-stocked with broken-necked thieves, so that every passerby knows that the wages of indecency is death.”
> - “I have heard what you told Bunduk, about giving every common criminal the right of appeal to the {king/ruler}. I do not approve. Bandits should be hanged when caught. Give them a trial or an appeal, and they will talk their way out of the noose. Bunduk is a good man, but no man can fully understand what these wolves in human form do to women.”
> - “Captain. When I left my former home in {s17}, I had promised myself that I would never return, except for the purposes of taking out vengeance on those who wronged me. Perhaps I was rash. I am occasionally curious as to how my family is getting along. Perhaps I can bring them some gifts, to let them know what I have made of myself! Any rate, they are wretched people, but just as a cringing dog keeps its ear to the wind, so do they. They may have useful information about the {s18}, if you would give me a few days to pay them a visit.”
> - “Aye, I'll hold {s17} -- and give it a reputation that strikes fear in the hearts of thieves and brigands across Calradia. Thank you, {sire/madame}, for this opportunity.”
> - “Captain. If you don't mind me saying, you have fought long and hard against the scum of Calradia, and with their defeat, you make this land a better place. You are well deserving of a fief of your own -- and I suspect that if you were not a woman, a king would have offered you one by now. That is the way of the men in this sorry land: they let us stand in the front of the battleline to take the enemy's blows, but when it comes to a division of the spoils, they expect us to head to the rear.”
> - “Well, captain. You made of me a great lady, and for that I am grateful. However, you did not buy me, and now the circumstances have caused us our interests to clash, I can meet you in battle with a clear conscience. Still, I hope some day that circumstances may change again, and we may meet as friends.”
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