The Saarii Strike - Chapter I

Refer to the previous two posts for background about the main characters of this tale, starting here.

Having conquered the entire region, Lord Runo of Enligt set his eyes across the sea, towards the island of Saarii; the last piece to the puzzle. Sending scouting parties simply did not work, the ships never returned. Deciding it was time to take the island by force without trying to find out what form of defenses he might find waiting, he ordered a fleet of ten longships, twenty-five men each, two hundred and fifty men of different disciplines; "surely, enough to invade a small island", he thought.

Half way through the voyage, however, a huge storm wrecked the entire fleet, leaving only a few survivors who managed to salvage enough materials to create a small raft, rowing back to the main land of Midgard. Landing at the small fishermen's village called Kalastaja, the survivors knew that they had to travel to Enligt to inform the Lord about what happened.

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Uuragan Oakwale, Dean Dalgaard, Dan Scott and Duryraen dar'Vuzmur; four members of the Army of Joki, four people who could not have been more different. A human, two dark elves and a dwarf, these are the only survivors of the storm which wrecked five longships and destroyed an entire army.

Upon landing in Kalastaja, the odd group, with tattered clothes and no real boat, drew quite some attention, it was not everyday that an unknown person landed at Kalastaja, let alone five on a raft that could barely fit two. Drenched and exhausted, this kind of attention was not what they needed, they needed food and help, not suspicious looks. One woman did approach them and offered them food and a free night at her inn, the Sleeping Dragon, greatly appreciated by the survivors. Rudely awoken early in the morning, the four were dragged out of bed and out onto the gravel, vaguely realising that they were being accused of something they did not yet understand. Dan Scott felt extremely uneasy as most of the people in the open space in front of the inn were looking directly at him, anger in their eyes, if not hate. Amid the angered shouts were the screams of a woman, crying that "the dwarf, he's the assailant"; breaking down to sobs, her voice dissappearing in the fresh roars of anger from the rest of the villagers. The situation still not clear to the group in the middle, the poor dwarf feeling useless without his usual warhammer in hand, looked to his fellow warriors for support; none coming as they were just as confused. "Let them leave," a voice reached from the back of the crowd, "let them leave and never come back." A middle-aged man came forward, looking at the powerless group as if he knew exactly what had happened during the night. Draped in a fine robe, lined with gold, and a staff in hand; clearly not a warrior in the eyes of the accused. The crowd did not calm down, however, they ordered the the cleric to leave along with the scum that landed the previous day. Amal Cal was the one man who tried to help, the one who joined the team on their journey to Enligt.