[RPG] The defend of The House

[Thomas Van Peteghem]

Medium arrived in Domus. His 16 remaining men were carrying some brancards, 
per four they were carrying a brancard. He stopped at the closest Inn to let 
the wounded men get cured. He guided one of them, Marcus, his loyal 
companion, to his room upstairs after leaving a sovereign at the reception. 
He opened the door and saw a bed with fresh white sheats laying on it, and 
Medium laid Marcus on the bed.

He heard through the hallway one of his other woundeds yelling because of 
the alcohol burning on the wounds, and he walked into the rooms to give them 
some support during the first and always most painful cures.

Then he returned to Marcus' room, took his arm and whispered to him: "You're 
not doing so well, Marcus. I'll leave you here for a while, until you are 
cured. Take a rest, you deserve it." Medium squeezed in Marcus' hand quickly 
and turned around, ignoring the rebellish "No!" of his companion. It was for 
his own safety.

Medium walked back outside. There were still 16 heavily equipped mixed 
infantry left in his unit, and he told them to prepare to move on, when he 
remembered something. 'We should get around 300 to 400 guards in Domus for 
now to defend it.' Medium was about to tell the Exorcistic men to prepare 
them self to set up a campment near the gates when a familiar figure came 
stumbling out of the Inn, followed by an enthousiastic, young, and - Medium 
had to be honest - very sexy nurse, yelling "No, stop, come back!". It was 
Marcus who had come outside. "Master, I am fine, I don't need to be cured, 
look, I can stand on my own feet!" He almost fell on the floor, but Medium 
knew that Marcus was a hard one, he had been with Medium since he had come 
back out of prison a time ago.

"Alright, there are seventeen of us now. We need to build up a defence in 
Domus against a possible siege by Yssaria. I will leave you here as guards 
and find another squad to get another group. Here are your last payments. 
Get somewhere in the back of the battlefield, don't act agressive, and set 
up in a line to get as many Yssarians down as possible. I'm in a hurry." He 
took Marcus by the hand. "You've been a great friend, Marcus, and I trust 
you will bring glory to this squad, I must go now!" Medium ran off to the 
recruitment quarters, while Marcus looked at him for a few seconds, then 
took command over the forces and told them to follow him to the gates.

Medium arrived at the recruitment quarters, and headed straightly to the 
Home Guard Barracks. He spoke to a grumpy old man who was enjoying his pipe 
while leaning backwards in his chair, and he almost fell backwards when 
Medium took him by his shoulder. "Ay, matey, what is..." Medium interrupted 
him "No time for gossips, grumpy grandpa, I need twenty recruits, and hurry 
a bit, I don't got all day!" The man looked a bit unhappy for getting that 
much work that late, but happy because of the high visit, and because he 
cashed 74 gold. He started looking them together. After about an hour Medium 
stood outside again, companied by twenty rather drunk, half-asleep Home 
Guards, who were being unhappy for having to work. One even had to run back 
inside because he had forgotten his equipment. "Is this the disciplin I'm 
used to of the Domus Home Guard? Cartor surely needs to spend more time on 
it. Now - Stop bragging, you childish tin soldier! - I only recruited you to 
drop you off at your destination. Find a useful spot at the gates and set up 
a campment to defend the walls! Then you can go on with whatever you were 
doing, but stop drinking all the time, you need to be able to stand on your 
feet!" The men left for the walls, and Medium walked the other way, further 
in the recruitment quarters.

He went to the Archery Range of the Palace Longbowmen, and meeted a pretty 
woman there. "Hi, I'm Erica, how may I help you?" "Erica? Cartor's Erica?" 
The woman looked surprised that Medium knew her, for she had never seen him 
before. "Yes that's right, that's me." She repeated her first question 
again, and Medium took another 74 gold out of his bag. "I need to get twenty 
archers, are there any available here?" Erica told him to wait a second 
while she went looking, and she came back smiling. "I have exactly... twenty 
well-equipped archers here." Medium payed Erica, and in no time there were 
twenty well equipped, disciplined skirmishers standing in front of Medium in 
formation. "My compliments, lady Erica, you do a fine job, leading the 
Palace Longbowmen!" He took the archers with him, and walked to the walls. 
"I will leave you here to set up a defence of the city. When a battle occurs 
you should be in the middle, defensive, of course, and deploy in a 
skirmish." Medium reminded that he had forgotten to tell the Domus Home 
Guard their settings, but then reminded that it would be useless to waste 
his time on trying to get that group of rats on a decent line. But, 
perfectionist as he was, he decided to stop by them later. The archers 
started building up their campment, and after staying to dream about that 
disciplin for a few more seconds, he ran of.

He walked to his family house, and met his aunt there. "Your uncle isn't 
here, he's visiting your sister Marian in Winkamus. You did a fine job 
there, liberating it." Medium felt flatteres, for it wasn't his honour. With 
lots of subtility he slightly showed his empty pockets to his auntie, and 
the sugar-aunt couldn't resist. "My my, you are so poor, young boy, what 
happened to the times when the Bankers were so rich? Wait, I have some coins 
laying here for you. I must say that you come here often begging for gold, 
you shouldn't come back in quite a while, we're getting poor our selves." 
She took a bag from a carefully chosen hideout (I'm not telling you where) 
and took out 50 coins, giving them to her nephew. Relieved Medium went out, 
but he saw some people looking back at him, smiling because the Royal 
Treasurer had asked gold from his old auntie. He felt his prestige had sunk 
to a lower level.

Medium walked further to the market, and met Lady Gwynyth there. "Medium! 
Have you heard the latest news already? That young boy, your student 
Stormbrew, he has shown his loyalty towards Caligus and dropped his unit as 
militia at the walls. Do you have some gold left? Please send some to 
Stormbrew, he deserves it." Gwynyth knew he couldn't refuse, for she had 
seen the bag with gold hanging on his pockets. Rather unhappy he agreed, and 
headed to the Bank. Many clerks greeted him when he entered, and he went to 
George, one of the receptionists. He put the bag on the table. "Here are 50 
coins. Put 25 of them in my safe, and 25 in Stormbrew's." George looked at 
him with a face that expressed a sincere Who? Medium looked embarrassed for 
having chosen one of the dumbest receptionists. "You know, Stormbrew Raynor, 
my old student. I was here with him last week, showing him how the bank 
works!" George looked up with another face, now pointing out a Ah yes! and 
took the keys from his belt. He went backwards and first opened a small, 
grey, dirty safe. He wiped off the dust to ensure that it was marked 
Stormbrew Raynor, and put the gold in it. Then he went further, opened a 
gate, and went to the golden, blinking safe backwards, marked with the words 
Sir Medium, Baron of Scio, Royal Treasurer of Caligus, and put the rest of 
the gold in it, then closed it again. Then he returned to greet his boss, 
who went out to avoid any further dumbness from his employee.

"Well, that's done for today! Now on my way hom, to hold some speeches to my 
good old Scians. They're getting off the track..." And so Medium started on 
the short trip through the hills to Scio, his homeland.

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