[RPG] [FEI] [Lasanar] The Doddiad / Adventures in Nighthelm

[Samuel Knowlton]

THE DODDIAD, book FIVE
in which
The Army of Lasanar GETS LOST and accidentally wins the WRONG WAR and ANACAN 
is NOWHERE TO BE FOUND

----
Holding a large, wrinkld map, Ulwitt Dodd sat astride his horse, a rather 
drab-looking but burly charger named Hoofet (pronounced 'Hoof it,' which 
Dodd, and only Dodd never ceased to find hilarious).

The bastions of Masahakons loomed on the horizon.

Dodd rotated the map this way and that.

"It doesn't look like Anacan." Dodd's brow furrowed.

"I expect it isn't," observed Duke Galiard Scarlett, General of Lasanar, 
whose army was a bit sour over the fact that the Northerners' winter coats 
were not proving useful in balmy Nighthelm.

"I thought, you know," Dodd gestured vaguely at the fortress, "that it would 
be kind of the same."

"Walls are walls," Galiard shrugged. "It's the thousands of angry Antozans 
inside them that makes Anacan special."

"Yes!" Dodd agreed. "Well, we'll show those Antozans we mean business!"

"There aren't any Antozans here," said Galiard patiently.

Dodd faltered. "None at all?" He frowned. "Not even, you know, a few?"

"Nope. All Nighthelm," said Galiard.

"What'd they do to deserve all this, then?" Dodd asked, looking around at 
the massed armies of Lasanar, Soliferum, and Greater Aenilia.

"Percy," barked Galiard.

Percy appeared, lugging a giant, voluminous sheaf of parchment, labeled THE 
BOOK OF THE WAR.

"THE BOOK OF THE WAR, sire," said Percy.

"Is there a short version?" Dodd asked, looking pained.

"Erm," said Galiard. "No."

"Pardon me for asking, m'lud, but we've been sitting here for a couple days 
now..." Dodd swatted at some mosquitos that were enjoying Northerner for the 
first time in a while.

"Yes," replied Galiard, "But they surrendered, see."

"They did?" Dodd snapped his visor up and peered at Galiard. "Then what are 
we still doing here?"

"Bit of a diplomatic problem," explained Galiard. "Apparently, in the 
Soliferum dialect, 'surrender' means 'and your mother was a disease-ridden 
monkey,' and so when King Thraymnn and Duke Phellan write to all of us about 
'terms of surrender,' Conan and Renquest hear "la la la monkey monkey 
monkey."

Dodd frowned. "So what do we do about it?"

Galiard shrugged. "Build the siege towers taller, I suppose."

"Ser Bors has been doing that all week," Dodd remarked. "If he builds his 
any higher, he'll end up in Arcachon."

Galiard grumbled. "I don't care for this not-quite-but-almost laying siege 
business."

"Perhaps m'lud would like to return to the 'definitely not going to succeed' 
siege business of having not enough men in Anacan?"

Galiard brightened. "At least that was fun."

"I will remind m'lud the next time a hundred arrows are searching for his 
vitals that he considers it fun."