This is a recount of
the very first time I played on Hârn. The original game
plot is by Matti Ropo. I have taken some artistic
liberties in the retelling and may have forgotten
something or misunderstood something else. This is the
story as I imagine my character Rendolph could have told
his children years after the fact.
How the Dragon Came
to the Village
It was a fair morning
in late summer. I, Rendolf the Hunter, was sitting in
front of my cottage fletching arrows when the sheppards
came back to the village. It was unusual that they'd come
at that hour, and they were rather breathless and excited.
Very soon a crowd gathered around them, and they told a
story of a large animal that had jumped over the fence
antaken a sheep. They were quite sure it was nothing
they'd ever seen before. Not a bear or moose or anything
else, something unknown.
I had my doubts about
the story, but it would have been impolite to remark on
it. After a long talk we decided it was best to go
investigate and we set of to spend the following night at
the place it had happened. First watch went peacefully,
but on the second watch something happened. The man who
was keeping watch woke me and showed me a thing moving in
the bushes. It was a moose. Again I kept my mouth
politely shut, something I was glad of before dawn.
We went back to
slumber and towards the end of the following watch
something else came. We were all woken up and the
sheppards confirmed that was the sound they'd heard the
night before.We could only see a shadow of the creature
as it stood there sniffing the air. It was rather big,
and nothing I'd ever seen before. It seemed to walk on
two legs, at least part of the time.
The creature went
away. The sun came up and we went back to the village. We
talked to the village priest but he couldn't say anything
for sure. And Sir Mikhal was away on some business of his
own. We sent runners to the neighbouring villages and the
town but only one village took us seriously. By this time
the messangers were babbling about dragons. Not much a
wonder only few people believed enough to agree to help.
In fact, only our nearest neighbours promised to come
help us seek the creature.
When the men from the
next village came over we started to track this creature.
At first it was easy to follow the big footsteps, but
then it became harder. I am ashamed to say I was quite
unsuccessful in tracking that day. And my mind must have
wandered for it was my cousin who saw something at the
marsh pond.
He said it was a
green tail that sank in the mud. Something certainly had
gone that way, something quite big. We circled the pond
splitting in two groups and met on the opposite shore.
The creature had gotten out of the water and made towards
the boulders up the hill.
We followed the track.
After a while we spotted a creature much the same color
as the rocks and moss lying quietly trying to hide.
Someone shot an arrow into it, and it made a noise. \par
I did not believe it at first, but after conferring with
everyone we had to agree. It was no random noise. It
clearly sounded like 'nooooo'.
Could this thing
really talk? Would everyone laugh at us? We decided to
risk it and asked it 'Can you speak?'
It replied 'yesss'
and added 'no ssshoot'.
We kept on pointing
the arrows at it and asked questions. It told us that the
Gargun had killedits mother and that it had fled for
weeks. We found out that is was really just a baby and
that its species was called Ilme. It told us that the
Gargun, those vile things, had killed its mother and it
had fled randomly ending up here eventually. We did not
know what to do. It was scared, it was big, but still a
little child. It also was intelligent and didn't threaten
us.
We talked among
ourselves and with the creature. And in the end he agreed
to follow us to the village. That is hardly surprising as
the other alternative was immediate death. We took him to
the fence where the sheep had been kept and all the
village came down to see this 'dragon'. Our priest told
us what he knew about these creatures.
We simply had no
heart to hurt this lost child. In the end he gave us a
promise to seek the uninhabited lands and his own kind
down South. We gave him a sheep to eat and had his wounds
tended. Then he went away and we never heard of the
dragon again. Some others made fun of us. Said we should
have slain it to show the skeptics of the other villages.
But our priest said that Peoni was pleased with the
solution. He said she abhors unnecessary killing.
And that, my child,
is the story of the Dragon who came to our village. |
