[Mkguild] Corrected Meandering Maunderings of Kaldr Jarsmidr

[Anthony Cariss]

Here is the corrected copy with Orcs changed to Trolls and the typos
mentioned corrected. I thank those who commented for their input. As a first
effort, I am surprised there were not more issues with the story, but glad
there were not. If no one else finds anything needing correction, I shall
send the finished copy on to Virmir.

 

 

 

The Meandering Maunderings of Kaldr Jarsmidr

By Forgecoldiron

 

            How to start this . hmm . well I guess an introduction is as
good a start as any.

 

            My name is Kalder Jarnsmidr. I am . was a 24 year old man from
north beyond the Giantdowns. I came here accompanied by two friends who were
more than friends and who are truly a part of me.

 

*********

 

            I must pause here and explain a bit. Those who saw me arrive and
may read this will wonder about the friends I mention since they saw me
arrive alone. Please, allow me to introduce them. My friends are Feodora, a
female white tiger, and Matvei, a male polar bear. The names of both mean
"Gift of God". I did this to honor how our friendships came to be. In both
instances our meetings were identical.

 

            I am not now, nor ever was, a people person. I enjoyed brief
contact with the people of my homeland but preferred the peace and freedom
of open spaces on my own. Six, maybe seven, years ago during my time roving
the wilds, I bedded down for the night alone only to awaken in the morning
with a polar bear cub curled up with me. Of course my first thought was
"when is mama going to find me and have me for breakfast?" Obviously this
did not happen. What did happen was, after breakfast, I backtracked the
cub's trail to find its mother apparently killed defending her cub. Two
years later it happened again. This time it was a tiger cub curled up
between me and Matvei and with the same origin story. I was now accompanied
by Feodora.

 

********* 

 

            We came here because we were curious. Not much of a reason, but
it was enough for us. It has taken us almost two years to get here. This is
less because of distance; my homeland is only about six months of walking
from Metamor, and more about the lack of urgency. We worked our way here
doing anything that interested us or needed doing. This paid for our food
and lodging when things were good and earned us friends to watch our backs
when it was bad. I think we made and lost friends in equal measure. Such is
the balance of life.

 

*********

 

            During our travels we met a wizard who asked us for help
defending the people of his area from nasty little creatures called Lutins
and the Trolls and Ogres that accompanied them. We spent time helping
villagers raise palisades and dig ditches. We then filled them with
sharpened stakes. 

 

One day as we were cutting and trimming logs for the palisades, we were
attacked by a group with several orcs in it. As I and my friends had the
most fighting skills we sent the rest of the wood cutters running for the
village while we fought a running rear guard. Sadly we lost some that
stumbled and were over run. Just before we came in reach of the village
archers Feodora took an axe blow to her shoulder that nearly took her left
foreleg off. Matvei was not doing well either, though his wounds were less
severe individually, the number did not bode well. I was in fair shape as I
wore light armor along with a wood cutter's axe and my sword to fight with.
With Matvei's help I managed to get Feodora on his back and get her safely
inside the walls.

 

The village healer came running but stopped with a shocked, sad look before
trying to staunch the flow of blood from Feodora's shoulder. I knew that
look, I had seen it before. I told the healer to try her best but to not
feel obligated to continue if she reached a point where she knew all was
lost. I turned to Matvei calling for bandages and started cutting back the
fur from the incredible number of wounds so that they may be stitched.

 

Much later that night I considered the possibility I might lose both of my
friends. Amazingly Feodora still lived, but she had lost so much blood, she
could still lose her leg, and infection was setting in. Matvei was better
but infection had settled in his wounds too. I think that is part of what
makes the creatures so horrible. The fact that they delight in smearing
their weapons with things both foul and poisonous to take the heart out of
those who must watch loved ones die a slow agonizing death from putrefaction
and poison.

 

As I was washing out the wounds of my friends and applying poultices, the
wizard came to me to let me know he had an extremely risky idea for saving
the lives of my friends. He explained that while it would not save my
friends bodies as independent creatures, it would save what made them my
friends. He explained that he had been studying transformative magic as
applied to living creatures. Now before you start thinking he had a hand
somehow in The Curse or was trying to mimic it. He was not. His interest was
in giving fighters the attributes of chosen animals for the duration of
battles. When the attributes were no longer needed, they would be released.
This would return the man and animal to individuals. The risk, he explained,
was that sometimes the animal aspect is stronger than the human and the
result is a berserker killing all in reach and needing killed if it could
not be restrained until the spell was reversed. Knowing of my relationship
with my friends he thought this unlikely but it had to be considered as they
were injured so badly they may have little recognition of my presence in our
bond. 

 

The idea was that since I was relatively uninjured merging us would for most
intent reduce the effects of their injuries. In effect it would be a sharing
of the damage across all of our bodies. This meant as well that I would
become badly injured and infected. The healer had the idea that if I ate
well of foods to provide what my body needed for healing, rested as long as
possible, took as much healing herbs as I could to fight infection from
within and she and her assistants stood ready to stitch and bandage as
necessary after the transformation, there was a fairly good chance we would
survive. The one problem never before considered was, how to separate us
when the healing was far enough along. The longer the merge was held, the
harder it was to separate the merged individuals.

 

I told the wizard that if it meant my friends continued to live as part of
me and I as part of them, "Do it." I was immediately led to a home where I
was cleaned and fed as much as I could stuff myself with along with drinking
and eating herbs known to fight infection and aid healing. When I could eat
and drink no more, I was led to a bed a told to sleep as long as possible.
Getting up only to eat and drink more. If my friends showed signs of dying I
was to be awakened and the process begun immediately. Surprisingly I was
able to rest a night and most of a day before the healer felt the process
needed to begin if Feodora was to survive.

 

While I was resting the wizard and the healer worked together to arrange the
materials they needed. When the time came I was placed in a spell circle
with my friends and the healer and her assistants readied themselves. The
wizard carefully finished the spell circle sealing us within. As the wizard
cast his spell, the feeling of closeness I had always had with my friends
deepened and surrounded us like the protective arms of a mother. As the
spell took hold I saw two female forms. One was motherly with a rose-pink
aura. The other reminded me of those who served as stewards of the forest
for lords. They looked at us with sorrow and approval. I had no idea at the
time who they were, as my attendance to any formal religion was at best very
loose.

 

*********

 

I awakened to a new world a week later. It was a world of pain. My only
thought was that I had to be alive, a dead body certainly could not hurt
this much. As my mind slowly grasped bits and pieces of what I saw, I
realized where ever I was . IT STUNK . it was too noisy and . even though
there were no torches lit and the windows were shuttered I could see very
well. The door opened, brightening the room painfully, allowing a woman to
enter. Even though she was in silhouette I knew who it was as a draught
brought a smell of herbs and salves to me. The healer came over and realized
I was awake and not just conscious.

 

"You had the Gods cradling your lives you know." She said. I replied in the
time honored tradition of the newly awakened, "Huh?" "When the wizard began
his spell something happened that almost broke his concentration. The area
of the spell circle filled with a rose-pink light. It was not what he
expected. Nor were the two people inside the circle expected." She replied.
I told her I remembered two women I did not recognize in the circle with me.
The healer looked at me astonished and asked "Do you not know who that was
in there with you?" "No." I replied. She shook her head as she commented,
"How a person, especially one like you, could grow to your age and not have
knowledge of such beings!" "Ok, ok." I groused. "So they were important
people. Are you going to tell me who they were, or am I going to die without
knowing?" She grumphed and exclaimed "That was none other than Akkala, the
Queen of the Gods as well as the goddess of healing and purity accompanied
by Artela the goddess of mercy and one of the goddesses of nature!" "Surely
you've heard of them!?" 'Oh great' I thought, goddesses taking a personal
interest in my life unrequested. Please, do not get me wrong, I was not
upset that they aided me. It was more the feeling that I now owed a debt I
had not asked for and well . debts to deities are very costly. I was not
sure I could adequately repay such a debt. "Well yes, I know the names, but
I never attended any services related to any deity and paid little attention
to my instructors." I declared. She gave me a cross look and I bet if I
wasn't in such bad shape she would have smacked my head as if that would
instill the knowledge I was lacking. "Seeing as you are such a lackwit when
it comes to the affairs of mortals and gods, let me just tell you that since
you obviously did not ask for their aid, they provided it for a reason." She
told me. "The two easiest to think of are they have a future use for you or
the way you lived your life with your companions won their favor and aid."
As this agreed with my thinking, I groaned and fervently said, "I hope it
was the way I lived with my friends as being chosen by deities leads to
lives that are too often interesting and short."

 

Sometime after the healer left the wizard visited me and confirmed a thought
I had had upon being told I had been out of it for a week. The merge was
permanent. His next comments were unexpected. After a bit of hemming and
hawing while examining me he informed me that the deities' presence in the
ritual had had a major effect on the merge. "If the merge had gone as I
expected, you would be basically human with the attributes of your friends
overlaid on your form." He explained. "Instead it appears you are three
individual bodies sharing one." "Ooookaaay." I said "What exactly does that
mean?" "Well, my best guess ." the wizard started to say. "WHAT DO YOU MEAN
. BEST GUESS!?" I roared. I must say THAT scared the crap out of both of us.
It seems I now had a new voice. A few blinks of time later when we both had
looked at each other thinking 'What the heck was that?' I asked again in a
calmer though no less confused tone, "What do you mean by best guess?" The
wizard put on his best lecturing tone and began explaining. It seems that I
now was twice as big, more or less, as had been. As it was mostly bone and
muscle, my height and width had not doubled. I had become about a quarter
taller and wider. So just looking at me with nothing to measure me against
you would miss the difference. He told me it was probably a side effect of
the altered spell allowing one body to become any one of the three origin
forms. "Let me get this straight," I said, "I can be myself, Feodora, or
Matvei?" "Umm, sort of. It is more that you as a group decide on the form
the host body takes." The wizard cautiously said. He told me to think of it
as deciding how much of the host body will be what. "You could choose a
balanced form having equal thirds of each origin form, or any variation you
can conceive from full human to full tiger or bear." He explained. He then
went on to say this was discovered after the merge when the healer and her
assistants began to administer treatment. "As they treated you, your form
changed. After they were done and had a chance to discuss the strange way
you kept shifting forms, they decided that your shifting exposed your wounds
in order of descending severity." He said. "Of course this had to have been
directed in some fashion by the deities as you were unconscious." The wizard
indicated that there was an aura of magic surrounding me that seemed much
more than that needed for the transformations, but he had no clue the
effects it might have. I was to discover what some of it was much later.

 

*********

 

And what a way to discover it!

 

While healing in the wizard's village, we (my friends and I) experimented
with our shapeshifting. I had had some uncertainty as to how the three of us
would communicate. After all two of us did not speak. That turned out to be
only a small problem. All one of us had to do was desire a shape and the
others would get an image/feeling of the desired shape. Depending on each of
our desire or resistance to the change, the change could, take place, not
take place or be modified through consensus.

 

The big reveal came a few months farther along our travels. As you might
expect we were once again in a battle for our lives when a surprising change
occurred. I was in mixed form using my human form for the basic shape, tiger
for roaring voice and claws, and bear for powerful muscles. We were about to
be overwhelmed and I was wishing I could have Feodora by my side for her
slashing claws in addition to my weapons when for a moment my legs felt
painfully cramped for an instant and suddenly I was almost twice as tall!
Only the shock the change caused in my attackers gave me the time to see why
and still live. I looked down to see I had become a kind of centaur; only
instead of man/horse I was man/tiger. The middle of battle is NOT the time
to try out new things, but the single mindedness it invokes does allow
instinct greater freedom to control your body's actions. You could say that
by forgetting that my lower body was now a tiger's body allowed it to draw
on my senses for information and Feodora's life instincts to guide it. The
terror factor was a great help too. Heh, imagine how dry and clean YOUR
pants would be if you opponent suddenly doubled in size and gained two more
death dealing legs. Enough to say we survived that encounter.

 

Once we were safe and resting in a village we came to, we did the same kind
of experimenting as when we were first merged. It seemed the limits of our
transformation was only that the lower body had to be tiger, bear or a blend
of both. This made sense as only they had four legs and *chuckle* the idea
of a bear or tiger body on puny human legs was agreed to be useless at least
and hilarious at best. One time I suggested a lower body of a bear with
human legs and got the impression of being flattened under the weight of
both my friends in response. Oomph, I'll pass on feeling that again.

 

*********

 

And that friends is pretty much my story of how I came here. My trip was
pretty normal. Some fighting, some working, some loving, and a lot of
living.

 

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