Why didn’t anyone tell me…

“CALL TO ARMS! CALL TO ARMS! Relic in danger! Get to the frontiers!”

Elar wakes from his bed to shouts of confusion and dissention. Someone is riding a horse through the village and waking people up.

“CTA! Tell your alliances! Everyone to Renaris!”

Elar sits up on the side of the bed and wipes his eyes. It’s still quite dark out. The noise starts to spread. The hotel is the same one he has stayed in for weeks now, but the owners, or residents, still don’t seem to know him. He just keeps returning to this place as a convenient constant. He stands up and picks up his staff again. Stretching to get the kinks out of his legs, he wanders downstairs and out the door to see what is going on. The residents are still praising someone’s singing, but he’s learned to tune it out.

“Get to Renaris!” yells a passing woman on a horse. She is wearing a large decorated shield and chain mail, carrying a torch. The glow illuminates the houses on each side of the path, leaving a streak in Elar’s eyes.
“You need a group? We’re going to Ren.” says a passing man in plate mail. He’s about average height, but does not have the decorated cape that he has seen on so many others with heavy armor.
“I could – what’s happening?”
“Mids want the reliic back. Should be a good fight. Personally, I’m inclined to keep it.”
“Sure,” says Elar. The announcer is back, announcing that Elar has been invited to a group, another strange thing that he has learned to just ignore as it seems to have no side effect.
The stranger starts running back up to the castle, where horses can be found to take you to a number of places. Elar follows at a trot and meets up with the horse master.
Somehow, the new stranger is picked up and instantly placed on the back of the horse and is off and running in an instant. Elar walks up to the horse vendor.
Elar’s experiences with this merchant were never quite good, as he always felt that he was being hit on  the head g immediately used – why buy a ticket at all? = and then wakes up on the horse, never having gone through  the motions of actually getting on the horse. 

The ride was over in very little time. He was curious about the traveller and his group of friends whom he could now see. There were three of them standing in the courtyard. The enormous stone castle loomed over the trench it rested in. The stone walls stretched from one hill to the next with an enormous bastion blocking the way. Inside the gates, curiously unguarded, there was a courtyard.  This is where the stranger’s friends were gathered.
“ok, let’s go thru” said one.
“porting” said another. With this, they moved through the farther gate, apparently running at full speed into a closed door. Just at the point they should have hit the door, they disappeared. Elar continued to be worried by this type of behavior, but realized that this must be part of the magic that held these people and this land. The stranger also ran into the doorway and disappeared, and Elar followed.
On the other side of the portal was pure mayhem. There were perhaps 200 people standing around, casting spells, trading, and in general smelling quite awful. Many were bleeding and pale.  One man was running around in circles as fast as he could with a drum out, leaving a trail of blood on the ground behind him, singing, “THIS IS THE SONG THAT NEVER ENDS!” at the top of his voice. Another woman shouted, “wts croc tears, 5p”. There was a crowd of people surrounding a man with a star on his armor. The military man was handing out orders.
Elar looked about, found the party he had been following, and made his way over.
“We all here?” asked one of them. There were various nods of assent.
“i’ll b3e late, meet you at the keep” came a voice with no apparent owner.
“ok, lets go” said the man in plate.
Elar still felt wrongfooted by the whole situation, but there was clearly a pressing situation going on. People were anxious, standing in herds as if by standing together they would protect each other. It reminded him of sheep standing together pretending that there were no wolves.
“MOOOVING” shouted someone in the throng. At that there was a large departure to the left along the rocky wall.
“af up” said one of the group. With that they were off. Elar ran along behind the man in plate.
As they ran along, Elar was amazed at how fast they were moving. It felt as if he were being propelled faster than he could normally move. He decided it must have something to do with the pressing issue and dismissed it – after all, who could be moving so fast in reality. Then suddenly, he realized how fast he was moving when a branch narrowly missed his head, let fly from one of the previous passers. Then in a moment, everyone stopped short at once, there was a cascade of sickening crunches. All at once, everyone grabbed their noses. The whole group, at once, had slammed into a tree.
“noob” said someone in the pile.
“let me drive” said another.
“i’m lagging too hard, someone else drive”, said the man they were all following.
In a moment they were all off, noses streaming. The number of people now reached fifty or more. They went around the offending tree and rushed through a thicket. In the distance after a clearing rose a large building.
The building resembled a stone arena. There were stone stags guarding three large entrances positioned on the northeast, west, and south. The building was elevated slightly, ramps leading into each entrance. The internal courtyard was circular, about a hundred meters around. Small alcoves were built into three sides with large towers. There was lighting under the flagstone floor in three locations, making a pattern of three independent circles, each facing one of the alcoves; one red, one green, one blue.
“OK, set up traps. You have ST elar?”
“ST?”
“static tempest. I’m guessing he doesn’t have it.”
Many people were walking out the northern entrance and standing relatively still for a few seconds at a time, some as many as a minute. The would leave small marks and stone pillars on the ground where they stood. Some of the marks were red, some of the towers had elaborate pulsing spheres at the top. When people stood near some of the towers their noses stopped bleeding quite quickly. The stains on their armor and robes were still visible. Elar stood amazed by the reactions, just watching people heal.
This continued for approximately ten minutes. Then someone started constructing a large wooden device. Elar walked over to see what was happening. Suddenly it was done. It was a catapult. But more than the fact that someone had just built a catapult out of apparently nothing but scaps of wood from his pockets, the catapult simply appeared in the middle of the air at around head height and dropped to the ground, making a tremendous thunk as it settled. Even the wood and materials in this place had unnatural qualities, thought Elar. Another catapult sprang into existance some feet to his left, coming down on top of a smallish blue man. This didn’t even seem to affect the blue man who simply walked over the farther beams and went on his way.
In a couple minutes more, two more catapults and a pair of crossbows on stands were constructed, all facing approximately north. All this time there was a somewhat steady stream of people arriving from the southeast. The crowd now swelled to over three hundred. The day was now growing warm, and the smell became harder to ignore. Three hundred people that have apparently never bathed is a smell that Is better experienced than explained.
Another half hour passed. People were sitting down, some ran around the entire building, watching for enemies that might come from other directions. The Song that Never Ends was started again. There was a scuffle out the east gate accompanied by shouts and blows. Someone shouted that a ranger was found and killed. Another scuffle off to the west revealed a pair of enemies that were sneaking in among the trees. They had killed four before they were killed themselves. Those defending the building were getting nervous, starting to move more. Then there was a great shout from two or three locations on the north. “INC!” “Incoming!” “mids!”
In a moment Elar could see them. He and the group were gathered together in a game of cards that Elar hadn’t quite picked up on the rules of. They dropped the game and looked around in the direction of the shouts. Off in the distance there was a cloud of dust. The dust was moving closer. Then all at once, there was a black line of an army running at the building.
The men at the seige engines started aiming them toward the enemy lines. A couple fired ranging shots. One shot landed well within the enemy and one body fell. A couple were limping as they ran, but the others came on. It struck Elar how very large they were, some of them in excess of eight feet tall. As they got close enough to make out individuals, he saw that almost none of them were human.
“Troll zerkers. Great,” said one of the group behind him. The trolls were large and dressed in heavy scaly armor, resembling that of a large metallic lizard. The stony faces of the trolls were painted, but made of an earthy stony material. Watching them move was unnerving, as if the ground itself was coming to kill you. They displayed no emotion, but ran onward at an astounding pace. There were also smaller blue skinned people at about four feet height behind them, and some men. The wind had backed around behind the army, blowing into the faces of the defenders. The sky began to dim, it was either becoming stormy or very late in the day, and either was a strong possibility.
In only moments, the enemy was at the feet of the frontmost defenders. One of the closer trolls stepped on a rune left earlier as a trap. The troll and all those near him were engulfed in a fireball that ascended to the heavens, leaving two of them on the ground dead and flaming. Those that survived ran on. Their skin was apparently unaffected, but their armor had caught fire. It burned as they ran, but they did not deviate.
At last bows were being fired. One fell, then two, then two more at a time. But they were coming so quickly. Elar began to concentrate on his staff and what things may work to keep him alive against such large and heavy enemies.
“our turn” said the plated soldier, a paladin. At this he charged into the fray among the soldiers with burning armor. Elar ran in behind him. The plated man struck the nearest troll with his shield and passed his sword through his leg. Elar brought his staff down on the other thigh, breaking the leg off as if it were made of  sun-dried clay. The troll went down and stopped moving at once. The cloth cape it wore continued to burn, sending smoke up into Elar’s face. A second troll hit Elar with a stone mallet, knocking him to the ground. The troll suddenly lifted his mallet again, then froze. Elar, already in the action of rolling away, stood up and looked back at the troll, still backing away. The troll continued to hold the hammer high in the air, ready to strike, but not moving.
“he’s mezzed, leave him” said one of Elar’s group from the back.
“over here!” yelled another of the group. Another troll was locked in battle with him, the sword he held being caught in the robes of Elar’s groupmate. Both Elar and the chain-clad drum carrier started towards the fight. The troll put his foot on the caster and heaved the sword free, kicking the slender body down. In a moment the sword was brought high and came down. The sword barely slowed as it cut the body in half and struck into the ground. Elar arrived after the chain-wearer. He stabbed two short swords into the recovering troll’s shoulders. Elar spun his staff and hit the troll’s back just below the neck and the troll fell.
“shizt!” said the dead half body.
This caused Elar to jump and retreat three paces or more from the body. But there was no time to reflect on this, another troll was bearing down on them. It was the narcoleptic troll again, cloak still ablaze. All at once the shield of the paladin slammed into the side of the troll and the troll stood limply, the hammer and shield falling from his hand. Three swords and Elar’s staff struck the troll at once, but it stayed vertical. Then there was a great explosion, dense black smoke, and nothing remained.
As they now had some space to look around, they realized that there will still enemies streaming into the space surrounding the building. Many defenders had fallen, as well as many foes. The numbers seemed about equal. Great fireballs streaked across the field. Mountains of ice grew out of the ground to freeze to the legs and torsos of the enemy. Clouds of firey spears fell from the sky to strike the defenders. Arrows fell randomly everywhere.
Next to Elar, a short blue humanoid in black leather pulled his knives out of the back of the mercenary in chain. The mercenary fell immediately. Two quick stabs came towards Elar, but he managed to duck out of the way. A great blue glowing sword struck the assassin in the head, the helm flew off and into the distance. The short man the fell asleep. The paladin’s next strike cut the head off the blue man.
“nice” said the caster, still in two pieces on the ground beside Elar. This was far more disgusting in action than in theory, for both halves of the body were moving in unison but unable to work against each other, leaking blood and organs into the grass.
“excellent!” said the mercenary.
Elar looked at him, and then did a double take. Had he not just seen the mercenary fall dead? Was he mistaken?
“thx bud” said the caster. He too was now standing next to Elar, covered in blood, but clearly in one piece.
“How did you do that?” said Elar, too stunned even to think anything else.
“what?”
“You’re whole again. How did you do that?”
“someone rezzed me. god your a noob.”
An arrow struck Elar in the calf, passing cleanly through and into the ground on the other side. He screamed and fell, grasping the arrow and leg. He pulled his leg free of the back end of the arrow and rolled away, wincing. The pain shot up his leg, dismissing all other thought. Then suddenly he didn’t hurt at all. He unclasped his hands and looked at the leg. The hole was closed as well. He gently rolled over and pushed himself up, adding weight slowly to the leg. It didn’t hurt at all. He hopped on the injured leg. It didn’t seem to have a problem at all. “Thanks,” he said, not knowing who or what had done this for him.
“np” shouted a passing soldier in blue enamelled armor.
In twenty minutes, it was over. There was a final stand in which a cluster of trolls and norsemen had gathered and charged into the arena. They were overpowered almost instantly by those inside. Many hundreds had died on both sides of the battle. The ground was red and slushy underneath the grass. The battered bits of troll clay were everywhere. The bodies lay singly in many places, covering the field. Occasional scraps of bodies were in many places.
“woot! That was hella fun!” said someone in the group.
“YAY” shouted another.
“OK, we’re going to close the gates. Need 2 groups to stay here.”
“We’ll stay” said the paladin. He was still more or less upright, having been knocked down at least twice, but slaying three for each that hit him. It was an amazing sight, and Elar was glad of the protection. Elar was on his knees, leaning on his staff.
“How did you get that caster up?” he asked the paladin.
“Rez. You have to train in rejuvenation,” came the reply.
“Show me,” said Elar. He had seen many raise fallen defenders from the ground during the fight. Some from many punctures, some from tremendous burns and hemmorages, and the most vivid was the bisected caster. They had all been pulled back from death, and in some cases immediately started fighting again. One had been brought back as a skeleton that arced lightning to anyone that came close. He had charged the enemy and killed many before he withered to himself again. He was desperate, he had to learn this.
“Tell you what, here’s what we’ll do. You need a guild. If you want, you can join the guild and i’ll shhow you around and give you some real armor and weapons. If you don’t feel like it, you can just follow the zerg and you’ll still have some fun.”
Elar considered this for a moment. “OK” he said.
“Cool! Welcome Elar, our newest member!”
There were various shouts of welcome and greeting.
“Let’s get you some gear. My name is Matrium.”