003 - Return to Timberhome
While packing, some of Gautstafr’s artifacts were damaged. This stresses him dearly, but he refuses to say more about the matter.
While two people burn through already limited resources, the journey was ultimately uneventful. Solana lets Gautstafr use her room - she won’t be needing it for much longer. He clearly has his own affairs in mind, and pays next to no heed about the townspeople. Clearly this is only a courtesy to stop something more violent from happening. Solana can only hope he keeps up his end of the bargain, and prevents more damage than he causes.
While this helps Timberwood, ultimately the two mystics need to be stopped. The matter must lie with the the second mystic.
As much as Solana would like to pry for information about where the second mystic is, from Gautstafr himself or a lead from the village, alarming news comes in: bandits are on their way. All the trouble from this duel has made the town appear to be easy pickings, it seems. From what she deduced from scouts, they don’t seem so tough or high in number. They have another think coming if they’re thinking of an easy payday.
What little militia is gathered with her in tow and they set out a bit a ways of the city to intercept. It is a more wooded area to the north. They clearly weren’t anticipating anyone from a torn-up town fighting back! Many of them were unprepared to fight immediately, and scramble for their weapons as townspeople charge. Solana picks her target and charges close with a haymaker to the head. Such a hit leaves him reeling, although she finds herself off-balance. How long has it been since she was in a fight? Her hands were getting rusty… metaphorically speaking.
Of course, she has hands. These foes have daggers and shortswords, and a blade is heading right her way. Remembering a technique, Solana sidesteps, using this new opponent’s momentum against him by effectively throwing him to the ground. Good. That one’s person out of the way for a second, now back to her original target…
This bandit charges forward at her, which she narrowly manages to avoid. Unfortunately, her thrown victim is now recovering, and both are soon upon her. 2-to-1 and with nobody available to even the numbers, Solana has a sudden moment of clarity. Charging aggressively at one throws him off, yet her strike was controlled and focused, a crumpling hit to the stomach, followed with a low kick to the second. Something vital must have been hit in the first one, as he wasn’t getting back up. The remainder of the group is dead, soon to be, or retreating. That ought to teach them a lesson.
Mid-Story Commentary
Oh, the mystic's name is Gautstafr, by the way. Apparently I either didn't think it was important back in the part 002, or I had only come up with it at this point and started using it now. Speaking of names: Timberhome. The town is Timberhome. You have no idea how many times I'm editing out miswritten names in these entries even just this far and I've still probably missed some.
I don't actually remember this bandit fight too much: I believe what happened here was I made the journey back to Timberhome a Troublesome rank and rolled a weak hit on reaching my destination. More than likely, I was going through the rulebook in a sort of systematic "okay, let's try these mechanics out" sort of way: the starting vow, then some journeys and other moves, now it's the combat system's turn to get flexed a little.
Combat in Ironsworn is one of my favorite parts of the system, actually. Like with the rest of the system, a few simple rules and moves lend themselves to a dynamic narrative experience that something crunchier really can't simulate as well. There's so much breathing room to play out the fight as you like it, whether much more grounded or something extravagantly cinematic to absurd animeesque over-the-top scale. I'm not sure I write battles nearly as well as they go in my head, but so it goes.
By the way, I was playing a lot of the Yakuza/Like A Dragon series while doing this campaign. Some of her fighting moves are inspired by that series's Heat Actions.
The sudden moment of clarity, if I recall, was Turn the Tide.
How's my battle writing, anyway?
Full Retrospective Commentary
The main difference between a playthrough like this and a properly trimmed and edited story is that we'll have sections like this that really have nothing to do with anything. I don't think the banditry of Timberhome has even comes up after this. Since this encounter doesn't impact much or have anything significant going on, if I was actively trying to make a novel this would be canned. But I'm not, I'm playing Ironsworn and showing you what happened, so you get to experience it too.
Once the game really started going underway, a lot of the oddities that went on here kind of got swept under as I kept playing, even though I'm a huge dork about referring back to past stuff constantly. Someone could point to some TVTropes thing about this, I'm sure.