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Timeless Fort

The Tribe of Grulthena

There was once an orc tribe known as Grulthena, and its members got to a point where their traditions were a bit more domestic than that of other orcs. Instead of continuing to be nomadic, they set up a camp to which they could properly return to, as they had a large number of their population stay behind there and tend to the livestock and crops they had around that area. Eventually, they stopped taking things with them and decided to settle down in that area, building an outpost of sorts. This outpost began to rival the size of a village, but it had the defenses of a fortress. After about a month, people began taking notice of the orcs building it, as this meant they would have easy access to raiding trade routes to the north. Though this behavior would be predictable, they had a settlement rather than a small camp, so it would be difficult. Truces failed to persuade them to leave, and patrols (with the occasional skirmish between the humans and orcs) only made them angrier. In the next few months, they had managed to finish building the walls for Grulthena Fortress. They were seemingly living a normal life there inside, so the kingdom let its guard down. That was until the raid of 1023, where they raided a nearby hamlet, took everything that wasn't nailed down after murdering hundreds of civilians, and then razed it all to the ground to make sure no one could come back to rebuild. The army devised a plan...

The Master Plan

The plan was to simply attack the fort using guerilla warfare and siege tactics. The problem was that King Artik I wasn't willing to expend many resources or manpower for this, as he just assumed it was just like any regular orc tribe. So, General Threnor Karlssen and a powerful warmage known as Cairnborn came up with the idea to simply have as many attempts as possible at invading the fort, as they could then devise a strategy along the way for their second attempt. They just had to put the entire fort into a time loop. Some adventurers found two jade stones with strange runic writing on them, and Cairnborn was willing to buy it for a huge price. These stones, when activated using a ritual, will trigger again at a specified time to create a time loop in a half-mile radius. The first stone will begin glowing to signal this. Then, the second stone will activate and glow at the specified time when the time loop resets. Only the people present and partaking during the ritual will remember that they are in a time loop each time it resets. To deactivate the time loop, the stones must be brought together again and a command word specified at the ritual to be spoken.

The Eternal Last Stand

As you can probably guess, it went horribly wrong. The first Time Gem activated as soon as the sun rose, shooting a large green bolt into the sky. The second gem was set to activate at sunset, and they were both kept on a pedestal at the army's base camp. The only people who knew about the time loop were Karlssen and Cairnborn. The plan was good, yes, but some of their trebuchets didn't work as well as intended, as the orcs had aimed their ballistas right at the army's siege engines. The longbowmen proved useful, but the vanguard was quite quickly decimated by an unexpected orc cavalry arrival. Eventually, once both sides retreated from the battlefield (the general knowing he had another shot at this), the orc chieftain and some of his scouts snuck into the camp, now with a reduced guard force. He saw the pedestal with the two stones, ordered his scouts to distract and take out their sentries, and took a closer look. The activated stone was glowing brightly, and the Time Gem set to signal the end of the loop at sunset was currently faintly glowing and flickering, since the sun was about to set.   Just as he examined the stone that was set to reset the loop when it activated, Cairnborn and Threnor Karlssen walked out of their tent with a few bodyguards. Knowing this was something important, Chief Karatten acted impulsively and swallowed the Time Gem that closed the loop. Enraged, Karlssen ordered his bodyguards to step away, and so did Karatten. Cairnborn also stepped in, worried and rambling about what Karatten did will doom them. And so, they began a legendary battle. General Threnor Karlssen was fighting to kill the chieftain once and for all, Karatten was fighting for the defense and honor of his tribe, and Cairnborn was trying to incapacitate both of them so that they could process what Karatten just did and reach a conclusion. That was the last anybody has heard of the army at Grulthena Fort. The soldiers that deserted the 12th battalion were the only ones to not get stuck in the loop. All they know is that when that second stone activated and an invisible barrier appeared around the fort and camp, something went wrong and a large, emerald thunderhead appeared over the fort. Something was not supposed to happen the way it did, and so, the 12th battalion has been trapped on an eternal battlefield for the last 400 years. Stories of people who accidentally wandered into the time loop do exist, so people are wary, but the still image of a lifeless orc outpost is still used as a landmark to this day by travelers along the road.
RUINED STRUCTURE
7/23/1024
Alternative Names
Grulthena Fortress
Type
Battlesite / Battlefield
Owning Organization

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