Aldea de piedras blanca

[Jareth]

Book II Challenge 1 category C

for Nocturnus

The battle neded as all battles do. Not with a definete end, but with a slow lessening of screams. A slowing of a quickened heartbeat, and the dread anticipation of another wave leaching away as adreniline turns to sickness.

The Patriarch of the El Bunil clan, Carlos, turned to the motley reinforcements at his gate. The uninvited ones. The unwelcome ones. The ones who had certainly saved his home, and his entire family, from certain destruction. The dwarves were intermingled with his own sons, nephews and cousins. Scouring the fields for the wounded. But their largest warrior was close by, while some Bufon in a wizard hat waved a red and gold flag around.

"Well, Vecino, it seems that I am in your.....debt." He forced out.

The warrior tunred to look at him, but beneath the mask, Carlos could read no emotion.

"My family, you know, came here to avoid all this, and yet it follows us like a cordero, no?"

Again the warrior said nothing.

"My familia, we came from what we called the Tierras de la Marea. The lands near the borders of Avalonia y Kaliphlin. Every generacion or so, an army would tell us that the border had changed beneath us. Many families suffered, but we were afortunado for a long time si."

The warrior turned his mask to gaze at the impressive stone walls of the keep.

"Ah, yes our walls were part of it, but our cabezas were even more important, si? When the caballeros de Avalonia rode forth, we greeted them with bandera verde and hailed them as heroes and dug up buried statues of Santas de Avaonia. When Kaliphlin came back north we flew the bandera azul y roja and buried the statues."

The giant scanned from the walls to the terrain around them, where the dead nocturnus plants seened to be larger than before the battle started.

"Si, now we are here, eventually the trick did not work so well, and the walls were not enough. Mi padre y abuelo died defending those walls, while I was working the quarry. I became the youngest patriach of the El Bunil familia ever. I said 'enough of this, we go to a new land' so we hired ships and packed as much of the marble in the holds as lastre, you would say ballast as we could. These walls are made from marble and local granite. I was hoping they would keep us safe forever."

The gigante looked at a massive crack in the wall, then back at Carlos.

"Yes....at first it was good, but then....," Carlos shrugged and turned to the doorway, "Come, Vecino, come inside for a rest and some wine, yes?"

Inside the warriors were already mingling and exchanging stories. Carlos looked around disoriented by the sight. "It is like when we first came here. So many people, the likes of which we had never seen. We built this Aldea, not just as a house, but as a badge of our skill and as a promise to the land. If only those days had lasted, my wife was taken by raiders of some sort. But we were like the stone. We wept in here, and then smiled to the outside. But our smiles got a little colder and our skin a little paler in the northern sun. The drow colapsed one of our quarries. Our smiles got colder and our skin paler. Our herds became....tainted....and our skin became whiter and our smiles became mas frio. The windblade came and cracked our walls. But we welcomed our homeless neighbors in, even the ones who refused to help us. But our skin became blanco and our sonrisas became colder. Now this place is not what it was meant to be. Our walls are cracked and poorly remandar, our rooves fallen, and our rooms made of wood. This land has changed us Vecino, it has.

For once the silent warrior took action. He tapped the join where white marble touched grey noctunian granite. Carlos looked at the spot, then at the passive mask of the warrior again.

"Yes, I see. You are a good one. You let me talk, because I am used to being listened to. But you are right. The walls might keep us safe, but only if we can tell friend from enemy, bueno from mal. We forgot that, and tried to keep everyone out, but no more."

Carlos strode to the middle of the plaza and raised his voice, not to a shout, but to a voice that demended attention and echoed throughout the keep.

"Escuchame! Family and guest alike. Our family thought to hide behind these walls and pretend that these time would sweep by us like the river around a stone. But No! The wall is only as good as the mason that stands on it, and we must be better! We must help our Patron SSilyrrlith as best we can. We must use our hammers to build walls and our swords to defend them. Let every loyal Castillo in the land be stronger from the work of El Bunil. Let our enemies know that an arm that can cut stone can also break armor. All we need now is a flag!"

"I'm on it!" declared the jester, "just get me a ladder!"

More pictures are available here

http://www.brickshel...ry.cgi?f=538540

[mrcp6d]

Three things I really like in this build:

1. the tower roofs
   
2. the dice tiles as, well, tile
   
3. the cracks in the walls
   

Sweet stuff!

[Tomsche]

The tiles want me to cannibalise my Lego family games.

I greatly prefer the angle the castle is build on though

[Gunman]

nice action going on inside keep walls..! also i like the black landscape outside.. gogo nocturnus!

[de Gothia]

Nice moc! I like that you built the castle angled! The courtyard is also very good with the small houses!

The photos could use some improvements.

A white background

A photo shwoing all the moc and not cut off roofs

[Lord Vladivus]

That floor is great! Nice story too!

[soccerkid6]

Having the building angled looks great The cracks in the walls are a neat touch and your landscape is excellent

[Torgar]

The cracks look great! I also really like the roof shaping.

[Infernum]

Nice build! Love the use of dice pieces!