Nick's looking like his campaign is going to end in disaster, just like Yves. I wonder if Melody will follow Nick to the archery range. Clearing his head is the last thing she wants.
The Beautiful Girl and the History Class
- Thread starter Jestor
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Hmm, a King hated by the clergy but allied with the Pope? Things don't look good for the Kingdom in the near future, but at least it hasn't completely collapsed yet, somehow.
JimboIX: Yes, when he does talk. 
I like Nick's hobby myself as I think it helps to illustrate the sort of person he was before Melody and makes for a nice juxtaposition of what he seems to be turning into since Melody's entrance into his life.
I'm hoping I can find a way out of this mess that Yves has created without losing -too- much, but if it happens that things fall apart, as long as I hold on to at least some land, there's a chance that the king after Yves, who I'm hoping will be who I think it is, can build it back up.
Chief Ragusa: Anything's possible on the success or failure, but things are looking pretty scary for Yves for certain. As for Nick, I'd like to say I still don't know, but I have a pretty good idea of how it's going to go... but naturally I'm not saying a word one way or the other. Melody as stalker? Interesting idea.
Fulcrumvale: Refresh my memory? I'm not seeing the connection
LeonTrotsky: Yeah, that one amused me, but I abscribed it to the Pope's hatred of the Normans. Of course, the Pope also get his mitre handed to him by the de Hauteville armies, so the Holy See's assistance may not have swayed the balance like I thought it was going to.
FWIW, I'm suspecting that I'll lose -something- if the war keeps going, because the de Hautevilles are running this campaign brilliantly... probably the best I've seen the AI run a campaign in a CK game, to be honest. But we'll see what happens.
There's a chance I could update tonight as I'm in the CK playing frame of mind, but I'm seeing the new HP movie in a couple hours, so I can't guarantee that the CK mood will hold. If it does, I'll update. If not, then the update will come when it does.
I like Nick's hobby myself as I think it helps to illustrate the sort of person he was before Melody and makes for a nice juxtaposition of what he seems to be turning into since Melody's entrance into his life.I'm hoping I can find a way out of this mess that Yves has created without losing -too- much, but if it happens that things fall apart, as long as I hold on to at least some land, there's a chance that the king after Yves, who I'm hoping will be who I think it is, can build it back up.
Chief Ragusa: Anything's possible on the success or failure, but things are looking pretty scary for Yves for certain. As for Nick, I'd like to say I still don't know, but I have a pretty good idea of how it's going to go... but naturally I'm not saying a word one way or the other.
Melody as stalker? Interesting idea.Fulcrumvale: Refresh my memory? I'm not seeing the connection
LeonTrotsky: Yeah, that one amused me, but I abscribed it to the Pope's hatred of the Normans. Of course, the Pope also get his mitre handed to him by the de Hauteville armies, so the Holy See's assistance may not have swayed the balance like I thought it was going to.
FWIW, I'm suspecting that I'll lose -something- if the war keeps going, because the de Hautevilles are running this campaign brilliantly... probably the best I've seen the AI run a campaign in a CK game, to be honest. But we'll see what happens.
There's a chance I could update tonight as I'm in the CK playing frame of mind, but I'm seeing the new HP movie in a couple hours, so I can't guarantee that the CK mood will hold. If it does, I'll update. If not, then the update will come when it does.
Did Nick start using medieval weaponry before Morengay’s lectures? Or should I break out the "o" smilie?
o" smilie?
:rofl: :rofl: when I read this line, I immediately checked my email and logged on to MSN.Jestor said:
It's really a sign of your writing style's astounding success, Jestor, that we all can take even the tiniest detail, like heading to the archery range, and interpret it not (as with most authors) as an arbitrary artistic judgment - but understand it to be a carefully plotted insight into the character's mind. You're turning us all into psychoanalysts, and it's wonderful!
Heh, I really feel for Nick. Myself, I'm still in the early stages of this story, IRL.
Jeez, you're that good... now I'm starting to compare myself to a fictional character...I must be crazy by now...
Jeez, you're that good... now I'm starting to compare myself to a fictional character...I must be crazy by now...
Given your past AARs, a happy ending would be ...atypical.
It strikes me that both Melody and Nick are unused to commitment in a relationship and neither seem particularly comfortable where they are. I think being forced to leave through an open window would be a real 'end of relationship' for most men. Nick just shrugs it off, doesn't feel the need to cling to Melody, doesn't moan and just goes off to loose some arrows.
The best thing for the de Semurs would be for Yves to die. He needs more troops in southern italy. He can't affford half-measures.
It strikes me that both Melody and Nick are unused to commitment in a relationship and neither seem particularly comfortable where they are. I think being forced to leave through an open window would be a real 'end of relationship' for most men. Nick just shrugs it off, doesn't feel the need to cling to Melody, doesn't moan and just goes off to loose some arrows.
The best thing for the de Semurs would be for Yves to die. He needs more troops in southern italy. He can't affford half-measures.
Doubt Nick's really gonna be able to clear his head. And, darn it, I want this ambiguity on Melody's side cleared up!
Just read this entire AAR thus far in one sitting. Man, I forgot how addicting AARs can be...
At any rate, this is certainly a most excellent story, both the story as a whole and the CK subplot. I also find it interesting that the two plots seem to run parallel in certain places...
At any rate, keep up the good work
At any rate, this is certainly a most excellent story, both the story as a whole and the CK subplot. I also find it interesting that the two plots seem to run parallel in certain places...
At any rate, keep up the good work
Fulcrumvale: Yes, yes he did shoot before the class
Hajji Giray I: Thanks for the high praise! I don't know that it's really all that sophisticated as all that, though. It does, in fact, have an inspirational source that I'll discuss in my closing commentary whenever the AAR finishes.
aussieboy: *laughs* Thank you Incidentally, I don't think you're crazy. In fact, in my opinion one of the things that literature should do is allow us to enter a state where we find empathy with the characters and can commiserate with them in similiar situations, maybe even learn from them. And good luck with the girl!
Chief Ragusa: That's an excellent point you bring up about Nick having an atypical reaction to the locked door. I honestly hadn't considered it that way. Interesting theory on their relationship, such as it is, too.
I do agree that Yves needs to die, but I'm not sure how he'll handle the war. It's one of the things I'm still thinking about as part of an upcoming update (whether it be next or after that).
Pirate Z: Those are two of the frontburner questions right now, aren't they? Can Nick clear his head and will the mystery surrounding Melody be revealed? You'll just have to wait and see
Specialist290: Wow! I'm always amazed when people manage to read an AAR in one sitting, especially when it gets to be this number of pages. Thank you for the most kind words and I've noticed too the occassional parallelism between the two stories.
Hajji Giray I: Thanks for the high praise!
I don't know that it's really all that sophisticated as all that, though. It does, in fact, have an inspirational source that I'll discuss in my closing commentary whenever the AAR finishes.aussieboy: *laughs* Thank you
Incidentally, I don't think you're crazy. In fact, in my opinion one of the things that literature should do is allow us to enter a state where we find empathy with the characters and can commiserate with them in similiar situations, maybe even learn from them. And good luck with the girl! Chief Ragusa: That's an excellent point you bring up about Nick having an atypical reaction to the locked door.
I honestly hadn't considered it that way. Interesting theory on their relationship, such as it is, too.I do agree that Yves needs to die, but I'm not sure how he'll handle the war. It's one of the things I'm still thinking about as part of an upcoming update (whether it be next or after that).
Pirate Z: Those are two of the frontburner questions right now, aren't they? Can Nick clear his head and will the mystery surrounding Melody be revealed? You'll just have to wait and see
Specialist290: Wow! I'm always amazed when people manage to read an AAR in one sitting, especially when it gets to be this number of pages.
Thank you for the most kind words and I've noticed too the occassional parallelism between the two stories.
I can see Nick not only failing to clear his head, but accidentally shooting someone.
There's nothing more relaxing than fitting an arrow to a bow, taking aim, and shooting at a target some yards away. The red recurve I spend all afternoon shooting with is one I got for a high school graduation present and it's among my most cherished possessions.
I love to fish and I love to shoot target archery, but hunting's never appealed to me, either bow or gun. There's just something about seeing a dead deer, pheasant, bear, moose, whatever that's sad in a way that a dead fish isn't.
I'm once again calm and my anxieties over Melody diminish by four, after taking a break at noon for lunch at this terrific hamburger joint not far from the sports club where I shoot.
By Wednesday, I smile faintly and give Melody an upnod as I walk into class three minutes before Morengay starts his lecture. She cooly nods back, which is more recognition than she gives anyone else but Morengay. I've heard some of the other students make snide remarks about her being a suckup, but it just goes to show ignorant they are.
Which only makes sense. I mean hell, half of them are freshmen and the rest of them are still in that stage where they're figuring out life and themselves. It's not like high school, where your world, even if it sucks, is neatly defined, with expectations and boundaries that you recognize and oddly enjoy, even as you protest them.
College, and life's unlimited freedoms and accompanying responsibilities upend everything, especially if you've been given everything and had everything done for you. I'm not putting Melody in that category, by the way. She strikes me as pretty damn independent. It's the dependent ones that really have the bottom drop out on them.
Morengay clears his throat and I drift out of my quiet, curious philosophical thinking to listen.
"Wholesale revolts, a really bad campaign, and a King who thought himself the next Jesus is where we left off of last time.
In spite of the revolts and the rebellion in Palermo, the Kingdom of Italy-Croatia was not the only one suffering from realm-wide war weariness. Apuila, too, tired of fighting to the point that in mid-September, Duke Henry de Hauteville offered to give up his claim on Messina and pay King Yves I 2,845 florins in order to end the war.
The Bolognan court, recovering from the end of the city revolt a week before, strongly urged Yves to accept the deal, which was not only extraordinarily fair, but would've allowed the mad monarch to save face before Europe.
But Yves refused, countering with a demand for the ducal title of Apuila.
And so the war continued.
In November, Boruhav Premyslid, the Steward, who had taken command of the main Italian-Croatian army, won a resounding victory over a massed Apuilian army that gave hope for the war's eventual end on Yves's terms, for the king had repeatedly refused that earlier peace offer which the Duke of Apuila made again and again, hoping to make the de Semur lord see reason.
Countering this good news was an army of 900 peasants who rose up under the banner of a country priest to storm Louis Castle, which really was its rightful name, and begin open and armed rebellion. With the royal regiment in the field and the vassal armies of Firenze and the Duke of Calabria already abroad as well, Yves could not risk angering his vassals any more than they already were by ordering a regiment to Bologna.
November 19th, two weeks after the Premyslid-led victory, the main armies were crushed by Duke Henry, but on the bright side, the Apuilian forces were greatly fatigued, their morale hit hard by this seeming never-ending war that prolonged itself only because of Yves's fanaticism.
As if this wasn't bad enough, a little over a month later, the Duke of Karten, enraged at his liege's bullheadedness in the Apuila campaign, declared indepedence against King Yves I and went to arms to both defend his right to the Duchy and to win some territory that he had legal claim to."
Morengay paused to put a picture up on his overhead.
"Duke Almerich von Zahringen intended on annexing Messina, Palermo, Modena and Chalons. If he succeeded in his aims, he would own not only all the de Semur royal possessions on Sicily, the rest in Italy-Croatia vassal hands, but he would have both the ancestral de Semur home and one of the de Semur Four.
Messina would not have been too terrible a loss, but Palermo was the capital of the dual kingdom's south region, Chalons, though poor, was of symbolic importance, and I don't need to tell you how bad it'd be to have an enemy right next to your rebelling capital.
Despite these calamities, the tide was turning by March 1127. Another important victory by the Premyslid steward that imperiled Apuila's chances of ever raising enough troops to win the war, combined with Yves I's most loyal vassal, the Governor of Genoa, pledging 3,300 republican troops to fight the Duke of Karten in the northern theatre, meant that total victory looked within reach after all.
At the happy Genoan intelligence, not even the most anti-Yves citizen could be too discouraged with news of rebellion in Messina, especially not since the Bolognan insurrection was put down by an elite squad of just 180 soldiers from Lombardia.
And indeed, the war did turn in Yves's favor, so much so that by August of 1127, Duke Henry de Hauteville's territory was entirely under Italian-Croatian hands and with many a tears, the Norman who loved south Italy more than anything in the world, surrendered his title of Duke of Apuila to a triumphant King Yves I. Henry then with heavy heart moved his capital from Apuila to Salerno, which according to feudal law at the time was where he had to live as he was still Duke of Salerno, even though he still owned his beloved Apuila county.
This victory not only signified a remarkable turnaround for the embattled king, but it raised the stature of both the Jimenez and Premyslid houses, thus ensuring that neither faction would be yet the winner in their feud, even though as I said, they were beginning to unite on the idea of Yves's ouster.
After this stunning military success, Yves returned to Bologna to celebrate and proclaim his victories to the masses from the parapets of Louis Castle, for by this time, the clergy was so active against him, he dared not set foot in a church.
The remaining regiments were given no rest, bur ordered north to deal with the rebellious Duke of Karten.
Tragically, just two days after the peace treaty with Apuila, Diocese Bishop Pedro Jimenez, who saw the de Semurs take part of the Middle East and who witnessed the near unification of Italy, died without ever having returned to his beloved Iberia, which was now overrun by the Emirate of Sevilla.
His last words were, "Though I never saw again my beautiful Navarra, I die knowing I go to God and that while I was in this world, I helped direct the minds of kings to fighting for Christian freedom in the holy land."
The greatly beloved bishop was replaced by Yves I's nephew, 23 year old Fadrique de Semur, a young and impassioned cleric who revered his old mentor and counted himself among the Jimenez faction in terms of the main court intrigues.
To balance the anger from the Premyslid faction, Yves married Elionare de Semur, who had just turned 16, to an extremely talented young Premyslid who had also just reached the age of majority. Even though he was insane and a terribly inept military commander and administrator, King Yves I knew how to keep the factionalism in his court from overwhelming his rule.
The Karten problem was not the only war that Yves was dealing with towards the end of 1127. Messina again rebelled and the Duke of Jaffa-Ascalon in the Middle East was attacked by the Kingdom of Egypt, leading Yves to declare war once more on that diminished, but still dangerous foe.
The dual kingdoms, having gotten through one crisis, were now in the throes of another, for Egypt was strong enough to give Italy-Croatia difficulty, to the degree that the de Semur presence in the region was threatened.
This would've made Pedro Jimenez roll in his grave.
We'll stop there and pick up next time with these two set of wars."
I can't help but admire Yves. Everybody hates him and he's a lunatic, but he's evidently fox-crazy because he keeps right on winning and right on beating out everyone who wants to get rid of him.
But how long can his luck hold up? Oh, sure I know it's history and everything, but to me it's like a story I'm hearing a chapter at a time.
Melody walks over to me on her way out and slips a note in my hand, saying, "I've an appointment to keep, so I can't talk. Read this when you get a chance."
Before I can answer, she's briskly turned around and swiftly heading off the other way.
I won't open it just yet. I skipped breakfast this morning because I slept a little late.
I'll read it on a full stomach.
I love to fish and I love to shoot target archery, but hunting's never appealed to me, either bow or gun. There's just something about seeing a dead deer, pheasant, bear, moose, whatever that's sad in a way that a dead fish isn't.
I'm once again calm and my anxieties over Melody diminish by four, after taking a break at noon for lunch at this terrific hamburger joint not far from the sports club where I shoot.
By Wednesday, I smile faintly and give Melody an upnod as I walk into class three minutes before Morengay starts his lecture. She cooly nods back, which is more recognition than she gives anyone else but Morengay. I've heard some of the other students make snide remarks about her being a suckup, but it just goes to show ignorant they are.
Which only makes sense. I mean hell, half of them are freshmen and the rest of them are still in that stage where they're figuring out life and themselves. It's not like high school, where your world, even if it sucks, is neatly defined, with expectations and boundaries that you recognize and oddly enjoy, even as you protest them.
College, and life's unlimited freedoms and accompanying responsibilities upend everything, especially if you've been given everything and had everything done for you. I'm not putting Melody in that category, by the way. She strikes me as pretty damn independent. It's the dependent ones that really have the bottom drop out on them.
Morengay clears his throat and I drift out of my quiet, curious philosophical thinking to listen.
"Wholesale revolts, a really bad campaign, and a King who thought himself the next Jesus is where we left off of last time.
In spite of the revolts and the rebellion in Palermo, the Kingdom of Italy-Croatia was not the only one suffering from realm-wide war weariness. Apuila, too, tired of fighting to the point that in mid-September, Duke Henry de Hauteville offered to give up his claim on Messina and pay King Yves I 2,845 florins in order to end the war.
The Bolognan court, recovering from the end of the city revolt a week before, strongly urged Yves to accept the deal, which was not only extraordinarily fair, but would've allowed the mad monarch to save face before Europe.
But Yves refused, countering with a demand for the ducal title of Apuila.
And so the war continued.
In November, Boruhav Premyslid, the Steward, who had taken command of the main Italian-Croatian army, won a resounding victory over a massed Apuilian army that gave hope for the war's eventual end on Yves's terms, for the king had repeatedly refused that earlier peace offer which the Duke of Apuila made again and again, hoping to make the de Semur lord see reason.
Countering this good news was an army of 900 peasants who rose up under the banner of a country priest to storm Louis Castle, which really was its rightful name, and begin open and armed rebellion. With the royal regiment in the field and the vassal armies of Firenze and the Duke of Calabria already abroad as well, Yves could not risk angering his vassals any more than they already were by ordering a regiment to Bologna.
November 19th, two weeks after the Premyslid-led victory, the main armies were crushed by Duke Henry, but on the bright side, the Apuilian forces were greatly fatigued, their morale hit hard by this seeming never-ending war that prolonged itself only because of Yves's fanaticism.
As if this wasn't bad enough, a little over a month later, the Duke of Karten, enraged at his liege's bullheadedness in the Apuila campaign, declared indepedence against King Yves I and went to arms to both defend his right to the Duchy and to win some territory that he had legal claim to."
Morengay paused to put a picture up on his overhead.
"Duke Almerich von Zahringen intended on annexing Messina, Palermo, Modena and Chalons. If he succeeded in his aims, he would own not only all the de Semur royal possessions on Sicily, the rest in Italy-Croatia vassal hands, but he would have both the ancestral de Semur home and one of the de Semur Four.
Messina would not have been too terrible a loss, but Palermo was the capital of the dual kingdom's south region, Chalons, though poor, was of symbolic importance, and I don't need to tell you how bad it'd be to have an enemy right next to your rebelling capital.
Despite these calamities, the tide was turning by March 1127. Another important victory by the Premyslid steward that imperiled Apuila's chances of ever raising enough troops to win the war, combined with Yves I's most loyal vassal, the Governor of Genoa, pledging 3,300 republican troops to fight the Duke of Karten in the northern theatre, meant that total victory looked within reach after all.
At the happy Genoan intelligence, not even the most anti-Yves citizen could be too discouraged with news of rebellion in Messina, especially not since the Bolognan insurrection was put down by an elite squad of just 180 soldiers from Lombardia.
And indeed, the war did turn in Yves's favor, so much so that by August of 1127, Duke Henry de Hauteville's territory was entirely under Italian-Croatian hands and with many a tears, the Norman who loved south Italy more than anything in the world, surrendered his title of Duke of Apuila to a triumphant King Yves I. Henry then with heavy heart moved his capital from Apuila to Salerno, which according to feudal law at the time was where he had to live as he was still Duke of Salerno, even though he still owned his beloved Apuila county.
This victory not only signified a remarkable turnaround for the embattled king, but it raised the stature of both the Jimenez and Premyslid houses, thus ensuring that neither faction would be yet the winner in their feud, even though as I said, they were beginning to unite on the idea of Yves's ouster.
After this stunning military success, Yves returned to Bologna to celebrate and proclaim his victories to the masses from the parapets of Louis Castle, for by this time, the clergy was so active against him, he dared not set foot in a church.
The remaining regiments were given no rest, bur ordered north to deal with the rebellious Duke of Karten.
Tragically, just two days after the peace treaty with Apuila, Diocese Bishop Pedro Jimenez, who saw the de Semurs take part of the Middle East and who witnessed the near unification of Italy, died without ever having returned to his beloved Iberia, which was now overrun by the Emirate of Sevilla.
His last words were, "Though I never saw again my beautiful Navarra, I die knowing I go to God and that while I was in this world, I helped direct the minds of kings to fighting for Christian freedom in the holy land."
The greatly beloved bishop was replaced by Yves I's nephew, 23 year old Fadrique de Semur, a young and impassioned cleric who revered his old mentor and counted himself among the Jimenez faction in terms of the main court intrigues.
To balance the anger from the Premyslid faction, Yves married Elionare de Semur, who had just turned 16, to an extremely talented young Premyslid who had also just reached the age of majority. Even though he was insane and a terribly inept military commander and administrator, King Yves I knew how to keep the factionalism in his court from overwhelming his rule.
The Karten problem was not the only war that Yves was dealing with towards the end of 1127. Messina again rebelled and the Duke of Jaffa-Ascalon in the Middle East was attacked by the Kingdom of Egypt, leading Yves to declare war once more on that diminished, but still dangerous foe.
The dual kingdoms, having gotten through one crisis, were now in the throes of another, for Egypt was strong enough to give Italy-Croatia difficulty, to the degree that the de Semur presence in the region was threatened.
This would've made Pedro Jimenez roll in his grave.
We'll stop there and pick up next time with these two set of wars."
I can't help but admire Yves. Everybody hates him and he's a lunatic, but he's evidently fox-crazy because he keeps right on winning and right on beating out everyone who wants to get rid of him.
But how long can his luck hold up? Oh, sure I know it's history and everything, but to me it's like a story I'm hearing a chapter at a time.
Melody walks over to me on her way out and slips a note in my hand, saying, "I've an appointment to keep, so I can't talk. Read this when you get a chance."
Before I can answer, she's briskly turned around and swiftly heading off the other way.
I won't open it just yet. I skipped breakfast this morning because I slept a little late.
I'll read it on a full stomach.
He really should not wait to read the note on a full stomach. If it makes him sick. Is there some reason Melody can't be seen talking with NIck? Are the papparazzi on her trail?
lucky Yves. If he keeps this up, people will start believing that he's blessed instead of completely flipped. I think our friend the Dukew of Karnten will be giving up some titles, namely the Duke of Karnten, and surrendering his claims. The King of Egypt has. I hope, bitten off more than he can chew.
lucky Yves. If he keeps this up, people will start believing that he's blessed instead of completely flipped. I think our friend the Dukew of Karnten will be giving up some titles, namely the Duke of Karnten, and surrendering his claims. The King of Egypt has. I hope, bitten off more than he can chew.
Fox-crazy Yves strikes again. If the courtiers unite against him and stop winning battles for him, he's going to be in serious trouble though. Especially with Egyt knocking as well now- I think the Hautevilles will be back as well. As for Nick, Melody's note can only bring bad tidings I think. She speaks when she has good things to say, or is it something else? Hmm. He definitely needs to keep working the upnod though, and I'm the same way about fishing and hunting, love to fish, but don't really hunt. Not because it bothers me but because it's so boring. Deer stand at dawn for 12 hours straight? No thanks.
Chief Ragusa: Questions, questions with no answers.
Yves, I've become convinced, is one of those people who's so far into insanity that they've acquired a kind of perverse genius, though the rest of his reign will say for certain. I believe Egypt will be a problem and a fairly big one as far as the Middle East goes, but we'll have to see what happens.
JimboIX: Yves's resourcefulness is actually making me like him a lot more than I did before. I think the de Hautevilles are pretty much done, though. You'll see in the next CK-related update what I mean. I don't see Karnten as being a problem, either.
Interesting observation about Melody, one I hadn't realized. Not to say that it means anything one way or the other, of course.
Fulcrumvale: A two-layered cliffhanger, no less.
J. Passepartout:
I'll post the next update once we hit the 10,000 view milestone.
Yves, I've become convinced, is one of those people who's so far into insanity that they've acquired a kind of perverse genius, though the rest of his reign will say for certain. I believe Egypt will be a problem and a fairly big one as far as the Middle East goes, but we'll have to see what happens.
JimboIX: Yves's resourcefulness is actually making me like him a lot more than I did before. I think the de Hautevilles are pretty much done, though. You'll see in the next CK-related update what I mean. I don't see Karnten as being a problem, either.
Interesting observation about Melody, one I hadn't realized. Not to say that it means anything one way or the other, of course.
Fulcrumvale: A two-layered cliffhanger, no less.
J. Passepartout:
I'll post the next update once we hit the 10,000 view milestone.