"It has been said that Poland is dead, exhausted, enslaved, but here is the proof of her life and triumph."

-Henryk Sienkiewicz
This message was last edited by the GM at 17:50, Mon 16 Mar 2009.

Friday, October 13
1630hrs.
30F
Scattered clouds
Gora Kalwaria, Poland

The vehicle convoy follows the four horseman north towards the town. The horses trot in pairs on either side of the road. The leisurely pace allows the vehicle's occupants a good look around.

Whitewashed pasture land and fallow fields harvested just in time. The damp browns of trees shining faintly in the dimming light. The road curving past the blackened carapaces of a pair of M109 self-propelled artillery pieces. One soot-stained gun barrel pointed at the eastern sky, the other sunken towards the earth, like a frozen semaphore. The convoy passed other wrecked military vehicles. A T-72 chasis, its turret lying upside down beside it like some overturned mushroom cap, lightly dusted with melting snow. The hinted-at shape of an aircraft pancaked in a field. There must have been quite a battle here. More likely a few.

The town was scarred in like fashion. Every standing building shell-holed or bullet-pocked. Many had given in to gravity. But despite the overwhelming evidence of destruction, there was a tidy quality to the town. There were no extraneous rubble piles, so common to violated settlements. Ruined buildings had been fully dismantled and their bones used to shore up and repair other buildings. The result was a patchwork quality. Grey cinder block, off-white plaster, fading wood, rust-orange tin sheets, red brick, all cobbled together into something new but not quite new. It must have required dozens of hands, weeks worth of days. It all suggested an ordered mind, a like-purpose in vision and hard work.

The convoy turned off of the 76 North on to one of the town's main streets. A burned-out Scimitar light AFV stood at the intersection like the statue of a traffic cop fallen in the line of duty. The street was empty. It was getting late and it was far too cold for productive outdoors work. The horses stopped in front of a church complex, several conjoined buildings reimagined like most of the other standing structures in the town. The convoy pulled to a halt. A bundled up sentinal looked down from a half-steeple, his rifle- probably a L5A1 SLR- leaning on the jagged parapet.

A man emerged from the low portico fronting the nearest building. He was short, stocky, and bareheaded. An atol of brown hair rimmed his shiny naked pate and over his shoulder was slung an AKM. At the man's side was a young man still in his teens, a British Sterling submachinegun strapped across his chest.

"Good evening. My name is Brother Gaspar Dudka, commander of the town militia."

His English was good.

The teenager broke in in Polish,

"You will call him the Bishop."

Kazmierziak grinned and patted the boy hard on the shoulder.

"If you wish; it is not necessary. I understand that you would like to trade ammunition for food. Please, come inside. It is far too cold to talk business out of doors."

The party dismounted there vehicles, wanting to bring along their unloaded weapons but unsure of the rules of ettiquette here.

The Bishop turned and walked back into the building. A wide hall with dark doors yawning from the white walls, a few religious icons hanging at uneven intervals between the portals. A long table, showing pieces of one or two others, stood at the center of the room. Mismatched chairs and stools surrounded it. An oragne-glowing space heater provides a reversed parabola of warmth to the center of the room.

"Please, sit. You must be hungry for some supper."

With a wave, he sent his teenage batsman through one of the dark doors.

"You must tell me what brings you to Gora-Kalwaria. You don't look like travelling salesmen."

Next Moves?
This message was last edited by the GM at 16:42, Fri 01 Jan 2010.

Mariusz knew he was jumping the gun by speaking first, but a plan had been forming in his head ever since he'd seen the statue. Now, to be greeted by a Bishop, that was divinity in motion, surely.

"Your Excellency," he said faltteringly, "please pardon my rude interruption to these proceedings but I have a request to make. I would like to inquire what sort of donation would be suitable to have a mass said for our dead compatriats, particularly a dear mentor to me, you may have heard of him, he was a Cistercian monk named Stanislaw Switek. He died saving us and I was saddened that we were unable to bury him in hallowed ground. We did our best, Dawid said the words, but I would be greatly comforted knowing that someone as emminent in the church as yourself had commended his spirit to the Lord. I know that a man as good as Brother Stanislaw will be discussing scripture with the Angels as we speak, but I feel the need to show my respect for the man and to celebrate his memory adequately."