Caitan is a Babylonian villager; his task is to build granaries and collect berries. For the last 2000 years, that’s what he’s been doing. When the bushes run out of berries, he has to stand there for hundreds of years until more berries are required. He’s sick and tired of the boring Babylonian granaries – surely they could come up with something better than a bit of dirt and stone piled into a lumpy triangle shape? Also, no one ever came to collect the food from the granary, yet somehow they still needed more berries!
Upon hearing a story from two old men in robes, Caitan decided to see if he could get a favour from them. Apparently there was an Assyrian granary that had been left unattended, most probably because the Assyrians had been too busy getting their Helepolis stuck between their seige workshop and the trees.
Caitan asked if the old men would paint the Assyrian granary blue for him. This was because, for some odd reason, he couldn’t empty his basket of berries into a brown granary (or any other non-blue coloured granary), no matter how long he waited there. The old men agreed – there were no other enemy units nearby that needed persuasion to wear blue clothes. The old men walked up to the Assyrian granary and began chanting: Woolooloo! Hi-yo-yo Woolooloo!, while waving their arms and a wooden stick. All of a sudden, the granary was blue! Caitin was excited – he went back to the town to collect his basket so he could finally work at a better looking granary!
By this stage, a Macedonian villager had finally managed, after 2000 years, to walk from his town to this particular patch of berries. Having spent so much time walking, he decided to build a granary there. After requesting 120 wood to be at his immediate disposal, he started hammering the ground next to 4 pegs arranged in a square. A very nice looking stone carved building appeared inside the square area. The Macedonian villager could never quite work out how these granaries required only wood to build, when clearly they were made out of stone. Having finished his masterpiece, which totally outclassed the Assyrian style granary already there, he walked away to see if there were anymore berries around.
But…as he was walking away, he heard a sound all non-Macedonian villagers feared… “Wooloolooo!” Never mind that, he thought. They were just a couple of old men waving sticks, they could do that as long as they liked – Macedonian buildings were very hard to paint. All of a sudden, the most feared sound reverberated throughout the lands and the seas – “AIYO!” Damn those stupid old men! Somehow they had managed to paint his granary and now he had to walk 100 years back to the berries so he could build another one. After completing his second granary, he spotted the old men coming to paint the new building. Those cursed Babylonian priests! Always seemed to recover their breath faster than average! Not having the attacking ability to hurt the priests before they could heal themselves, he went back to the King to request extra fire-power.
Meanwhile, Caitin had returned from his city to find berry bushes paradise – two beautiful new stone carved granaries next to some lush bushes at the forest edge! However, before he could start foraging, an order was received – Caitan must build a Babylonian granary next to the berry bushes. What kind of stupidity is this?!, Caitan thought to himself. But alas, he had already started the construction. After completing his Lord’s wishes, Caitan could finally enjoy his new found heaven. The old men were too busy checking new orders to notice the berry bush bonanza that was about to occur.
Macedonian troops had now arrived to light the granaries on fire with their ultra long matches. Caitin was scared – these matches were rumoured to light buildings on fire faster than they could be repaired by one villager! Luckily, the old men had received orders to persuade these exact Macedonian troops to change the colour of their armour. The Macedonian troops were having none of this – they marched straight on towards the old men without falter – an amazing feat only Babylonian chariots could perform at the best of times! As they marched out of sight on the old men’s heels, Caitin knew that the Macedonian troops would fall to the confusion of hundreds of arrows from hundreds of different archers, despite their super arrow resistant armour.
Caitan continued to work on the berries all alone, depositing one bush’s worth of berries into each section of the pretty granaries. He left the bland, ugly Babylonian granary alone – it already had stuff spilling out of it. All of a sudden, horse archers appeared! Caitan started picking berries faster, faster and faster until it was like he didn’t need to stop at the bush – just walk up to it, and walk back to the granary with a full basket! Perhaps the archers would leave him alone, after all, they did seem to be terribly in-accurate, with their arrows flying all over the place…
Then, Caitan felt a sharp, painful sting, and the green bar over his head now had some red! Things were getting desparate – he was trapped inside the space between the granaries and the forest, because for some odd reason he couldn’t climb over the buildings or walk through the forest. There wasn’t even any buildings that would – hold on, there was a building that would fit inside here – the Babylonian Balista Tower. Renouned for being very tough, but also pretty ugly by most standards. Must have something to do with the purple stones, thought Caitan. This would be the perfect opportunity to upgrade his status as a simple villager! Not that he’d last much longer as a villager in his curent situation…
He requested for 150 stone to be at his immediate disposal and – the tower was built! What kind of magic had befallen upon him? Berries in his basket without picking, and now this tower being constructed instantly! Never fear, time to get inside this tower! By this stage, the horse archers were getting restless and couldn’t hold position. They must have known they couldn’t take this tower, and were scared by the speed in which it was built! Did that villager really just morph into a balista tower?
Most of the horse archers marched off to find another enemy to attack – they should have went back home, as they were riding into an in-escapable trap! One of the archers was too fat and got hit by the balista tower. It was to be expected, after all, they were Heavy Horse Archers…
No one in the land ever figured out quite what happened to Caitan – had he really disappeared inside the tower? Maybe he had found a way to get into the forest after all? What if he died hundreds of years ago and decayed into grass? It would always be a mystery, as no one ever came out of the towers – once a tower, always a tower. Immovable until destroyed.
Many years later, after the Macedonians were conquered, legend spread throughout the lands – a villager was rumoured to have turned himself into a ballista tower to stave off Macedonian attacks from his berries. The four granaries and the tower still existed, however, the tower remained silent still, not ever uttering a single noise. Many villagers tried to repeat the rumour, but ended up getting in trouble for standing in front of the tower they just built, some for 100’s of years! Occasionally there was the villager that managed to hide behind the tower, or the one that died under the tower because they didn’t see the rock from that catapult…
And so the legend of the Babylonian Berry Bush Battle was born…
I hope you enjoyed it 🙂 There are quite a few technical jokes in this story related to the Age of Empires game play – if you’re unfamiliar with the game, this may just seem like a really odd story… 🙂
Take care guys,