Mithangee: Herald to the End of Days (Re-Posted/Updated 8-2-2004)

[Journeyman]

Heh...seems the demon known as Worke postponed me yet again. Mithangee fell off a second time, but here it is again. I'll update more. Sorry to the players and those interested. Here we go again!

The current PC party, as it was in the beginning of this chapter, goes something like this:

Cade Blackbarrell - A halfling assistant to a half-wit magical fake. He is a natural inquisitive who recently found out he has a talent for casting transmutational dweomers given a little memorization and a good stout book or two (or three). Of late, his fortune has been traveling with a weasel of a man trying to make a living; yet, even being a gopher for the disenfranchised charlatan, Ike, is far better than making one’s own way through the perilous countryside of Rothloria.

Devlin Treete of Iricsus – As a dedicated follower of Iricsus* Devlin finds Fate indeed has a place for him in Havenview. Why the Lord of Destiny placed him in this hamlet he plans to find out, for true ecstasy comes from the revelations of divine predestinations. However, when the young cleric arrives with Rodrick Eryin of Iricsus to help stall the spread of a mysterious disease, Devlin soon finds that determining the future will of his lord will take more than the simple texts of temple study ever revealed.

Randall Scarbrough – Only son to a local and prosperous merchant in Havenview, Randall has grown to view himself as above the normal folk of the surrounding district. Especially since he has discovered within him the born ability to spontaneously cast. Under his father’s careful tutelage he is developing a healthy ability to crunch the numbers, and a charismatic need to lead the populace. Tonight he plans on perhaps leading in a different manner…with the local barmaid Kelsa.

Contessa Locksmith – Born imbued with an ancient family bloodline, Contessa has inherited the Tiefling aspects shared by some of her female ancestry. Naturally drawn to all things tangible (and intangible) kept beyond open reach, Ms. Locksmith has grown quite talented in building locks for the family business, and by- passing them for her own private amusement. Tonight however, she wants to by-pass sobriety, and has wandered into the Haven’s Rest for a rainy night of forgetfulness.

Tobin of Sia – Born a peasant in the southern township of Sia, raised by Kirian Starshine as a stable boy, and gentle hearted in nature, Tobin (now of Havenview) is just discovering that forces far greater than horse mites hold an interest in him and his relative small life. Most notably after his hands miraculously heal an accidental miss-shoe on a horse in Tobin's temporary care. Tonight his thoughts do not rest with his strange gift, but rather with the storm raging outside, and its effects upon the stable boy’s equestrian wards. Storms this large are never good.

Brishen Al’Sarna – Flamboyant, certain of his crux in all social situations, Brishen is a Tuathinkin* of potent notoriety. When his Kali* notices his potentially disastrous effect on a family marriage, he is set up to take a fall during a horse trade gone badly. The family makes a getaway while the young gypsy sits stewing in the Havenview Knight’s Hold. His thoughts wander in the coming month, and seemingly escape all attempts to find a desire for justice.

Da’Shen Telom – He is a mercenary from the red wastes of Gosh. Potent in his local tribe, he grows bored and journeys to the Greenlands to adventure amongst the weak. Traveling ever east, drawn by the rising sun, he wanders into the tiny village of Havenview after many months of forced captivity amongst the Greenlanders of the Cherisian city-states. An illness growing in his lungs, he vows to make things right with himself and indeed all of Mithangee.

*Iricsus, Mithangeean God of Fate/Destiny, is a minor god in the pantheon aligned with Law and Neutrality.

* Gypsies of Mithangee, always on the road, these often-misunderstood sects of humanity are accused of base crimes and reduced to rural wanderings more often than not. They are usually found in wagon-like Trains consisting of differing Sects and families, but very rarely alone.

* A Kali is a Tuathinkin Train Leader. Oftentimes the leader of a Train's many families, a Kali, enjoys many benefits. One of which is arranging marriages amongst his Train and others which pass by.

 

[Journeyman]

I want to make a quick note on the history of the area around the group right now. I feel it necessary. The story will soon continue, though, very soon!

Within Mithangee there exists a continent known as Olivarithis, which is split into two halves: Sol-Urithis on its western side and An-Varithis on its eastern side. In southern An-Varithis there exists an area of land long dominated by three powerful human kingdoms. In times past (roughly 3,500 years ago) these kingdoms lived in a stable peace. They traded and flourished, and in the southernmost of the three, magic was slowly giving way to industry and the dawn of what can be briefly compared to our own renaissance of Italy.

However, 3,500 years ago also marked the advent of a terrible war brought to the three kingdoms by a horde of orcs working in concert (and as puppets do) with a malevolent exiled sorcerer from of all places, Nuetralth*. Reth de’Til, for this was his name, succeeded in bringing chaos to the region. Orcs poured out of the Deringer Mountains (a range which separates south An-Varithis from its northern half) and from the Cloudless Mountains to the far west. Lapan was largely spared any initial destruction from the Hordes, for her lands were buffered to the north by Cherisia, greatest in mass and physical might.

Lapan’s true strengths were in her navy and her peoples’ advancement into renaissance times. However, as the countries of Cherisia and Galdruth in the North fought a desperate battle against the orcish hordes and the outlanders spurring them on, Reth de’Til moved against Lapan from within. The sorcerer brought Lapan too her knees when he slaughtered its key power holders through destruction of the Royal Lineage of Arron of Nal’mo-naish; by murdering the Arch, Iryouli *; and, by releasing a like-wise banished specter (known simply as Mist) of great power into the streets of Lapan’s capitol, Lorthnisis.

Taken by complete surprise from the shock of such a quick progression of total peace to total chaos, Lapan fell to ruin within a matter of two decades. Her fall was crowned and capped by a desperate Pact signed between her greatest adventurers and Mist as they fought. The party, known as the Bane of Twilight, compacted with the dread specter wherein the undead abomination agreed to fight against Reth de’Til in return for control of all of Lorthnisis. The Pact became known as the Signature of Lapan’s Nightfall, and after the agreement's signing the great sorcerer fell to the combined might of Bane and Mist. Such is the desperation of men when all else has failed. Some say the Bane was later corrupted by Mist into serving it and keeping the specter’s new domain safe and guarded; however, whatever befell the Bane and Mist, Lapan is a place of shadow and fear. Its lands are shunned and few tread within them and return without some markings of insanity or despair.

Lapan’s fight for survival left her in total isolation from the two allies at war in the north and further weakened Cherisia and Galdruth in their long and desperate struggle against the hordes upon her succumbing to the Pact. However, with Reth de’Til’s demise chaos descended amongst the Orcish hordes and their planar compatriots. The tides of evil and chaos were turned back, but not before a weakened Galdruth fell to anarchy and civil destruction, for too many of her nobles were dead and buried; too many of her most prized adventures were missing or slain upon the fields of battle never to take her cause up again. Galdruth became a land of ruin and mercenaries. It has not regained any state of peace in the last three and a half millennia and continues to be reclaimed by the Wyld and those who choose despotism and barbarism as their cause.

Cherisia’s fate was less chaotic. Her armies decimated, her Royal Lineage also ending with the Fall of the Princes*, the remaining Heads of the Six Houses carved Cherisia into six city-states fearing a popular uprising should the Houses clash in a civil war for the throne. Thus ended a monarchy that survived for nearly twenty thousand years.

The sixth campaign I have run in Mithangee began in the city-state of Rothliras and the surrounding countryside of Rothloria. Situated on what were Cherisia’s southeastern borders, Rothliras has grown profitable, stable, and secure in the past three and a half millennia of peace. Yet now, in its southern reaches, turbulence is growing centered in the tiny hamlet of Havenview a support town to the Township of Kalimshire who in turn supports the Republic of Rothliras itself.

* Nuetralth is the name I have given the Concordant Domain of the Outlands.

* Arch is the term used to describe a Wizard who has reached the pinnacle of known power. Think Archmage if you will. Iryouli was the name of the Arch of Lorthnisis.

* The Fall of Princes is the name given to the tide turning battle against the orc hordes in Cherisia. In the epic fight all four prince sons and their father, King Whitefist, fell in a sacrificial charge that broke the enemy lines asunder

 

[Journeyman]

Rain. It fell in sheets tormenting the lands beneath its drenching weight and relentless mediocrity. The lighting flashed and the thunder beckoned in vociferous echoes as the tones of Mishkali* and Azakriel*, in yet another celestial argument, made their displeasures known.

The storms moved across the northern plains of Rothloria with terrible swiftness, for the winds backing them would not slow their progress for any trivial need of sightseeing or leisurely saunters of normal west to east progression. This was a storm with a purpose. It was a storm intent on fulfilling prophecy and ushering in a new age on the Prime, even if those below, organic and inorganic both, did not know such a turn of events was taking shape.

The drought ending tempests moved ever southward, and upon finally meeting the superior temperate crosswinds, came to a deafening halt. The storms fought their fates for a time before beginning to burn out over the course of the night. However, for the citizens of the Kalimshirean District below, and the Wylds accompanying them, the drenching and unrelenting rains held in stasis above were a horrid omen indeed.

So began the Night of Eternum. Many would look back on that storm with a longing for simpler times, perhaps as a moment where their lives may have taken a different course. Yet the cogs of the mill stop for no mere wish of the teeth; the river moves inexorably on despite the protestations of her eddies and currents within.

Havenview weathered the night as best a small hamlet could in those days. The Havenroot had overflowed its banks sometime around twilight flooding the cross haired main streets with a thin (yet rising) layer of muddy water. Many of the torches and few streetlights lit at nightfall had long since guttered out despite the attempts of Robb Freemason to relight them. Nights such as these made the Torchlighters a ruthless and thankless guild to owe one’s life too, yet the guildsman continued his ruined fight while curious townsfolk watched from the safety of their random homes or patron empty shops.

Kirian Starshine gazed too out of his favorite window behind the bar of the Haven’s Rest all the while drying the last pewter mug from a lunch that seemed far, too far, in the past. Placing the used and quite spent washcloth under the counter top within its bucket of cleaning water, and without even pausing to think, he began preparing another round of full ale mugs for the overworked Kelsa to distribute to paying customers. Why the citizens demanded to come and frequent his establishment on a night such as this was beyond him, but it made money and as a Founder* he was not about to disappoint.

Taking a deep breath, and filling the last mug full, Kirian noticed the humidity building in the room again. Uttering a small cantrip under his breath he returned the balance of the common room’s dampness to a less oppressive weight, for now at least.

“My, my, my, but Robb is going to catch fever out in that tempest.” Kirian mused as he observed the Torchlighter wander by, curses muted by the thick pained window. Hazel Elven eyes reflecting back at him, Kirian began to worry at his Irti* wondering whether the storm was an omen, or simply answers to the many overheard prayers of his patrons wishing for water and rain to end the recent rash of droughts. Whatever its cause, this storm’s nature was unlike the greater majority the mage had witnessed in his long Elven life. Storms very rarely lingered with such intensity for so long a time. If the drenching torrents did not fizzle out or move their anger on soon, Eredricht was going to have his poor hands full. He would need to make a note of this night in his journal for sure the mage contemplated.

That last thought jarred him, for of all of Havenview’s populace not to have shown up in the Rest on a night such as this, Eredricht was the last man Kirian would have placed upon a list detailing such. As the small township’s Knight Appointed Commission, and as acting sheriff, the middle aged human would do well by calming, greeting, and mingling with the slew of townsfolk hunkered down for a long night of drinking and carousing here. Not that this was the best evening Kirian had managed to arrange for entertainment.

The Nobae* peered through squinted eyes at the disaster taking place on the stage opposite his position in the common room. What could only be described as a self-made shell of a charlatan was currently attempting to amuse Kirian’s customers with a claim of creating a magical talking cane of high intelligence. While patrons shuffled their feet across the straw covered floor, dug at ear wax, or picked at their food, this Ike, as he named himself, motioned and gestured like a flailing and off balance amateur tight rope artist. Kirian could understand why Ike’s small halfling assistant, sitting on the stage’s edge nearly out of sight, was attempting to hide a grimace of self-loathing. Then the halfling’s hands began to move. In a series of gestures nearly concealed from Kirian’s trained eyes, the smallman cast a spell.

The Talking Stick of Iridar, for Ike had so gloriously named it, began to speak in a slow and deliberate speech all the while glowing with a ruddy, red light.

“I am the great cane of Iridar! Fear my wrath and heed my master’s needs!”, issued the obvious attempt at ventriloquism.
A patron in the back of the room guffawed. An apple core flew, true to its wielders aim, right into the forehead of poor Ike’s braincase. As Ike, startled, dropped the “The Great Cane” patrons mocked and jeered having finally found an outlet for their qualms concerning the tempest outside. Yet, as Kirian helped his sole barmaid Kelsa balance a new round of twelve pints on a platter, he couldn’t help but frown himself when the young halfling, attempting to distract the crowd back to the cane, caught the small device on fire with a carefully obscured cantrip. Freshly laid, and quite tender, straw began to smolder.

“Nobody is better than somebody when it comes to entertainment!” Kirian muttered as he pushed his way through the bemused spectators to douse the small fire with the bucket of cleaning water from his earlier exploits. He nearly threw the remaining liquid over the embarrassed Ike, but remembering his composure simply gave the simpleton one of his region famous stares of contempt while returning to his bar-side post. Traveling showmen would have a hard time in the future convincing Kirian, even when desperate, that they were able to pull off unrehearsed performances of any quality.

“Kelsa! I’m going to check on Tobin in the yard. You’re in charge, set Ike down at a table in back, and by Nefrotis we shall have a less than disastrous evening by my return.” were the words flying from the mage, turned innkeeper’s, mouth as he exited through the kitchen door. Sympathetic townsfolk began to sing inn songs to make the room less oppressive, and so it was that Randall Scarbrough and Tess found the Haven’s Rest upon their inauspicious arrival.

* Mishkali, Mithangeean goddess of storms, is a minor goddess aligned with chaos and neutrality.

*Azakriel, Mithangeean god of nature, is a minor god aligned with neutrality and good.

*A Founder is the term in Rothloria given to a settled adventurer commissioned by the Senate to found a new township, or take over governing of an existing one.

*An Irti is a tightly braided piece of hair signifying a Nobae’s profession as a practitioner of magic.

*A Nobae is my term for wood elf.

 

[Journeyman]

The horses were tense. So nervous were they that Tobin felt the near panic rising and wafting from them in waves. The boy moved with as much confidence as he could muster throughout the darkened stables while lightning illuminated various saddles, bridles, and assorted equestrian gear hanging from their homes within. As Tobin rechecked each steed’s knots to make sure bolting was not an option (should another particularly powerful blast issue forth from the heavens) he thought about the omens the storm brought with it.

“Nonsense is what the storm brought with it, panic and nonsense. Is your life really going anywhere?”, entered his thoughts unbidden.

Shrugging off his bad humors, and with little ease, he quietly chastised himself for daydreaming with so much work to do be done. This was not a friendly night at all, and the sheer amount of patrons within the inn was a bittersweet situation. Many people meant much work; yet, with many people came many steeds to watch. Tobin shook his head as his mind tried to grasp the tongue twisting thought. Storms never helped, but the pay would be good this night.

Yes, that was easier to spell out.

The warm sounds of revelry came suddenly from the inn as Tobin contemplated how to explain nearly twenty horses stampeding out the stable doors and into the storm’s embrace outside due to daydreaming. Puddles, long since created by the various leaks in the ceiling, continued to confound the stable hand’s efforts to keep the straw of the shelter dry and comfortable; Tobin sighed. Night’s such as these caused Tobin no amount of frustration and endless repetitive work. Just as one stall was re-fitted to his exact standards another, worked on not more than an hour before, would invariably become inhospitable for its host.

It wasn’t that Kirian held the young lad to any exact standards of perfection, or would look down on Tobin should the stable of the Rest become like any other mundane temporary equestrian lodging:

“It’s just that these creatures deserve more, and I have a desire to see myself do the best job that I know I can do,” Tobin finished the thought aloud.

“So you do, Tobin. I could not have asked for a better arrangement when asking for your transfer here from Sia,”, Kirian’s startling voice projected from the shadows of the rain soaked yard outside.

The Nobae’s frame was silhouetted briefly by a predominant burst of lightning plunging from the angry skies above. Tobin nearly jumped a foot off the sodden ground, and several of the horses in his care took the liberty of showing their astonishment even if their ward could not show his own. After having been in the employ of Kirian for nearly a year the distinctive innkeeper still possessed the ability to enter Tobin’s presence in the most startling of ways, and this bothered him immensely. How could one do the best job possible when he did not understand or precipitate his employer’s comings and goings? The storm continued to roar about the innkeep and hired hand as Tobin thought of a suitable response.

“Err. You didn’t come out to hear me talk to myself master Kirian,” Tobin spoke feebly and almost too quietly to hear. “Great. Good reply. Show that backbone Tobin,”, entered the inner vocalization yet again.

“No, no I must confess I did not,” Kirian sighed as he walked into the shelter from the tempest’s rage outside. Rain literally ran off his cloak in streams. “I actually was going to send you inside to do two things for me if you would be so kind. One,” and a single Elven digit rose, “I would like you to eat and get something warmer to wear. Two,” yet another digit, “I want you to ask, no tell, that idiot Ike to meet me out here as soon as you get inside. Should you have forgotten who he is you won’t mistake -,”

“The small, greasy man on stage?” Tobin finished with more confidence than he felt.

Kirian paused before replying, eyebrows arched, “Yes, that’s quite right”.

Cade’s thoughts whirled past him as he sat on the edge of the stage’s sanded side, head in his hands. How, by Imoriv*, had he found or agreed to accompany this fool on a trip to see the great land of Rothloria?

When you ran out of food. When you were alone in the world. When you realized that you could read the magic Ike struggled every day to understand. You fool of a halfling.

The smallman cringed as his thoughts tormented him with their barbs. He felt trapped. He felt embarrassed by yet another of Ike’s failed attempts to win them free lodging, and if lucky, possible coin in a purse. Cade still could see the innkeep’s expression when he all but pushed his own customers over to extinguish the fledgling mages’s cantrip. Just as he realized he should more than likely be apologizing to Ike for nearly burning their host’s establishment down, he was pulled to his feet by an all too familiar tug.

“You ignorant, stupid little man! It was going so well until your feeble attempt at lighting the prop distracted my oratory! How dare you continue to ruin this show? Get the Nefrotis*-be-damned stick!” Ike muttered as he nearly shoved Cade off the stage toward the device lying in light wisps of spent smoke on the inn’s floor.

The sudden movement caused the halfling to wave his arms wildly for balance resulting in many of the Rest’s patrons laughing with pointed fingers. Several voices could be heard asking him to dance, and that perhaps he could make the show worth their while by doing a few tumbles and fool’s speeches. Cade, blushing furiously, hustled toward Ike’s beloved prop. He could literally feel the man’s thoughts considering the crowd’s propositions, and the possible judgment thoroughly worried Cade.

This was going to be a long, long evening. One day soon though Cade would know enough magick to get away from Ike. If only the bully of a human had more books of it lying around. Picking up the charred cane, Cade wondered as he wandered through the inn about the good life to come. Ike was suddenly busy talking to a young boy while looking furtively toward the kitchen door throughout the hushed conversation. As such, it looked as if Cade was going to have some free time to his own self, if only for a few minutes, and so the cane was tucked inside his dirty, stained jacket, forgotten, for the time being. He did think it odd while climbing up and onto his barstool that the boy, straw on his muddy shoes, looked more nervous than Ike as he led the stage man, hands wringing, into the kitchen.

* Imoriv, Mithangeean god of commerce/trade, is a minor god aligned with good and law.

* Nefrotis, Mithangeean goddess of luck/love, is a minor god aligned with chaos and neutrality.

 

[Journeyman]

The small temple devoted to Iricsus* had been built using all of Roderick’s adventuring wealth not to mention a good bit of donations from the Heart of Fate*. Obviously Havenview’s largest sanctuary, the holy place had been built as an outwardly simplistic two story structure made of spartan whitewashed stone. The devout cleric of Fate had then finished the design by making sure there were no harsh angles to the building, but rather commissioned it to be built with rounded walls and circular designs. The edifice completed the structural worship of the deity of Fate with etchings inlayed throughout the eaves of the building each showing the twelve symbols of Iricsusian virtue.

This night the temple’s asymmetric stained glass windows gently vibrated in tune with the ominous thunder and cacophony outside. As tines of light forked across the night skies two figures within broke bread and drank their mulled wine together in a stark silence. Mulling about the latest events to grip the small village of Havenview by its throat the two Founders jumped slightly as a branch, broken off by the winds outside, slammed harmlessly off the window next to their simple table.

Roderick of Iricsus was an able bodied man in his early thirties. He wore his adventuring days plainly on his face in the form of stress lines, leathery tanned skin, and the occasional scar. Always found in his chainmail and Fateline*, he had discarded both this evening for the simple attire of a homespun cleric habit and simple wooden holy symbol. This oddity clearly made his guest and longtime fellow adventurer, Eredricht, uneasy.

Blue eyes looked up from the letter he was writing and viewed the other man intently. Roderick actually sneered.

“Bah! This note from Kirian makes absolutely no sense to me; however, we must assume the possibilities old enemies have caught up with us, Eredricht.”

Eredricht looked positively stressed. Rubbing a calloused hand through his auburn hair the aged fighter gave his famous and quite characteristic shrug while pulling off another piece of bread with his teeth. He was nearly forty and this type of obfuscated plotting by obvious disparate forces made him grit his teeth. He slowly took control of himself and forced his tired mind to think rationally through the events of the past week.

A plague was spreading throughout the local countryside. Not just any plague. It started as a cough and in less than five to six days the victim was dead, blood boiled dry, in contortions which made the living weep subconsciously. The affliction’s spread had been kept a secret so far with the occurrences spread out far enough to lessen its presence. Yet, recently there was an obvious flare up with no less than sixteen bodies being brought into the town that afternoon. Roderick had been aghast at the possibilities of the contagious disease making its way into the homes of Havenview and immediately ordered the bodies burned. Add to that the startling storms this evening, the grey wanderer which came through the area when the first hints of sickness arrived, moreover the damned gypsy stewing in the cells in town: Eredricht had the portents of a serious assault on the peace in his domain.

Then there was the Wyld. The aged soldier pushed that out of his mind.

“You think these happenings are all connected?” issued the gruff reply from Eredricht’s half shaven face.

“All save the wanderer, Eredricht. Kirian states that she was an old acquaintance of his. A reputable member of that conclave he joined several years back. What he goes on to state though makes me a little concerned. He said this woman warned him that there might be possible dissention in the mages back in Cherisia.”

“And knowing Kirian,” Eredricht interjected with a flat voice, “he is hedging the facts that this dissension is the root cause of our problems here.”

Roderick leaned back into his wood chair and sighed.

“It would stand to reason that enemies of Kirian would be capable of doctoring a plague to make his life and that of his allies difficult. But why? Why not simply attack Kirian and be done with it? No this plague is something all together unrelated, Eredricht. We need to get to its source and quickly. With your men not coming back from their assignments you are going to have to send out more to locate them.”

Eredricht looked worried. He cared about his men. Two soldiers had been sent out to bring in the family that suffered the first reported loss to the plague. That was a week ago and they had yet to return.

“I have no one to spare. I could send Yurry, but he guards the cells.”

“You have only one coherent captive, Eredricht. Quite frankly he has been incarcerated long enough. You cannot hope to change a gypsy. Let him go, and get him out of town. You could send Gary easily enough, and I’ll have Trevor accompany him. He has been my acolyte long enough.”

“Done. Although it’s going to add to my problems having a gypsy loose. I already wrestle with storms raging, rumors about a wandering witch, and now my last man gone out to bring home the missing. You know best though. I’ll send him tonight.”

“Fine, I’m going to send Trevor out to Kirian’s inn to let him know what’s going on and respond to this disturbing letter of his. Get some sleep, for I think you’ll be doing rounds now that your men have all been assigned. Oh, and really, Eredricht, you need to get that wizard to open up quicker.”

“Yeah, and while I’m at it I’ll ask the Hells to cool off for a while too.”

Roderick chuckled.

With that, Eredricht threw his still damp cloak over his frame walking out through the temple’s double oak doors. The storm beyond boomed and flickered, and then the doors swung shut behind him.

Roderick watched him go, and turning to seal the letter he had just finished while Eredricht bemoaned life, he smiled slightly.

Sighing, he cocked his head toward the vestry drapes and challenged, “Come out Trevor. No need to continue to spy.”

***********************************************************************

Jolting Brishen from an already restless sleep a predominant burst of thunder shattered the silence of his dreams.

The young nomad held his ears in startled pain as the clap’s sudden reverberations echoed in the tight stone space before giving way to sounds of the rain falling outside.

Blue-white luminosity of unremitting tines of lightning made the torch lit shadows around him dance and flicker while Brishen slowly began sitting up, nursing the various kinks in his legs and back. Reminding him further of his location, the moist smell of mildewed straw filled his nostrils and convinced the young man to scuttle closer to the fresh humidity flowing in through his cell’s high window.

Stone was not the kindest of surfaces to sleep on, and the mound of collected straw serving as his resting place did nothing to stave off the cold, damp nature of the floor beneath his impromptu bed. Cursing, he displaced an annoying piece of straw lodged in his tawny hair. A hacking noise, not unlike the gagging of a man poisoned, greeted Brishen’s waking senses upon his stretching by the window refuge. Looking across the prison’s hallway the Tuathinkin again took notice of the three occupants in the cell across from his. Another hacking cough arose out of one as he fitfully turned over on the ground moaning in whispers.

Brishen’s three fellow inmates had also awoke to the boisterous nature of the storm outside, yet their minds obviously remained locked in a fever-induced fog. Even from the distance of the hallway and bars separating them Brishen could tell they were seriously ill and getting worse by the day. The nomad had seen much of disease in his travels and knew a problem illness when he witnessed one. The malady these three men wrestled with represented the type that killed a man all the while spreading to infect others. Brishen replaced the rag tied around his face with another stripped off piece of cloak. At least his captors left him that.

Hours crept past and the three ailing victims continued to cough and hack at each other even while sleeping. Their noise creating more of an annoyance than the thrown curses and jibes aimed at his person throughout the past week had ever been. Those verbal barbs had ceased flying across the barred hallway some three nights ago, and soon dwindled into startled feverish cries punctuated by that ever-present cough. Without the verbal stimulation of a good argument concerning ethics and stereotypes Brishen grew bored, and had withdrawn again to his near past.

The sixteen-year-old Tuathinkin began to think again of what brought him to this state. He forced himself to remember the chain of events leading to his incarceration, his body’s pains, and to the possibility of contracting the illness ravaging the three across from him. Green eyes screwed shut as he felt the pains of betrayal flow through his mind, and his hands clenched the fading, grime covered colors of his clothing.

To know a solution to a problem one must travel the web of its cause said the old Tuathinkin teaching. Hands began to relax and eyes opened to stare at nothing.

The gypsy flowed through his memories yet again.

Brishen’s people, the Tuathinkin, used horses to fuel their nomadic tendencies, and his particular band was no exception. The large and garish wagons of his distant cousins and bands other than his own were much too cumbersome to negotiate the many hills and terrains of Rothloria, and so his band, The Roses, resorted to pure equestrian travel.

However, just two and a half fortnights prior his incarceration his family had been attacked by orcs. The pigmen’s assault forced the nomads into the unfortunate position of sending band members into a civilized town for supplies and new horses to replace those that fell. The opportunity became the perfect time for Brishen to test his ability to dazzle the mundane men and women of cultured society. It too became the ideal occasion for Brishen’s Kali, Alsien, to rid himself of an unwanted suitor courting his daughter, Meisha.

The now incarcerated gypsy grudgingly gave Alsien credit for the bringing him into the fold of Eredricht’s prison. He never saw it coming. The object of his desire obfuscated the politics behind her heart’s capture, and so it was he found himself the fall man in a horse trade gone very wrong. It was not his fault the coin used to pay Havenview’s stablemaster had been gold-coated copper pieces. It certainly was not Brishen’s fault his saddle had been cut landing him bruised and embarrassed in the middle of the street watching his fellow family members riding away.

He certainly tried to look inconspicuous when their pursuers caught up with him in Havenview’s square trying desperately to get the recently purchased horse to allow him to ride bareback. Surrounded by the distrust of the peasant mentality concerning the Tuathinkin, and the realization that a good number of said peasants were surrounding his colorfully clothed personage caused Brishen to begin talking very quickly.

Still naïve and trusting of his own bandmates’ motives, Brishen stalled the horse trader’s lackeys long enough for his family to get away with their accused stolen horses and for Eredricht to arrive on the scene. The thought now occurred to Brishen that the Knight Protector possessed an uncanny skill to arrive as if summoned psychically to potential trouble occurring on his streets. Many a recent arrival to the cells surrounding him spoke as much, and as they left after serving smaller amounts of time for “lesser” crimes they spoke of evenness in the knight’s justice.

Eredricht had forestalled the mob beating that surely would have occurred with his absence, and hauled the contrite and suppliant gypsy back to the Knight’s Hold. Why Havenview insisted on calling their prison a Knight’s Hold made Brishen chuckle at peasant attempts to cover harshness in the midst of a nurtured simple state. When the stablemaster arrived and shocked Brishen by producing the false gold pieces as evidence of his betrayal, Eredricht wasted no time in throwing the Tuathinkin into his current cell and riding out in search of the accused thieves.

The knight protector, of course, never located them, but found the borrowed horses tied to a farmer’s rail two days south of Havenview. After long hours of negotiation with the stablemaster Eredricht ordered all of Brishen’s possessions to be stolen and given to the more than willing arms of the horse trader. As if the robbery were not enough Eredricht also placed poor Brishen into forced incarceration for two months. Furthermore, as a final insult to injury, the knight protector insisted on returning every night to ask Brishen about the possible whereabouts of his kin.

“Tuathinkin never leave their own behind. If you rats possess anything virtuous about you it is your loyalty to each other,” had been Eredricht’s frustrated reply to Brishen’s attempt to make him see that he was Ronin, and an aggravated counter to the gypsy’s attempt at making the knight understand that he was well and truly alone.

That exchange occurred the night before, and had been the fifty-ninth grueling proof of Eredricht’s thick skull.

“Tonight is a new night!” Brishen’s heavy accented voice of optimism competed against the noise of the soaking rainstorm outside.

“Tonight he shall listen to reason, and the simple man will let Brishen go, and then I can make my way in the world with or without misguided family.”

Hours passed. Brishen again checked his surroundings. Worry is a rare emotion in a Tuathinkin, but it began to worm its corruption into Brishen’s thoughts. Eredricht did not show at his appointed time causing the gypsy to pace to and fro in his small hold. Brishen began thinking of ways by which the knight could find loopholes in his own sentencing of the gypsy.

Brishen called upon his extensive vaults of trivial knowledge gained from a life of wandering throughout different lands, hamlets, towns, and cities throughout Rothloria. His canny knack of holding a memory for the mundane and unique alike made Brishen a potent source for information. More so, a potent negotiator when a loophole in most situations needed to be found. It was a trait making Brishen one of the more potent Bards his former band of Tuathinkin possessed, that and his talent for the fiddle and song.

He felt a tune rising in his mind while he forced himself to concentrate on the matter at hand. Eredricht was late. The knight intended to leave him in this hole of a room longer than anticipated.

Brishen began to know worry.

* The Heart of Fate is the seat of the Iricsusian faith located in the distant, northern nation of Moi
* A Fateline is a necklace worn about the neck of a cleric of Iricsus. It is considered one of their more potent holy symbols.

 

[Journeyman]

A gypsy in a cell was a songbird in a lead box, and Brishen was not going to be able to stand it much more.

Then it happened.

The cell block door, so small and simplistic, opened at the end of the hallway ushering both bright lantern light from the guardroom beyond and the silhouette of Eredricht D’Gours, Knight Protector of Havenview. His bulk seemed stranger this night, thought Brishen, and the imperceptible tired mannerisms the young man easily saw would have been masked to the casual eye. The taciturn knight stopped in front of Brishen’s cell and turned a too casual look over his shoulder at the three sickened inmates across the hall.

“Tell me, Tuathinkin, do they grow worse by the hour? Or do they simply have night fever and sleep it down right now?” Eredricht sounded odd.

“The three have stopped the throwing of barbs my way, and I wonder at their rapidly heaving, wheezing chests. Yes, they are to me getting worse, Eredricht.” Brishen said carefully. Where was this going?

Eredricht continued to study the three in the cell before slowly turning his head back to meet the boy’s eyes. The man looked positively disquieting. Solemn. If Brishen were any less the man he was, the Tuathinkin would feel intimidated. So, in his best fashion, he bluffed the feelings of fear onto his face. It felt good.

The knight responded quickly enough.

“What they are suffering from is a malady that has recently wormed its way into the Havenview domains. It affects the body by means of a wheezing cough, which progresses within a few days to a fever hot enough to boil the blood from the victim’s veins. It finally consumes its host in pain the likes that render the body into contortions making snakes proud. We have buried twenty, and these three men will most assuredly be next.”

Brishen wore the fear without need of bluffing now.

“I’m going to free you, gypsy, although my conscience would as soon let you rot perhaps making up for a small sliver of the historical damage your kind produce. You have until the storm breaks to make your way from Havenview never to return. I would not wish even you the ill will of travel on a night such as this.”

As if on cue a large peal of thunder broke out across the heavens precipitated by two large flashes of lightning. Cries and shouts could be heard from outside the building. Eredricht visibly shifted into the combat mode undoubtedly instilled into him since a young age, calm flooding his face, unlocking Brishen’s cell before the gypsy noticed movement. With that, Eredricht spun on his heel and walked briskly down the hall toward the door.

“Eredricht! Tell me, is this sickness passable?”

The knight did not hear Brishen or warrant a response worthy, for he strode from the cell block quickly and with the singular purpose of seeing to whatever had befallen Havenview during the conversation. Brishen wasted no time himself.

Gathering what he could, which was his ripped cloak, the gypsy made his way through the cell block door and into the single room of the Knight’s Ward beyond. Two simple desks, three foot chests, and the doorway to freedom were all that greeted him there. A small pouch lay on the closest counter upon quicker inspection of the room.

Picking it up without so much as a thought Brishen felt the weight of a few coins and the crinkle of paper within. Opening the pouch produced four silver lorians* and a note. The missive was simplistic and direct.

Money for your stay, and your evacuation from my Domain. You have until storm break. –Eredricht-

Brishen headed for the door and the only place he knew to stay out the storm’s wrath, the Haven’s Rest.

**********************************************************

It also happened the Haven’s Rest shared the destination of several others that evening. Contessa Locksmith and Randal Scarborough walked, side by side, bodies bent, into the stinging, biting rain driven mad by the winds pushing it relentlessly to earth. The storm howled, the thunder continued to pound the ears, and the lightning flashed providing another round of the endless cacophony. However, nothing could stop the two youths this night. Not when their desires were as great as they were.

Contessa, or Tessa as many knew her by, was in a rare mood. The week had been long. Too many locks made and too many locks passed by when potential buyers held their purses too close. Her father was genuinely worried that there was a downturn in the market of personal security blooming, and this meant a harsher life for her family. Rain slid down Tessa’s face as she adjusted the red bandanna on her head to conceal her features.

It was not a personal lifestyle change which caused Tessa to march determined toward alcoholic stupor. It was the recent death of her close friend, Francie, to a strange disease. It was the deaf look father Roderick gave her when she tried to get him to understand the way Francie had died. It was the thoughts swirling in her mind of what to do without her best friend to support her. If her parents were not still alive and so important to her she would leave town.

Randall on the other hand wanted nothing more than to keep a meeting with Kelsa. The thought of the barmaid made the young man smile and stride all the more determined to reach his prize. His father, a powerful merchant in the domain of Havenview taught him early the benefits of a good woman to the success of any enterprise. Be it life, business, or simple pleasure a steady woman by your side was critical. Kelsa had long been a friend of Randall’s and the more time that went on the more the merchant boy found he truly wanted more from her. Tonight was going to be the night, damnable rains or not, that Kelsa would know his feelings. How could she refuse?

The pair looked so solemn when they walked into the warmth and light of the inn that the welcoming stares of the patrons nearest the door lingered longer than normal. Tessa gave a momentary cough and brushed back the few curly black locks of hair which escaped the confines of her hair piece. She looked askance at Randal who had already begun whispering under his breath the words of magic so familiar to him.

Before her eyes Randal’s wet brown hair and goatee slowly dried while beads of rain water lifted and evaporated from clothes and skin. His face seemed to glow slightly as the magic left his body before he turned blue eyes and his mercantile face toward her. Those eyes calculated in an instant the possibilities of not giving his acquaintance the same benefit of a dry night, and realizing Tessa’s mental condition another cantrip followed from thought to action.

Warmth flowed through Tessa’s skin and clothing and soon she too was dry and ready for a night of simple musings and forgetfulness. She quickly took in the common room of the Rest. It was chocked full of people. Never had she seen the place as packed as it was this evening. No doubt Kelsa and Tobin would be worked to the bone this night. As if reading her thoughts the young stable boy came up from her right.

“Hello Tessa. Randall. Can I take your things?”

“Well, if you insist I suppose that would be good of you, Tobin,” crowed Randall. Pushing a copper piece into the stable boy’s hand, along with his cloak and gloves, he continued, “Have you seen Kelsa?”

“She’s busy. Too many tonight, I think, to really get any free time, and Randall?”

“Yes?”

“Take your crappy copper piece. I’m a friend remember?”

“Oh, yes. That. Call it simple habit I suppose. Got to keep the help satisfied, and your welcome for the spell Tessa. Go drink, and remember darling, it’s not the end of the world.”

With that Randall walked over to his normal table. Tessa and Tobin, still standing by the door, watched in mute apathy as Randall paid one gold lorian to the table’s current occupants to vacate. He then sat down and stared directly, uncomfortably, and very noticeably at the busy Kelsa across the room as she restocked on mugs. All the while fiddling with that damnable coffee bean necklace always found at his throat.

“What is it like I wonder?” Asked Tobin softly.

“Too crippling. However you put it. Be happy you’re not him.” Tessa said with equal volume. Darling?

“He does do good though. He helps us and for some reason patrons our small causes.”

“He will never be his father that is true.” Tessa agreed.

Randall was the only son of the largest merchant in Havenview, Thomas Scarborough. His family was primarily from the city-state of Rothloria to the distant north. He had arrived in Havenview with his father at the age of five, and schooled with Tessa and Kelsa under Roderick. It was when his mother died some five years back that he had begun to become more assessable to the other kids his age. Of those in Havenview Tobin, Kelsa, and Tessa were his closest acquaintances. Despite his father’s constant and obvious urgings not to relate with the riff raff, Randall continued to associate with the three. Sometimes, when life became financially troublesome, money was even spared.

“Tobin?”

Tobin sensed the pain in that question, and taking his eyes from Randall to Tessa he saw the few specks of tears in her eyes. Tobin did his best to soften his look and mood.

“You want to come back to the kitchen? There is a table there and I think I can get you a half bottle of fire wine. Perhaps some cheese too. “

“Yeah, yeah that’d be real good of you Tobin.” came forth the quiet response.

As Tobin led Tessa back towards the kitchen her comments sparked more about their collective past. Tessa always was the backbone of the group. She was the level headed one. She was the individual of the collective. Since Francie’s death though, that had all changed. Why should it not though?

Looking at her now he tried to frame words of consolation. She stood five and eight inches in height her face framed by constant stray locks of blackest hair. Her skin seemed pasty white this evening, but she had certainly walked through much of the storm outside to deserve that countenance. The constant bandanna on her head was there, yet it was still storm blown. The sadness was simply too much for him to keep quiet about.

“Look Tessa. If there is anything I can do, I mean between Kirian’s orders and the horses, let me know o.k.? You look positively destroyed, and I-I don’t think I like that.”

Tessa couldn’t help small grin from the side of her mouth. “Thanks Tobin. Don’t worry about me I’ll get past it. I’m used to a sort of inner solitude. I suppose Francie just spoiled me a little, right?”

Tessa sat down in the chair and watched the kitchen staff hurry to and fro. They would soon be out of mutton from the looks of it. Tobin fetched a forgotten bottle of fire wine and brought it over to her. He whistled and a cook, looking over her shoulder, deftly cut a hunk of cheese and threw it perfectly on the table in front of the sullen girl.

“Master Kirian sure knows how to pick them, eh?” Tobin smiled. “I’ve got to go make sure he is done with Ike in the stables.”

“Ike?” Tessa said around a mouthful of cheese.

“Ike is the hired entertainer from the road tonight. Seems a real charlatan, and almost managed to have his assistant burn the inn down! Kirian is giving the poof one of his region famous lectures on spell safety no doubt. If I hear more ill tell you. By the way, are you staying here tonight?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll make your place in the attic then. See you round.”

With that Tobin ran out of the kitchen into the common room beyond leaving Tessa to drink slowly amongst the bustle of the Rest’s kitchen.

* The Lorian is the coinage of Rothloria. It is divided into copper, silver, gold, platinum, and mithril.

 

[Journeyman]

Bridles, saddles, and various pieces of equestrian gear swung to and fro in the winds racing through the Haven’s stables. Efficiently organized, perhaps even cataloged thought Kirian, the equipment hung like ornaments from the evenly spaced beams above. Two sparring parties stood facing each other below, neither flinching from the other’s gaze, making horses in surrounding stalls stamp their hooves nervously. Tonight’s duel was not one of magic, swords, or other mortally fatal instruments; rather its weapons were words and negotiation. The inn keeper was winning, yet the conversation’s track made the elf nervous. Ike’s gossip and tales were too sodden with the air of truth.

“The runt is barely able to focus on simplistic spell components let alone cast a capable incantation. What on earth would you want with him, Kirian?” Ike’s voice was particularly oily this night.

“The halfling shows tremendous dexterity in his movements, and a willingness to keep his magicks secret enough. I think, with the appropriate guidance, that he will be a willing and capable pupil. Despite his age, he has obviously been able to master simplistic magical incantations on his own, and I might add, all the while in your care. Your opposition is purely based on nothing more than bigotry mixed with ample egotism. Do you forget your duty, man?”

The elf raised an eyebrow ever so slowly while moving his lithe frame in front of the haphazard displays of lightning flickering outside the entrance of the musty, humid stable. The light seemed to reflect from his almond skin, the shadows nearly receding as Kirian became a natural glow in the half darkness. Ike seemed impressed yet remained undeterred.

“I grow weary of dogging about the countryside looking for capable students for your brainwashing, Kirian! If you so much as insist on taking this boy of a runt then I shall double the fee we have agreed on. Lest you forget who I work for?” The man tilted his head providing a half sneer on his rotund face. It made the pockmarks on his visage stretch in a strange way.

“Enough!” Kirian shouted, casting a spell without so much as moving a single digit, hand, or muttering a word. The sound of his voice boomed throughout the close confines of the stable enough to make the very wood walls tremble. The sonics reverberated drowning the thunder outside, and knocked the showman to his knees. Kirian took another step forward a wild look in his eyes. Ever so softly, and seemingly from far away, the sound of a flute played in an eerie, repeating pattern.

Ike knew the arcane madness when he saw it, and knew also the results if untamed. He felt his nose begin to bleed, and smeared his hand dispatching the red liquid.

“Calm yourself master Kirian! There now, hold yourself steady!” The man stated, almost pleadingly, with hands outstretched in an agonized posture of supplication. “I’m sorry, your right! Same fee and I’ll bring you more! I promise. Just don’t k-k-kill me!”

Kirian slowly stared at the man before him, and the sudden chaos in his visage came to a startling and abrupt end. Elven features returned to the calm, eternal rest so common for his kind. The anger; however, remained.

“No, no Ike,” Kirian’s voice was a whisper, “you will not bring me any more students. I want nothing to do with filth any longer. Go crawling back to Caltrin on your belly like the snake you are. I am quite done with your irritating attempts to stab me in the back and weasel coin from my purse. I’ll make my own way now.”

Ike looked on stupidly as Kirian tossed a leather pouch of coin at the ground before him. Dusty motes of mold leapt up from the disturbed hay as platinum lorians stumbled out from their captivity and scattered against the man’s shins.

“You cannot do this Kirian,” whined Ike, “he’ll never understand!”

“I’ll deal with it. Run home. Flee north before you irritate me further and I'll charm you to clean the barrack’s ditch yet again.”

Ike crawled away crablike after collecting his coins. Haphazardly standing, he jumped on his horse and reared in front of the impassive elf before him. The steed’s eyes rolled back as it came down on the ground waving its hoofs wildly. Ike glared down from the saddle.

“You’ll wish this night had not turned this way.”

“Don’t kill yourself in the squall, Ike;” Kirian stared impassively still drinking in the greasy visage before him, “storms the likes of this one are treacherous indeed.”

With that, the man spurred his horse in a circle riding with crazed determination into the flooding streets beyond. Kirian slowly chanted a small spell, and in his mind’s eye, watched the rune that was Ike move slowly away. The tracking coin began to work its charms, and when Ike camped, it would be his last rest.

If rest could be found on a night such as this, Kirian thought, walking slowly back to the inn.

**********************************************************

Back in the common room of the Haven’s Rest, Cade slowly nursed his drink and watched the strangers around him. There were the obvious farmers, tradesmen, and lonely townsfolk scattered throughout the establishment; however, true to form, there was not a halfling in sight. Cade knew he stuck out like a sore thumb, but what was there to do? He thought of what to accomplish next. He had obviously lost Ike’s pay, his stipend for this evening, and quite possibly greatly angered the elven inn keeper far more than that. It was rumored that elves never forgot a slight. What if he was cursed?

Cade blanched at the thought.

The nobae came into the Rest from the stables, and his conversation with Ike, immediately approaching the young boy who seemed to help him run the place. Speaking swiftly and quietly into the youth’s ear he pointed at the stage and at another individual Cade had not yet noticed.

The character under examination looked to be a young man no more than sixteen years of age. He was sitting alone and feasting his gaze on the rather voluptuous form of the bar girl serving another round to a group of dagger playing tradesmen. Interestingly enough he looked rather wealthy, and yet wore a coffee bean necklace about his neck, an obvious sign of a unique love for the exotic. The boy then moved over to sit with the solitary youth looking clearly irritated by the interruption.

Cade felt a hand grip his shoulder gently, and while looking up, barely kept a startled cry from exiting his lips upon seeing Kirian above him. The elf simply smiled and sat in the empty stool to his left. Framed over the innkeeper’s shoulder was a window behind the bar. The rain seemed to be driving its fury horizontally into the pane making an interesting explosive pattern on the rose colored glass.

“So, boy, Ike tells me your name is Cade Blackbarrel?” Kirian stated matter of fact.

“Yes, look I’m sorry about the…”

“Fire?” The inn keeper watched Cade nod affirmatively.

“You can make it up to me later. I have a proposition for you.”

Cade sensed something was about to be said that would have a drastic outcome on his way of life. Bracing himself for the lashing to come; halfling eyes screwed shut. Kirian, startled by Cade’s response, hushed his voice and added a little more compassion.

“Did he hurt you, Cade?”

“No, of course not.” Cade whispered back.

“I’m not going to hurt you, boy. Rather I want to employ you.”

Cade opened his eyes. What?

“You seemed surprised. I suppose you should be. You almost burnt my inn down casting an unthinking cantrip. You blatantly practiced arcane arts in my inn doing little to conceal it. You have been under the totalitarian control of that fool Ike for nearly a year and a half; so how could you escape that? Yes, yes you should be surprised.” Kirian went on to nod in self satisfaction.

“But, but why?” Cade’s voice felt weak.

“Why not? You have talent Cade. You can cast and that is rare in and of itself. Not to mention the fact that it does not come naturally to you like our cousin the sorcerer. That means you have intelligence and can translate magic, not an easy feat in and of itself. You have been traveling with Ike. Meaning you, no doubt, taught yourself to do all of the aforementioned on your own, and that makes me interested in you.”

The elf leaned dramatically toward Cade, eyes looking out from the topside of their almond shaped homes. A whisp of stray hair fell over the right one.

“I can make you better Cade. I could easily provide you training and get you back on your feet. The only thing I ask in return is your occasional help with the maintenance of the Rest and the promise you won’t cast indiscriminately. Surely you know a good deal when you see one?”

Cade stared in mute shock. What…was…going…on?

“Here,” Kirian pushed a halfling pint of ale at Cade, “drink this and I’ll come and ask for your answer later. Just one more thing. Don’t expect Ike to come back for you. I’ve sent him scampering into the storm to make his own way. You don’t choose to stay with me and I’ll expect two copper for the room and you on your way tomorrow.”

Before Cade could utter a response the elf spun on his heels and entered the kitchen checking the rationing of the night’s mutton chops.

**********************************************************

Randall was not amused. He had recently caught Kelsa’s eye and even held a small conversation with her. She promised to come and break her evening meal with him, which could be but fifteen scant minutes away. He was carefully rehearsing his lines, which took concentration, when Tobin sat down in front of him. His view was broken from his love to be causing Randall to think seriously about using his power on the whelp.

“What in Imoriv’s Benefits has gotten into you Tobin? Can you not see me working?”

“On what, Randall?” Tobin asked rather innocently. “Kelsa’s behind?”

“You simply don’t understand. What do you want? Be quick.”

“It has nothing to do with what I want. We don’t have to talk more than we have to. Do you have to be so callous?”

Randall’s face softened. “No, no I suppose you’re right.”

The merchant boy turned to face his childhood acquaintance. Funny how Tobin was so boyish, yet commanded so much respect from his peers at seemingly odd times. How, Randall did not know, but it would be a good trick to learn. Why not start now while he waited on his fair Kelsa.

“Kirian wants your father and yourself to do a favor for him.”

“Oh yes?”

Tobin nodded. “The halfling he is currently talking too, and don’t look, is a young wizard in training.”

Randall barely managed not to stare. Tact was not his forte.

“Kirian would like the Scarboroughs to house the youth until such a time as he can arrange a place for him to stay here in town. Given your affinity towards the arcane he thought you the suitable choice. Knowing also your needs, he also has told me he’ll let Kelsa off for the night should you agree.”

“For how long?”

Tobin looked confused. “How long is Kelsa to be off, or how long is the halfling to stay with you?”

Randall sighed looking pointedly at Tobin and bringing up a hand. His next sentence came slowly and quite exaggerated, and all the while accompanied by simplistic sign language. Respect was forgotten it seemed.

“How long is the halfling to stay with us?” The hand lowered.

Tobin scowled.

“I don’t know. I do know he would like you and your father to comply as he buys quite a bit of food wares and ale from your cousin in the north.”

“Fine. Before I leave tomorrow I’ll talk to him and take the halfling home for babysitting.”

Tobin, not wanting to have to spend more time with Randall than absolutely possible got up to return to the kitchen. He would find Kirian there and tell him the news while checking on Tessa at the same time. The stable boy barely made it to an upright position before the front door of the Rest flew open with a great clap of sound. Admitted through it came the collapsing form of the strangest man Tobin had ever laid eyes on.

 

[Journeyman]

Footsteps in the mud, rain sliding down cheeks of walnut brown, robes heavy with soaking rain, and wind pushing relentlessly toward the sparkling lights of an ever growing town. Such was his surroundings this horrid evening.

A hood, long forgotten, now blowing haphazardly in the wind, reveals the topknot of burgundy braided hair while the weight of a sword pulls awkwardly to the left. Tines of lightning illuminate the night sky illustrating the leaves flying through the air, ripped from their treetop homes, and pursued by flying debris of equal substance. Each step agonizing and slow, yet determined, make for a stuttering trek along the endless road south.

Memories crowd close in the weakened wanderer’s mind. Always first to enter is the summer sun above sands to the west. There, surrounded by his wandering kind, the nomads of the great deserts of Gösh, he grows tired of the mundane effects of life. Where water and cloud are scarce amongst the rock, clays, and dunes, his people are close knit and proud, yet the ways of the saber and spear grow old. Always the same creatures to show his superiority against, the same weather to show mastery over, and same caravans to tolerate heading north and south along the Trail of Pearls.

Da’Shen Talom is the name given this warrior so far away from his birth land. He is a desert fighter, a member of the Scorpion Winds Caste, and he has chosen the green lands of the south to make his name. Honor watches him leave the wastes all but committing suicide in the eyes of his göshman brothers. Already, Da’Shen has performed tasks many do not achieve until their second decade on the sun’s daughter. Now he goes forth to conquer more, and his people say little as they watch him ride south. A doomed man, destined to fall where the water runs deep and the green wood is thick and imposing.

Da’Shen’s senses come sharply to focus as he suddenly hears the galloping sounds of an incoming horse. Pupils dilate, and tendons pull tight to bone. Muscles relax while his silent sword, Rashka*, whips out from its leather scabbard. Despite the burning in his chest and fog clouding his mind, the warrior swings down into a crouch and stands aside from the center of the muddy track. Right on cue the rider streaks out from the darkness, a dark blur against the night rain pounding down around them.

Da’Shen thought for an instant he was not seen, yet the rider continued to bear down upon him as if night were day. This rider did not want to be seen, and it was Da’Shen who could take that opportunity away from him. A random hoof, the desert wanderer was not sure which of the four, sparked off a stone giving him opportunity to time his upcoming move. Horse and rider bore ever down on the waiting combatant while a sudden burst of thunder provided his apt moment to strike.

Leaping into the air, weight of his robes lost to the ground, the tan man became momentarily visible in a flash of lightning. The horse reared taken by surprise, and knowing equestrians well, Da’Shen gracefully darted right as the horse came down away from where he had momentarily crouched. The rider did not know the steed as well as the man of the deserts, and fell crashing to the ground with a shriek of pain. As Da’Shen moved slowly around the injured rider to determine how best to place him on his journey to Lazonish*, another fit of coughing welled up from within his disease shattered chest.

He fell to his knees, head spinning, all the while trying to manage a grip on Rashka. His hands did not respond as he involuntarily grasped at his throat in pain. The heaving chest below continued its work.

The man so hell bent on riding him down got to his feet as slowly as Da’Shen had lost his own. Pulling a wicked blade from within his riding cloak, he began the death advance the göshman knew so well from personal saunters. Lightning glistened off the wet blade, and Da’Shen could only struggle against the coughing and rasping long enough to wonder. Wonder why this man insisted on such morbid secrecy cloaked as he already was in the storm about them.

His killer was rotund, his face riddled with pockmarks. To die to such an unworthy opponent would be little worth the travels endured thus far. The villain seemed nervous when he realized what Da’Shen was. A desert rider so very far from the dunes of his birth could be an ill omen, and easily would have dispatched Ike if not for the odd coughing fit knocking him to the ground. Stopping a few feet from the wanderer, the fleeing hedge mage raised the long knife menacingly. Not wasting any time, the downward arc came down toward the göshman’s writhing body. It never met flesh.

A brilliant flash of blue light exploded from behind Ike surrounding his body in a halo of magical energy. The carcass flew clear over Da’Shen’s person and onto the ground, rolling on its sides until finally coming to rest some twenty feet away. Looking on, Da’Shen became instantly aware the fat man was quite dead. A gaping hole was ripped through his torso right below the sternum revealing ribcage and organs both. The knife still gripped in his hand, arm raised above the shoulder in a gruesome display of his final stance in life, made for a gruesome sight. Da’Shen’s cough stopped as suddenly as it began.

Pushing up from the muddy road, eyes wide with pain, the Goshman searched for proofs of the lightning strike that must have occurred. There were no signs of blackened earth, no visible fires recently extinguished by the rains that yet fell, and no electric pulse to the air about him. There was only the shrieking of the horse as it galloped away into the night, the sound of rain drops hammering his aching head, and the small rotating stone hovering not but two feet above the ground from where Da’Shen had regained his feet.

It pulsed once more with a blue light, somber in nature, and then dropped silently to the ground, its glow extinguished. Da’Shen cautiously crept over to where it lay in a small hoof print shaped puddle and touched it with the tip of his blade. Receiving no response from the strange stone, the Göshman stooped over, plucking it from within its watery resting place. Smearing away what mud coated the facet facing him, the desert man could see strange runes covering the rock. It had been chiseled to show eleven facets each with a different glyph, and felt warm to the touch.

Da’Shen felt his weary mind begin to lose its hold on the reality around it, and realized the impossibility of fighting off the approaching fog and delirium. His adrenaline was wearing off. Pushing the stone deep into a fold of his robes he willed his legs to take him toward the lights of the town barely shining through the storm. His mind entered the Rashalin* yet again, and Da’Shen Talom moved closer to help and the town’s lights.

**********************************************************

Brishen made his way from the Knight’s Ward slowly careful not to slip in the thick mud and rising waters. Lanterns throughout Havenview’s streets had long since guttered out leaving the buildings he walked between tall, imposing, and able to add their ominous bulk to the near pitch black of the storm around him. There were lights in the distance though, and it was toward these few sparks in the gale that he struggled toward. How could this storm keep up the ferocity any longer?

As he neared the only part of Havenview, still lit despite the ravaging winds fighting each and every lantern, he thought he saw someone waving franticly at him from a corner two blocks away. He stopped and held a hand to shield his squinting eyes while peering through the sheets of rain obstructing the view. Yes! There again was the figure crouched down on the side of the river that once was a street. Brishen began to run through the five inch deep water toward the gentleman in need of assistance.

“Help me!” The villager cried almost drowned out by a tremendous clap of thunder. “I think this man’s hurt bad! I need to get him to the Rest!”

Brishen skidded to a halt spraying water all over the man and the crumpled form at his feet. Managing not to fall on the slippery footing beneath him, Brishen knelt and inspected the robed character lying on the rain drenched curb. Something was familiar, and soon Brishen realized with a start that he was looking at the garments and raiment of a göshman. Yet that was nearly unheard of! The wastelands that would have spawned the desert man were some 2000 leagues to the west. Nonetheless there he was, and not breathing at that.

Rubbing his hands together slowly, Brishen began to hum a familiar gypsy tune and willed his hands to hear the healing tone in his music. Placing his right hand upon the göshman’s tanned forehead, and his left upon one wrist, Brishen channeled some of his tonal magic into the comatose body. Blue and orange light glowed from beneath his palms making Brishen instantly aware of the pulse beating again beneath his left hand. The bard was also keenly aware of the pallid warmth seeping into his skin.

“Sick this stranger is. Getting him to a dry place is what I am thinking will benefit him the most?” Brishen said in the halting common which was a hallmark of many Tuathinkin.

The man only stared at Brishen with a small amount of astonishment mixed with obvious loathing. Brishen took him in quickly noticing the torches at his waist, the ember smudged hands, and the lighting materials strapped to his back. He also took note of the craftsman token at his throat marking him a Torchlighter. In order to forestall a disaster, for he could not carry the göshman alone, he was going to have to fast talk some empathy between the guildsman and himself.

“Look, if I would be trying to hurt this man I would not be kneeling in five inches of water? If I was going to eat your children* I would not be so nice looking despite the rain, no? Certainly if I was going to…”

“Shut up, and help me get him on his feet.” The man interrupted.

Brishen stood silently, and thanked Kalien* for his charming wits. The three of them; gypsy, Torchlighter, and göshman, made an odd trio as they stumbled toward the Rest not but three blocks away. The more they walked the more the desert man seemed to come around from whatever wave of unconsciousness nearly took his life. By the time they neared the front of the Haven’s Rest he was nearly walking of his own accord.

The three story inn seemed from the outside to be full of townsfolk and other travelers. The rose glass windows kept much of the revelry inside to a dim roar, but it was clear that inside would be a much dryer place, even cramped and loud as it was, than the torrential downpours in which they now stood. Stables could be seen sheltering their tenets quite well, and Brishen made it clear with a nod of his head his true destination.

“Not till we get him inside, gypsy. I thought you were still in Eredricht’s hold.”

“He is letting me out this fine night sir. You know, to steal and help the less fortunate sickly individuals.” Brishen was tired. His voice certainly made it clear.

“I’m Robb. I can help you get a table in there. Least I could do for you helping me.” The Torchlighter managed a grim smile on his half shaved visage.

“Sure! Let’s be getting him inside then.”

“I can handle myself.” The bass voice issued from in between them. “Let me walk.”

With that the göshman shouldered his way free of Robb and Brishen’s grasp stumbling forward toward the door to the Rest. His first few steps seemed to prove that he was in command of his balance; however, suddenly, and quite by surprise to the two men looking on, the desert man became wracked with a sickly cough. Stumbling forward, half running, Da’Shen reached the door. His impact on the frame, as he lost balance, accomplished two distinct results. One, he knocked himself out cold with a cracking noise rivaling the recent tolls of thunder from above. Secondly, he removed the door from its closed position, wrenching it dramatically into the common room beyond, and into the wall to its left.

The Rest was clearly silenced within, and all Brishen and Robb could hear outside was the pelting of raindrops in the water swirling about their feet, and the cries of the storm around them.

* Rashalin is a trance-like state that warriors of Gösh master in order to ration their bodies to the last essence of energy. It is performed when in need of severe measures of self preservation.

* Rashka is the name of Da’Shen’s original scimitar. It means Sun’s Reflection in Göshen.

* Lazonish, Mithangeean god of deserts and fire, is a minor god aligned with law and good.

* Tuathinkin are oftentimes accused of eating children. A ridiculous accusation as any gypsy can tell you.

* Kalien, Mithangeean god of mischief and bards, is a minor god aligned with chaos and evil. Scores of adventurers seem ready to ignore the later portfolio to the dismay of many, and he is oftentimes the benefit of the occasional, innocent thought.

 

[Journeyman]

Several tables nearest Da’Shen’s explosive entrance to the Rest emptied quickly of their patrons. Startled, not quite sure what to make of the obvious outlander lying at their feet, these former revelers stood back with mute shock apparent on their faces. Shouts toward the back of the common room began to summon Kirian Starshine as Tobin quickly began pushing his way through the standing crowd. The stable hand calmly reassured each individual he passed. Randall, watching from behind, could not help but wonder at the sixteen year old’s ability to still the apprehensive soul.

Kelsa quickly put down her tray of empty mugs on the table closest to her. The patrons there did not seem to mind at all as she then promptly left and headed toward the back of the inn. Rushing up the guest stairs to the second level, she hurried to the end of the corridor while informing startled and half-asleep patrons that all was well. There, at the end of the hallway, she rapped politely on Kirian’s office.

“Yes.” Kirian’s voice calmly carried from inside.

“There has been a disturbance downstairs Kirian. A…foreign looking individual has fallen just inside the front door.” Kelsa tried to keep worry from her voice.

She was tall for her age. Nineteen years old and nearing six feet in height. She had a figure that Randall, her friend, continued to say was an hourglass with a few extra minutes tacked on. She tried to keep her hands at her sides, but they disobeyed and played with her waist length brown hair. She sucked on her lower lip as she waited.

“I’ll be down promptly. This has come at an inopportune moment. I am afraid I cannot stop this experiment. Please, Kelsa, inform Tobin. Do and speak as I taught you the other night.” Kirian’s voice sounded monotone.

Kelsa wasted little time and promptly ran down the hall. There at the end a concerned Randall waited. He looked rather dashing in his well pressed, expensive merchant garb. If it was not for his high-handed attitude, and the fun of toying with his better senses, Kelsa thought Randall might be a catch.

“What did he say?” Randall asked as he put a hand out toward Kelsa’s shoulder stopping her advance. She let him.

“He said I should tell Tobin he will be down shortly. I-I really should get down there, Randall.”

“I don’t want this to interrupt our plans to talk. Are you still interested?”

“Randall. Randall, there is commotion down there. We’ll be lucky not to lose half the paying customers. How can you think like this right now?”

“Kelsa, Kirian was going to loose them when the rains stopped anyway. Besides, I made a deal with him to get you off shift early tonight. I have something,” and his stark blue eyes glinted with intensity, “very important to talk about.”

Perhaps I pushed this little game too far. Kelsa thought.

“Perhaps later, Randall. We’ll see.” With that, she edged around the fledgling merchant and trotted downstairs smiling over her shoulder.

**********************************************************

Brishen quickly knelt with Robb by the stricken form of the göshman as rain blew in the door behind them. The gypsy’s clothes, once bright and garish, were now covered with sweat, mud, rainwater, and the lesser rudiments of time spent too long in harsh conditions. His blond hair was a mess, and worse yet he knew it. An audience, however, was an audience, and his ability to swing the various locals in this particular inn before him was paramount. He could plainly see some of their faces registering more shock at the second outsider to dash through the door. Some he knew from the mob that nearly lynched him two months back.

“Don’t worry! I think he has merely been knocked dead for a second time! I, Brishen,” Then followed the natural bow, “shall be more than able to fix his prone self.”

“You’re that horse thief!” A random cry called from deeper in the room.

“He’s helped me nonetheless this night!” Robb cried. “Let him do his work, and he’ll be no harm to any of you. Eredricht let him out tonight, he did.” His voice came out unusually strong.

Brishen in the meantime leaned down and again let the passionate song in his voice heal the prone desert man. This time around Da’Shen did not re-awaken despite the lump on his head smoothing out. By this moment, Tobin had arrived on scene and began to ask, gently of course, that the patrons back up and clear some space. Rain continued to blow in from the forgotten front door.

“Really, people, must we all let more of that damnable weather in?” Randall called as he finished walking down the stairs after Kelsa. After which he took a seat, recently abandoned, and placed his feet upon the table.

Tobin looked at the unconscious man on the ground and could instantly sense the wrongness about his body. Placing a hand gently on his chest, the young man suddenly felt the war fighting its way towards termination within the göshman’s upper body. The comatose form tried to repel the, sickness, within. Yet the illness continued to spread.

“This man is diseased. I cannot do anything for him, nor could master Kirian if he wanted too.” Tobin looked at Robb dead in the eyes. “Someone must go through the storm and fetch Roderick, and quick like!”

The nearest townsmen suddenly became pallid taking several steps backward. “T-t-there’s been talk of a disease passing through these parts! Ill have nothing of this. Better the storm than what’s killed my kin!”

Suddenly, before Kelsa could get to Tobin in time to warn of the possibility of its occurrence, the crowd in the inn began to panic. Panic soon began a mad rush for the nearest exits, and anything, everything, in the mob’s collective way was forgotten.

Tobin acted without thought pulling the wounded wanderer from out of the doorway in the nick of time. Tens of feet stampeded through the portal mere seconds later. Pushing and shoving, the crowd fled out the front, the stable door where horses were quickly mounted, and through the kitchen.

Randall’s chair upended, sending him careening roughly to the ground with a grunt. Realizing the mob was not about to see him there on the straw covered floor, he just about managed to maneuver himself under one of the larger tables without too much bruising. Wiping blood away from his injured lip, kicked by a damned peasant, he waited for things to calm down.

And at the bar counter, forgotten yet watchful all this time, Cade Blackbarrel dived across the slab just as the greater mass of humans pressed up cracking some stools under their weight. As mugs and broken bottles of wine came crashing down about him, Cade quickly balled himself up and prayed to Nefrotis for luck.

**********************************************************

Tessa stared, mutely sipping on her fourth ale, as tens of patrons fled through the kitchen. Pots, pans, and food flew everywhere as startled cooks and busybodies attempted to keep the fires and more dangerous areas of the kitchen safe. A random townsman, Giliam West she thought, kicked her table knocking ale from her hands and onto the floor. Whether it was the alcohol or her natural tendency to flare at sometimes trivial occurrences, Tessa found herself unable to control her Tiefling nature.

“Watch where you’re going, Giliam!” Tessa growled helping the man to his feet. The room suddenly began to smell of light brimstone. She knew her hands must be very warm to the touch as she fought to keep her bandana in place hiding the small horny stubs beneath it.

“Y-you’re sick too!” Giliam turned and fled, pulling his hand from her warm grasp. He soon escaped with the last of the crazed, fearful patrons.

Tessa blew at a piece of hair lodged in her vision. Turning sharply on the heel of a boot she promptly walked into the common room to see what the matter was, and perhaps find another drink. Instead she found an empty room, save for the small group placing a heavy looking individual on a large table in the center of the chamber. He looked tired and drawn, clothed in heavy, wet robes. Ignored she simply began to search the back of the bar. There she found a halfling, in a fetal position, cringing with open fear.

Tobin, Brishen, and Kelsa groaned together placing the göshman on a sanded table while Robb began to open Da’Shen’s robes revealing chain mail beneath. A cruel looking scimitar was sheathed to a rope belt surrounded by several pouches of herbs. Chest heaving dramatically, beads of sweat soon became apparent on his forehead. Brishen thought he could detect the smell of sandalwood about him while he dried hands made wet from Da’Shen’s clothing. Searching his memory of non-descript facts, the bard thought that placed the wanderer from the southlands of Gösh. Randall walked over slowly favoring his left leg.

“My how the townsfolk mirror the frightful cows they so care for.” He chuckled at his poor taste.

The group was in the process of a collective rebuttal when they turned toward the front door. Yet another individual walked in from the storm outside. Dressed in a long cloak of deep grays, Trevor of Iricsus made a formidable sight despite his seventeen years of age. He wore light chain made obvious from beneath the wet, plastered sleeves of his outer garment. Holy symbol lightly swinging on his chest, he made his way toward the group all the while thumbing the pommel of a mace belted at his hip. Rivulets of rain ran down his face, but he seemed completely unaware of their presence.

“As I came closer to this business,” he smiled slightly, “I could not help but see lord Iricsus show it would be my fate to be useful. Much more so than the simple task which I was slated for.” His voice became reverent, quiet. “It would seem that fate was not incorrect.”

Robb smiled.

“Hello Trevor. It’s a good thing you showed. We were about to go and fetch Roderick. This stranger has taken ill.”

Trevor moved closer tracing the holy word of Iricsus in silent response, and placing a hand beneath Da’Shen’s mail. “He is indeed ill, master Torchlighter. Yet, methinks it is not with the strange malady threatening the environs. I think,” and he stared intently at the göshman’s face while placing an ear to his chest, “it is a simple, yet far prolonged, case of chest blight.”

“Are people belonging to your cult so serious like, or do you lose the grace of your age while worshiping intangible destiny?” Brishen stated. He disliked people who spoke above their years.

Trevor ignored the gypsy entirely.

“If it is this man’s fate to be healed then may the lord guide my flesh in the healing of his.” Whispered Trevor as he laid his palms upon Da’Shen’s heaving chest. A soft green light flowed and pulsed from his palms beginning to slowly form an aura surrounding the sickened göshman.

Da’Shen arched his back in obvious pain. Beads of water, yellow and viscous, began to pull free of his torso and coalesce into a watery sphere a foot above him. Growing in size as more of the repulsive fluid pulled from of his pores, the globule began to take on a reddish hue as blood flowed from his eyes, ears, and mouth. A scream, muted by the water flowing through his mouth erupted from Da’Shen’s lips. Brishen moved back in slight horror. Half a halfling’s head rose above the horizon of the bar counter wide eyed. A drunk and feminine hand quickly ascended behind it then rapidly pushed it down.

“Be gone foul taint!” Trevor cried gesturing his arms in an arc toward the open front door. The sphere of bodily ruin flew out the portal exploding on the muck of the street beyond. Da’Shen whimpered slightly, a sound certainly not fitting with his features, and slowly sunk into a somewhat restful looking sleep. Trevor slumped back into a chair.

“I was to give this to Kirian.” He turned to Kelsa and pressed an envelope into her hand. “Please deliver this. I must seek rest, and am too weary.”

“We have plenty of room now that much of the crowd is gone, Trevor.” Tobin stated slightly awed. “Follow me and you can sleep the night upstairs.”

**********************************************************

Tobin showed Trevor to his room on the third floor, and then promptly led a contrite and inebriated Tessa to her normal attic bunk to sleep off her despair. In the common room below, Randall sulked watching Kelsa just finish cleaning up the common room. Torchlight from the kitchen guttered out signifying the staff’s final retreat to sleep. Robb had since removed himself from the inn to battle, once more, the waning storm’s winds lighting what street lights he could. Cade watched quietly, a muted spark in his eyes, as the elven innkeeper finally walked into the room.

Kirian Starshine looked positively tired. He almond shaped eyes possessed a sunken look about them bringing out their hazel color in an all together different light. The nobae's clothes were dampened from his constant comings and goings between the Rest and her stables. His boots held a slight ring of mud around the bottom of each sole, and stray wisps of straw clung to the hems of ever present robes hanging from their elven frame. These folds swirled about Kirian as he quickly knelt by Da’Shen’s still unconscious form.

“Whereabouts did this individual come into town?” He asked solemnly.

Tobin answered now returning from upstairs himself, “By the northern road to Kalimshire. Robb found him just inside Havenview by the Locksmith’s.”

Brishen spoke up from a shadow shrouded table in the corner of the room, “I was helping the Torchlighter carry him here and he tripped.”

Kirian spun his gaze on the gypsy. “He tripped? Tell me gypsy. How does a carried man trip?”

“Well, he made us let him go, and he became too stubborn to hold himself vertical. I am thinking the chest pains caught him off guard.” Brishen looked contrite.

Kirian only frowned. Looking around the room at the teens surrounding him he slowly shook his head.

“All of you should get rest. Randall and Cade shall share room 12, Tobin. Kelsa, you’re off. Go get rest, girl. Gypsy, help me get this apparent göshman to a resting place near my quarters, and you can share his room for this night.” Kirian seemed to suddenly notice the Tuathinkin for whom he was. “Why are you free? Or shall I assume Eredricht let you out?”

“Why is everybody asking me this question? Ask that harsh knight you call ‘in charge’.” Brishen grunted as he lifted half Da’Shen’s weight on his left shoulder. “And my name is being called Brishen.”

“Brishen, you will of course be under close watch. Speaking of which, mind the flight of steps!” Kirian hissed upon reaching the stairs and nearly taking a spill.

The two, exhausted, finally got Da’Shen out of his armor and robes, and into a soft bed. As Brishen casually fell onto his own shared bunk in the room, Kirian began to fold and place the göshman’s articles on the floor at the foot of his resting place. That was when he sensed it, buried deep in the robes as it was, and cautiously pulling it free, placed the rune in his own pockets.

“Fare night to you both.” Kirian then closed and locked the door behind him. So the göshman had been at the sight of Ike’s death. Interesting. Kirian shrugged the thought off, for it would be a matter resolved when the desert man woke from his slumber. Kirian needed his own relaxation, and soon slept himself.

That night, as all slept within the Haven’s Rest, the storm outside blew itself out. Fires caused by lightning strikes were slowly extinguished by Eredricht and fatigued volunteers. Other townsfolk bailed water from flooded homes and fell into exhausted slumbers. Elsewhere, a hedge mage’s body was slowly dragged off a country road and made into a nighttime delight for wolves.

The plotting of too many bent on chaos began in earnest. Some well laid plans were coming into their first fruits, and nothing, or so it would seem, was there to stop them.

 

[Journeyman]

The dawn arrived shining through mists and fogs hovering about valleys, hills, and forests surrounding Havenview. Rainbow hues formed through the dripping beads of water falling from gutters and eaves about the small community. The smell of a good rain permeated throughout each street and in each yard. All this the backdrop to a community recovering from storms not seen in a lifetime.

Havenview’s denizens began to survey the damage wrought discovering the storm fashioned its work well. Several buildings now possessed roofs devoid of thatch, and cobblestones, loosened by the running floodwaters, lay strewn about town streets waiting to be hammered back into place. Cries of frustration and anger could be heard. Each echoing through the streets while certain edifices were marked for destruction by Eredricht’s thinned town guard.

The center square, containing the fountain statues of Kirian, Eredricht, Sephram, and Roderick, remained silent despite the waking populace. The normal hustle and bustle of surrounding merchant stalls could not be heard nor felt, for not a single ware wagon was unlocked. All stood closed and stark against the emptiness and debris wrought by the gales the night before. The occasional hammer fall, mixing with a child’s frightened cries, could be heard harmonizing in the company of the frustrations and worries of the homeless. Havenview woke slowly, in eerie silence, to the tasks of rebuilding a town.

The surrounding countryside was far from quiet however.

Word spread quickly, as it is prone to do, of a dangerous plague spreading throughout the environs of Havenview. Those who made it back through the storm after witnessing Da’Shen’s episode at the Rest told grandiose tales. Stories of an outsider come to kill them all with the stink of disease and a wicked blade of the deserts. As each new homestead was given the news, clusters of peasants and farmers began to trek into town in order to see what was going to be done about the illness, the wandering foreigner, and most especially the loss of crops and personal belongings from the ravages of the storm. Another rumor found its purchase as well. A wandering woman dressed in grey rags was sighted heading east into the Wyld. In her wake came yet more illness and despair.

All had a singular, universal thought in their minds. Where was Eredricht and what were the Founders going to do?

**********************************************************

The Knight Protector woke from barely two hours of sleep the sound of rapid knocking on the Knight’s Hold stoop rapidly clearing his mind. Shouting his intention of answering, the aging knight protector threw on clothes, along with a set of leathers beginning to move toward the door slowly. Opening the portal, squinting against the light silhouetting his guest, Eredricht knew instinctively a hard day was ahead. He could hear the frustration. He could smell the fear. The town from his vantage had weathered the storm, but had taken a sound beating nonetheless.

He shrugged it off in his mind. Eredricht had faced far worse in his past than this. Havenview would as well with him in charge.

“Eredricht, I am thinking,” came the visitor’s voice, “No, no, I am knowing we are going to have a small amount of conversing to do with a gaggle of angry townsfolk.” It was Sephram, his old adventuring halfling friend, and fellow Founder of Havenview. Kirian, Roderick, and the Protector stumbled upon the half pint nearly twenty years ago. He was in a fix with the Raven Militia* back then, as were they, and had become quite useful with his nimble nature. He owed them his life, but the three other Founders were equally indebted to him.

“Eh? What have your ears and network of straw-laced-yokels come to tell me through their half-pint missionary?” Eredricht said smiling casually.

Standing eye to stomach with the Knight Protector, which was a good three feet, Sephram sighed. Red eyes looked up at Eredricht’s beaming, idiotic face and realized how much time was spent each day living due to the man before him. A big bear that saved a troubled young bargainer some many years back. Scratching his white albino hair, and bringing his full attention on Eredricht, Sephram bluffed composure to his face head cocked sideways for emphasis.

“Eredricht. I am thinking you not be the idiot this morning. I know how the dawn rays scramble your human mind, yet am still amazed your tongue waggles so casually.” The halfling smiled, and continued. “My fellow townsfolk tell me that Roderick’s and your own little obfuscated secrets of the illness are breached.”

The albino crossed arms over his small chest and continued.

“Further said, faithful citizens are coming to town today to have a little chat about your prior knowledge of the blight, your plan of action, and your plan to re-build after this cursed storm.”

“How much time do we have?” Eredricht said squatting down in front of the pale halfling. He could see that Sephram was already dressed for traveling, had been for some time, and was itching for something to do.

“I would say the majority of those able to dig out of the muck will be assembled at the fountain by noon. That is the conservative estimate. Those in town will be there long before.

Eredricht began to open his mouth.

“It is seven in the morning, by the sun’s rays, if you mean to ask.”

Eredricht’s mouth snapped shut. He began to think. Strategize. Four men were left to him if he pulled them off reconstruction, two gone missing to the west, and the remaining set on repairing important structures. Even if he did remove those cleaning up the storm’s damages he was too short to contain a mob. The answer came quickly.

“I will position my last four men available at the cardinal entrances into town announcing a town meeting at high noon in the square. I need your network to keep me informed on any new needs for the town, any developments in the wants of those coming to talk, and most importantly to get word to Kirian and Roderick. They must be there when our potentially angry mob arrives. You can find me penning letters inside if you need me.”

“Sure, I can get Roderick myself. Kirian will know soon enough. Should I get word to Hargrin?”

“The druid has enough to worry about. The Wyld in the area is getting hard to control from what I understand. Let him be.”

The halfling turned to go, but was held up by an afterthought from Eredricht.

“If you can arrange it I would like to have those who are interested in true dialogue to be interspersed with the less patient of our fellow residents. I do not want things getting out of hand.” Sephram nodded, and ran into town quickly lost from sight.

Eredricht immediately turned inside walking to fetch his man from guard duty in the Hold Hall. Upon opening the door he found the twenty year old asleep on watch and gently snoring. Tradition told the trained Protector a man was required on duty at all times in the Hold Halls. Eredricht meant to damn tradition again that day. There were plenty of buildings and townsfolk in need, and Yurry was obviously wasted here.

“Get your nine hells arse up and to attention!”

Yurry did just that.

“Go fetch Simon, Gregory, Phillip, and Nash. Tell them they are to come here. I then want you waiting in the center square with Gnobby. Go now!”

The young soldier hurried out without a word red faced.

Looking down the hallway Eredricht sensed the quiet. Light shone through barred cell windows causing dust motes to dance and sparkle. Swirling to their collective rest upon the stone floor, the particles made a harsh and silent backdrop against the Knight’s habitual memory of his prison. Walking quickly to the cell containing the Hold’s last remaining tenants, Eredricht stopped short upon his first glimpse of the trio. Each one was contorted, limbs bent into impossible angles, a mesh of intertwined arms and legs. There was no color to the flesh, looking as if dried in a leathersmith’s tanning oven. Bloodless corpses stared in no apparent direction, mouths open in mute and final gasps for breath.

Covering his lips, Eredricht quickly ran down the hall bolting the cell portal closed behind him. He wasted no time starting his letters to his liege in Kalimshire, Lord Derren Undereven. Yurry was going to have a far more important job to do when Gnobby and the young soldier met him in the square.

**********************************************************

Kelsa laid the last plate on the Rest’s common table. Eggs, bacon, fresh baked bread, and pitchers of milk and wine greeted any remaining guests from the night before. Most were leaving to hurry home or on to whatever town would receive them. A separate table was set aside, at Kirian’s request, for her friends and the three strangers from the north.

Upon finishing with the last of the horses, Tobin quickly completed straitening the stables. After which, he locked down the place trying to make sense of the swirling thoughts inside his head. Going inside, rubbing hungry hands together, he immediately began to aide in an all too familiar dance of wiping down tables, sanding the stage, and spreading fresh straw about the Rest’s floors. He couldn’t approve more when Kirian asked him to fetch those still a slumber upstairs. It was barely eight in the morning when the only occupants of the entire Rest were finally sitting at the common room table ready to partake of a good breakfast spread.

Cade, Kelsa, Tobin, Tessa, Randall, Brishen, and Kirian sat at the same time beginning their collective feast. It was eaten in silence as each member of the table eyed the other with a sleepy resolve to wake up, get going, and start another day of life. Not but twenty minutes into the ordeal, steadfastly descending the stairs, came a ponderous sight. Moving cautiously, and with Trevor’s help, Da’Shen took the remaining stair moving the length of the common room under his own might. Satisfied, Trevor sat on the edge of the stage and began morning prayers noiselessly.

The silence was present before, but it was deadening at the Göshman’s arrival to breakfast.

The desert man looked around at each face staring at him, grabbed the bacon plate, and laid into the pile of meat with a grunt of approval. The silence continued save for the sounds of bacon entering the nomad’s mouth and sliding down his throat.

Brishen couldn’t stand it. Looking away from the sight he spoke.

“So. How about that storm, eh? I am thinking it to be bad for omens and the like.”

Tobin shrugged, and trying to get the nomad’s eye, carefully began chewing on his last piece of bacon in thought. Da’Shen looked at him solemnly.

“This is how you eat bacon!” The stable hand thought. Reading his look, the göshman smiled and slurped two strips down at the same time.

“It was a good show. Plenty of commerce for dad I’m sure. He’ll have to supply the whole town with lumber to rebuild with.” Randall sat back a pleased expression on his face.

Tessa eyed him carefully.

“Thanks for the dry off last night.” She said to Randall.

“Over the effects of the ale I hope?” Randall smiled vainly.

“The ale here is very good.” Murmured Cade bleary eyed.

“It does not come in halfling droughts either. What is your name again?” Randall crowed.

This began conversation in earnest as everyone shared names and specialties. Brishen spoke of his having no band of Tuathinkin to follow and on having to rely upon barding skills for survival. Tessa spoke of her love for locks, and Randall made light of her interest for things beyond them. Tobin shrugged off most attempts at conversation merely referencing to himself as a simple stable hand. Trevor spoke about his devotion to Iricsus until Kelsa, bored with his posturing, entered her own love of books. Cade was about to mention his being hired on by Kirian when the mage spoke his first words.

“Before I came down this morning I received word of an important upcoming event. I wanted to make you all aware of a little bit of information as a result of receiving this news. Information which could no doubt change your lives.” Everyone stopped their small talk.

“It has recently come to my attention that there is, in fact, a disease which is spreading throughout the countryside. It knows no counterpart with which to compare, and has befuddled all attempts to identify its cause, its cure, or its tenure in these lands. I am thoroughly convinced that there is a cure, a cause, and a foreseeable end to its existence here in Havenview nonetheless.

“I also know that there is a rather large group of townsfolk, and individuals who live in the surrounding lands, who do not see this problem, or its solution, as I do. They are currently en route to discuss this matter, as peasants do, with pitchforks, misguided anger, and a satiable thirst for knowledge. They are erroneous in another arena as well. They no doubt believe, through the actions of last night’s display, that Da’Shen is the root cause of the illness.”

Da’Shen spoke simply, “Then you have a group of misguided peasants which will soon be missing their heads. That might help you with your pestilence problem as well.”

Tobin dropped his fork of eggs.

“Now, master göshman that is no solution to the problem. However, I am thinking that it would be wise to remove you from the whole of the situation through your concealment in the basement.” Before Da’Shen could retort, Kirian, looking stern, held up a hand silencing him.

“I know full well how your kind generally deals with the misunderstandings of the common wetlander. I know also, Da’Shen, this is one glaring reason why wars are started with your ilk, and further, why your compatriots die every time they venture out of their oven of a homeland! Now if you will please excuse me I am trying to help you stay alive! Unless you would like to waste Brishen and Trevor’s efforts to stay off Furnish’s* hand for a little while?” Kirian finished by asking.

“No. I am in both their debts. I will cower in your wine hole if not to pay respect to their sacrifice.” The nomad said quietly.

“I am thinking there is no better of places than to hide than with the grape drink about you. Should not be so bad to abide by, no?” Brishen stated brightly.

Da’Shen simply stared at him, got up slowly, and walked through the door leading to the cellar.

“I am going to go and inform Roderick. He’ll need my help to prepare for reconstruction and the meeting of our fellow townsmen when the time comes. Fate be kind to you all.” Trevor stated as he left the Rest hurrying to his god’s place of worship.

Looking at each of the remaining teens in turn, Kirian made ready to leave himself. Getting up, drying his hands on a towel, he spoke quickly and to the point.

“I will not try and stop any of you from attending the meeting. It is going to be held in the town square, by the fountains, at high noon. I will only state,” and he paused looking up at them all, “that it will have the potential of being highly dangerous, highly volatile, and truly informing.”

“Yet, these events sometimes have a way of ironing themselves out without too much trouble, and Nefrotis willing, we will all be about our business by this very evening. Should you attend I would ask a simple favor.”

“What would that be?” Randall stated matter of fact.

“That you calm as many individuals down as you can. When you hear the words of insubordination then simply speak words of reason. Keep the peace. Sometimes a brawl can start through the expression of a single word, yet peace of the mob can be had through the same utterance.” Kirian shrugged, turned, and went back upstairs.

The group at the table watched him leave, and then turned into themselves talking about what was to happen. It was agreed that Brishen should go seeing as he had the better eye for gathering important information and calming people down, and this despite his apparent Tuathinkin nature. Tobin volunteered his brawn to help them out of a tight spot. Cade and Randall mentioned their love of magic, and their abilities to put to sleep any which might become out of control. Tessa merely stated she would help distract any peasant that Tobin had to calm through force thus aiding his brawling. Kelsa decided someone should stay at the Rest if Tobin went, and so she volunteered to do just that. Someone had to make sure no one found the Göshman below.

The whole of the group helped tidy up what remained of the breakfast, and then subsequently moved on to help Tobin and Kelsa complete their remaining chores ahead of time. Though no one spoke up, each held nervous thoughts in his or her mind. What was the disease caused by? How did it kill? Where did it come from? Why was there a desert man in Havenview? Time crept on, but eventually noon came to the center square falling upon the mass of people waiting.

The answers would soon come.

Yet the answers would change the course of so much to come. A piece had finally moved on the board. The world would tremble upon fate’s final outcome.

* The Raven Militia was a mercenary group with influence in much of southern Rothloria some 40 to 30 years before the game’s present time. The Founders of Havenview met and made much of their wealth fighting and defending Lord Derren Undereven in those days. The Ravens were destroyed in pitched combat after an assassination attempt was foiled by Eredricht, Roderick, Sephram, and Kirian.

*Furnish, Mithangeean God of death, is a major god in the pantheon aligned with Law and Evil