Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
Playing the Game
Story Hour
Realms of Enlightenment: The Grey Companions (final update posted 02.14.10)
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Jon Potter" data-source="post: 4982883" data-attributes="member: 2323"><p><strong>[PLAIN][Realms #493] Forging the Future[/PLAIN]</strong></p><p></p><p>Maleko's gaze darted around the clearing. The bandits had secured his small caravan, he saw, leaving him as the last and most valuable loose end to tie up. These rogue's were efficient at their black-hearted business.</p><p></p><p>He had been escorting the caravan containing fine cloth back from Awad when the brigands waylaid them. The seven guards and merchants accompanying him had been looking forward to a few days away in the Freeport and had enjoyed themselves there. Not only were they employees, but friends. Maltalia Lanneralanna was one of the best places to work in all of Barnacus if not all the Realms. The Malatalias were, of course, known for paying well but also for treating every employee from the expert seamstress to the hunched up old man who swept up at night with the respect every living being deserved. He was glad that their time in the notorious port city had been filled with as much pleasure as work.</p><p></p><p>For his part, Maleko had merely been looking for some peace with his time away from the capital, or so he remembered now standing once more in the one place to which he never wanted to return. Memories washed over him in a flood. He had been teaching at the University in Barnacus but it was late summer - the students all returned to the country to aid their families' harvest. Generally speaking, that left him with little to do so he welcomed the chance to get out of town when his older brother, Kepano, had suggested he help escort a Lanneralanna caravan to Farmin.</p><p></p><p>"Malie," his half-brother had told him on that long ago day over a bottle of Redwood Fireamber. "You'll enjoy the ladies of Farmin! You'll not find their equal in all of the Realms. Go and have some fun!" </p><p></p><p>Maleko, of course, had not partaken of such activity. But Kepano, he knew, had only been trying to help him get out of the rut he had been in for the decade since his human wife had passed. She'd suffered a protracted illness that had drained Maleko nearly as much as it had her. On more than one occasion Kepano had suggested that Maleko had become a professor at the university only to pass time after her death. Looking back on it, Maleko wasn't sure that his brother had been all that far from the truth.</p><p></p><p>He had joined the clergy of Nethlar only after meeting his wife who also worhiped the god of knowledge. Maleko loved serving Nethlar as he believed wholly all the tenants of that faith, but not with the same passion his wife had always exhibited. She gained very high status among the elders and was highly respected, but during the twenty years they were there together he had progressed only moderately within the church heirarchy. Of course, Maleko was also distracted by his first love, sorcery, as well as the family business and his personal research into the history of The Realms. As his father had always said, it was in the nature of elves to be distracted by more than one career in order to occupy their time among the short-lived races. </p><p></p><p>Upon his wife's death Maleko lost his love of service to Nethlar and gave it up in favor of work at the university and periodic stints as representative for the family business. It was- </p><p></p><p>"I 'ad me enough o' the look on tha' pointy-eared fairy's face already," the bandit said, shocking Maleko out of his reverie. "Wish we could slit 'is throat too!" He laughed gruffly and the band of brigands joined the laughter. Maleko felt the sharp crack of a dagger hilt striking the back of his head and everything went black.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Del was momentarily awestruck by the mirrored hall beyond the Gate of Duality. It was so... alien that his mind could barely wrap around it. He stopped there, his eyes nervously searching the faces that stared at him from the walls, the floor, the ceiling. The many reflections of himself seemed to hold him in place with some unguessed power. But after a moment he forced himself forward, keeping his eyes ahead as he looked for an end to the corridor. He drifted along - for there was once again no sense of up or down - images of himself laughing here, grimacing in pain there. At the corner of his vision he saw himself screaming orders on the battlefield while above him and on the left he was weeping over a fallen friend, his features spattered with fresh blood.</p><p></p><p>He paused then and forced himself to look closer, for there was a certain commonality in all the images he realized. More than just the fact that all the faces were his own, there was a unifying theme present throughout the images: restlessness. Truly, he seemed happy in many of the images, but in none of the reflections did he seem at peace.</p><p></p><p>That realization troubled him and he drifted closer to a nearby image that showed himself as he had been half a lifetime ago. He couldn't have been much older than fifteen in the reflection, still living in Awad, no doubt. He was young enough then that the cares of the world shouldn't have yet found purchase in his heart, but even there he saw a restless dissatisfaction in his young eyes. A nervous wanderlust that kept him from finding the happiness he craved.</p><p></p><p>He reached out a gloved hand...</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>...and nearly fell off the wharf into the ocean below. He pin-wheeled his arms and lurched back from the edge, colliding as he did so with a heavy barrel. He steadied himself on it and looked around. There were rocks below and in front of him, a steep set of stone stairs, glittering with black wetness in the moonslight climbed up a sea wall to his left. Behind him...</p><p></p><p>Behind him the Lunamer was at anchor, riding low in the water, her holds filled with goods for trade in the northern reaches. She was a gorgeous ship, every bit the beauty he had remembered her to be, and fast! She'd outrun a trio of pirate schooners when they'd skirted the Thyatis Archipelago, ending their threat without ever entering ballista range.</p><p></p><p>He was in Awad again. Haladar Shipyard was just around the curve in the seawall, he knew. But this was not the Awad he'd passed through when he'd returned recently to his post on The Borderlands. This was the Awad of his youth. It was just like...</p><p></p><p>Just like the night he'd run away.</p><p></p><p>Emotion blossomed in Del's chest then, and without really realizing he was doing it, he slammed his fist against the barrel by his side.</p><p></p><p>"Ouch!" said a muffled voice from within the barrel and Del's battle axe was in his hand at once. He stepped into a strategically advantageous position keeping the axe between himself and the barrel and the barrel between himself and the water.</p><p></p><p>"Wh'o' there?" he demanded "Show yourself!" There came a whimper from the barrel and two small hands thrust slowly skyward from within. They were small and pale and dirty, like an infant's hands, but somehow too weathered to be an infant's and they were followed a moment later by a round face dominated by two fearful eyes that brimmed with tears.</p><p></p><p>"Please don't kill me!" the halfling whimpered. "I was just resting here in this barrel, honest. I wasn't hiding from any Garn-Zanuth meanies. What would they want with me anyways? I love those guys! Honest!" Del shook his head and lowered his axe.</p><p></p><p>"I'm not going to kill you," the half-elf said and the hobbit's demeanor changed at once. He sprang up onto the lip of the barrel and perched there, his legs dangling. He was small, even by halfling standards, perhaps only a child himself.</p><p></p><p>"Oh! That's good!" he chirped, all threats of tears forgotten. "Who are you? My name's Vadenhuffer T. Briarhopper IV - don't ask me what the T stands for - but my brothers call me Vade. What are you doing out here at night anyway? Not thinking of sneaking onto one of those ships I hope 'cause I was thinking about it, but then I remembered that I don't really like fish all that much. I'm more of a fruit person myself. Do you like fruit?"</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Jon Potter, post: 4982883, member: 2323"] [b][PLAIN][Realms #493] Forging the Future[/PLAIN][/b] Maleko's gaze darted around the clearing. The bandits had secured his small caravan, he saw, leaving him as the last and most valuable loose end to tie up. These rogue's were efficient at their black-hearted business. He had been escorting the caravan containing fine cloth back from Awad when the brigands waylaid them. The seven guards and merchants accompanying him had been looking forward to a few days away in the Freeport and had enjoyed themselves there. Not only were they employees, but friends. Maltalia Lanneralanna was one of the best places to work in all of Barnacus if not all the Realms. The Malatalias were, of course, known for paying well but also for treating every employee from the expert seamstress to the hunched up old man who swept up at night with the respect every living being deserved. He was glad that their time in the notorious port city had been filled with as much pleasure as work. For his part, Maleko had merely been looking for some peace with his time away from the capital, or so he remembered now standing once more in the one place to which he never wanted to return. Memories washed over him in a flood. He had been teaching at the University in Barnacus but it was late summer - the students all returned to the country to aid their families' harvest. Generally speaking, that left him with little to do so he welcomed the chance to get out of town when his older brother, Kepano, had suggested he help escort a Lanneralanna caravan to Farmin. "Malie," his half-brother had told him on that long ago day over a bottle of Redwood Fireamber. "You'll enjoy the ladies of Farmin! You'll not find their equal in all of the Realms. Go and have some fun!" Maleko, of course, had not partaken of such activity. But Kepano, he knew, had only been trying to help him get out of the rut he had been in for the decade since his human wife had passed. She'd suffered a protracted illness that had drained Maleko nearly as much as it had her. On more than one occasion Kepano had suggested that Maleko had become a professor at the university only to pass time after her death. Looking back on it, Maleko wasn't sure that his brother had been all that far from the truth. He had joined the clergy of Nethlar only after meeting his wife who also worhiped the god of knowledge. Maleko loved serving Nethlar as he believed wholly all the tenants of that faith, but not with the same passion his wife had always exhibited. She gained very high status among the elders and was highly respected, but during the twenty years they were there together he had progressed only moderately within the church heirarchy. Of course, Maleko was also distracted by his first love, sorcery, as well as the family business and his personal research into the history of The Realms. As his father had always said, it was in the nature of elves to be distracted by more than one career in order to occupy their time among the short-lived races. Upon his wife's death Maleko lost his love of service to Nethlar and gave it up in favor of work at the university and periodic stints as representative for the family business. It was- "I 'ad me enough o' the look on tha' pointy-eared fairy's face already," the bandit said, shocking Maleko out of his reverie. "Wish we could slit 'is throat too!" He laughed gruffly and the band of brigands joined the laughter. Maleko felt the sharp crack of a dagger hilt striking the back of his head and everything went black. Del was momentarily awestruck by the mirrored hall beyond the Gate of Duality. It was so... alien that his mind could barely wrap around it. He stopped there, his eyes nervously searching the faces that stared at him from the walls, the floor, the ceiling. The many reflections of himself seemed to hold him in place with some unguessed power. But after a moment he forced himself forward, keeping his eyes ahead as he looked for an end to the corridor. He drifted along - for there was once again no sense of up or down - images of himself laughing here, grimacing in pain there. At the corner of his vision he saw himself screaming orders on the battlefield while above him and on the left he was weeping over a fallen friend, his features spattered with fresh blood. He paused then and forced himself to look closer, for there was a certain commonality in all the images he realized. More than just the fact that all the faces were his own, there was a unifying theme present throughout the images: restlessness. Truly, he seemed happy in many of the images, but in none of the reflections did he seem at peace. That realization troubled him and he drifted closer to a nearby image that showed himself as he had been half a lifetime ago. He couldn't have been much older than fifteen in the reflection, still living in Awad, no doubt. He was young enough then that the cares of the world shouldn't have yet found purchase in his heart, but even there he saw a restless dissatisfaction in his young eyes. A nervous wanderlust that kept him from finding the happiness he craved. He reached out a gloved hand... ...and nearly fell off the wharf into the ocean below. He pin-wheeled his arms and lurched back from the edge, colliding as he did so with a heavy barrel. He steadied himself on it and looked around. There were rocks below and in front of him, a steep set of stone stairs, glittering with black wetness in the moonslight climbed up a sea wall to his left. Behind him... Behind him the Lunamer was at anchor, riding low in the water, her holds filled with goods for trade in the northern reaches. She was a gorgeous ship, every bit the beauty he had remembered her to be, and fast! She'd outrun a trio of pirate schooners when they'd skirted the Thyatis Archipelago, ending their threat without ever entering ballista range. He was in Awad again. Haladar Shipyard was just around the curve in the seawall, he knew. But this was not the Awad he'd passed through when he'd returned recently to his post on The Borderlands. This was the Awad of his youth. It was just like... Just like the night he'd run away. Emotion blossomed in Del's chest then, and without really realizing he was doing it, he slammed his fist against the barrel by his side. "Ouch!" said a muffled voice from within the barrel and Del's battle axe was in his hand at once. He stepped into a strategically advantageous position keeping the axe between himself and the barrel and the barrel between himself and the water. "Wh'o' there?" he demanded "Show yourself!" There came a whimper from the barrel and two small hands thrust slowly skyward from within. They were small and pale and dirty, like an infant's hands, but somehow too weathered to be an infant's and they were followed a moment later by a round face dominated by two fearful eyes that brimmed with tears. "Please don't kill me!" the halfling whimpered. "I was just resting here in this barrel, honest. I wasn't hiding from any Garn-Zanuth meanies. What would they want with me anyways? I love those guys! Honest!" Del shook his head and lowered his axe. "I'm not going to kill you," the half-elf said and the hobbit's demeanor changed at once. He sprang up onto the lip of the barrel and perched there, his legs dangling. He was small, even by halfling standards, perhaps only a child himself. "Oh! That's good!" he chirped, all threats of tears forgotten. "Who are you? My name's Vadenhuffer T. Briarhopper IV - don't ask me what the T stands for - but my brothers call me Vade. What are you doing out here at night anyway? Not thinking of sneaking onto one of those ships I hope 'cause I was thinking about it, but then I remembered that I don't really like fish all that much. I'm more of a fruit person myself. Do you like fruit?" [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
Playing the Game
Story Hour
Realms of Enlightenment: The Grey Companions (final update posted 02.14.10)
Top