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<blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 7347439" data-attributes="member: 143"><p>Book 6: PLOT ARCS</p><p></p><p>Chapter 124</p><p></p><p>Xeeta shivered as she washed her hands and arms in the icy water of the stream. That was one thing she missed about Li Syval, she thought: the mild southern winters. The strong winds could churn up the waters of the Blue Deep until the surface was like a mountain range, and it could rain so hard that you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face, but at least it wasn’t <em>cold</em>.</p><p></p><p>She decided that she’d had enough of a wash—it wasn’t like any of the others were going to smell her over the ripe stink of the men—and reached for the clean shirt she’d brought with her from the camp. But as she started to turn she heard a noise from the forest behind her. Her hand shifted to her rod, tucked in close against her left leg where she could feel its reassuring presence. She could feel the Demon stirring inside her as she tightened her grasp on her arcane focus.</p><p></p><p>“It’s just me,” Glori said.</p><p></p><p>Xeeta relaxed her grip and rose, picking up the shirt as she did. She turned as the half-elven woman approached the stream, carrying several of their waterskins.</p><p></p><p>“Sorry if I startled you,” Glori said.</p><p></p><p>“No bother,” Xeeta said. She pulled on the clean shirt over her damp undershirt. “Did Bredan send you to look after me?”</p><p></p><p>“Quellan, actually,” Glori said with a smile as she knelt beside the stream and started refilling the containers. “He does have a point. In this place, we should all be extra careful. No wandering off alone.”</p><p></p><p>Xeeta looked around, and had to admit that the forest did look rather forbidding as the night settled over it. She had no difficulty with the darkness, one of the “gifts” of her heritage, and their camp was close enough that she could have hit it easily with a thrown rock, hidden in the nook of a fallen tree that offered a ready shelter against the approaching night.</p><p></p><p>“It’s hard to believe we’re only a day’s walk from Wildrush,” Glori said. “It feels like no one has ever been in this place before.”</p><p></p><p>“Yes,” Xeeta said, though she knew that such feelings were an illusion, born of the mind’s desire to make sense of things it couldn’t easily process. In reality the forest was just another place, though admittedly one where she did not know the rules. Such places made her nervous, but she was used to keeping such feelings hidden from view, deep inside where no one else could tell they were there.</p><p></p><p>“I talked with Bredan,” Glori said, shaking each of the filled waterskins to make sure the stoppers were set firmly. “He told me some of the things that Rodan told him. About your time together in Li Syval. I’m sorry for what happened, for what was done to you.”</p><p></p><p>“The past is the past,” Xeeta said. “But its legacy… one can’t run from it.”</p><p></p><p>Glori came up to stand next to her. “I know that you only came with us because of a need to prove that you’re different,” she said.</p><p></p><p>Xeeta shook her head, but the bard’s words were close enough to the truth to give her pause. She had a feeling that if she’d remained in Wildrush, she either would have ended up in a cell next to Rodan or been shown the road at the point of a spear. She’d left plenty of places that way in her past, but after all of the effort she’d put into getting here, all of the buildup she’d allowed herself to apply to the words of a drunk miner, she found that she could not give up on the Silverpeak Valley so easily.</p><p></p><p>“I hope you don’t regret speaking for me,” Xeeta said. She regretted her own words as soon as they were spoken, but Glori just shook her head.</p><p></p><p>“I don’t,” she said. “This journey… it’s for Bredan, he needs it. And I have a feeling that he’s going to need all of his friends for this one. I think… I think he was starting to feel close to Rodan. It hit him hard, finding out the way he did.”</p><p></p><p>“I felt you had a right to know,” Xeeta replied. Her skin coloration meant that she couldn’t blush, but she felt the sting of hypocrisy in her gut as she spoke.</p><p></p><p>Glori just looked at her. “Let’s get back,” she said. “Or Kosk will have eaten our suppers as well.”</p><p></p><p>“I’m sure he’s still lamenting the loss of that elk,” Xeeta said. Her thoughts traveled back to their encounter earlier that day, just a few hours after entering the forest. The creature had been the size of a small cottage, the spread of its antlers wide enough to scoop up all of them together in a single lunge. The giant elk had spotted them as the same moment that they’d seen it, and for a long moment the two sides had just stared at each other. Xeeta remembered its eyes, which had shown no fear. Finally, the adventurers had backed away, choosing a different path that took them around the majestic creature.</p><p></p><p>“That beast’s good eating,” Glori said, in an exaggerated impression of the dwarf that had Xeeta smiling. But her smile faded as they rounded the bulk of the dead tree and returned to their camp.</p><p></p><p>They had built their fire in a depression formed by the fallen giant, where its glow wouldn’t be readily visible. The three men had already squared away their gear, and Quellan was chopping vegetables to add to their stewpot. He looked up as they approached. “Everything all right?”</p><p></p><p>“Didn’t see anything, but this forest gives me the creeps,” Glori said.</p><p></p><p>“I thought you elvish types were supposed to thrive in the deep wood,” Kosk muttered.</p><p></p><p>“And I thought you dwarves never left your dark and musty and vermin-filled tunnels,” the bard shot back.</p><p></p><p>“Dwarf holds are nothing like that,” Kosk said. “Vermin,” he added with a snort.</p><p></p><p>“Yeah, well, none of the elvish forests I’ve been in were anything like this place,” Glori said. “Even in the daylight, it felt… old. And lonely.”</p><p></p><p>“It’s just a forest,” Quellan said, but the way he looked around as he said it suggested he also felt some of what the bard was describing.</p><p></p><p>Xeeta went over to her gear and packed away the dirty shirt. She would have tried washing it in the stream, but she doubted it would have been dry by morning, even with the warmth of the fire. When she was done she glanced up and saw Bredan watching her.</p><p></p><p>The young human had chosen a flat spot a bit away from the others. He had taken out his sword and his sharpening stone, but they sat in his lap, forgotten. He had a haunted look in his eyes, as if seeing something that the rest of them couldn’t. Xeeta could understand that look.</p><p></p><p>Glori noted the silent exchange between them. “What do you think the chances are that traitor Coop sends somebody after us?”</p><p></p><p>“I’m not worried about him,” Kosk said. “Men like him are happy to create trouble for someone else, as long as their hands don’t have to get dirty. I’m sure he’s got a nice little bolt-hole somewhere, where he’ll hide nice and cozy until things cool down a bit. I’m thinking that mage is more of a problem.”</p><p></p><p>“Your friend didn’t know what he wanted?” Xeeta asked.</p><p></p><p>The dwarf shook his head. “He wasn’t my friend, just another idiot who got in over his head.”</p><p></p><p>“You should have brought us with you,” Quellan said. “We could have helped to apprehend the bandits, turn them over to the local authorities.”</p><p></p><p>“They were dealt with,” Kosk said, as much as he’d said on the topic back in Wildrush.</p><p></p><p>“You were saying, what you learned about the traitor,” Glori prodded.</p><p></p><p>“The man I talked to said that Coop sold the job as a bit of easy banditry, a quick strike, bunch of new arrivals with gold in their pockets, easy marks.”</p><p></p><p>“Pretty damned stupid,” Glori said. “Given that we’d already beaten up those giants, and were on our way back from killing a chimera.”</p><p></p><p>“Yeah,” Kosk said. “But these guys were desperate. They didn’t know what they were in for.”</p><p></p><p>“And the mage?” Quellan asked.</p><p></p><p>“He only got a brief look at the man’s face, when they were introduced in town,” Kosk said. “He kept it hidden under a cowl after that. Said it wasn’t anybody he’d seen in Wildrush before.”</p><p></p><p>“So they tried to kill us on the word of some stranger,” Glori said. “For the promise of some gold.”</p><p></p><p>“Men have killed for less,” Xeeta said.</p><p></p><p>“In that line of work, you learn not to ask too many questions,” Kosk said. “We turned over the description and the names of the other men who ambushed us to the Governor. Not sure what else you think we could have done.”</p><p></p><p>“If we’d had this guy in custody, we could have questioned him more,” Glori said.</p><p></p><p>“He told me everything he knew,” Kosk insisted.</p><p></p><p>“So you said,” Glori said. “So we don’t know anything more than we knew before. We don’t know who this mage is, what he wants, or even why he wants us dead.”</p><p></p><p>“If he was the same guy who was with those giants, it seems like he wanted to keep outsiders away from the Silverpeak Valley,” Quellan said. “It could be that this is connected to the broader war, somehow.”</p><p></p><p>“Well, iIf they’re going to try anything else against Wildrush, they’ll just have to wait until we get back,” Glori said.</p><p></p><p>“Do you really think that Rodan is part of it?” Bredan suddenly asked. They were his first words since they’d arrived in camp, and they all looked at him as he spoke them. “That he’s working against us, against the people of Wildrush?”</p><p></p><p>“I don’t know,” Quellan said after a moment. He glanced over at Xeeta. “It’s an odd coincidence. There wasn’t anyone else who knew where we would be, and when.”</p><p></p><p>“Unless one of the miners set us up,” Glori pointed out.</p><p></p><p>“I find it difficult to believe that those beetles were in on some bloody plot,” Kosk said. “As for that ranger, he wasn’t what he said he was. That we know for a fact.”</p><p></p><p>Glori and Quellan looked at Xeeta, who stared into the fire for a long moment before speaking. “And he’s a tiefling,” she said.</p><p></p><p>“That isn’t what I meant, girl,” the dwarf growled.</p><p></p><p>“No. But it doesn’t matter. If you didn’t think it, then you’re bigger fools than I thought.”</p><p></p><p>“Xeeta,” Quellan said.</p><p></p><p>“No, don’t say it,” Xeeta said. “There’s a reason why people don’t trust my kind. It’s not just an unfortunate stereotype. I know you didn’t trust me at first, and you were smart not to do so.”</p><p></p><p>“Trust works both ways,” Kosk said. “If you hadn’t been in your true form when we found you in those kobold caves, would you have told us what you were?”</p><p></p><p>“No,” Xeeta said at once. “And you’re right. But the lessons I learned about trust were hard-won. It took me as long as it did to trust you as it did for you to trust me. Assuming you do.”</p><p></p><p>“Of course we do, Xeeta,” Quellan said. “We’ve already had this discussion.”</p><p></p><p>“I know, and I know you understand better than most, Quellan,” she said. She looked at Bredan. “But I need you to understand.”</p><p></p><p>“Rodan risked his life to help us, to help the people of Wildrush,” Bredan said. “He told me about his past… your past. About how you, both of you, were abused by that cult in Li Syval. The things they did to you… what they did to make you what you were. But you escaped, you changed. Maybe he did too.”</p><p></p><p>“Maybe he did,” Xeeta said. “But all I can remember is how he left us to die.”</p><p></p><p>She saw the change in his expression, and her lips twisted. “So. He didn’t tell you that part, did he? When we finally made our desperate effort to get away, several of us were trapped by the fighting. I saw Rodan. He could have helped us, even a small distraction could have helped us get clear. But that would have put himself at risk. He not only left us, he let <em>us</em> serve as a distraction to help him get away. The others that were with me, they were all killed. I was taken. They hurt me. It was only the blindest luck that let me get away before they could do any more. So feel pity for him, Bredan. It testifies to your good heart that you do. But just be certain that he deserves your pity.”</p><p></p><p>She got up and stalked out of the camp. Glori started to rise, but Kosk said, “Let her go.”</p><p></p><p>“There are times when I have to remember how lucky I have been,” Quellan said softly.</p><p></p><p>“We’re all lucky to have each other,” Glori said.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Lazybones, post: 7347439, member: 143"] Book 6: PLOT ARCS Chapter 124 Xeeta shivered as she washed her hands and arms in the icy water of the stream. That was one thing she missed about Li Syval, she thought: the mild southern winters. The strong winds could churn up the waters of the Blue Deep until the surface was like a mountain range, and it could rain so hard that you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face, but at least it wasn’t [i]cold[/i]. She decided that she’d had enough of a wash—it wasn’t like any of the others were going to smell her over the ripe stink of the men—and reached for the clean shirt she’d brought with her from the camp. But as she started to turn she heard a noise from the forest behind her. Her hand shifted to her rod, tucked in close against her left leg where she could feel its reassuring presence. She could feel the Demon stirring inside her as she tightened her grasp on her arcane focus. “It’s just me,” Glori said. Xeeta relaxed her grip and rose, picking up the shirt as she did. She turned as the half-elven woman approached the stream, carrying several of their waterskins. “Sorry if I startled you,” Glori said. “No bother,” Xeeta said. She pulled on the clean shirt over her damp undershirt. “Did Bredan send you to look after me?” “Quellan, actually,” Glori said with a smile as she knelt beside the stream and started refilling the containers. “He does have a point. In this place, we should all be extra careful. No wandering off alone.” Xeeta looked around, and had to admit that the forest did look rather forbidding as the night settled over it. She had no difficulty with the darkness, one of the “gifts” of her heritage, and their camp was close enough that she could have hit it easily with a thrown rock, hidden in the nook of a fallen tree that offered a ready shelter against the approaching night. “It’s hard to believe we’re only a day’s walk from Wildrush,” Glori said. “It feels like no one has ever been in this place before.” “Yes,” Xeeta said, though she knew that such feelings were an illusion, born of the mind’s desire to make sense of things it couldn’t easily process. In reality the forest was just another place, though admittedly one where she did not know the rules. Such places made her nervous, but she was used to keeping such feelings hidden from view, deep inside where no one else could tell they were there. “I talked with Bredan,” Glori said, shaking each of the filled waterskins to make sure the stoppers were set firmly. “He told me some of the things that Rodan told him. About your time together in Li Syval. I’m sorry for what happened, for what was done to you.” “The past is the past,” Xeeta said. “But its legacy… one can’t run from it.” Glori came up to stand next to her. “I know that you only came with us because of a need to prove that you’re different,” she said. Xeeta shook her head, but the bard’s words were close enough to the truth to give her pause. She had a feeling that if she’d remained in Wildrush, she either would have ended up in a cell next to Rodan or been shown the road at the point of a spear. She’d left plenty of places that way in her past, but after all of the effort she’d put into getting here, all of the buildup she’d allowed herself to apply to the words of a drunk miner, she found that she could not give up on the Silverpeak Valley so easily. “I hope you don’t regret speaking for me,” Xeeta said. She regretted her own words as soon as they were spoken, but Glori just shook her head. “I don’t,” she said. “This journey… it’s for Bredan, he needs it. And I have a feeling that he’s going to need all of his friends for this one. I think… I think he was starting to feel close to Rodan. It hit him hard, finding out the way he did.” “I felt you had a right to know,” Xeeta replied. Her skin coloration meant that she couldn’t blush, but she felt the sting of hypocrisy in her gut as she spoke. Glori just looked at her. “Let’s get back,” she said. “Or Kosk will have eaten our suppers as well.” “I’m sure he’s still lamenting the loss of that elk,” Xeeta said. Her thoughts traveled back to their encounter earlier that day, just a few hours after entering the forest. The creature had been the size of a small cottage, the spread of its antlers wide enough to scoop up all of them together in a single lunge. The giant elk had spotted them as the same moment that they’d seen it, and for a long moment the two sides had just stared at each other. Xeeta remembered its eyes, which had shown no fear. Finally, the adventurers had backed away, choosing a different path that took them around the majestic creature. “That beast’s good eating,” Glori said, in an exaggerated impression of the dwarf that had Xeeta smiling. But her smile faded as they rounded the bulk of the dead tree and returned to their camp. They had built their fire in a depression formed by the fallen giant, where its glow wouldn’t be readily visible. The three men had already squared away their gear, and Quellan was chopping vegetables to add to their stewpot. He looked up as they approached. “Everything all right?” “Didn’t see anything, but this forest gives me the creeps,” Glori said. “I thought you elvish types were supposed to thrive in the deep wood,” Kosk muttered. “And I thought you dwarves never left your dark and musty and vermin-filled tunnels,” the bard shot back. “Dwarf holds are nothing like that,” Kosk said. “Vermin,” he added with a snort. “Yeah, well, none of the elvish forests I’ve been in were anything like this place,” Glori said. “Even in the daylight, it felt… old. And lonely.” “It’s just a forest,” Quellan said, but the way he looked around as he said it suggested he also felt some of what the bard was describing. Xeeta went over to her gear and packed away the dirty shirt. She would have tried washing it in the stream, but she doubted it would have been dry by morning, even with the warmth of the fire. When she was done she glanced up and saw Bredan watching her. The young human had chosen a flat spot a bit away from the others. He had taken out his sword and his sharpening stone, but they sat in his lap, forgotten. He had a haunted look in his eyes, as if seeing something that the rest of them couldn’t. Xeeta could understand that look. Glori noted the silent exchange between them. “What do you think the chances are that traitor Coop sends somebody after us?” “I’m not worried about him,” Kosk said. “Men like him are happy to create trouble for someone else, as long as their hands don’t have to get dirty. I’m sure he’s got a nice little bolt-hole somewhere, where he’ll hide nice and cozy until things cool down a bit. I’m thinking that mage is more of a problem.” “Your friend didn’t know what he wanted?” Xeeta asked. The dwarf shook his head. “He wasn’t my friend, just another idiot who got in over his head.” “You should have brought us with you,” Quellan said. “We could have helped to apprehend the bandits, turn them over to the local authorities.” “They were dealt with,” Kosk said, as much as he’d said on the topic back in Wildrush. “You were saying, what you learned about the traitor,” Glori prodded. “The man I talked to said that Coop sold the job as a bit of easy banditry, a quick strike, bunch of new arrivals with gold in their pockets, easy marks.” “Pretty damned stupid,” Glori said. “Given that we’d already beaten up those giants, and were on our way back from killing a chimera.” “Yeah,” Kosk said. “But these guys were desperate. They didn’t know what they were in for.” “And the mage?” Quellan asked. “He only got a brief look at the man’s face, when they were introduced in town,” Kosk said. “He kept it hidden under a cowl after that. Said it wasn’t anybody he’d seen in Wildrush before.” “So they tried to kill us on the word of some stranger,” Glori said. “For the promise of some gold.” “Men have killed for less,” Xeeta said. “In that line of work, you learn not to ask too many questions,” Kosk said. “We turned over the description and the names of the other men who ambushed us to the Governor. Not sure what else you think we could have done.” “If we’d had this guy in custody, we could have questioned him more,” Glori said. “He told me everything he knew,” Kosk insisted. “So you said,” Glori said. “So we don’t know anything more than we knew before. We don’t know who this mage is, what he wants, or even why he wants us dead.” “If he was the same guy who was with those giants, it seems like he wanted to keep outsiders away from the Silverpeak Valley,” Quellan said. “It could be that this is connected to the broader war, somehow.” “Well, iIf they’re going to try anything else against Wildrush, they’ll just have to wait until we get back,” Glori said. “Do you really think that Rodan is part of it?” Bredan suddenly asked. They were his first words since they’d arrived in camp, and they all looked at him as he spoke them. “That he’s working against us, against the people of Wildrush?” “I don’t know,” Quellan said after a moment. He glanced over at Xeeta. “It’s an odd coincidence. There wasn’t anyone else who knew where we would be, and when.” “Unless one of the miners set us up,” Glori pointed out. “I find it difficult to believe that those beetles were in on some bloody plot,” Kosk said. “As for that ranger, he wasn’t what he said he was. That we know for a fact.” Glori and Quellan looked at Xeeta, who stared into the fire for a long moment before speaking. “And he’s a tiefling,” she said. “That isn’t what I meant, girl,” the dwarf growled. “No. But it doesn’t matter. If you didn’t think it, then you’re bigger fools than I thought.” “Xeeta,” Quellan said. “No, don’t say it,” Xeeta said. “There’s a reason why people don’t trust my kind. It’s not just an unfortunate stereotype. I know you didn’t trust me at first, and you were smart not to do so.” “Trust works both ways,” Kosk said. “If you hadn’t been in your true form when we found you in those kobold caves, would you have told us what you were?” “No,” Xeeta said at once. “And you’re right. But the lessons I learned about trust were hard-won. It took me as long as it did to trust you as it did for you to trust me. Assuming you do.” “Of course we do, Xeeta,” Quellan said. “We’ve already had this discussion.” “I know, and I know you understand better than most, Quellan,” she said. She looked at Bredan. “But I need you to understand.” “Rodan risked his life to help us, to help the people of Wildrush,” Bredan said. “He told me about his past… your past. About how you, both of you, were abused by that cult in Li Syval. The things they did to you… what they did to make you what you were. But you escaped, you changed. Maybe he did too.” “Maybe he did,” Xeeta said. “But all I can remember is how he left us to die.” She saw the change in his expression, and her lips twisted. “So. He didn’t tell you that part, did he? When we finally made our desperate effort to get away, several of us were trapped by the fighting. I saw Rodan. He could have helped us, even a small distraction could have helped us get clear. But that would have put himself at risk. He not only left us, he let [i]us[/i] serve as a distraction to help him get away. The others that were with me, they were all killed. I was taken. They hurt me. It was only the blindest luck that let me get away before they could do any more. So feel pity for him, Bredan. It testifies to your good heart that you do. But just be certain that he deserves your pity.” She got up and stalked out of the camp. Glori started to rise, but Kosk said, “Let her go.” “There are times when I have to remember how lucky I have been,” Quellan said softly. “We’re all lucky to have each other,” Glori said. [/QUOTE]
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