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Sagiro's Story Hour Returns (new thread started on 5/18/08)
- Thread starter Sagiro
- Start date
Sagiro
Rodent of Uncertain Parentage
This isn't an update per se. As I promised a while back, I'm now posting a campaign prologue on which I've been working on and off (mostly off) for a few months now.
Full disclosure: while I did run each character through a 30-minute pregame session, that was in November of 1995, and my long-term memory is awful. What's written here is loosely based on those sessions, incorporating what I remember, but with plenty of extra detail that makes it read better. And the stuff at the start is background fiction that never saw the gaming table at all.
Lastly, while I wrote this partly out of dissatisfaction with the current early parts of the Story Hour, I also wrote it as thanks for all of you readers out there who've been following the adventures of Abernathy's Company. You've given me support and ideas, kept me honest at times, and made me think about what makes a good campaign -- not to mention that you've given me an excuse to keep my writing skills honed.
Enjoy!
-Sagiro
**
Do you hear that sound? That is the inexorable whirring of fate’s gears spinning on axles greased by the Gods.
The multiverse is very much a vast machine, consuming time in its furnaces and spewing death from its vents. A trillion souls are its working parts. But the deities in their heavens did not set the gears to motion, for they are part of the machine themselves, loath though they would be to admit such. Even with power and knowledge un-guessed by mortals, they have no more control over destiny’s engine than does anyone else.
Ok, it was a loaded question. You probably don’t hear the sound of reality’s relentless progress. Neither do most living things. But there are exceptions, born here and there every few generations, and the choices and actions of those beings can send the courses of worlds careening off in new (and invariably more interesting) directions.
The Archmage Abernathy is one of these people. He sits in the comfortable study on the top floor of his tower, leaning over a piece of parchment, quill in hand dripping ink. In a metaphorical sense he is listening to the whispers of the Machine, though in practice he is writing down the names of people he has never met, has never heard of. There are already four names on the page, but he knows… Senses? Believes?… that there are three more still to be written.
Ernest Roundhill
Hm. Sounds like a halfling name. Could be someone right here in the city of Tal Hae. And there’s already a halfling on the list; “Flicker Proudfoot” is certainly also of that diminutive race. Two out of seven? Abernathy’s intellect is troubled but his gut is sure. Those two belong with the others.
For another few minutes he stares at the parchment, quill hovering. Most of his mind is occupied elsewhere – he has important duties to perform, and as vital as this interlude may be, he cannot neglect his primary task for much longer. His able apprentice Thewana can hold things down for a few more hours yet, but Abernathy is thinking ahead. Abernathy is always thinking ahead. So much depends on him.
He looks down to discover he is writing another name.
Isabel Horn
He gets a peculiar chill as his pen inks this sixth name on the list, but it passes as soon as he is done.
Only one more to go. Abernathy knows there will be seven names on the paper. He doesn’t know how he knows. His astounding prescience will never be confused with omniscience. It might be a God who guides his pen. It might be something greater. Perhaps he is simply mad.
No, I’m not mad, he thinks. That would have implications too dire to contemplate.
For an hour more he stares at the page, waiting for the final name to come. Only when his mind starts to drift back to his centuries-old obligations does his pen stir and write the last name.
Dranko Blackhope
Dranko? That sounds like an orcish word. Abernathy’s brow furrows as he reviews the seven names. A small pang of guilt stirs in his heart. All of these people are about to give up their old lives and start new ones, and the latter are likely to be much more dangerous than the former. But the time has come when he – and by extension the rest of the Archmagi, and by further extension the whole Kingdom of Charagan – are going to need help. And these seven – they are the help.
(Don’t misunderstand – Charagan already has some elite fighting units, including at least one experienced and formidable adventuring group. But these names on Abernathy’s parchment are different. He doesn’t know how, but they are laced in tightly to the fate of the Kingdom in ways that are as certain as they are unknowable.)
Has his pen chosen ordinary folk who will find their slow way to greatness? Are they already true heroes of the realm? Abernathy has no idea. He’s been out of touch for a while.
He stands up and his old bones creak. No point in waiting, he thinks. I already have tasks to set for them. Simple ones to start with. It will get more complicated later on. On a nearby table are a long scroll and a vial of clear fluid. Inked onto the scroll is an impossibly complex spell that combines powerful divinations and illusions and conjurations and something to do with teleporting.
Abernathy doesn’t know who wrote the scroll, or what’s in the vial. Not even Alander knew. But his old mentor had told him that when the time was right – and Abernathy would know when that was – he should read the scroll while pouring the liquid over a list of names.
“What names?” the young Abernathy had asked.
“I don’t know,” said Alander, smiling. “But you will.”
So now, as the chill winds of late March blow outside through the streets of Tal Hae, Abernathy places his list of seven names down beside Alander’s old scroll and starts to read. As he utters the syllables of power, he trickles the fluid over the names. The casting takes about five minutes, and when he is done both pieces of paper, scroll and parchment, are blank white.
“That’s it then,” mutters the Archmage. “Best get back to work.”
He turns toward the door. It will be several days before he returns to this room, at which time he will find to his great consternation that there are three new names on his piece of parchment, written in what looks like his own hand. It’s a mystery that will make more sense in time.
But in the present, Abernathy leaves the study and descends to a strange room in the heart of his tower, where he settles into an old wooden chair and resumes his task of saving the world from destruction.
* *
In the forest of Harkran, near the town of Cyric
Kay Olafsen puts down her bow and drops to one knee. For a moment she just stares, taking in the bloody details of a savaged deer carcass. Then she reaches out to pull back a flap of torn skin, bends down even lower, and peers intently at the bite marks. She makes a careful study of the dead body and the tracks around it.
Wolves. A small pack. Four, I think. The deer was old, and they didn’t have to chase it far. The largest set of tooth-marks is scarcer. The Alpha male ate first, leaving the others to gnaw at the bones. Nothing surprising here; the wolves are still hungry enough to range this far in, after a long cold winter.
Disappointed that the wolves got there first, Kay picks her way back through the forest to her family home, a well-built cabin surrounded by small cleared fields. Her little brother Melly, nine years old, comes tearing from behind the house as she approaches.
“Kay, Kay! Look! Look what you got!”
There’s a folded piece of paper in his hands, which he waves frantically as he approaches.
“See?” says Melly. “Those words on the paper say ‘Kay Olafsen.’ I asked Mr. Miller and he said it’s your name written down! It’s a letter for you!”
That doesn’t make sense, Kay thinks to herself. I can’t read. Neither can most people in Cyric. Who would be stupid enough to send me a letter instead of just coming to talk with me?
“Mr. Miller said he’d read what’s inside for you, if you wanted.”
“I guess he’ll have to,” says Kay. There are few other literate souls in Cyric – Mayor Torbel for one, Apothecary Sam for another. And old Mya who runs the general store, Kay’s pretty sure she can read. But the Miller house is closer, and Mr. Miller is a good friend of her father.
“Did you see who brought the letter?” Kay asks her little brother. “Did they say who it was from?”
“It was a kid, about my age,” says Melly. “I hadn’t seen him before. Maybe a new family moved into town? He handed me the letter and ran off. I told mom, and she told me to take it to the Millers to see who it was for.”
Kay pokes her head into the house.
“Mom? Do you need me for the next hour? I need to go into town.”
“Go ahead dear,” calls her mother from the kitchen. “The boys are giving me all the help I need right now.”
“You just go scamper around in the woods some more,” calls her eldest brother, Lars. Kay can hear the friendly mockery in his voice. “This time try to come back with more than skinned knees.”
Kay’s mom pokes her head through the kitchen doorway and smiles at Kay.
“I hear Apothecary Sam is paying good coppers for woodwort, if you can find any. And pick up some potatoes at the market while you’re out. Oh, and tell Mrs. Baker that we’ll have extra cabbages for her if she wants to buy them. And come back as soon as you can; Lars and Karn are helping old man North rebuild his barn this afternoon and I’ll need some help with chores later on.”
“Got it, mom. See you later!”
Kay dashes out the door. Twenty minutes later she is standing in the Miller’s living room. Old Mr. Miller, a kindly codger with most of his teeth and a wrinkly smile, is breaking the strange wax seal on the letter.
“Don’t know who it’s from, hey?” says the old man. “Maybe you got a secret admirer among the young lads in town, hey?”
Kay rolls her eyes.
Mr. Miller opens the letter and reads. His face goes pale as his eyes scan the parchment. He reads it a second time just to be sure.
“What does it say?” asks Kay impatiently.
“You set yourself down then, missy. Where’d you say this letter came from?”
“Melly said some new kid brought it by our house while I was hunting,” says Kay. “Why? Is it something important?”
“Yes. I’d say that it is. You may not believe it, but here’s what it says.
“’You will appear at the tower of the Archmagus Abernathy in the city of Tal Hae, at sundown on the first day of April, the year 1828.’”
“That’s it?” asks Kay.
“It? It? Missy, do you know what this means? You’ve been summoned by an Archmage! That’s quite an “it!”
Kay, like most everyone else in the kingdom, has heard rumors about the Archmagi. They’re powerful, mysterious and notoriously reclusive wizards. Sometimes they emerge from their towers to demand tasks of citizens, and by an ancient law there is no gainsaying their requests.
“That’s not what it means,” sighs Kay. “It means someone is playing a joke on me, that’s all. No Archmage is going to be interested in me, I promise.”
The two look at each other for a long moment. A stiff breeze blows through Mr. Miller’s living room, stirring Kay’s long brown hair.
“Or maybe this Abernathy guy meant to send this to someone else,” she continues. “There must be a lot of girls named Kay in a city as big as Tal Hae. Well, thanks for the help Mr. Miller. I’ve gotta go. Lots of errands to run for mom.”
After she has gone, Archibald Miller frowns and squints over at the window looking out onto the street. It’s a chilly March afternoon and all of his windows are sealed tight, as was the door just moments ago. He knows the story about Kay’s birth, the way some crazy wind had kicked up and bowled over the midwife. It’s why some folks still call her “Windstorm.” If it were up to him he’d say that letter was no joke, that Miri’s headstrong daughter ought to go to Tal Hae and not risk agitating some great wizard. But it’s none of his business, and with a cough and a shrug he goes back to work.
* *
A small beachfront home on the outskirts of Kynder Hold.
Isabel Horn rocks in her porch chair, looking out over the bay. Perhaps she is admiring the way the setting sun’s glint makes the tide seem to slide over itself. Perhaps she enjoys the early evening breeze coming in off the water, tousling her hair and stirring the crystal wind chime hanging from the lintel. More likely, though, she is simply waiting for her husband to come home.
For three years she has been waiting, trapped in the terrible limbo between widowhood and desperate hope. Willem was a competent sailor, a trader with his own ship and crew, who had roamed the coasts of Charagan for years. Isabel had married him with the begrudged blessing of her noble family and moved with him into the small house on the coast.
Tonight she reflects on the choices of her life, where they’ve led her, where they’re going to lead her. Isabel Horn, nee Boxwood, is no longer a young woman. She’s in her mid-thirties and unlikely to remarry. Her family would take her back, but the thought of living out stifling decades into spinsterhood on the Boxwood Estate steals her breath at the mere thought.
There is an unsolvable paradox in Isabel’s heart. She cannot imagine that Willem is alive somewhere and not returning to her. Nor can she imagine that her husband is truly dead. On many evenings she has dwelt upon this paradox, finding no answers.
The wind dies down. Idly Isabel reaches out a hand and effects a small cantrip that makes the wind chime dance. She has learned a little magic since her husband last sailed away. A young wizard named Thomas had come up the hill her to house a year past, on a quest for a familiar. In return for allowing him to call one of the ravens that liked to frequent her yard, Isabel had requested that he teach her a spell.
Thomas had replied that magic was not something just anyone could learn. It took a particular kind of mind, and an attitude that tuned one’s inner being to the mystic forces of the world. Isabel insisted, so Thomas showed her how to cast unseen servant. To his surprise she picked it up with only a few days’ instruction. Then he went into her back yard and summoned a familiar, whereupon the ravens flew off, and Isabel’s old goat Nana walked up to him, introduced herself, and began to chew on his hat.
Thomas paid Mrs. Horn for the goat and left with thanks. And Isabel Horn had started on her strange career as wizard, prisoner, and savior.
On this cool night in late March, thinking about her husband, her magics, her future, Isabel finds that she has unexpectedly made a decision. Tonight she will pack her bags. Tomorrow she will take the first ship to Tal Hae. No longer will she wait for word of Willem to reach her. She will go out into the world and find out for herself what has happened.
Had only she turned around and looked back toward home, as the ship set out the following morning to cross the Middle Sea between Kynder Hold and Tal Hae, Isabel Horn might have seen the speck of a small child standing on her pier, waving a piece of paper in his hand.
* *
On the streets of Tal Hae
Dranko Blackhope lurks in the mouth of an alleyway, watching citizens of Tal Hae hurry along the streets through the rain. It’s the perfect day for this – people pay less attention to their surroundings in a rainstorm. Their eyes will be on the ground, looking for puddles, and their minds will be on their destinations, thinking of a warm fire and a roof above their heads.
He’s been waiting for half an hour when a likely mark walks past his alley. A fancy umbrella is keeping the rain off the man’s fine clothes, and his only bodyguard is walking in front of him. A pouch dangles from the man’s belt. Dranko smiles. They never learn.
He slips out of the alley and starts the tail. Ignoring the rain Dranko scans ahead the next two blocks. He takes stock of everyone coming toward him, noting how fast they walk, how observant they are. He notes where city guards are posted, and where the side streets are. A few seconds later he makes his move, drawing a small dagger but keeping it concealed within the folds of his clothes. Quickly he catches up with his prey. The dagger flashes. He cuts the strings on the man’s pouch, catches it with his free hand, and slips into a second alleyway.
The merchant keeps walking, oblivious.
There’s always a chance that such thefts will have been witnessed by a meddling third party, so Dranko runs to the back of the alley and scales the wall, then hops from rooftop to rooftop for a couple of blocks before sitting down against a chimney. He pulls open the liberated pouch and takes inventory. It’s not as much as he expected given the man’s fancy outfit and bodyguard, but the handful of silvers and coppers will pay another week’s rent and keep him fed for a few days. And speaking of the rent, he’d best get home.
Dranko is four blocks from his apartment when he hears an anguished groan from below. He peers down from the roof and sees an old beggar crawling into a narrow empty side street. The man slumps against wall and clutches his ankle. The rain soaks him.
For a moment Dranko is frozen with indecision. He too is drenched from the cold rain and wants nothing more to get someplace warmer and dryer. As he watches, the beggar tries to stand but collapses in a puddle, crying out in pain.
“Crap,” mutters Dranko. He un-slings his pack and pulls from it a rumpled cream-colored robe with fading gold trim. It’s a bit of a struggle to get the wet fabric sorted out, but he gets the robe pulled on over his street clothes. He fishes a necklace from a side pouch of the pack and hastily fastens it around his neck. Both the robe and necklace feature the stylized design that indicates Delioch, God of the Healing Hand.
Properly attired, Dranko climbs carefully down the wall and approaches the beggar. He sees that the old man’s ankle is broken, a compound fracture with bone poking out through the skin. Blood is mixing with the rain puddling beneath his body.
“What happened,” asks Dranko gruffly.
The beggar looks up, but the first thing he registers is not the robe or the necklace – it’s the tusks. Dranko Blackhope is a half-orc, not so ugly as many of that hybrid race, but ugly enough. Two thick teeth like small boar’s tusks protrude from his lower jaw. His other features are thick, flattened, almost cruel. Frightened and injured, the beggar shrinks away from Dranko.
“I’m not gonna stand here in the rain all day,” says Dranko. “You want me to heal that ankle, or would you rather slowly bleed to death?”
Rain runs down the vagrant’s straggly hair and into his eyes.
“I was begging for coins,” he croaks. “All I wanted was a copper or two for a meal, but he pushed me aside. I slipped in the rain and fell against the curb. My ankle…”
Dranko leans down and examines the break. He’ll need to set it, but it should heal properly.
“Put this in your mouth,” says Dranko, handing the beggar a leather strip. “This’ll hurt a bit. If you have to bite down, bite this, not your tongue.”
Dranko pulls on the man’s ankle and realigns the bone. The patient cries out again, the leather strip falling from his mouth. Quickly the half-orc puts one hand on his holy symbol and the other on the beggar’s leg.
“Lord, I pray for healing, that this man be made sound and whole.”
A soft golden glow surrounds the broken ankle; bone reknits, tendons reattach, and the puncture closes. In a few seconds only a small scar remains. The beggar looks up in wonder.
Dranko fishes out five coppers from his just-acquired swag and drops them on the man’s lap.
“Buy yourself some food, and say a prayer to Delioch,” he instructs. The beggar nods dumbly as Dranko walks away. Only after he has rounded a corner does Dranko scramble back up to the rooftops; it wouldn’t do for a cleric of Delioch to be seen scaling the walls.
Dranko enters his 2nd-story living space – two squalid little rooms – via a ceiling trap door he made for himself. Ironically that trap door is one of the few parts of his roof that doesn’t leak when it rains. Dranko has a collection of pots and buckets catching the drips that spill through on days like this. He peels off his soaked clerical robes and sits down in a rickety chair, hoping to enjoy a few minutes of relaxa…
Bam, bam, bam! “Drank-oooooooo!”
His landlady, a large, loud and lazy woman named Berthel, pounds on his door. The two of them share a satisfyingly caustic relationship. Dranko lets her in.
“You’re soaked! What have you been up to? Out scaring urchins with that winning smile?”
“Nice to see you too, Berthel. Maybe I was finding a better place to live than this drafty strainer.”
“You wish,” laughs Berthel. “Speaking of which, where’s the rent?”
“Maybe I should hold on to it until you fix the leaks in my roof.”
“You got somewhere better to go?”
Dranko pauses. He imagines the sanctuary of the Church of Delioch, the Healing Hand, where those who need succor are given harbor and comfort.
“No,” he says. “I guess I don’t. Here’s enough for two weeks. Now get out of here; your perfume is drowning out the preferable aroma of my chamber pot.”
Berthel counts her money, chuckles, and turns to leave. Then she turns back.
“Oh, almost forgot. Some kid was here this morning. Told me to give you this.”
She takes a folded piece of paper from a pocket and tosses it to her tenant.
“Didn’t know you could read,” she laughs as she leaves.
Dranko cracks the seal on the letter and reads it as he returns to his chair. Hours later he is still there, brooding, wondering what it means.
* *
The Smoke House, Tal Hae
The Smoke House is a bright, cheerful establishment in the heart of Tal Hae’s “halfing quarter,” catering primarily to the little folk but offering a warm welcome to anyone interested in good food, good drink and good company. It is owned and operated by a well-respected and well-liked halfling couple, Crick and Mora Proudfoot, assisted by their son Flicker.
Flicker Proudfoot is a remarkable person. Physically he is strong and wiry, and through diligent practice has become mildly dangerous with a short sword. (He still maintains a childhood dream of someday joining the Tal Hae city guard.) Flicker is also quick and agile, with as deft and skillful fingers as any rogue employed by the Tal Hae Undermen. He is mischievous in a friendly sort of way, and wouldn’t hurt anyone unless they were asking for it.
He’s not much in the common sense department, but he scrapes by.
Flicker’s primary duty in the Smoke House is what Crick jokingly calls “patron quality maintenance.” When a customer becomes rude or obnoxious, Flicker will make sure they don’t leave the establishment before being discreetly divested of some small possession. The theory – and it’s worked well in practice – is that patrons who later on discover they’ve been robbed are less likely to come back to a “den of little halfling thieves.” As a result, the Smoke House has a fine reputation among good-natured folk, and receives poor word-of-mouth only among the unsavory and boorish.
Not that pocket-picking is Flicker’s only responsibility. He also (along with other employees) greets visitors at the door, waits tables, pours drinks, cleans mugs, and contributes to the atmosphere of relaxed enjoyment. He is engaged in just this sort of duty on the night of March the 30th, welcoming guests as they come in the door, pointing them to where open tables wait, advising them that the onion stew is particularly good tonight, and sizing them up as possible troublemakers. A knot of regulars from the early lamp-lighting shift comes in out of a drizzle; they nod to Flicker and hasten to start on the night’s ale. The door swings almost shut, but a small foot wedges itself in the jamb, and a thin waif struggles to push the door open again. Flicker pulls the handle and lets in the child, who looks up at him. He clutches a folded piece of paper.
“This is for Flicker Proudfoot,” says the child.
“That’s me!” says Flicker, taking the paper. “Who’s it from?”
“Flicker!” his father shouts from the back of the Inn, his strong voice carrying over the din. “Where’d you put the mugs that came in this morning? Mora wants to have ‘em washed and ready by tomorrow morning!”
“Oop… hold on kid,” says Flicker. He turns and shouts to his dad, “I stashed ‘em down with the wine bottles! It was the only place I could find room!”
Flicker turns back to find the door swinging shut, the child gone. He almost opens the paper to read it, but more customers come in just then, so he stuffs it in a pocket. Five minutes later he has forgotten all about it. Thus it is that Flicker is extremely surprised at what happens to him the following evening.
* *
The Island Barony of Forquelle, on the palace grounds
“Father, have you seen Darian? Master Cawvus says he’s late for his arithmetic lesson. I cannot find him anywhere.”
Young Alomayne Firemount, twelve years old, grins impishly as he asks the question. His older brother Darian is going to be in some hot water for missing an appointment with his tutor. Not that he doesn’t love his brother, mind. And if you were to tell the young lad that he wouldn’t see Darian again for years, if ever, he’d think you’d gone mad.
Three miles away, the sixteen-year-old Darien Firemount, heir to the throne of Forquelle, is pulling his small boat onto the sandy shore of a small island. There are dozens of little islands dotting the island barony of Forquelle; this one has the advantage of being boring and uninhabited and indistinguishable from several others. Unless father convinces his wizard to use divination magic, it could take more than a day for anyone to find him.
By then, if what he’s read is true, it will be too late.
He has already decided on a name to use in his exile: “Tor Bladebearer.” It’s generic, tough sounding, and nothing like his real name. He has the longsword to back it up, and plenty of strength with which to use it. For a boy in his middle-teens, ‘Tor’ is something of a freak of nature. He stands taller than six feet, with broad shoulders and thick muscles that would make many a seasoned warrior green with envy. His head, with its boyish face and sandy hair, looks stolen from a younger body and attached whimsically to his bulky frame.
And what is his destiny? Officially he is to be trained to succeed his father as Baron of Forquelle. As Baron he will rule the Islands, wasting his days with a daily torture of diplomacy, economics, ledgers, taxes, and various affairs of state. His sword will grow rusty, his back will bend over a desk covered in contracts and agreements, and his true destiny will go unfulfilled. The court sword-master has all but admitted that Darien could become the greatest swordsman the barony has ever seen. And what did his father say?
“A sword is a plaything. The true weapons of a ruler are wisdom, guile and knowledge. A sharp bookkeeper will be of more value to you than a sharp blade.”
Bah! Darien knows in his deepest heart that he was made for adventure. He should be out exploring the world, fighting evil, discovering hidden treasures – anything but sitting on the throne to which unkind fate would shackle him. Months have passed since Darien first started to plan his escape. He would run away, hide aboard a ship bound for one of the three duchies, Lanei maybe. He would tint his hair, or try growing a beard, or dye his skin a new color. In some hidden place he would start to forge a new life, a new identity. Darien Firemount would be left behind forever, and Tor Bladebearer would lead a life of limitless possibility and unbounded glory!
And anyway, Alomayne is much better suited to rule the barony. Bright kid.
Alas, for these many months past Darien’s plot to escape never got beyond the most rudimentary planning stages. His father kept him busy with duties, and that damned tutor hardly left his side! He had begun to suspect that his father knows his mind.
Two days ago, everything changed. Darien was stealing precious minutes in the sparring yard, hacking a straw dummy with his sword. A tousle-haired youth maybe eight or nine years old had wandered into the yard clutching a piece of paper. At first Darien figured that some visiting merchant’s son had been set loose on the castle grounds. As the boy walked over to him Tor had feared that babysitting duty was going to interrupt his sword practice. But instead the boy had approached him and handed him the paper.
“This is for you,” said the boy.
It had a wax seal imprinted with a design like a slender tower. The textured parchment was high quality, an expensive luxury for a child to be carrying around. He turned it over in his hands looking for a sign of whom it was from.
“Who told you to give me this?” he asked, still looking down at it. There was no answer. The child was gone. Darien broke the seal and read the short message.
“You will appear at the tower of the Archmagus Abernathy in the city of Tal Hae, at sundown on the first day of April, the year 1828.”
It never occurred to Darien that this was a summons or an invitation. Alone of all the recipients, he took the words literally. He had two days to pack and prepare.
Now, as the afternoon sun drops from its height on the last day of March, Tor Bladebearer hides his boat and wanders inland to a secluded spot. Idly he munches on a cheese pilfered from the castle larder. Any minute now he will be transported to the life of his dreams. He doesn’t know how he knows. He just knows.
* *
The Temple of Ell in Kynder Hold
“Morningstar” is not the name of an Ellish priestess.
In the halls of the Goddess of Night, many of Her servants have been granted names that reflect the nature of Her portfolio. Moondraft, Obsidia, Umbra… that sort of thing. Others have more ordinary names, like Previa, June, or Amber. But there has never been recorded a priestess named Sunbeam, or Radiance, or Dawn. All true names are born in the mind of the Ell, and there has never been doubt about Her focus and purpose. The Goddess might have pointed out to skeptics that it is the morning star that heralds the dawn while the night still lasts, but She is content for her daughters to find their own paths and make their own judgements. Alas for Morningstar that her peers have not judged her kindly.
Morningstar sends Clariel staggering back with a vicious blow. Clariel, senior among the Shields of Ell in the temple at Kynder Hold, regains her balance, walks forward and sets her shield.
“Again,” she says.
It wasn’t enough that the Goddess had given her such a name. The name, everyone says, is absolutely appropriate to her appearance. Morningstar is tall, gangly, rail-thin, with skin so pallid her parents feared through her childhood that she was albino. Her long straight hair is a snowy white.
That’s not what an Ellish priestess looks like.
Morningstar pants with exertion, sweat matting her pale hair to her face. In the cool night air her breath puffs out in clouds. She swings her weapon again and again, her trainer Clariel exhorting her not to falter. It’s only through a determination bordering on stubbornness that she has not. No one, not even her mother who is also a Priestess, expected Morningstar to receive the call to serve the Goddess. Even now she is regarded by some as a freak, not exactly an outcast but not much embraced among her own sisterhood, a misjudged girl in a misunderstood religion. She can count her friends on half the fingers of one hand. The rest judge her more harshly while at the same time treading more lightly around her, as if they fear what her purpose will be, placed in their midst by Ell. There is something subtly portentous about Morningstar that makes her sisters distinctly uncomfortable, and this they reflect back at her in defense.
“Enough!” cries Clariel. Morningstar is not strong, but she is quick and accurate and can spar for hours without tiring. This is not the first time she has outlasted her mentor. Morningstar lowers her weapon, a spiked ball attached to a wooden handle by a short length of chain. There is an old book of weaponry in the Chroniclers’ library that shows a picture of this weapon. In modern times it would be called a flail by most, but in that dusty tome it was labeled: ‘Morning-star.’ When Morningstar had seen that picture she knew that one day she would swing such a weapon in the service of Ell as a Shield, the martial order of the church.
Clariel’s shield is scarred with the marks of Morningstar’s weapon.
“You have fought enough for one night,” she says. “In two hours the sun will rise; you should bathe and attend prayers before bed.”
Clariel treats her better than most of her sisters. At least she sees her potential, and judges her on her fighting prowess rather than her awkward appearance. She’s not a friend, exactly, but Morningstar has learned to value any relationship that is entirely free of scorn.
“Thank you, sister,” she says to Clariel. The trainer nods, removes her shield, and walks from the sparring yard into the temple building. Morningstar tarries, looking up at the stars and squinting uncomfortably at the bright full moon.
“Excuse me, are you Morningstar?”
She turns, startled, to find a small child standing nearby. He grasps a folded letter with a wax seal.
“This is for you,” says the child, before Morningstar even has a chance to answer. The urchin presses the paper into her hands and runs off, leaving the Ellish neophyte confused and speechless. She opens the letter as she walks back to her frugal bedroom in the temple, reading easily in the nearly complete darkness.
She is quite calm about it, though she doesn’t doubt its veracity. If there’s one thing that Ellish priestesses learn early on, it’s equanimity.
The problem will be timing, Morningstar thinks as she wonders where to find a duffel bag. Even in the best case she will be late for this strange appointment by at least a day. Today is the last day of March, and it’s 300 miles by ship across the Middle Sea from Kynder Hold to Tal Hae. She can only do her best. If the wizard Abernathy thought this summons was time critical, he should have sent his messenger more than a day in advance.
After a quick rinse in the Church’s baths, Morningstar dons her black-on-black robes and joins Clariel and others for services and prayer in the south chapel. At their conclusion she catches Clariel’s attention and motions her teacher over to a private alcove.
“Yes, Morningstar?”
“I have received an unusual summons, of a… personal nature. I will need to leave Kynder Hold on the first available ship and travel to Tal Hae. I’m not sure when I’ll be back, but if it turns out to be anything more than a brief stay, I’ll send word.”
“Are you in trouble, sister?” asks Clariel.
“No. I don’t think so. Please, if you could, tell Quia to take me out of the standard rotations for the rest of the week. I must secure berth on a ship at once.”
“The sun is almost risen,” Clariel points out. “You know the rules of our church…”
“I will ask to travel below decks,” says Morningstar. “With luck I can avoid the sun entirely. But I mustn’t delay even an hour more.”
“Very well,” says Clariel. “If you are in any trouble, you know you can always come to me for help.”
“I know it,” says Morningstar, grateful.
“Then may the blessings of Ell be upon you in your travels.”
Despite the urgency of her itinerary, Morningstar takes the time to pen a note to her parents. She copies the words of Abernathy’s letter verbatim, then adds a short postscript: I’m going to Tal Hae in case this summons is true. Love to you both.
Ninety minutes later Morningstar is settling down to sleep on an old mattress, in the hold of the merchant ship “Wind’s Kiss.” She had to give most of her small monthly allowance to the captain, even allowing that she was willing to travel below decks. She is more nervous that she likes to admit, even to herself. Thin bars of sunlight slip through the seams of the deck and speckle the hold.
Sunlight! The enormity of what she’s doing threatens to overwhelm her, so she turns her head toward the darker shadows around her and prays fervently for Ell to protect and guide her. Soon an assuring calm settles over her. By the time she drifts to sleep, with the ship riding the waves en route to Tal Hae, a small smile has settled on her face.
**
Dingman’s Ferry
“This is Pyknite,” says Old Bowlegs. “I’ve carried this blade my whole life. Like me, it doesn’t care for orcs or other foul things. I want you to have it.”
Standing before the old halfling warrior, young Ernest Roundhill hardly knows what to say. That Old Bowlegs should be giving him a pep talk is honor enough, but his sword?
“Er, thank you, sir,” stammers Ernie. “I will do my best to use it bravely, in the service of Yondalla.”
“I know you will,” says Bowlegs. “You’re the best student I’ve got. I don’t mean your skill, though that’s good enough for a start. But you won’t misuse any of your gifts, Pyknite included. I know it.”
Ernie turns red. Old Bowlegs is the seasoned leader of the seven-halfling-strong militia of the tiny town. He has killed over a dozen orcs in his life, they say. And he’s usually stingy with his compliments; today he’s positively effusive.
It must be because I’m leaving home, Ernie thinks.
In truth, Bowlegs is sorry to see young Roundhill go. He has always thought that Ernie would be the one to follow after him, to keep his town safe from harm. But Ernest Roundhill has taken it into his head that his destiny lies elsewhere, that he can do more good in a large city than in the tiny village of Dingman’s Ferry. Probably true, Bowlegs concedes to himself. But Tal Hae will be like nothing Ernest has ever seen, and what the young would-be adventurer will need most when he gets there is confidence.
“Well, Ernest, you should go back and say your good-byes to Rowan and Hob. I’m sure they’ll have more advice for you before you head off into the wide wild world. Be sure to write back home once you’ve settled in.”
“Yes sir, I will!”
Ernie takes off at a run for his parents’ house.
Rowan and Hob Roundhill are off the charts, if there were charts for wholesomeness and generosity. Their son Ernie inherited every bit of that legacy, and then some. He loves to cook, and he loves to practice his sword fighting with Old Bowlegs, and he loves doing nice things for nice people, and he loves his parents more than anything in the world. The only thing Ernie particularly doesn’t like is bullies, of which there are unfortunately several in Dingman’s Ferry. Ernie’s not a naturally violent person by any means, but when he perceives an injustice in the world, particularly when the strong prey on the weak, his blood heats up in an awful hurry. Having been brought up in a proper household, the phrase “kicking the ass of evildoers” has never specifically entered his lexicon, but that’s exactly what he was born to do. Well, that and cook. The kid’s a natural.
It’s a predictably tearful farewell scene at the Roundhill front step, as Ernie embraces his mother one last time before leaving. She has asked him a half-dozen times if he’s packed extra warm clothing, and the blanket she knitted for him just this past week, and his extra water-skin in case his first one ruptures, and his letter of recommendation from Bowlegs. Hob just stands behind the two of them, beaming with pride that his son is going to make a name for himself in Tal Hae. A few hugs later and Ernie is heading down the road to meet his destiny.
What’s that, you ask? What about the letter? Oddly, he never gets one, despite being the fifth name on Abernathy’s scroll. No child appears at his door. He doesn’t even get teleported into the wizard’s tower on the evening of the first day of April. Did the ancient magic fail? It would seem not, because Ernest Wilburforce Roundhill still showed up in Tal Hae on the evening of that fateful day. Abernathy was able to locate him, bring him to his tower, tell him what needed telling, and send him off to join the others in their new headquarters. It’s a mystery how such a thing was possible, but Ernie has an unusual background. There’s something in his blood, and it’ll probably come in handy some day.
* *
Kay was eating dinner with her family, and specifically was passing her oldest brother the saltcellar, when she vanished from the kitchen table. She had never even mentioned the stupid prank letter to her family, so they were all quite surprised. It wasn’t until later the next day that word of her disappearance reached the ears of Mr. Miller. His explanation hardly calmed anyone down.
Isabel Horn was just leaving the office of the harbormaster of Tal Hae, having failed to learn anything of import regarding her husband or his ship. By chance the only person who saw her vanish was a small child, whose story of the magic invisible lady no one believed.
Dranko Blackhope, alone of all them, was waiting outside the tower when sunset came. He had already scouted it from a respectful distance and observed its absence of doors or windows, but figured that an egress would present itself. He had a brief chat with an older man named Levec Oldbarrow who was also observing the tower. Levec had a lame excuse that Dranko didn’t buy, but before the half-orc could pump him for anything juicy, he blinked away right in front of Levec’s eyes.
Darien Firemount, a.k.a. Tor Bladebearer, sat on a warm beach clutching his sword. He watched the sun dip below the clear horizon, closed his eyes, and when he opened them again he was exactly where he expected to be, hundreds of miles to the west.
Morningstar, Shield of Ell, was still in the hold of the ship. She was waiting until sunset to come above-decks, but she was plucked away before she had the chance. The sailors grumbled afterward that you never could trust those black witches of the Night Goddess. Probably turned into a bat and flew off.
Flicker Proudfoot was down in the cellar testing the ale before the night’s busy hours. “Testing the ale” was not actually a job his parents had set for him, mind. It was one of many examples of the young halfling’s remarkable initiative. His first thought upon finding himself in the high study of Abernathy’s tower was that his father had hired a wizard to trap the ale casks and had forgotten to mention it to him.
And there they were, five young men and women, and Isabel Horn somewhat older, standing agog in a well-appointed if slightly untidy living room.
* *
Hours later, after, after Abernathy had talked to them at length and then sent them on their way to the house he had prepared for them, and after some time spent wondering what had happened to the seventh person on his list, he felt a bit peckish. He sent his cook – a halfling named Browla – out for some food, though because of the late hour the options were limited.
Browla knew of a particularly good provisioner who tended to be open late, but that meant walking a few blocks through a less reputable part of town. On his way home, arms laden with groceries, four human ruffians out enjoying an evening of hooliganism accosted him in a narrow lane.
Ernest Roundhill had been in Tal Hae a couple of days by then, exploring and absorbing the wonders of the Great Wooden City. He was renting a room above a seamstress’s shop, and since he was having trouble sleeping, he decided to go out in search of a snack. A place called Churley’s was supposed to be open late selling bread and mostly-fresh produce, so off he went.
You can see where this is going. Was it Abernathy’s spell at work? Ernie heard a commotion coming from an alley, peered around the corner, and saw four gangly human youths tormenting a middle-aged halfling whose arms were full of food. Bullies! Hardly even thinking about it Ernie drew Pyknite and walked into the alley entrance.
“You leave him alone!” he shouted, his voice shrill. “Shame on you for picking on someone so much smaller than you! But if that’s what you want, come deal with me!”
Maybe Ernie’s shadow was thrown large on the adjacent wall. Maybe the ruffians saw Pyknite gleam in the light of the full moon. Maybe they saw the righteous anger smoldering in Ernie’s eyes. Whatever the case, they quickly decided that their fun was over, and they fled into the night. Ernie sheathed his sword and ran over to Browla.
As thanks for his rescue, Browla invited Ernest back to Abernathy’s tower for a meal and a drink. Though Ernie didn’t realize it, this was a very inappropriate thing for Browla to do. Letting strangers into the tower was strictly forbidden for a number of very good reasons, the health and welfare of every single citizen of the kingdom chief among them. Afterward Browla admitted to Abernathy that he had no idea what he was thinking. But an hour later Ernie and Browla were chatting away in the kitchen, preparing a meal together and talking shop about the culinary arts.
Abernathy came down later on in the evening, wondering what was holding up his supper. His eyes widened as he saw Ernie, first because here was an unauthorized visitor inside the tower walls, but soon after because recognition came to him in a flash.
“Ernest!” cried Abernathy.
Ernie stared back at him.
“Uh… yes, um, yes sir?”
Abernathy fixed the young halfling with an unnerving stare for almost a full minute, during which Ernie became increasingly discomfited and Browla looked quizzically between the two of them. But at last Abernathy broke the awkward silence by exclaiming:
“You’re a Wilburforce! Extraordinary!”
Which was true. Ernie’s full family name was Ernest Wilburforce Roundhill.
“Yes sir! That’s my middle name,” answered Ernie, trying and failing to look like this sort of exchange was natural.
“Didn’t you get my letter?” asked Abernathy, raising his bushy eyebrows.
“Er, no sir, I didn’t.”
“Do you know who I am?”
“Browla here said you were a wizard,” answered Ernie.
“Hmph. A wizard. Yes, I am, and I’ve been expecting you. Browla, I’m afraid I need to steal your guest for a while. Ernest, please follow me.”
And so it was the Ernie was given the same briefing as the others, and sent on to the Greenhouse to join the others. Abernathy’s Company was officially in business.
Full disclosure: while I did run each character through a 30-minute pregame session, that was in November of 1995, and my long-term memory is awful. What's written here is loosely based on those sessions, incorporating what I remember, but with plenty of extra detail that makes it read better. And the stuff at the start is background fiction that never saw the gaming table at all.
Lastly, while I wrote this partly out of dissatisfaction with the current early parts of the Story Hour, I also wrote it as thanks for all of you readers out there who've been following the adventures of Abernathy's Company. You've given me support and ideas, kept me honest at times, and made me think about what makes a good campaign -- not to mention that you've given me an excuse to keep my writing skills honed.
Enjoy!
-Sagiro
**
Do you hear that sound? That is the inexorable whirring of fate’s gears spinning on axles greased by the Gods.
The multiverse is very much a vast machine, consuming time in its furnaces and spewing death from its vents. A trillion souls are its working parts. But the deities in their heavens did not set the gears to motion, for they are part of the machine themselves, loath though they would be to admit such. Even with power and knowledge un-guessed by mortals, they have no more control over destiny’s engine than does anyone else.
Ok, it was a loaded question. You probably don’t hear the sound of reality’s relentless progress. Neither do most living things. But there are exceptions, born here and there every few generations, and the choices and actions of those beings can send the courses of worlds careening off in new (and invariably more interesting) directions.
The Archmage Abernathy is one of these people. He sits in the comfortable study on the top floor of his tower, leaning over a piece of parchment, quill in hand dripping ink. In a metaphorical sense he is listening to the whispers of the Machine, though in practice he is writing down the names of people he has never met, has never heard of. There are already four names on the page, but he knows… Senses? Believes?… that there are three more still to be written.
Ernest Roundhill
Hm. Sounds like a halfling name. Could be someone right here in the city of Tal Hae. And there’s already a halfling on the list; “Flicker Proudfoot” is certainly also of that diminutive race. Two out of seven? Abernathy’s intellect is troubled but his gut is sure. Those two belong with the others.
For another few minutes he stares at the parchment, quill hovering. Most of his mind is occupied elsewhere – he has important duties to perform, and as vital as this interlude may be, he cannot neglect his primary task for much longer. His able apprentice Thewana can hold things down for a few more hours yet, but Abernathy is thinking ahead. Abernathy is always thinking ahead. So much depends on him.
He looks down to discover he is writing another name.
Isabel Horn
He gets a peculiar chill as his pen inks this sixth name on the list, but it passes as soon as he is done.
Only one more to go. Abernathy knows there will be seven names on the paper. He doesn’t know how he knows. His astounding prescience will never be confused with omniscience. It might be a God who guides his pen. It might be something greater. Perhaps he is simply mad.
No, I’m not mad, he thinks. That would have implications too dire to contemplate.
For an hour more he stares at the page, waiting for the final name to come. Only when his mind starts to drift back to his centuries-old obligations does his pen stir and write the last name.
Dranko Blackhope
Dranko? That sounds like an orcish word. Abernathy’s brow furrows as he reviews the seven names. A small pang of guilt stirs in his heart. All of these people are about to give up their old lives and start new ones, and the latter are likely to be much more dangerous than the former. But the time has come when he – and by extension the rest of the Archmagi, and by further extension the whole Kingdom of Charagan – are going to need help. And these seven – they are the help.
(Don’t misunderstand – Charagan already has some elite fighting units, including at least one experienced and formidable adventuring group. But these names on Abernathy’s parchment are different. He doesn’t know how, but they are laced in tightly to the fate of the Kingdom in ways that are as certain as they are unknowable.)
Has his pen chosen ordinary folk who will find their slow way to greatness? Are they already true heroes of the realm? Abernathy has no idea. He’s been out of touch for a while.
He stands up and his old bones creak. No point in waiting, he thinks. I already have tasks to set for them. Simple ones to start with. It will get more complicated later on. On a nearby table are a long scroll and a vial of clear fluid. Inked onto the scroll is an impossibly complex spell that combines powerful divinations and illusions and conjurations and something to do with teleporting.
Abernathy doesn’t know who wrote the scroll, or what’s in the vial. Not even Alander knew. But his old mentor had told him that when the time was right – and Abernathy would know when that was – he should read the scroll while pouring the liquid over a list of names.
“What names?” the young Abernathy had asked.
“I don’t know,” said Alander, smiling. “But you will.”
So now, as the chill winds of late March blow outside through the streets of Tal Hae, Abernathy places his list of seven names down beside Alander’s old scroll and starts to read. As he utters the syllables of power, he trickles the fluid over the names. The casting takes about five minutes, and when he is done both pieces of paper, scroll and parchment, are blank white.
“That’s it then,” mutters the Archmage. “Best get back to work.”
He turns toward the door. It will be several days before he returns to this room, at which time he will find to his great consternation that there are three new names on his piece of parchment, written in what looks like his own hand. It’s a mystery that will make more sense in time.
But in the present, Abernathy leaves the study and descends to a strange room in the heart of his tower, where he settles into an old wooden chair and resumes his task of saving the world from destruction.
* *
In the forest of Harkran, near the town of Cyric
Kay Olafsen puts down her bow and drops to one knee. For a moment she just stares, taking in the bloody details of a savaged deer carcass. Then she reaches out to pull back a flap of torn skin, bends down even lower, and peers intently at the bite marks. She makes a careful study of the dead body and the tracks around it.
Wolves. A small pack. Four, I think. The deer was old, and they didn’t have to chase it far. The largest set of tooth-marks is scarcer. The Alpha male ate first, leaving the others to gnaw at the bones. Nothing surprising here; the wolves are still hungry enough to range this far in, after a long cold winter.
Disappointed that the wolves got there first, Kay picks her way back through the forest to her family home, a well-built cabin surrounded by small cleared fields. Her little brother Melly, nine years old, comes tearing from behind the house as she approaches.
“Kay, Kay! Look! Look what you got!”
There’s a folded piece of paper in his hands, which he waves frantically as he approaches.
“See?” says Melly. “Those words on the paper say ‘Kay Olafsen.’ I asked Mr. Miller and he said it’s your name written down! It’s a letter for you!”
That doesn’t make sense, Kay thinks to herself. I can’t read. Neither can most people in Cyric. Who would be stupid enough to send me a letter instead of just coming to talk with me?
“Mr. Miller said he’d read what’s inside for you, if you wanted.”
“I guess he’ll have to,” says Kay. There are few other literate souls in Cyric – Mayor Torbel for one, Apothecary Sam for another. And old Mya who runs the general store, Kay’s pretty sure she can read. But the Miller house is closer, and Mr. Miller is a good friend of her father.
“Did you see who brought the letter?” Kay asks her little brother. “Did they say who it was from?”
“It was a kid, about my age,” says Melly. “I hadn’t seen him before. Maybe a new family moved into town? He handed me the letter and ran off. I told mom, and she told me to take it to the Millers to see who it was for.”
Kay pokes her head into the house.
“Mom? Do you need me for the next hour? I need to go into town.”
“Go ahead dear,” calls her mother from the kitchen. “The boys are giving me all the help I need right now.”
“You just go scamper around in the woods some more,” calls her eldest brother, Lars. Kay can hear the friendly mockery in his voice. “This time try to come back with more than skinned knees.”
Kay’s mom pokes her head through the kitchen doorway and smiles at Kay.
“I hear Apothecary Sam is paying good coppers for woodwort, if you can find any. And pick up some potatoes at the market while you’re out. Oh, and tell Mrs. Baker that we’ll have extra cabbages for her if she wants to buy them. And come back as soon as you can; Lars and Karn are helping old man North rebuild his barn this afternoon and I’ll need some help with chores later on.”
“Got it, mom. See you later!”
Kay dashes out the door. Twenty minutes later she is standing in the Miller’s living room. Old Mr. Miller, a kindly codger with most of his teeth and a wrinkly smile, is breaking the strange wax seal on the letter.
“Don’t know who it’s from, hey?” says the old man. “Maybe you got a secret admirer among the young lads in town, hey?”
Kay rolls her eyes.
Mr. Miller opens the letter and reads. His face goes pale as his eyes scan the parchment. He reads it a second time just to be sure.
“What does it say?” asks Kay impatiently.
“You set yourself down then, missy. Where’d you say this letter came from?”
“Melly said some new kid brought it by our house while I was hunting,” says Kay. “Why? Is it something important?”
“Yes. I’d say that it is. You may not believe it, but here’s what it says.
“’You will appear at the tower of the Archmagus Abernathy in the city of Tal Hae, at sundown on the first day of April, the year 1828.’”
“That’s it?” asks Kay.
“It? It? Missy, do you know what this means? You’ve been summoned by an Archmage! That’s quite an “it!”
Kay, like most everyone else in the kingdom, has heard rumors about the Archmagi. They’re powerful, mysterious and notoriously reclusive wizards. Sometimes they emerge from their towers to demand tasks of citizens, and by an ancient law there is no gainsaying their requests.
“That’s not what it means,” sighs Kay. “It means someone is playing a joke on me, that’s all. No Archmage is going to be interested in me, I promise.”
The two look at each other for a long moment. A stiff breeze blows through Mr. Miller’s living room, stirring Kay’s long brown hair.
“Or maybe this Abernathy guy meant to send this to someone else,” she continues. “There must be a lot of girls named Kay in a city as big as Tal Hae. Well, thanks for the help Mr. Miller. I’ve gotta go. Lots of errands to run for mom.”
After she has gone, Archibald Miller frowns and squints over at the window looking out onto the street. It’s a chilly March afternoon and all of his windows are sealed tight, as was the door just moments ago. He knows the story about Kay’s birth, the way some crazy wind had kicked up and bowled over the midwife. It’s why some folks still call her “Windstorm.” If it were up to him he’d say that letter was no joke, that Miri’s headstrong daughter ought to go to Tal Hae and not risk agitating some great wizard. But it’s none of his business, and with a cough and a shrug he goes back to work.
* *
A small beachfront home on the outskirts of Kynder Hold.
Isabel Horn rocks in her porch chair, looking out over the bay. Perhaps she is admiring the way the setting sun’s glint makes the tide seem to slide over itself. Perhaps she enjoys the early evening breeze coming in off the water, tousling her hair and stirring the crystal wind chime hanging from the lintel. More likely, though, she is simply waiting for her husband to come home.
For three years she has been waiting, trapped in the terrible limbo between widowhood and desperate hope. Willem was a competent sailor, a trader with his own ship and crew, who had roamed the coasts of Charagan for years. Isabel had married him with the begrudged blessing of her noble family and moved with him into the small house on the coast.
Tonight she reflects on the choices of her life, where they’ve led her, where they’re going to lead her. Isabel Horn, nee Boxwood, is no longer a young woman. She’s in her mid-thirties and unlikely to remarry. Her family would take her back, but the thought of living out stifling decades into spinsterhood on the Boxwood Estate steals her breath at the mere thought.
There is an unsolvable paradox in Isabel’s heart. She cannot imagine that Willem is alive somewhere and not returning to her. Nor can she imagine that her husband is truly dead. On many evenings she has dwelt upon this paradox, finding no answers.
The wind dies down. Idly Isabel reaches out a hand and effects a small cantrip that makes the wind chime dance. She has learned a little magic since her husband last sailed away. A young wizard named Thomas had come up the hill her to house a year past, on a quest for a familiar. In return for allowing him to call one of the ravens that liked to frequent her yard, Isabel had requested that he teach her a spell.
Thomas had replied that magic was not something just anyone could learn. It took a particular kind of mind, and an attitude that tuned one’s inner being to the mystic forces of the world. Isabel insisted, so Thomas showed her how to cast unseen servant. To his surprise she picked it up with only a few days’ instruction. Then he went into her back yard and summoned a familiar, whereupon the ravens flew off, and Isabel’s old goat Nana walked up to him, introduced herself, and began to chew on his hat.
Thomas paid Mrs. Horn for the goat and left with thanks. And Isabel Horn had started on her strange career as wizard, prisoner, and savior.
On this cool night in late March, thinking about her husband, her magics, her future, Isabel finds that she has unexpectedly made a decision. Tonight she will pack her bags. Tomorrow she will take the first ship to Tal Hae. No longer will she wait for word of Willem to reach her. She will go out into the world and find out for herself what has happened.
Had only she turned around and looked back toward home, as the ship set out the following morning to cross the Middle Sea between Kynder Hold and Tal Hae, Isabel Horn might have seen the speck of a small child standing on her pier, waving a piece of paper in his hand.
* *
On the streets of Tal Hae
Dranko Blackhope lurks in the mouth of an alleyway, watching citizens of Tal Hae hurry along the streets through the rain. It’s the perfect day for this – people pay less attention to their surroundings in a rainstorm. Their eyes will be on the ground, looking for puddles, and their minds will be on their destinations, thinking of a warm fire and a roof above their heads.
He’s been waiting for half an hour when a likely mark walks past his alley. A fancy umbrella is keeping the rain off the man’s fine clothes, and his only bodyguard is walking in front of him. A pouch dangles from the man’s belt. Dranko smiles. They never learn.
He slips out of the alley and starts the tail. Ignoring the rain Dranko scans ahead the next two blocks. He takes stock of everyone coming toward him, noting how fast they walk, how observant they are. He notes where city guards are posted, and where the side streets are. A few seconds later he makes his move, drawing a small dagger but keeping it concealed within the folds of his clothes. Quickly he catches up with his prey. The dagger flashes. He cuts the strings on the man’s pouch, catches it with his free hand, and slips into a second alleyway.
The merchant keeps walking, oblivious.
There’s always a chance that such thefts will have been witnessed by a meddling third party, so Dranko runs to the back of the alley and scales the wall, then hops from rooftop to rooftop for a couple of blocks before sitting down against a chimney. He pulls open the liberated pouch and takes inventory. It’s not as much as he expected given the man’s fancy outfit and bodyguard, but the handful of silvers and coppers will pay another week’s rent and keep him fed for a few days. And speaking of the rent, he’d best get home.
Dranko is four blocks from his apartment when he hears an anguished groan from below. He peers down from the roof and sees an old beggar crawling into a narrow empty side street. The man slumps against wall and clutches his ankle. The rain soaks him.
For a moment Dranko is frozen with indecision. He too is drenched from the cold rain and wants nothing more to get someplace warmer and dryer. As he watches, the beggar tries to stand but collapses in a puddle, crying out in pain.
“Crap,” mutters Dranko. He un-slings his pack and pulls from it a rumpled cream-colored robe with fading gold trim. It’s a bit of a struggle to get the wet fabric sorted out, but he gets the robe pulled on over his street clothes. He fishes a necklace from a side pouch of the pack and hastily fastens it around his neck. Both the robe and necklace feature the stylized design that indicates Delioch, God of the Healing Hand.
Properly attired, Dranko climbs carefully down the wall and approaches the beggar. He sees that the old man’s ankle is broken, a compound fracture with bone poking out through the skin. Blood is mixing with the rain puddling beneath his body.
“What happened,” asks Dranko gruffly.
The beggar looks up, but the first thing he registers is not the robe or the necklace – it’s the tusks. Dranko Blackhope is a half-orc, not so ugly as many of that hybrid race, but ugly enough. Two thick teeth like small boar’s tusks protrude from his lower jaw. His other features are thick, flattened, almost cruel. Frightened and injured, the beggar shrinks away from Dranko.
“I’m not gonna stand here in the rain all day,” says Dranko. “You want me to heal that ankle, or would you rather slowly bleed to death?”
Rain runs down the vagrant’s straggly hair and into his eyes.
“I was begging for coins,” he croaks. “All I wanted was a copper or two for a meal, but he pushed me aside. I slipped in the rain and fell against the curb. My ankle…”
Dranko leans down and examines the break. He’ll need to set it, but it should heal properly.
“Put this in your mouth,” says Dranko, handing the beggar a leather strip. “This’ll hurt a bit. If you have to bite down, bite this, not your tongue.”
Dranko pulls on the man’s ankle and realigns the bone. The patient cries out again, the leather strip falling from his mouth. Quickly the half-orc puts one hand on his holy symbol and the other on the beggar’s leg.
“Lord, I pray for healing, that this man be made sound and whole.”
A soft golden glow surrounds the broken ankle; bone reknits, tendons reattach, and the puncture closes. In a few seconds only a small scar remains. The beggar looks up in wonder.
Dranko fishes out five coppers from his just-acquired swag and drops them on the man’s lap.
“Buy yourself some food, and say a prayer to Delioch,” he instructs. The beggar nods dumbly as Dranko walks away. Only after he has rounded a corner does Dranko scramble back up to the rooftops; it wouldn’t do for a cleric of Delioch to be seen scaling the walls.
Dranko enters his 2nd-story living space – two squalid little rooms – via a ceiling trap door he made for himself. Ironically that trap door is one of the few parts of his roof that doesn’t leak when it rains. Dranko has a collection of pots and buckets catching the drips that spill through on days like this. He peels off his soaked clerical robes and sits down in a rickety chair, hoping to enjoy a few minutes of relaxa…
Bam, bam, bam! “Drank-oooooooo!”
His landlady, a large, loud and lazy woman named Berthel, pounds on his door. The two of them share a satisfyingly caustic relationship. Dranko lets her in.
“You’re soaked! What have you been up to? Out scaring urchins with that winning smile?”
“Nice to see you too, Berthel. Maybe I was finding a better place to live than this drafty strainer.”
“You wish,” laughs Berthel. “Speaking of which, where’s the rent?”
“Maybe I should hold on to it until you fix the leaks in my roof.”
“You got somewhere better to go?”
Dranko pauses. He imagines the sanctuary of the Church of Delioch, the Healing Hand, where those who need succor are given harbor and comfort.
“No,” he says. “I guess I don’t. Here’s enough for two weeks. Now get out of here; your perfume is drowning out the preferable aroma of my chamber pot.”
Berthel counts her money, chuckles, and turns to leave. Then she turns back.
“Oh, almost forgot. Some kid was here this morning. Told me to give you this.”
She takes a folded piece of paper from a pocket and tosses it to her tenant.
“Didn’t know you could read,” she laughs as she leaves.
Dranko cracks the seal on the letter and reads it as he returns to his chair. Hours later he is still there, brooding, wondering what it means.
* *
The Smoke House, Tal Hae
The Smoke House is a bright, cheerful establishment in the heart of Tal Hae’s “halfing quarter,” catering primarily to the little folk but offering a warm welcome to anyone interested in good food, good drink and good company. It is owned and operated by a well-respected and well-liked halfling couple, Crick and Mora Proudfoot, assisted by their son Flicker.
Flicker Proudfoot is a remarkable person. Physically he is strong and wiry, and through diligent practice has become mildly dangerous with a short sword. (He still maintains a childhood dream of someday joining the Tal Hae city guard.) Flicker is also quick and agile, with as deft and skillful fingers as any rogue employed by the Tal Hae Undermen. He is mischievous in a friendly sort of way, and wouldn’t hurt anyone unless they were asking for it.
He’s not much in the common sense department, but he scrapes by.
Flicker’s primary duty in the Smoke House is what Crick jokingly calls “patron quality maintenance.” When a customer becomes rude or obnoxious, Flicker will make sure they don’t leave the establishment before being discreetly divested of some small possession. The theory – and it’s worked well in practice – is that patrons who later on discover they’ve been robbed are less likely to come back to a “den of little halfling thieves.” As a result, the Smoke House has a fine reputation among good-natured folk, and receives poor word-of-mouth only among the unsavory and boorish.
Not that pocket-picking is Flicker’s only responsibility. He also (along with other employees) greets visitors at the door, waits tables, pours drinks, cleans mugs, and contributes to the atmosphere of relaxed enjoyment. He is engaged in just this sort of duty on the night of March the 30th, welcoming guests as they come in the door, pointing them to where open tables wait, advising them that the onion stew is particularly good tonight, and sizing them up as possible troublemakers. A knot of regulars from the early lamp-lighting shift comes in out of a drizzle; they nod to Flicker and hasten to start on the night’s ale. The door swings almost shut, but a small foot wedges itself in the jamb, and a thin waif struggles to push the door open again. Flicker pulls the handle and lets in the child, who looks up at him. He clutches a folded piece of paper.
“This is for Flicker Proudfoot,” says the child.
“That’s me!” says Flicker, taking the paper. “Who’s it from?”
“Flicker!” his father shouts from the back of the Inn, his strong voice carrying over the din. “Where’d you put the mugs that came in this morning? Mora wants to have ‘em washed and ready by tomorrow morning!”
“Oop… hold on kid,” says Flicker. He turns and shouts to his dad, “I stashed ‘em down with the wine bottles! It was the only place I could find room!”
Flicker turns back to find the door swinging shut, the child gone. He almost opens the paper to read it, but more customers come in just then, so he stuffs it in a pocket. Five minutes later he has forgotten all about it. Thus it is that Flicker is extremely surprised at what happens to him the following evening.
* *
The Island Barony of Forquelle, on the palace grounds
“Father, have you seen Darian? Master Cawvus says he’s late for his arithmetic lesson. I cannot find him anywhere.”
Young Alomayne Firemount, twelve years old, grins impishly as he asks the question. His older brother Darian is going to be in some hot water for missing an appointment with his tutor. Not that he doesn’t love his brother, mind. And if you were to tell the young lad that he wouldn’t see Darian again for years, if ever, he’d think you’d gone mad.
Three miles away, the sixteen-year-old Darien Firemount, heir to the throne of Forquelle, is pulling his small boat onto the sandy shore of a small island. There are dozens of little islands dotting the island barony of Forquelle; this one has the advantage of being boring and uninhabited and indistinguishable from several others. Unless father convinces his wizard to use divination magic, it could take more than a day for anyone to find him.
By then, if what he’s read is true, it will be too late.
He has already decided on a name to use in his exile: “Tor Bladebearer.” It’s generic, tough sounding, and nothing like his real name. He has the longsword to back it up, and plenty of strength with which to use it. For a boy in his middle-teens, ‘Tor’ is something of a freak of nature. He stands taller than six feet, with broad shoulders and thick muscles that would make many a seasoned warrior green with envy. His head, with its boyish face and sandy hair, looks stolen from a younger body and attached whimsically to his bulky frame.
And what is his destiny? Officially he is to be trained to succeed his father as Baron of Forquelle. As Baron he will rule the Islands, wasting his days with a daily torture of diplomacy, economics, ledgers, taxes, and various affairs of state. His sword will grow rusty, his back will bend over a desk covered in contracts and agreements, and his true destiny will go unfulfilled. The court sword-master has all but admitted that Darien could become the greatest swordsman the barony has ever seen. And what did his father say?
“A sword is a plaything. The true weapons of a ruler are wisdom, guile and knowledge. A sharp bookkeeper will be of more value to you than a sharp blade.”
Bah! Darien knows in his deepest heart that he was made for adventure. He should be out exploring the world, fighting evil, discovering hidden treasures – anything but sitting on the throne to which unkind fate would shackle him. Months have passed since Darien first started to plan his escape. He would run away, hide aboard a ship bound for one of the three duchies, Lanei maybe. He would tint his hair, or try growing a beard, or dye his skin a new color. In some hidden place he would start to forge a new life, a new identity. Darien Firemount would be left behind forever, and Tor Bladebearer would lead a life of limitless possibility and unbounded glory!
And anyway, Alomayne is much better suited to rule the barony. Bright kid.
Alas, for these many months past Darien’s plot to escape never got beyond the most rudimentary planning stages. His father kept him busy with duties, and that damned tutor hardly left his side! He had begun to suspect that his father knows his mind.
Two days ago, everything changed. Darien was stealing precious minutes in the sparring yard, hacking a straw dummy with his sword. A tousle-haired youth maybe eight or nine years old had wandered into the yard clutching a piece of paper. At first Darien figured that some visiting merchant’s son had been set loose on the castle grounds. As the boy walked over to him Tor had feared that babysitting duty was going to interrupt his sword practice. But instead the boy had approached him and handed him the paper.
“This is for you,” said the boy.
It had a wax seal imprinted with a design like a slender tower. The textured parchment was high quality, an expensive luxury for a child to be carrying around. He turned it over in his hands looking for a sign of whom it was from.
“Who told you to give me this?” he asked, still looking down at it. There was no answer. The child was gone. Darien broke the seal and read the short message.
“You will appear at the tower of the Archmagus Abernathy in the city of Tal Hae, at sundown on the first day of April, the year 1828.”
It never occurred to Darien that this was a summons or an invitation. Alone of all the recipients, he took the words literally. He had two days to pack and prepare.
Now, as the afternoon sun drops from its height on the last day of March, Tor Bladebearer hides his boat and wanders inland to a secluded spot. Idly he munches on a cheese pilfered from the castle larder. Any minute now he will be transported to the life of his dreams. He doesn’t know how he knows. He just knows.
* *
The Temple of Ell in Kynder Hold
“Morningstar” is not the name of an Ellish priestess.
In the halls of the Goddess of Night, many of Her servants have been granted names that reflect the nature of Her portfolio. Moondraft, Obsidia, Umbra… that sort of thing. Others have more ordinary names, like Previa, June, or Amber. But there has never been recorded a priestess named Sunbeam, or Radiance, or Dawn. All true names are born in the mind of the Ell, and there has never been doubt about Her focus and purpose. The Goddess might have pointed out to skeptics that it is the morning star that heralds the dawn while the night still lasts, but She is content for her daughters to find their own paths and make their own judgements. Alas for Morningstar that her peers have not judged her kindly.
Morningstar sends Clariel staggering back with a vicious blow. Clariel, senior among the Shields of Ell in the temple at Kynder Hold, regains her balance, walks forward and sets her shield.
“Again,” she says.
It wasn’t enough that the Goddess had given her such a name. The name, everyone says, is absolutely appropriate to her appearance. Morningstar is tall, gangly, rail-thin, with skin so pallid her parents feared through her childhood that she was albino. Her long straight hair is a snowy white.
That’s not what an Ellish priestess looks like.
Morningstar pants with exertion, sweat matting her pale hair to her face. In the cool night air her breath puffs out in clouds. She swings her weapon again and again, her trainer Clariel exhorting her not to falter. It’s only through a determination bordering on stubbornness that she has not. No one, not even her mother who is also a Priestess, expected Morningstar to receive the call to serve the Goddess. Even now she is regarded by some as a freak, not exactly an outcast but not much embraced among her own sisterhood, a misjudged girl in a misunderstood religion. She can count her friends on half the fingers of one hand. The rest judge her more harshly while at the same time treading more lightly around her, as if they fear what her purpose will be, placed in their midst by Ell. There is something subtly portentous about Morningstar that makes her sisters distinctly uncomfortable, and this they reflect back at her in defense.
“Enough!” cries Clariel. Morningstar is not strong, but she is quick and accurate and can spar for hours without tiring. This is not the first time she has outlasted her mentor. Morningstar lowers her weapon, a spiked ball attached to a wooden handle by a short length of chain. There is an old book of weaponry in the Chroniclers’ library that shows a picture of this weapon. In modern times it would be called a flail by most, but in that dusty tome it was labeled: ‘Morning-star.’ When Morningstar had seen that picture she knew that one day she would swing such a weapon in the service of Ell as a Shield, the martial order of the church.
Clariel’s shield is scarred with the marks of Morningstar’s weapon.
“You have fought enough for one night,” she says. “In two hours the sun will rise; you should bathe and attend prayers before bed.”
Clariel treats her better than most of her sisters. At least she sees her potential, and judges her on her fighting prowess rather than her awkward appearance. She’s not a friend, exactly, but Morningstar has learned to value any relationship that is entirely free of scorn.
“Thank you, sister,” she says to Clariel. The trainer nods, removes her shield, and walks from the sparring yard into the temple building. Morningstar tarries, looking up at the stars and squinting uncomfortably at the bright full moon.
“Excuse me, are you Morningstar?”
She turns, startled, to find a small child standing nearby. He grasps a folded letter with a wax seal.
“This is for you,” says the child, before Morningstar even has a chance to answer. The urchin presses the paper into her hands and runs off, leaving the Ellish neophyte confused and speechless. She opens the letter as she walks back to her frugal bedroom in the temple, reading easily in the nearly complete darkness.
She is quite calm about it, though she doesn’t doubt its veracity. If there’s one thing that Ellish priestesses learn early on, it’s equanimity.
The problem will be timing, Morningstar thinks as she wonders where to find a duffel bag. Even in the best case she will be late for this strange appointment by at least a day. Today is the last day of March, and it’s 300 miles by ship across the Middle Sea from Kynder Hold to Tal Hae. She can only do her best. If the wizard Abernathy thought this summons was time critical, he should have sent his messenger more than a day in advance.
After a quick rinse in the Church’s baths, Morningstar dons her black-on-black robes and joins Clariel and others for services and prayer in the south chapel. At their conclusion she catches Clariel’s attention and motions her teacher over to a private alcove.
“Yes, Morningstar?”
“I have received an unusual summons, of a… personal nature. I will need to leave Kynder Hold on the first available ship and travel to Tal Hae. I’m not sure when I’ll be back, but if it turns out to be anything more than a brief stay, I’ll send word.”
“Are you in trouble, sister?” asks Clariel.
“No. I don’t think so. Please, if you could, tell Quia to take me out of the standard rotations for the rest of the week. I must secure berth on a ship at once.”
“The sun is almost risen,” Clariel points out. “You know the rules of our church…”
“I will ask to travel below decks,” says Morningstar. “With luck I can avoid the sun entirely. But I mustn’t delay even an hour more.”
“Very well,” says Clariel. “If you are in any trouble, you know you can always come to me for help.”
“I know it,” says Morningstar, grateful.
“Then may the blessings of Ell be upon you in your travels.”
Despite the urgency of her itinerary, Morningstar takes the time to pen a note to her parents. She copies the words of Abernathy’s letter verbatim, then adds a short postscript: I’m going to Tal Hae in case this summons is true. Love to you both.
Ninety minutes later Morningstar is settling down to sleep on an old mattress, in the hold of the merchant ship “Wind’s Kiss.” She had to give most of her small monthly allowance to the captain, even allowing that she was willing to travel below decks. She is more nervous that she likes to admit, even to herself. Thin bars of sunlight slip through the seams of the deck and speckle the hold.
Sunlight! The enormity of what she’s doing threatens to overwhelm her, so she turns her head toward the darker shadows around her and prays fervently for Ell to protect and guide her. Soon an assuring calm settles over her. By the time she drifts to sleep, with the ship riding the waves en route to Tal Hae, a small smile has settled on her face.
**
Dingman’s Ferry
“This is Pyknite,” says Old Bowlegs. “I’ve carried this blade my whole life. Like me, it doesn’t care for orcs or other foul things. I want you to have it.”
Standing before the old halfling warrior, young Ernest Roundhill hardly knows what to say. That Old Bowlegs should be giving him a pep talk is honor enough, but his sword?
“Er, thank you, sir,” stammers Ernie. “I will do my best to use it bravely, in the service of Yondalla.”
“I know you will,” says Bowlegs. “You’re the best student I’ve got. I don’t mean your skill, though that’s good enough for a start. But you won’t misuse any of your gifts, Pyknite included. I know it.”
Ernie turns red. Old Bowlegs is the seasoned leader of the seven-halfling-strong militia of the tiny town. He has killed over a dozen orcs in his life, they say. And he’s usually stingy with his compliments; today he’s positively effusive.
It must be because I’m leaving home, Ernie thinks.
In truth, Bowlegs is sorry to see young Roundhill go. He has always thought that Ernie would be the one to follow after him, to keep his town safe from harm. But Ernest Roundhill has taken it into his head that his destiny lies elsewhere, that he can do more good in a large city than in the tiny village of Dingman’s Ferry. Probably true, Bowlegs concedes to himself. But Tal Hae will be like nothing Ernest has ever seen, and what the young would-be adventurer will need most when he gets there is confidence.
“Well, Ernest, you should go back and say your good-byes to Rowan and Hob. I’m sure they’ll have more advice for you before you head off into the wide wild world. Be sure to write back home once you’ve settled in.”
“Yes sir, I will!”
Ernie takes off at a run for his parents’ house.
Rowan and Hob Roundhill are off the charts, if there were charts for wholesomeness and generosity. Their son Ernie inherited every bit of that legacy, and then some. He loves to cook, and he loves to practice his sword fighting with Old Bowlegs, and he loves doing nice things for nice people, and he loves his parents more than anything in the world. The only thing Ernie particularly doesn’t like is bullies, of which there are unfortunately several in Dingman’s Ferry. Ernie’s not a naturally violent person by any means, but when he perceives an injustice in the world, particularly when the strong prey on the weak, his blood heats up in an awful hurry. Having been brought up in a proper household, the phrase “kicking the ass of evildoers” has never specifically entered his lexicon, but that’s exactly what he was born to do. Well, that and cook. The kid’s a natural.
It’s a predictably tearful farewell scene at the Roundhill front step, as Ernie embraces his mother one last time before leaving. She has asked him a half-dozen times if he’s packed extra warm clothing, and the blanket she knitted for him just this past week, and his extra water-skin in case his first one ruptures, and his letter of recommendation from Bowlegs. Hob just stands behind the two of them, beaming with pride that his son is going to make a name for himself in Tal Hae. A few hugs later and Ernie is heading down the road to meet his destiny.
What’s that, you ask? What about the letter? Oddly, he never gets one, despite being the fifth name on Abernathy’s scroll. No child appears at his door. He doesn’t even get teleported into the wizard’s tower on the evening of the first day of April. Did the ancient magic fail? It would seem not, because Ernest Wilburforce Roundhill still showed up in Tal Hae on the evening of that fateful day. Abernathy was able to locate him, bring him to his tower, tell him what needed telling, and send him off to join the others in their new headquarters. It’s a mystery how such a thing was possible, but Ernie has an unusual background. There’s something in his blood, and it’ll probably come in handy some day.
* *
Kay was eating dinner with her family, and specifically was passing her oldest brother the saltcellar, when she vanished from the kitchen table. She had never even mentioned the stupid prank letter to her family, so they were all quite surprised. It wasn’t until later the next day that word of her disappearance reached the ears of Mr. Miller. His explanation hardly calmed anyone down.
Isabel Horn was just leaving the office of the harbormaster of Tal Hae, having failed to learn anything of import regarding her husband or his ship. By chance the only person who saw her vanish was a small child, whose story of the magic invisible lady no one believed.
Dranko Blackhope, alone of all them, was waiting outside the tower when sunset came. He had already scouted it from a respectful distance and observed its absence of doors or windows, but figured that an egress would present itself. He had a brief chat with an older man named Levec Oldbarrow who was also observing the tower. Levec had a lame excuse that Dranko didn’t buy, but before the half-orc could pump him for anything juicy, he blinked away right in front of Levec’s eyes.
Darien Firemount, a.k.a. Tor Bladebearer, sat on a warm beach clutching his sword. He watched the sun dip below the clear horizon, closed his eyes, and when he opened them again he was exactly where he expected to be, hundreds of miles to the west.
Morningstar, Shield of Ell, was still in the hold of the ship. She was waiting until sunset to come above-decks, but she was plucked away before she had the chance. The sailors grumbled afterward that you never could trust those black witches of the Night Goddess. Probably turned into a bat and flew off.
Flicker Proudfoot was down in the cellar testing the ale before the night’s busy hours. “Testing the ale” was not actually a job his parents had set for him, mind. It was one of many examples of the young halfling’s remarkable initiative. His first thought upon finding himself in the high study of Abernathy’s tower was that his father had hired a wizard to trap the ale casks and had forgotten to mention it to him.
And there they were, five young men and women, and Isabel Horn somewhat older, standing agog in a well-appointed if slightly untidy living room.
* *
Hours later, after, after Abernathy had talked to them at length and then sent them on their way to the house he had prepared for them, and after some time spent wondering what had happened to the seventh person on his list, he felt a bit peckish. He sent his cook – a halfling named Browla – out for some food, though because of the late hour the options were limited.
Browla knew of a particularly good provisioner who tended to be open late, but that meant walking a few blocks through a less reputable part of town. On his way home, arms laden with groceries, four human ruffians out enjoying an evening of hooliganism accosted him in a narrow lane.
Ernest Roundhill had been in Tal Hae a couple of days by then, exploring and absorbing the wonders of the Great Wooden City. He was renting a room above a seamstress’s shop, and since he was having trouble sleeping, he decided to go out in search of a snack. A place called Churley’s was supposed to be open late selling bread and mostly-fresh produce, so off he went.
You can see where this is going. Was it Abernathy’s spell at work? Ernie heard a commotion coming from an alley, peered around the corner, and saw four gangly human youths tormenting a middle-aged halfling whose arms were full of food. Bullies! Hardly even thinking about it Ernie drew Pyknite and walked into the alley entrance.
“You leave him alone!” he shouted, his voice shrill. “Shame on you for picking on someone so much smaller than you! But if that’s what you want, come deal with me!”
Maybe Ernie’s shadow was thrown large on the adjacent wall. Maybe the ruffians saw Pyknite gleam in the light of the full moon. Maybe they saw the righteous anger smoldering in Ernie’s eyes. Whatever the case, they quickly decided that their fun was over, and they fled into the night. Ernie sheathed his sword and ran over to Browla.
As thanks for his rescue, Browla invited Ernest back to Abernathy’s tower for a meal and a drink. Though Ernie didn’t realize it, this was a very inappropriate thing for Browla to do. Letting strangers into the tower was strictly forbidden for a number of very good reasons, the health and welfare of every single citizen of the kingdom chief among them. Afterward Browla admitted to Abernathy that he had no idea what he was thinking. But an hour later Ernie and Browla were chatting away in the kitchen, preparing a meal together and talking shop about the culinary arts.
Abernathy came down later on in the evening, wondering what was holding up his supper. His eyes widened as he saw Ernie, first because here was an unauthorized visitor inside the tower walls, but soon after because recognition came to him in a flash.
“Ernest!” cried Abernathy.
Ernie stared back at him.
“Uh… yes, um, yes sir?”
Abernathy fixed the young halfling with an unnerving stare for almost a full minute, during which Ernie became increasingly discomfited and Browla looked quizzically between the two of them. But at last Abernathy broke the awkward silence by exclaiming:
“You’re a Wilburforce! Extraordinary!”
Which was true. Ernie’s full family name was Ernest Wilburforce Roundhill.
“Yes sir! That’s my middle name,” answered Ernie, trying and failing to look like this sort of exchange was natural.
“Didn’t you get my letter?” asked Abernathy, raising his bushy eyebrows.
“Er, no sir, I didn’t.”
“Do you know who I am?”
“Browla here said you were a wizard,” answered Ernie.
“Hmph. A wizard. Yes, I am, and I’ve been expecting you. Browla, I’m afraid I need to steal your guest for a while. Ernest, please follow me.”
And so it was the Ernie was given the same briefing as the others, and sent on to the Greenhouse to join the others. Abernathy’s Company was officially in business.
LightPhoenix
First Post
Very cool. Three names added... Grey Wolf, Step, and Aravis, right?
I have one question which this recent post brought back into memory and I don't seriously expect to be answered... the matter of Mrs. Horn's husband, Willam. I remember when I first started reading the SH being intrigued as to where that plot was going, and was wondering if the Company ever found out what happened to him. Did you actually have a plan as to his purpose, and if so would it be too preposterous to ask that you might at least provide some hints?
I have one question which this recent post brought back into memory and I don't seriously expect to be answered... the matter of Mrs. Horn's husband, Willam. I remember when I first started reading the SH being intrigued as to where that plot was going, and was wondering if the Company ever found out what happened to him. Did you actually have a plan as to his purpose, and if so would it be too preposterous to ask that you might at least provide some hints?
Plane Sailing
Astral Admin - Mwahahaha!
I'm amazed that so many of the original party are still alive and in the campaign. I wish I could manage that
I'm not Sagiro, obviously, but I recall that when the Story Hour was originally posted, Sialia (a.k.a. Mrs. H) said that this plot thread only came about because she realised she might be moving to California and so exiting the campaign early.LightPhoenix said:I have one question which this recent post brought back into memory and I don't seriously expect to be answered... the matter of Mrs. Horn's husband, Willam. I remember when I first started reading the SH being intrigued as to where that plot was going, and was wondering if the Company ever found out what happened to him. Did you actually have a plan as to his purpose, and if so would it be too preposterous to ask that you might at least provide some hints?
*rummages around in old posts*
Ah, here we are...
Of course, Sagiro ended up finding a way to keep Mrs. H in the story after her player left, so I don't think we were ever destined to see poor Willam... Certainly, the few leads the party investigated quickly led nowhere.Sialia said:
Sagiro, the Prologue is a lovely piece of writing. I like the slightly unsettling, distancing effect created by having the narrator directly address the reader a few times. Very nice. And if I didn't know better, I'd swear you had Ernie's little side adventure planned right from the start...
Sagiro
Rodent of Uncertain Parentage
StevenAC said:
Every so often (more from the earlier days) a small plot thread gets left out of the story, I'm afraid. If memory serves, some time after Sialia departed for the far coast, Thomas (the one with the goat familiar) visited the party to find Mrs. Horn. He had some small clue about Willam (I forget what, exactly), and promised to look into it himself.
No, originally Willam was part of the story, and I had an idea of what happened to him, and intended that to be an adventure some day if possible. But I thought the "Abenathy's apprentice" route would be more interesting, and I confess that a small part of me wanted to leave that door open in case Sialia ever came back east. I guess as it is now, what with the Archmages drained and their task essentially done, Mrs. Horn is free to go looking for him again on her own. Of course, like most people on Abernia from the original time-line, she doesn't exist right now.
-Sagiro
RangerWickett
Legend
LightPhoenix said:
I'm thinking: Turlis the Evil Baker (tm), Sagiro Emberleaf, and Snokas.
Sagiro, I'm actually a bit saddened that this is posted now, when everyone in all those backstories pretty much doesn't exist. However, a nice slow opening of this sort sets the stage well for the epic adventure to follow. As a small bit of critique, I think it might be a bit too long to act as a proper prologue. It's nice for hindsight, but if you want to actually put this up as the first part of the storyhour on your site, I'd suggest trimming a bit. The first Abernathy section is great, but a few of the sections, like Dranko's and Ernest's, are stories of their own, so they break the narrative tension of the mystery of why Abernathy's doing what he's doing.
So, I love having a chance to read it, but I'm not sure if you should use it as a prologue as is.
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