[Realms #401] A Familiar Face
"Well I told him all I could," Huzair said as they stood staring at the two dwellings set aside for their use. "Do you think I will get Sparky back?"
The mage addressed the question to Morier, but all the albino had to say was, "Pairs should stay on watch while we sleep."
"I wonder how that will look to our host?" Ayremac asked, off-handedly. "It won't seem that we've placed much trust in him."
"No offense intended to Lord Hofralix," Morier responded, "but trust only goes so far. Whatever success we've had in staying alive hasn't been accidental; we'd be foolish not to remain vigilant at all times. Should we not take the precaution of keeping watch over ourselves, Hofralix could just as easily call that a mark of weakness."
"I'm not saying it's the wrong thing to do, Morier," Ayremac said, holding up his hands. "Just that it might seem odd to our host." The albino scowled.
"Let's set up a watch schedule," he said, pointing out individuals as he spoke. "Me with Shamalin; Huzair with Ixin; and Karak with Ayremac. Objections?"
There were none.
"Karak, what do you think about first watch? I'd like to hear some more stories about your training as a warrior," Ayremac asked. "I was trained by men of the cloth; you seem to have been raised amongst a livelier bunch."
"Actually, fly boy," Huzair snapped back. "It is best if the spellcasters get a nice block of uninterrupted sleep. Ixin and I will take first watch."
"I don't need to sleep to regain my miracles, only pray at the appropriate time," Shamalin said. "I can take second watch if that's acceptable to Morier." He nodded.
"Leavin' you an' me on dawn patrol," Karak grunted at Ayremac, stamping off toward the dwelling on the left. "Do nae worry. I can share with ye tales o' me youth as easily at first light as I might now."
"I'll just take a moment to get the lay of the land before retiring," the holy warrior told them, flexing his wings and flying like a bowshot into the sky.
"That worked so well before," Huzair groused. "I wonder what sort of trouble he will return with this time?"
But there was none. Ayremac landed - a good deal more gracefully than last time - and reported that he could see nothing out of the ordinary. After sharing that he went to the hut into which Karak had disappeared and prepared for bed.
Huzair made shooing motions at Morier. "Go on," he said. "I will sleep with Ixin and Shamalin." Both Morier and Shamalin looked at him with a mixture of surprise and skepticism. Huzair grinned and gestured at Ixin. "It is all about communication."
"I don't..." Shamalin started to say and the wizard cut her off with a wave of his hand and a broad smile that flashed brightly in the darkness.
"Come on, sweet heart," he purred. "I promise to be nice. And I do not trust the dwarf. He has been longing for his 'chalaks' too much, if you catch my meaning."
Ixin hoped that Huzair couldn't see her smirk as she listened to his recount in Draconic of the events of the day. He was a skilled liar, but she had been present at the meeting with the Eye Tyrant and she knew that he was exaggerating the details of his involvement. She didn't need to understand the language to understand the body language of her other companions.
"I am impressed with your diplomacy, my friend. I believe you will soon be reunited with Sparky," she said as his tale was winding down.
"I hope so. I do not know what I will do if the guy is killed. The bond between mage and familiar is a strong one," the mage said, displaying a moment of vulnerability. "Did you ever call a familiar?" Ixin turned away, anxiety roiling in her belly.
"I... I don't know," she admitted. "It is one of the things about my return that seems... wrong. Inconsistent. I'm sure that I had a familiar at one time. I have a memory... Not of him specifically, but rather the memory of a sense of him. It makes my head hurt to think on it too much."
"Weird," Huzair said and stared off into the darkness.
"Lord Hofralix sounds like he will make a strong ally and I am glad we will have him as one," Ixin said, changing the subject. "I believe it would benefit us if we took some of his followers with us as we continue our quest to find and free Dridana's Heart."
"Really?" Huzair asked. "Do you think he will want to give us any aid? From the looks of those bodies they brought in it looks like he has his tentacles full around here." Ixin shrugged emitting a low sigh.
"I worry some about taking too much time cutting off hydra heads and never killing the hydra itself. I believe we should talk with Hofralix about the negative side of just fighting the local chaos without getting to the source. Perhaps he knows something we do not about why that would be a useful move."
"Of course he does," the wizard chuckled. "I do not believe for one second that he has told us all that he knows. Any more than we have told him all that we do." He lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper and added, "Notice that no one has mentioned having the keys, for instance."
"I don't believe that trying to hide the keys will work for long. It appears Hofralix is much too strong to be fooled even by what spells we might muster," the drakeling replied. "I think we need to simply not mention them for now and keep assessing how trustworthy he is. If we determine he is truly working on the side of good, we should just tell him about the keys."
"You know, Ixin," the wizard grinned. "You are so quiet all the time that it is sometimes too easy to forget that you are pretty smart."
Later...
Shamalin settled her back against the door frame and stared out into the darkness. The low nature of the huts combined with the fact that she was without her armor made her feel small. The night, however, was mild and beautiful. She stared into the distance where she knew the river ran silently and envied these elves the peace and safety of their land. There was harmony here. She took a moment to ponder why she had never sought much from the elven blood which ran in her veins. It had to do with acceptance, and there was little to be had in many places of those who took partners outside of their own blood. But it had more to do with acknowledging from where that heritage was truly derived - a subject never broached by the temple sisters. There was already enough shame in Shamalin's birth not to make matters worse pursuing the scandalous details.
She saw the pale specter of Morier take position not far away. Shamalin wondered what he thought about during the quiet hours of the watch. He had insisted upon a double guard, even in this place - stating that trust only went so far. She was tempted to brush against his mind with a spell, but decided against it. He had only recently opened up to her about his own complicated past, even suggesting that they were alike in some respects. Perhaps she didn't really want to know.
"You spoke well to Lord Hofralix," she whispered, breaking the rules of a silent watch. Morier looked up and studied her for a moment before beckoning her to join him in the shadows.
Even Later...
"Now ye know me feelings on arcane magic, lad, but I'll tell ye, that ball o' fire would've done more'n singed me beard if it hadn't been for that ol' wizard, Ramne's scroll o' anti-magic," Karak spat. "As it was it amounted to naught save a pretty light show. So we beached the boat quick as ye please an' stormed the enemy's position. An' what d'ye suppose we found?"
"A mage?" Ayremac asked and the dwarf harrumphed.
"Nae, lad. One mage would nae've been a match for dwarven steel, I tell ye! Nae what we found there was a creature from the pit. Body like the biggest snake ye ever seen an' the head of a humie woman. A naga, Ramne tol' me later. 'Course at the time all he kept screamin' about was nae lookin' the thing in the eyes lest it steal control o' yer will."
Karak went on with his story[1], but Ayremac was distracted from the narrative by movement in the pre-dawn gloom. He'd noticed signs of the community awaking around them for some time, but this was the first movement he'd seen. A group of the tall, half-naked barbarians were moving up the slope from the river. They carried big, recurved bows and bore quivers full of arrows across their broad backs. Amidst the fair-haried folk walked another, smaller man with dark hair and eyes, dressed in stout leathers.
Ayremac recognized him at once.
"Raf!" he called, springing to his feet and almost startling Karak onto his backside. At the cry, the group of archers turned and looked. The smaller man in the center, smiled broadly and slapped a hand comically on his forehead.
"Ayremac? Is that you?" he shouted and began trotting toward the two sentries. "Of course, it's you! Who else would wear that suit of green mail? But what did you do to yourself?" Raphael approached looking like he wanted to hug Ayremac but was unwilling to risk impaling himself on the holy warrior's spiked plate mail. He settled for grasping his one-time traveling companion's hand and pumping it up and down excitedly.
"You mean the wings?" Ayremac asked and Raphael smacked him playfully on the side of the head.
"No I mean the new haircut," he scoffed. "Of course, I mean the wings! You finally did it, didn't you? Unlocked the power of your bloodline?"
"Yes. And it's everything I'd hoped it would be and more," Ayremac said with a smile. "I feel like I've only now woken up to discover my true self!"
"Oh, aye," Karak grumbled. "He's right full of himself, this one is." The newcomer turned to look at the dwarf and Karak got a good look at him.
He was a slight man, shorter that Ayremac but taller than Shamalin, with dark hair and eyes to match. His skin was tanned from exposure to the elements, but his face was clean-shaven giving the man a youthful appearance despite the lines around his eyes and mouth. He carried an unstrung composite longbow in his hand and bore not one but two quivers full of arrows across his back. He smiled at Karak and finally let go of Ayremac's hand.
"Well, he always was kind of caught up in the whole "glory of the celestials" thing. At least to me," Raphael grinned, favoring Karak with a wink. "With the ladies it was all about making himself invisible, mind you."
A shadow seemed to pass across Ayremac's face, but Raphael didn't notice. "What are you doing here?" the holy warrior asked.
"Me? What about you?" Raphael shot back. "Last I saw of you was leagues from here, heading in the opposite direction."
"You first," Ayremac prodded, his smile gone, but his face impassive. Raphael stroked his smooth chin.
"Well, let's see, after I tracked those bandits back to their lair, I uncovered a chest full of healing potions marked with the symbol of Flor. So I took them and came looking for you, but you were gone. I tracked you as far as Barlyton where I found out that you'd made some new friends." At that he motioned to indicate Karak. "So, figuring that you were okay without me, I decided that the best use of my time was to head to Radcliffe like we'd talked about. Especially since I had that chest of potions to return to them."
"Radcliffe was... is... in ruins," Raphael went on. "There was some contingent of mercenaries operating under a yellow banner that had burned most of the city and had the temple there under siege. They had some kind of dragon-looking thing working with them and it was perched right on top of the temple dome."
"Did ye slay the beast?" Karak asked and Raphael snorted laughter.
"Yeah, right!" he chuckled. "I'm only one man! No, I cut my losses and made for the wilderness. And that's where I met these guys." He waved a hand to indicate the group of barbarians with whom he'd arrived. "They had word of a necromancer's tower in the woods near Radcliffe that they were planning to assault. That seemed less like suicide and more like a chance for me to do some good. We hit it only it wasn't a necromancer's tower - at least not solely. It was full of these... things... men crossed with spiders, winged horses covered with scales. Fleshsculpted, we call them.. Nasty things." He shook his head.
"Anyway, we hit the tower and then followed the ones that got away into the forest," he concluded. "We ended up here."
"So you're just passing through?" Ayremac asked, his gaze flinty. Raphael shook his head.
"No, Ayremac," the smaller man said. "Earlier you mentioned that you'd woken up to discover yourself and that's exactly how I feel. Like I've only now found my true purpose in life. Here. With Lord Hofralix."
Ayremac would have been happy for his friend if not for the fact that Raphael was clearly under the influence of an enchantment of some sort.
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[1] This will be a little contest. I'll post the next installment right away if someone can identify the published adventure that Karak's story recounts.
![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
