Tales of Faerun

[Flipout6]

Weyland, upon hearing the party getting ready for battle, grabbed the sort that had just jolted him and flung open the flap of his tenting, standing there in a short-sleeved shirt and pants and sock feet with his blade in hand, the electricity on the blade illuminating him and a small area around him in a harsh blue. Once the threat dissipated, he crawled back into bed and fell asleep almost instantly.

 

Sybille, after laughing at Arva's telling her he couldn't bed his own wife, leaned to whisper into his ear. "Lemme give ya a tip. It's all about the-" She was cut off by the sudden appearance of the fiend and she stood ready- maul in hand- to combat it, but she didn't need to. She punched Arva lightly in the shoulder and vowed to talk him in greater detail in a more private setting so he might finally manage to get it- or rather, Ianthe- done, but yawned and went to bed. The Ordains quickly followed her example, while Amendale stayed right where he was and kept an eye on Dagny overnight. She dind't seem to be suffering from any complications from her wounds, which was good.

 

Weyland and Sybille weren't up until they were woken up, and grumbled as they got dressed and packed everything up. Annette had already gone into town to buy alchemical and spell components for herself and Amendale while the latter checked in on Dagny and Marie had insisted on going along with her. Marie didn't talk much, but kept a hawk's eye on their surroundings as she went. A threatening glare and moving to draw her bow kept thieves and muggers away, but she didn't have to kill anyone, which was good.

 

Back at the camp, Amendale approached Dagny with a few questions in mind. "Dagny," he began. "how are you feeling? Didn't spot any problems overnight, but I want to hear it from you. Is the wound still sore? Do you feel sick, maybe with a stomachache or nausea? Shortness of breath?"

 

"Amendale, my gods, one thing at a time." Weyland lectured.

 

"I'm making sure the slashes didn't carry a disease or any kind of venom." He shot back sternly. "As I was saying, you otherwise feel like you're alright?"

 

In the market, after some quick shopping, Annette and Marie turned around to head back to the camp before they caught sight of Rhaine a little deeper into the marketplace. Marie would have shrugged it off, but something about the way the guard looked on the edge of his wits drew Marie to approach, beckoning Annette to follow. Of course Hexol was at the center of the problem, and without saying a word Marie went to turn away before another individual approached them, badly shaken and bloody and requesting immediate assistance. Something about a group of people that had been mortally wounded, neither Ordain sister caught all of it. Annette was quick to assert her desire to help, however.

 

"Lead us to them!" She ordered, again leaving no room for protest. "We'll help as best we can."

 

Marie hooked her bow off of her back. "If anyone's still around, I'll kill them. If this is a trap, you as well. But...you don't seem the type. Lead on."

[AurianaValoria1]

Argyros kept watching the centaurs intently with his silvery gaze, replying to Xallistine without turning his head, "They are a semi-nomadic people, from what I've heard. Barbaric in the eyes of most of the settled folk. Yet they do, as you say, Aurora, have their own majesty."

 

"That's an awfully small group," Zorica added. "Wonder why they're heading this way, if they're not usually city folk..."

 

Dagny looked up at the weretigress, who towered over the dwarf woman, "Conall's in Iljak, lass. Went there with Rhaine to get supplies. They should be back, soon."

 

Amendale's sudden barrage of questions then took her a little off-guard. After blinking a few moments, she added, "I'm fine, elf. Just a bit tired. No need to worry yer silk breeches off. Damn wererat caught me by surprise, is all...would'na done as much damage if I wasn't so drunk." She glanced down at her toes, her face reddening in embarrassment, "Should probably keep that in mind in the future. Didn't realize we were in that much danger all the time. Anyway," she sighed and shook her head, "Listen at me. I should be thanking ye for yer help. I'd likely be dead if it weren't for ye. So-"

 

She was cut off just as Aera's shriek at Arva's shirtlessness split through the air. The dwarf clamped her chubby fists over her ears and squeezed her eyes shut from the pain, whilst Zorica rubbed her own with irritation, remarking, "By the gods, you'd think you'd never seen a man's bare chest before!"

 

"Probably hasn't," Dagny muttered as she worked her jaw, trying to get her hearing back in one ear.

 

Just then, Tannin returned to camp with a new change of clothes and a bloody wound. Zorica raised her eyebrows as she watched him, and the paladin leaned close to Dagny, murmuring, "Something tells me from his casual demeanor that this sort of thing happens a little too often with him..."

 

The dwarf shrugged, "I learned back when I joined this gaggle not to mind him too much. He's odd, and odd things sometimes happen with him around. Just a fact, lassie. Best not to let it worry you."

 

The half-drow sighed heavily and put her hand to her head, "Right. One of those people. Might've known this bunch would have one."

 

At that moment, the centaurs had reached hailing distance. There were two males flanking two females, and all four were well over six feet in height. They had the torsos, arms, and heads of humanoids, but their bodies and legs were that of large horses. Their ears were slightly pointed, like those of elves, and the males were both well-muscled. The females, however, were slightly more slender and a touch shorter.

 

One of the females stopped her comrades upon seeing the encampment. She was fair-skinned, her hair and tail both flaxen and braided. Her coat was a soft cream color, and her flanks bore intricate designs in woad paint. These designs were repeated on her arms and her face, enhancing the brilliant sky blue of her eyes. She wore only an embroidered leather vest, which had been meticulously decorated with strands of beads and feathers.

 

She conversed with her companions for a few moments, gesturing at the camp, before hesitantly making her way forward. The males followed close behind, and it was apparent they were serving as bodyguards. Both sported steel breastplates and claymores, finely crafted torcs glittering on their necks and biceps. They said nothing, their stern bearded countenances only watching with disturbing intensity.

 

The female approached Tannin and Nawen, looking down at them with curiosity in her eyes, and she began to speak in a halting voice, her knowledge of Common obviously little: "Hello? And...greetings."

 

She pointed at herself and her companions, "We...come to city to trade..." she grinned widely, and gestured at the baskets that had been strapped over her back. But that smile suddenly faded and seemed to give way to self-consciousness, "I...sorry. This language...is difficult."

 

=======================

 

Meanwhile, back in Iljak, Rhaine was horrified to hear the news the young man brought. His plea was heart-wrenching, and an anger also bubbled forth within her. She secured her pack and nodded to him, "Lead me to my brothers. Quickly now!"

 

Conall, who had just come up behind Rhaine, drew his weapon like Marie, Ariel humming in his hand, "I will go with you as well, my lady. There may be more to this than meets the eye."

Edited March 29, 2014 by AurianaValoria1

[Quintatas]

Xundus was awaken by the appearance of a fiend, but went back to sleep as it seemed the others had it under control.

 

When the drow rose in the morning, he paused and considered his rest last night. It seemed... different, somehow, than other times when he entered Reverie. Suddenly, a thought dawned on him - it hadn't been Reverie, it had been true sleep. What could it mean? he thought. The rogue decided to think it over later, and stood, stretching before donning his armor and weapons.

 

The appearance of a group of centaurs startled him; he had never seen such creatures, though he had heard of them. Suddenly, he wished he had his mask, not knowing how they would react to a drow, or if they knew what they were. He didn't worry too much, though, as surely they would recognize that the others were goodly.

[Brutii]

Daud finally managed to move the horse, and against his better judgement, decided to try and mount it. Thankfully, it didn't feel the need to toss him off, and he managed to get it to move to get a view of the Centaurs. They were interesting, to say the very least, but he merely watched them, doubting he would have anything useful to contribute at all, all things considered. Daud watched them, fixated on their movements. There was a fine line between creature and being, and then appeared to be blurring it. They appeared not to be beasts, at least...

[josh900]

"Thank you dear." Tannin groaned as Nawen started to patch him up. The arrival of the centaurs caught his attention and he got up to his feet as the female approached and spoke to them. He smiled at her as she struggled with the common language and spoke to her in the elven tongue. "Then perhaps you'd be more comfortable speaking in this language." He said to her, knowing that Centaur's had close dealings with the Elves and as such more often than not were fluent in Elvish.

"I'm afraid you may have made a mistake however, we're not actually from the city you see. We're on our way south and stopped here for rest."

-----------------------

 

Lucas Thanked Rhaine and the others before running off, leading them back where the members of his group were.

 

The sight in the alleyway was a gruesome one, seven bodies sprawled across the blood soaked cobble street. Innards leaking out of bodies torn to shreds, each one with several well placed cuts aimed at their arteries, the work of a professional.

Lucas ran over to each body one by one, checking for any signs of life until he found one that was still breathing, but barely.

"Sir Marko!" Lucas cried out when he heard the man propped up against the side of a wall let out a raspy breath. The cause of his labored breathing easy to see, a crossbow bolt was embedded into the middle aged man's chest, stuck square into his right lung.

 

"I tried to heal him the best I could but.. but I didn't know what to do about.. about the bolt." Lucas stuttered.

 

A look of relief washed over Marko's face when he saw Lucas, but widened with fear at the sight of Rhaine. "Heeerr.." He rasped as he made a grab for his sword.

 

"NO!" Lucas yelled, putting his foot onto Marko's blade. "She'll help you. I know she's the real thing, I know it! She'll help you, you'll see."

 

"He was with-"

 

"SHUT UP!" Lucas yelled again, tears forming in his eyes. He looked back to Rhaine and begged her to help. "Please.. They think you're a liar, that you're not the true chosen... Prove them wrong, please."

At the moment Lucas was more terrified than he had ever been, not simply because the lives of his companions were in danger, but because of what was about to happen. Either Rhaine Alcinea was about to prove herself as Kelemvor's true Chosen to these people, or Lucas would find that the words of those above him in station were right, that she was a fraud, or worse, sent to destroy the church of Kelemvor.

Lucas could only pray that he was right about her.

[Deleted6317247User]

When the centaurs approached them Nawen stood up and smiled at them. "Greetings," she said to them but then Tannin began speaking in elvish so she decided to back away from the conversation because she could not understand a word he was saying. The drow took her pack and walked over to Amendale.

 

"I don't mean to bother you," she said to the moon elf, "but I wanted to ask you if you could teach me some things about healing."

 

"Oh good," Shalena said as she overheard Nawen talking about healing, "we could use another healer."

[Flipout6]

Amendale glanced at the centaurs with a raised eyebrow as they approached, but didn't feel the need to talk with them just yet. He winced at Aera's ear-blistering shriek and frantically gestured for her to tone it down. When she did, his ears were ringing.

"Ow."

 

"Damn! That's the fastest headache I've ever gotten!" Weyland declared to nobody in particular.

 

Amendale stayed where he was, rubbing his elven ears to ease the pain. When Nawen approached him, he almost didn't hear her request for training. Raising an eyebrow (again) he nodded. "Sure, I can teach you. I'm already tutoring Annette. We can start whenever you like, but it's probably better to get everything paced up first."

 

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When they stumbled into the scene of the massacre alongside Rhaine and Connall, the Ordains were shocked, to say the least. Annette's eyes widened and she went to work checking pulses, but there was nothing she could do for any of them. All of them were dead, or at least so she thought until Lucas found a critically-injured Marko. She inspected his wounds, poured disinfectant on them and tried to slip a health potion past his lips, but she shook her head and looked up at Rhaine.

 

"Even my best potions can't heal wounds this bad. He needs magic or he'll be dead in minutes...maybe less."

 

Marie, meanwhile, brushed past her sister and checked the alleyway, behind boxes and around corners, bow drawn, ready to fire if there were any attackers still around.

[AurianaValoria1]

The centauress's face lit up when she heard the man speaking in Elvish. She clapped her hands together, "You speak the tongue of the elves! How wonderful! Whether or not you are of the city itself matters little. You see, we come to trade once every season in their market, but we also deal with any travelers we meet along the way." She flipped open the covers of the baskets to reveal handmade jewelry, bags, and other odd baubles, as well as roots and herbs native to the Chondalwood, adding, "Can we interest you in anything?"

 

The other female also approached with her own bags full of more of the same. This centauress was auburn-headed, with dark brown eyes and an equally dark brown coat. She glanced sideways at her companion, "Do you think we should warn them about..."

 

One of the males nodded and crossed his burly arms atop his breastplate, "If they are traveling through or around the Wood, they should know. Be wary strangers. There is an abomination in our lands, with ties to nature and the arcane. She is a blight upon our kind. If you come across her, take care not to anger her. But...you seem like capable folk. If you can destroy her, the centaurs would be forever grateful."

============================================

 

As they came upon the slaughter, Rhaine's already formidable rage intensified...and when she heard Lucas's words and witnessed Marko's actions, that rage was almost to the bursting point. She visibly shook, even as she strode forward, knelt, and yanked the bolt out of Marko with no small amount of force. She planted her knees firmly atop his legs and clamped one hand to his chest, staring into his eyes as she channeled her Heal spell into him and sealed his wounds in a matter of seconds. Then, taking the back of his neck in her gauntleted hand, she forced his nose right against hers.

 

"You listen to me and listen to me well," she growled as - unknown to herself - her eyes lost all of their color and glowed solid white. Her speech became a powerful mixture of her own and that of a deep-voiced male, and she began to feel like she did back when they first fought Valthanarax...when Ravenna appeared and Maydiira died...

 

Like someone else was controlling her from afar...

 

"Ask yourself this, Sir Marko: do you put your faith in petty men or gods? How very feeble-minded you have been to follow those with an agenda to tear down the very woman fighting to keep this world safe...an agenda borne of an inflated sense of self-righteousness. Doubt her no longer, for to do so is to disobey your god. Take this message back to your puppet-master, and advise them to think twice about their ill-conceived endeavors. Their fate in the afterlife depends on it. Kelemvor is not pleased."

 

With that, she stepped back from Marko and summoned an Inferno, washing the mutilated bodies in an intense conflagration that instantly disintegrated everything except their armor, and then recited the customary Passing. All the while, Conall stared at her with an open mouth, not quite knowing what just happened, but certain that Rhaine had not been alone in that little speech...

 

Then, the light faded from Rhaine's eyes, and she looked down upon Marko with an expression of sadness and disappointment.

 

"If you are wise, you will go back to your temple on your knees. Never come after me again."

 

After a few moments of silence, Rhaine began to walk away. Conall followed, sheathing Ariel at his side, but not before the sword managed to get a few words in.

 

"Ohhh, that voice gives me the shivers it does!"

Edited March 31, 2014 by AurianaValoria1

[josh900]

Tannin smiled at the Centauress and continued to speak in elvish. "Well in that case there might be some here that would be interested in your wares."

 

The mention of the abomination caught his attention, Centaur's had a tendency to overreact to anything they thought wasn't natural which included a long list of things that the average person wouldn't think twice about. But still he had to ask.

"So what sort of creature is this? What exactly has she done to earn such scorn from your people?"

---------------------------------

---------------------------------

 

As Rhaine walked away Marko unsteadily rose to his feet, his face twisted in a look of utter hatred. "You see that Lucas? YOU SEE THAT?!" He yelled as he made a grab for his weapon. "THE MAD GOD SPEAKS THROUGH-" His yells were quickly interrupted by a right hook to the face from Lucas, knocking him back to the ground.

Looking up, Marko saw Lucas taking his sword away from him. "You give that back boy." Marko growled.

 

"No. I don't care what you were told, and I don't care about your dreams. She, is Kelemvor's true chosen." Lucas declared without an ounce of doubt in his voice.

 

"You shared our dream lad, Kelemvor himself told us-"

 

"HE DIDN'T TELL US ANYTHING!" Lucas yelled, throwing Marko's sword down the alley. "That wasn't him..... And you'd know if you actually stopped listening to... to old fools who only care about themselves and actually read and thought for yourself!" He spat angrily before walking away, leaving Marko on the burnt cobblestone alley.

-----------------

 

"m-m-Miss Alcinea?" Lucas stuttered when he caught up with Rhaine and the others. "I'm.... So sorry about all of that. I just..wanted to let you know that... I think...I know you're the true Chosen. I tried to talk some sense into them but.. I'm only a squire so, they wouldn't listen." He said looking down at his feet, unable to look her in the face.

"I struck a superior member of the clergy and helped you escape, if I go back I'll be punished...severely." As he spoke he started to sweat quite a bit and shift around nervously. "So umm... If I may.... I would.... Like to offer you my services. To aid you in any way that you would have me." He said, so nervous that he felt like he could faint at any given moment.

What he just did could be considered treason to a growing number of higher ups in the Church of Kelemvor, but he felt that this was something he had to do. He wasn't going to sit back while some unknown force was trying to tear apart Kelemvor's followers.

Edited April 1, 2014 by josh900

[AurianaValoria1]

The other centaur bodyguard snorted in response to Tannin's inquiry, "She is of our blood, but not. The result of a forced partnership between one of our own and a twisted, evil creature. She is a wizard's experiment turned loose on our lands, and her very presence is a curse. You can hear her laughter but not see her...feel her rage but never know the source." He glanced to Nawen and added, "Your kind enrage her the most."

 

The first centauress's tail flicked as she elaborated, "Her name is Theia. Take care not to speak it loudly if you travel through the Wood, strangers. It will summon her wrath upon you."

 

Meanwhile, Zorica exchanged glances with Dagny and sighed, "You know what they're saying?"

 

The dwarf simply shrugged, "Nope."

 

=====================================

 

Rhaine paused mid-stride as Lucas began speaking, and she gradually turned around as she listened to his apologetic words. The hard expression on her face softened, and she approached him slowly, trying to appear as non-threatening as possible so as not to frighten him - he seemed an emotional wreck. The Doomguide then rested one gauntleted hand on his shoulder while lifting his chin with the other, so that his eyes met hers, and she spoke with a gentle tone...one that was in stark contrast to the empowered speech that had come from her mouth earlier.

 

"You are a brave young man, Lucas. To follow your heart and your soul...to do what is right, no matter what others around you are saying and doing...requires great strength. I am thankful that you saw reason where Marko did not. And I am certain that Kelemvor smiles on you this day."

 

With that, she took his head in her hands and pressed her lips to his forehead in a sisterly blessing, "May he continue to do so." She then waved her hands and washed him with the warm golden light of a Bless spell.

 

Finally stepping back, Rhaine sighed, "Of course you may join us. We fight an evil that your superiors are too foolish to know exists...and that most of Faerun is blissfully unaware of. We would welcome your aid, my brother."

 

She hesitated, "Though, something is being left unsaid, here. Who was it that slaughtered those others and left Marko for dead?"

 

Conall leaned close and murmured, "I've not seen man or animal leave corpses in such a state. The mutilation of a beast with the precision of an assassin. I know I am stating the obvious, my lady, but whoever it was is capable...and incredibly dangerous."

 

"Yes," Rhaine replied quietly, still looking expectantly at Lucas.