mishikal12
02-28-2008, 11:10 PM
Let me know if this is good. I'm gonna submit this to a writing contest, but I want some feedback. Constructive critisicm welcome.
The sun is beginning to set below the city behind the locked gates of Stormreach. All harbor inhabitants, including green adventurers looking for work, could not pass the impenetrable wall of iron and granite without the Harbormaster's Seal. I had spent most of the day watching the Coin Lord's hired lackeys turn away several annoyed clerics, wizards, and forcibly throw a few halfling thieves into the white sea foam. Looking up at the ruby sky, leaving an orange glow on my half plate and chainmail dress armor, I turn my back to the struggling guards wrestling yet another halfling, and head to the Leaky Dinghy Inn.
The Dinghy, located above the white green foam of the harbor, stood on 40 foot stilts and swayed in the wind like cattails in a swamp. The inn draws locals and newcomers alike with their pale amber ale and pepper roasted boar haunch. The fiery, inviting scent mixed with other, more unpleasant odors as I opened the solid oak doors with a grunt. The source of the foul odor was plain to see, some poor greenhorn adventurer had challenged Durk to a contest of the gut and lost. Both the food, ale, and the poor human fighter had collected in a heap of vomit and garbled speech near the bar to the left of the entrance. Brother Calaway, a member of the priesthood of the Silver Flame, turned his nose away from the stench and gagged. Even his chocolate skin couldn't hide the green tones of sea sickness. By the eerie violet blue light of the Everbright crystal lamps, I could see the yellow green vomit had landed on him, as well. Looking to the left, I see Durk, with his barrel. He may have won the drinking contest, but he didn't win his clothes back.
Next to Durk, a young cleric sat crying the same sad tale I heard for the last three weeks. Her friend, Guard Tember of the Deneithan army, had managed to lose his adventurous cousins in the underground sewers, also known as the Waterworks. They found an item of interest and, while in the process of bringing it back to the surface, fell into the traps of the kobold population living in the sewers. The four foot high lizard folk always lived in the underground caverns, until the Coin Lords them flushed out to make room for the sewers. These displaced souls either accepted the human interaction or became the coniving creatures that, with the revolt last fall before my arrival, caused Harbormaster Zin to bar the gates until the lizard men could be routed. All attempts, however, failed.
I remove my helm, fashioned from a Troglodyte skull and enchanted with priestly magicks, and shake the salty sweat and sea spray from my hair. It's color always attracted unwanted attention, fore it bore the mark of the dragonloved. Running my gloved hand through the forest of white that covered my cranium, my mirrored eyes glance over to the cleric, who entered another fit of wails as yet another adventurer refused her plea for help. It was a well known fact that all the adventurers she hired to help in the search for Tember's cousins never returned from the city depths. Her tears challenged the mighty Kharlois itself in voume and power.
She noticed my pale eyes gazing in her direction (I saw Durk moving closer and kept an eye on him and my coin purse) and called from across the room, "Hail, soldier."
"Hail and well met. Why challenge Kharlois, the mighty river of old?"
"A dear friend of mine, Guard Tember, Lost his cousins and needs help finding them-"
"I am not a knight of faith, fighting all the injustices in the world. I am a sellsword. Unless you have something of value, I cannot, and WILL NOT, help you," I turn away, deciding that a stiff drink would be enough to put me to sleep tonight. I turn back as a loud noise causes the cleric to jump out of her pale skin and the rest of the patrons to laugh profusely. Durk, having tripped over my sword (how did that get there?), fell out of his barrel, onto his rotund belly and released a large, smelly, gutteral belch that sounded like metal balls rolling down a flight of wooden stairs.
"I saw you eyeing the gate again. When you help Tember find his cousins and bring them back safely, Harbormaster Zin will, as sure as I'm sitting here, give you the seal to let you pass."
"The seal is no good without the writ," I continue to walk to the bar, figuring one stiff drink will put the cleric out for a good week or so.
"Tember has it. He'll give it to you when-"
"Over a hundred adventurers died to help your friend," I yell, whirling around and, with the litheness of a fox, slide my short sword ensorceled with acid touch from its sheathe and place it under her neck threateningly, "Why am I so different? Why do you believe I can succeed where others have failed?"
"Your Dragonmark," she said as if it were plainly obvious.
I pause, considering the situation I would eventually get myself into. Even though I am no longer green, my hands no longer virgin from dealing death, I still pick and choose which battles I fight. This fight, however long I suspend it, will happen, and seeing as the cleric and I would go into the abyss alone, we may not make it. Who knows, we may win. Or lose. But that's half the fun in this game of life, right?
"Alright, let's go. But I'm only going for the writ and seal."
Tember's cousins, named Arlos and Venn, were last seen by the Gnashtooth Clan stronghold in the western sections of the sewer. The Deneithan Guard tracked down, located and captured Chief Eechik of the Gnashteeth and, through extensive interrogations, found out nothing. Tember, upon my arrival at the jailhouse for the specifics on the sewers, asked for help in interrogating the red and orange striped kobold. I agreed to help speed things along.
I could smell the sewer on the beast before I entered the room. I once again unsheathe my weapon and run into the small seven by seven foot grey room, sword held high over my head. Seeing the ghostly apparition in front of him, the kobold paniced.
"Ayayai! Wait! You no hurt big chief. Eechik not want to fight anymore!"
"Tell me where Arlos and Venn are, and I'll spare you!" The guards, I noticed, cheered on my act. They didn't realize that if the slime didn't tell me where the al-Kerran brothers were, I would chop that maggot to pieces.
"Who that? Eechik not know what you talking about."
"Lie again," I seethed, grasping his neck in my hand and lifting him three feet off the dirt floor, "and I'll cut off your tail. After that, your hands, then-"
"Eeeee! All right, all right, Eechik get picture," I release my hold and he quickly hides in the corner, cringing and rubbing his tail and neck," Eechik want to keep tail. We have the one called Arlos, but never heard of other."
"Where is Arlos?" I take a threatening step forward and raise my voice and my sword.
"In prison," squealing like a suckling pig, he retreated farther into the corner, "You go in, get him out. Guards try to stop you, maybe, Eechik can't help with that. They not listen to Eechik much. Bloodletter's in charge down there," he shrugs gloomily, as if he knows his fate is decided, "As for the other one... maybe Arlos know. Eechik don't."
I thank him, turn on my booted heel and stroll out the door. Before it closes, the guards hear a sigh of relief from the kobold chieftan. Then, the twang of a bowstring and the loud crunching and soft thudding attest to the knowledge that the Chief of the Gnashtooth Tribe would bother the city no more. No one saw the silent assassin leave, because the guards never look at a dragonloved longer than they have to.
The cleric and I entered the sewers just as the last light in the sky faded into inky darkness, leaving the city bathed in a silvery red glow from the silver moon Solinari and the red moon Lunitari. Nuitari, the black moon, is only seen by necromancers, dark mages, amd dragonloved. Nuitari blinked and twinkled in the sky, indicating the road ahead held no forseeable path. Turning my back to the dark night, we descended into the dark sewers.
After a half hour of walking through knee-high filth from the city above, the cleric asks what my plan was to find Arlos.
"That's the easy part. We get captured by the Gnashteeth."
"What's the hard part?"
"Getting Arlos, finding out where Venn is, and dragging your squishy ass outta trouble."
"Is that all?"
"No, then we gotta escape by morning's first light."
"Why first light?"
"The Wayward Lobster's having an early morning Kegs and Eggs brunch."
"Drunkard....."
"And proud of it."
I then stop, hearing gutteral mutterings and an occasional grunting belch. The Gnashtooth guard tent ahead bustled with the red orange beasts, tail swishing and sliding in the filth from the Harbor's wealthiest families. I decide that this was as good a time as any to put the not so well thought out plan into action.
"Hey, come here and catch us, you smelly, dog sniffing, ogre loving trogs!"
They all jump in unison and make a dive for us. The cleric goes down first, screaming and ducking before they were even ten feet away from us. Laughing, I cut the first one down with my sword, slicing it's body from the collarbone, through the sternum and down to the hip. I jerk the sword free and, like a ballerina, pirouette through them, slicing off arms and severing heads like popping the flower off dandelion plants. I leave three of them to run for help.
The cleric stands shakingly, looks around and squeals, "YOU DID THAT ON PURPOSE!!!"
"Yeah, I did," I giggle, still raging from battlelust, "Now that they know we're here, they won't challenge two fully armed humans walking into their dungeons."
"You're an ogre, you know that,"
"YOU'RE the one who wanted ME to do this, so don't complain-"
"I should've listened to the city guard about you,"
"They say all dragonloved are insane? I am not like the others, I know that I don't know if I will survive the next fight. I live every day as if it were my last. AND I don't run headlong into fights where there is a shadow of a doubt that I won't make it out alive. Consider the source before you judge me too harshly, and IF you are to hate me, hate me HONESTLY! Let's go before our element of surprise runs out."
We walked into the main jail ward with trepidation. Not one kobold was to be seen. Did my plan work a little too well? Ahead we see a man matching Arlos' description, a young, thin man with auburn brown hair and hazel eyes. The cell block doors, controlled by a lever, were closed tight. The cleric talked to Arlos while I kept a lookout, scanning the rafters for any sign of the ungodly creatures. Arlos indicated that Venn was taken to the Tunnelworm prison.
"Tunnelworms?!" I cried out harshly. "You mean to say you were messing around in Tnnelworm territory when you were captured?"
"Yeah, why?"
Looking up, I see the thing I feared meeting here: Kobold Shamans. "They're worse that the Gnashteeth. Your brother's dead by now. Stop talking," I interrupt Arlos' comment, "The shamans are here, we gotta get moving."
We run to the end of the prison block when Bloodletter, the chief shaman and head of the prison, shuts the gate and cries out, "You no leave! Fight me first. Whoever win leaves, okay?"
He jumped down and began chanting a spell. I heard this one before, Delayed Cast Fireball. From experience, I knew this was a high level spell. What the hell was a low level shaman doing casting this spell?
"Cleric, take Arlos and run as fast as you can. This is gonna be hella nasty!"
Without question, we run as fast as our legs could take us. The booming behind us signaled the race to the entrance had begun. We ran through slick hallways, past plump, red eyed rats feasting on other burnt corpses. We run and run and run, but the fireball gained ever so slowly. I call for them to stop.
"Why the hell are we stopping? That thing is behind us!"
"Listen, cleric, there's been a question on your mind all night. Ask it."
"Are you insane? I'm not gonna ask."
"Ask it or I swear I'll cut you down where you stand." The fireball, several hallways down, gained speed and intensified in heat.
"Fine, why the hell can you dragonloved make it out of the worst situations alive?" The screaming ball of burning oblivion, now only three hallways away, began to melt our shoe soles to the stone floor and burned away all refuse around us.
"Like you said earlier, cleric. It's my dragonmark."
I activate the ancient magic running through my blood, causing the hairs on the back of my neck to stand. A pale, blue light surrounds me, enveloping me with it's sweet tendrils.
"Grab hold of me, both of you," I yell over the cacaphony of melting, bursting stone and sizzling dung.
They grab my hands and I pull them close to me as the fireball hit. There was no pain, only darkness, fear, and a whooping cheer.
The cleric and terrified fugitive back off from me, blinking in astonishment. We had teleported outside of the Waterworks, where Guard Tember and Harbormaster Zin waited for us all night. The chirping of birds and bartering of merchants indicated it was now midmorning.
"How did we get out?" the cleric asked later that day. We had enjoyed a large meal at Zin's home. He gave us the writ, seal, and several new weapon and armor choices for our own personal arsenals.
"Teleport. A spell that transports you to safety that other than wizards and sorcerors, only the Dragonmark of Passage can grant. It is only found in the royal blood lines of House Orien."
"YOU are Erai, Princess of Orien?"
"As you are Featherwing, Princess of Phiarlan. You used Shadow Walk without realizing it. That's why the Shaman didn't kill you first."
"LIZ! NYS! Are you an that game again? Those things are so stupid!" called someone from the shadows of reality.
"****, mom aggro. Later, let's go find Venn, okay?"
"Alright Featherwing."
I log off the computer game and join Featherwing, also known as Nyssa, my twin, for dinner.
My mom hates the concept of video games. She thinks that they can't teach anyone anything. I neither agree nor disagree with that statement. Only someone who has the understanding to realize that it is only a game can learn something from it. If used correctly, video games, in my own opinion, can teach us what our parents forgot to teach. The concept of courage, although hard for people to teach, can be learned as long as you have the knowledge of your limitations (as in the level of your avatar) and the boldness to try anything. Not everyone can can learn courage from a video game, but then again, not everyone is virtuous.
The sun is beginning to set below the city behind the locked gates of Stormreach. All harbor inhabitants, including green adventurers looking for work, could not pass the impenetrable wall of iron and granite without the Harbormaster's Seal. I had spent most of the day watching the Coin Lord's hired lackeys turn away several annoyed clerics, wizards, and forcibly throw a few halfling thieves into the white sea foam. Looking up at the ruby sky, leaving an orange glow on my half plate and chainmail dress armor, I turn my back to the struggling guards wrestling yet another halfling, and head to the Leaky Dinghy Inn.
The Dinghy, located above the white green foam of the harbor, stood on 40 foot stilts and swayed in the wind like cattails in a swamp. The inn draws locals and newcomers alike with their pale amber ale and pepper roasted boar haunch. The fiery, inviting scent mixed with other, more unpleasant odors as I opened the solid oak doors with a grunt. The source of the foul odor was plain to see, some poor greenhorn adventurer had challenged Durk to a contest of the gut and lost. Both the food, ale, and the poor human fighter had collected in a heap of vomit and garbled speech near the bar to the left of the entrance. Brother Calaway, a member of the priesthood of the Silver Flame, turned his nose away from the stench and gagged. Even his chocolate skin couldn't hide the green tones of sea sickness. By the eerie violet blue light of the Everbright crystal lamps, I could see the yellow green vomit had landed on him, as well. Looking to the left, I see Durk, with his barrel. He may have won the drinking contest, but he didn't win his clothes back.
Next to Durk, a young cleric sat crying the same sad tale I heard for the last three weeks. Her friend, Guard Tember of the Deneithan army, had managed to lose his adventurous cousins in the underground sewers, also known as the Waterworks. They found an item of interest and, while in the process of bringing it back to the surface, fell into the traps of the kobold population living in the sewers. The four foot high lizard folk always lived in the underground caverns, until the Coin Lords them flushed out to make room for the sewers. These displaced souls either accepted the human interaction or became the coniving creatures that, with the revolt last fall before my arrival, caused Harbormaster Zin to bar the gates until the lizard men could be routed. All attempts, however, failed.
I remove my helm, fashioned from a Troglodyte skull and enchanted with priestly magicks, and shake the salty sweat and sea spray from my hair. It's color always attracted unwanted attention, fore it bore the mark of the dragonloved. Running my gloved hand through the forest of white that covered my cranium, my mirrored eyes glance over to the cleric, who entered another fit of wails as yet another adventurer refused her plea for help. It was a well known fact that all the adventurers she hired to help in the search for Tember's cousins never returned from the city depths. Her tears challenged the mighty Kharlois itself in voume and power.
She noticed my pale eyes gazing in her direction (I saw Durk moving closer and kept an eye on him and my coin purse) and called from across the room, "Hail, soldier."
"Hail and well met. Why challenge Kharlois, the mighty river of old?"
"A dear friend of mine, Guard Tember, Lost his cousins and needs help finding them-"
"I am not a knight of faith, fighting all the injustices in the world. I am a sellsword. Unless you have something of value, I cannot, and WILL NOT, help you," I turn away, deciding that a stiff drink would be enough to put me to sleep tonight. I turn back as a loud noise causes the cleric to jump out of her pale skin and the rest of the patrons to laugh profusely. Durk, having tripped over my sword (how did that get there?), fell out of his barrel, onto his rotund belly and released a large, smelly, gutteral belch that sounded like metal balls rolling down a flight of wooden stairs.
"I saw you eyeing the gate again. When you help Tember find his cousins and bring them back safely, Harbormaster Zin will, as sure as I'm sitting here, give you the seal to let you pass."
"The seal is no good without the writ," I continue to walk to the bar, figuring one stiff drink will put the cleric out for a good week or so.
"Tember has it. He'll give it to you when-"
"Over a hundred adventurers died to help your friend," I yell, whirling around and, with the litheness of a fox, slide my short sword ensorceled with acid touch from its sheathe and place it under her neck threateningly, "Why am I so different? Why do you believe I can succeed where others have failed?"
"Your Dragonmark," she said as if it were plainly obvious.
I pause, considering the situation I would eventually get myself into. Even though I am no longer green, my hands no longer virgin from dealing death, I still pick and choose which battles I fight. This fight, however long I suspend it, will happen, and seeing as the cleric and I would go into the abyss alone, we may not make it. Who knows, we may win. Or lose. But that's half the fun in this game of life, right?
"Alright, let's go. But I'm only going for the writ and seal."
Tember's cousins, named Arlos and Venn, were last seen by the Gnashtooth Clan stronghold in the western sections of the sewer. The Deneithan Guard tracked down, located and captured Chief Eechik of the Gnashteeth and, through extensive interrogations, found out nothing. Tember, upon my arrival at the jailhouse for the specifics on the sewers, asked for help in interrogating the red and orange striped kobold. I agreed to help speed things along.
I could smell the sewer on the beast before I entered the room. I once again unsheathe my weapon and run into the small seven by seven foot grey room, sword held high over my head. Seeing the ghostly apparition in front of him, the kobold paniced.
"Ayayai! Wait! You no hurt big chief. Eechik not want to fight anymore!"
"Tell me where Arlos and Venn are, and I'll spare you!" The guards, I noticed, cheered on my act. They didn't realize that if the slime didn't tell me where the al-Kerran brothers were, I would chop that maggot to pieces.
"Who that? Eechik not know what you talking about."
"Lie again," I seethed, grasping his neck in my hand and lifting him three feet off the dirt floor, "and I'll cut off your tail. After that, your hands, then-"
"Eeeee! All right, all right, Eechik get picture," I release my hold and he quickly hides in the corner, cringing and rubbing his tail and neck," Eechik want to keep tail. We have the one called Arlos, but never heard of other."
"Where is Arlos?" I take a threatening step forward and raise my voice and my sword.
"In prison," squealing like a suckling pig, he retreated farther into the corner, "You go in, get him out. Guards try to stop you, maybe, Eechik can't help with that. They not listen to Eechik much. Bloodletter's in charge down there," he shrugs gloomily, as if he knows his fate is decided, "As for the other one... maybe Arlos know. Eechik don't."
I thank him, turn on my booted heel and stroll out the door. Before it closes, the guards hear a sigh of relief from the kobold chieftan. Then, the twang of a bowstring and the loud crunching and soft thudding attest to the knowledge that the Chief of the Gnashtooth Tribe would bother the city no more. No one saw the silent assassin leave, because the guards never look at a dragonloved longer than they have to.
The cleric and I entered the sewers just as the last light in the sky faded into inky darkness, leaving the city bathed in a silvery red glow from the silver moon Solinari and the red moon Lunitari. Nuitari, the black moon, is only seen by necromancers, dark mages, amd dragonloved. Nuitari blinked and twinkled in the sky, indicating the road ahead held no forseeable path. Turning my back to the dark night, we descended into the dark sewers.
After a half hour of walking through knee-high filth from the city above, the cleric asks what my plan was to find Arlos.
"That's the easy part. We get captured by the Gnashteeth."
"What's the hard part?"
"Getting Arlos, finding out where Venn is, and dragging your squishy ass outta trouble."
"Is that all?"
"No, then we gotta escape by morning's first light."
"Why first light?"
"The Wayward Lobster's having an early morning Kegs and Eggs brunch."
"Drunkard....."
"And proud of it."
I then stop, hearing gutteral mutterings and an occasional grunting belch. The Gnashtooth guard tent ahead bustled with the red orange beasts, tail swishing and sliding in the filth from the Harbor's wealthiest families. I decide that this was as good a time as any to put the not so well thought out plan into action.
"Hey, come here and catch us, you smelly, dog sniffing, ogre loving trogs!"
They all jump in unison and make a dive for us. The cleric goes down first, screaming and ducking before they were even ten feet away from us. Laughing, I cut the first one down with my sword, slicing it's body from the collarbone, through the sternum and down to the hip. I jerk the sword free and, like a ballerina, pirouette through them, slicing off arms and severing heads like popping the flower off dandelion plants. I leave three of them to run for help.
The cleric stands shakingly, looks around and squeals, "YOU DID THAT ON PURPOSE!!!"
"Yeah, I did," I giggle, still raging from battlelust, "Now that they know we're here, they won't challenge two fully armed humans walking into their dungeons."
"You're an ogre, you know that,"
"YOU'RE the one who wanted ME to do this, so don't complain-"
"I should've listened to the city guard about you,"
"They say all dragonloved are insane? I am not like the others, I know that I don't know if I will survive the next fight. I live every day as if it were my last. AND I don't run headlong into fights where there is a shadow of a doubt that I won't make it out alive. Consider the source before you judge me too harshly, and IF you are to hate me, hate me HONESTLY! Let's go before our element of surprise runs out."
We walked into the main jail ward with trepidation. Not one kobold was to be seen. Did my plan work a little too well? Ahead we see a man matching Arlos' description, a young, thin man with auburn brown hair and hazel eyes. The cell block doors, controlled by a lever, were closed tight. The cleric talked to Arlos while I kept a lookout, scanning the rafters for any sign of the ungodly creatures. Arlos indicated that Venn was taken to the Tunnelworm prison.
"Tunnelworms?!" I cried out harshly. "You mean to say you were messing around in Tnnelworm territory when you were captured?"
"Yeah, why?"
Looking up, I see the thing I feared meeting here: Kobold Shamans. "They're worse that the Gnashteeth. Your brother's dead by now. Stop talking," I interrupt Arlos' comment, "The shamans are here, we gotta get moving."
We run to the end of the prison block when Bloodletter, the chief shaman and head of the prison, shuts the gate and cries out, "You no leave! Fight me first. Whoever win leaves, okay?"
He jumped down and began chanting a spell. I heard this one before, Delayed Cast Fireball. From experience, I knew this was a high level spell. What the hell was a low level shaman doing casting this spell?
"Cleric, take Arlos and run as fast as you can. This is gonna be hella nasty!"
Without question, we run as fast as our legs could take us. The booming behind us signaled the race to the entrance had begun. We ran through slick hallways, past plump, red eyed rats feasting on other burnt corpses. We run and run and run, but the fireball gained ever so slowly. I call for them to stop.
"Why the hell are we stopping? That thing is behind us!"
"Listen, cleric, there's been a question on your mind all night. Ask it."
"Are you insane? I'm not gonna ask."
"Ask it or I swear I'll cut you down where you stand." The fireball, several hallways down, gained speed and intensified in heat.
"Fine, why the hell can you dragonloved make it out of the worst situations alive?" The screaming ball of burning oblivion, now only three hallways away, began to melt our shoe soles to the stone floor and burned away all refuse around us.
"Like you said earlier, cleric. It's my dragonmark."
I activate the ancient magic running through my blood, causing the hairs on the back of my neck to stand. A pale, blue light surrounds me, enveloping me with it's sweet tendrils.
"Grab hold of me, both of you," I yell over the cacaphony of melting, bursting stone and sizzling dung.
They grab my hands and I pull them close to me as the fireball hit. There was no pain, only darkness, fear, and a whooping cheer.
The cleric and terrified fugitive back off from me, blinking in astonishment. We had teleported outside of the Waterworks, where Guard Tember and Harbormaster Zin waited for us all night. The chirping of birds and bartering of merchants indicated it was now midmorning.
"How did we get out?" the cleric asked later that day. We had enjoyed a large meal at Zin's home. He gave us the writ, seal, and several new weapon and armor choices for our own personal arsenals.
"Teleport. A spell that transports you to safety that other than wizards and sorcerors, only the Dragonmark of Passage can grant. It is only found in the royal blood lines of House Orien."
"YOU are Erai, Princess of Orien?"
"As you are Featherwing, Princess of Phiarlan. You used Shadow Walk without realizing it. That's why the Shaman didn't kill you first."
"LIZ! NYS! Are you an that game again? Those things are so stupid!" called someone from the shadows of reality.
"****, mom aggro. Later, let's go find Venn, okay?"
"Alright Featherwing."
I log off the computer game and join Featherwing, also known as Nyssa, my twin, for dinner.
My mom hates the concept of video games. She thinks that they can't teach anyone anything. I neither agree nor disagree with that statement. Only someone who has the understanding to realize that it is only a game can learn something from it. If used correctly, video games, in my own opinion, can teach us what our parents forgot to teach. The concept of courage, although hard for people to teach, can be learned as long as you have the knowledge of your limitations (as in the level of your avatar) and the boldness to try anything. Not everyone can can learn courage from a video game, but then again, not everyone is virtuous.