Thanks everyone for your questions and comments! I always appreciate hearing your reactions, and hope everyone who wanted to say something had a chance. Here is a mini-post, anticipating the continuation of regular installments tomorrow morning.
CHAPTER 1, Part XX
The stone edge of the stair is hard and cold against my cheek. My neck, though, burns with its cruel laceration. Breathing is like drinking fire and vomiting ice - an unnatural strain against nature that cannot long endure. I lift my eyes to look upon my murder. His eyes are as unflinching as the two blades he holds in his hands, those blades that severed the thread of my life, the thread on which my soul dangles above hell. I am immediately conscious of the full weight of my sins, a vast dung heap into which I had been rolling my soul for so long: larceny, brutality, fornication, pride, counsel to evil, even murder. But in all these sins there was no power, no power at all like the power in this man. Why did he even carry weapons, if he could take life with a look, with a thought? Could he see me now, or was I a mite in the shadow of a condor’s wing? If I screamed, would he hear me, or could he only hear words of power, think thoughts of power, do acts of power? He cried havoc, but I could not scream. Blood coursed through his veins, mine bled out impotent upon the stones. Fire shone in his eyes, my whole life had been the mere picture of a flame. Now, even that paper would be consumed. The entire world might be consumed by such strength! In the polish of his blades, I see the black and emerald of my robes, engorged in blood. My blood would not feed the earth. Suddenly, those blades flash, burning my eyes like sun-fire itself. The world is utterly blackened. And then, the thread snaps. My soul falls, somehow. I know he is at the bottom. Is his face not so much like my own?
I jolt awake, not knowing where I am. My hand shot to my neck. No wound, no blood. I slowly drew my hand away. As my eyes adjusted to the light streaming in from my window, recollection flooded back. Had I really killed another man? Had I stepped in his blood like he was some chicken slaughtered on the barn floor? It was a terrible thought, and I pushed it away into the fatigue-induced haze that surrounded all the events of last night. But I could feel my heart beating rapidly. It was all self-defense. I breathed a deep breath. Even a middling mage could burn the life out of an unshielded man in six seconds or less. I breathe again. I rise to sit upright on my bed. But his spell was purely defensive. He could have spun the illusion reflexively when he saw Imoen raising her bow. Another breath. But the paper showed we were blameless. But I had charged in without provocation. Another breath. The spell itself was a provocation. No! Yes! No! What did that paper even say? My thoughts tumbled all over each other in a hopeless flurry. I climbed out of bed. I was wearing the same travel-soiled pants, but no shirt. How had that happened? I needed to clear my head. If I could not deliberate rationally, then I would never untangle the events of last night. And if I could not understand the events of last night, I would never be able to solve for the optimal next step. With this end in mind, I dug into my pack and retrieved my spellbook.
A heavy hide-bound tome, its weight was reassuring even though most of its pages were as of yet unmarked. At Candlekeep, the sages had often referred to a mage’s spellbook as his second soul, as both the foundation and the crown of his wizardly craft. It was the repository of his entire knowledge in the Art and the prime instrument of its practice. I laid the book down on the wooden table in my room and gingerly opened the front cover. Inhaling deeply, I felt my muscles relaxing as my nose picked up the familiar musk of the Candlekeep libraries. On the first page was the very first spell I had ever scribed, a spell simply called “Shield.” For months before Gorion had permitted me even to attempt my first scribing, he had guided me daily through hours of mental exercise. Memorization, discrimination, concentration, and understanding - all four pillars were essential, Gorion had taught me, to the practice of any competent arcanist. Memorization, for the recollection of the patterns, contours, and words that comprised the symbolic form of magical power. Discrimination, for the recognition of the most subtle differences: physically, between two markings; analytically, between two systems; and observationally, between anticipated outcome and actual effect. Concentration, for fortitude of the mind. Gorion’s words were coming back to me in rivulets now:
“Ausar,” he had told me, “the master mage is a clockmaker who can just as easily assemble a timepiece in a blizzard, as he can spend twelve hours contemplating the rotation of a single gear, as he can tie his own shoes.”
“Remind me never to try wearing a clockmaker’s shoes then,” I remember joking in reply.
The memory was crisp as the day itself. I could still see the surprise in Gorion’s eyes, and hear the laughter that followed. The thorns of anger had not sprouted here, at least not yet. There was instead a throbbing sorrow, like a minor key echoing in an empty room. After a few moments, I turned it aside.
The final element was understanding. Without at least some insight into the relationships that explained a spell’s effects, mere memorization of the spell’s form would be - Gorion’s words again - “like chaff waiting to be blown away in the wind.” Understanding was a magical form’s deep tether in the mind.
I traced the lines of Shield with my finger. Again, like the smell of an old book, the familiar sensation of parchment was reassuring. First, I slid my finger over the dimensive lines. Dimensive lines encoded the most general information about a spell: the school of magic to which it belonged, whether its effect would be beneficial or baneful, what elements or forces would express its power, and the like. As my finger reached the sweeping tail of the final dimensive line, I traced down a side-channel, entering the dense labyrinth of the ley lines. Ley lines represented the spell’s more technical qualities, including its velocity, its range, its spatial extension, the number of bodies or minds it could affect, its intensity, and its duration. Tracing through these lines took appreciably longer, but I hardly noticed. Instead, I focused on repeating to myself the significance of each one. At last, I reached the accretia. Accretia were divided into two categories, general and specific. General accretia consisted primarily in the words that a mage had to incant while casting the spell, along with representations of the movements he had to make.
All of the above were, to a certain extent at least, uniquely styled, just as every individual has his own handwriting or manner of speech. After I had scribed my first two spells under Gorion’s careful supervision, he had remarked that my own style had a distinctly elven flair, with, and here he paused unsteadily, looking into the distance instead of at me, “a touch of something else.” I understood him to be thinking about my some quirk unique to my mother, and so I broke in with humor. “A touch of genius, I know!” I declared proudly. Gorion just chuckled and shook his head. Given how often I joked with him - it had never occurred to me until this moment - Gorion had much more patience with me than I would have had with a student much like myself.
In any event, the final category - the specific accretia - was by far the most personal. The specific accretia encompassed everything the mage adjudged especially significant in respect of his own relationship to the spell. For the more exegetically-minded, the specific accretia included historical commentaries on the spell that the mage had found particularly incisive. For the empirically-oriented, they included practical theories about the spell’s operation and the results of personal experiments. For almost all mages, however, they included personally meaningful memories of prior castings, both where they had succeeded and where they had failed. They included scribblings about hopes, fears, and desires for future castings, as well as the mage’s own opinion of the spell’s worth. Sometimes mages even recorded segments of dreams in which they had cast the spell in question. Largely because of these specific accretia, Gorion had told me, a mage’s spellbook became increasingly intimate as the mage grew older, to such a degree that some wizards would rather appear naked before a stranger than open up their spellbook to another mage. Recalling that metaphor still made me blush.
But I did not blush now, because I remembered, with a sinking feeling, that one of the spells in my book required updating. I fished into my pack for my arcanist’s quill and ink, choosing red for this particular entry. I found an open space on the page directly across from Shield, the home of the only other spell I knew - Spook. There I wrote of the man I had killed at Candlekeep, the spell’s spectacular success and spectacular failure, as well as my own. It would be a part of my spellbook forever now, and so a part of me. Dread, shame, confusion, and sorrow were lapping at the edges of my heart, but concentration on the spellbook had provided me with the discipline I needed to keep them there, at the edges, for now.
It was time. I cast about the room for the wad of papers I had stripped from the man in the black and emerald coat. The semi-crumpled mass slouched halfway under my bed. I picked it up, straightening the crinkled pages out as best I could. At the top of the stack, I recognized the parchment I had snatched from Imoen last night. The perspective-bending vividness of last night’s dream forced itself back to the front of my mind. Was that how my assailant could have seen me, as he breathed his dying breath? But I was threatened and exhausted, not some ruthless killer. The thought filled me with dread, and again, I shrunk back. So before I could catch more than a few words, I had cycled that particular page to the back of the stack. I would investigate that one last, I promised myself. How had Imoen seen something that I had missed? The question nagged me like a horsefly, especially because I still had not been able to puzzle out what exactly it was that she had seen. Perhaps, the other papers would provide some useful background information, pointing out the correct answer before I was forced to admit she had figured out something that I could not.
As I realized what the remaining three papers were, I forgot Imoen entirely. I cast the paper on the bottom aside, and swept myself and the remaining three papers back in front of my spellbook. For those papers were no ordinary parchment, far from it - they were scrolls of arcane power! For an hour or two, the world beyond me, my spellbook, and those scrolls would cease to exist. More than merely reminiscing about a spell I had already learned, I could scribe something entirely new. Then I would be able to confront even the most dire news rationally, unflinchingly, with all the self-possession of a true arcanist.
Many referred to the process by which a mage committed a new spell to his spellbook simply as “scribing,” but that common parlance oversimplified a complex and daunting challenge. In fact, the first and, in Gorion’s opinion, most essential step in the scribing process occurred long before a mage even touched his quill. First, a mage had to study the scroll: interpreting its dimensive lines and its ley lines to form an understanding, however rough, of the spell’s school, what its primary effects were, and how it produced said effects. “Scribing blind,” as Gorion referred to the mistake of skipping this step, would almost certainly result in failure. So, I pored over the first scroll on the stack, straining to recollect the rudiments of arcane interpretation I had learned at Candlekeep. The dimensive lines first appeared representative of evocation magic, but attention to their relatively gentle curvature suggested an alternative: conjuration. But here I furrowed my brow. Conjuration typically concerned itself with the summoning and binding of creatures and, in certain cases, even spirits or demons. But the dimensive lines here clearly indicated a spell that was defensive or protective in nature. Furthermore, despite my intensive scrutiny of the ley lines, I could uncover no description of a creature or even a symbol for life. Instead, all I saw appearing, again and again, were constructions for the manipulation of air. I double-checked the dimensive lines, but on second inspection I became even more certain that this spell was not evocation. I returned to the ley lines, trying to empty myself of presuppositions, allowing a technical scan of the ley lines to inform my understanding of the magical school rather than reading my assumptions about the magical school into my interpretation of the ley lines.
It was only then that the mechanism and the purpose of the spell became clear. The spelled pushed air from the surrounding area into an extremely dense but narrow shell around the caster’s legs, torso, and waist, binding the packed air together with a low-energy magical charge. The result would be, I inferred, a sturdy but not impenetrable form of personal protection that mimicked some of the effects of traditional armor without encumbering the mage. Its primary virtue, however, would not be incredible strength, but rather, the leylines implied, its incredible duration. The spell might last almost an entire day before dissipating. I smiled to myself. There was no mark on the page for which my theory could not account. Even without Gorion’s tutelage, I could do this - I could teach myself magic!
Next, the eponymous step, the actual copying of the scroll’s contents onto an open page. Every line needed to be traced over with absolute precision. One errant stroke and the entire endeavor would be in vain. I worked slowly and methodically, in blue ink this time: first the dimensive lines, then the ley lines, then the general accretia, starting from the top and then sketching down to the bottom. Once not a jot or tittle appeared out of place, checked my work, and then checked it again. Everything seemed perfect.
The final step was called “sealing.” It was both the easiest and the most tense, because it was at this stage that the mage’s work was subjected to the ultimate test. At this stage, the mage laid the scroll flush against the page upon which he had encoded its contents. Every genuine arcanist’s scroll was treated with an alchemical tincture that could serve as a catalyst in one of two magical reactions. The energy could be released to enable a single casting of the spell, regardless of whether or not the mage had previously scribed it. But alternatively - and more to the purpose here - the energy could be released to attempt to seal a scribed spell into the mage’s spellbook. If the scribing had been sufficiently precise, then the sealing would magically weave its contents into the very fiber of the page. If the scribing contained an inaccuracy, though, the page would be wiped clean. It was an unappealable verdict handed down under the laws of magic and mind themselves. A scroll’s alchemical treatment only contained enough substrate to power a single use, so such scrolls would always be consumed, irrevocably, regardless of the outcome. Holding my breath, I pressed the scroll against my draft in the spellbook. The blue in the ink intensified and began to glow. Then a flash blanketed the page with bright blue luminescence. Now was the moment of truth. The glow gradually subsided, and when it had vanished entirely, the spell remained. The sealing had been a success! Jubilation flooded me, and I let loose a loud, whooping cheer - I had done it!
Thanks, @BelgarathMTH . To be honest, it's probably not anywhere close to the magic system I would have designed if I were drawing it up from scratch, but trying to work out something reasonable from what we have in-game is its own sort of fun.
Wasting no time, I reached greedily for a second scroll. This spell was even more conceptually tangled than the one before, but eventually I fought through the thicket to understanding, as fantastic as it seemed: alteration magic would weave the fire-resistant properties of salamander skin into the flesh on the caster’s hands and fingers, then the spell would superheat the mage’s fingertips until they glowed white-hot. Finally, jets of fire would appear to spring from the caster’s fingers; in reality, the caster’s fingers defined five-foot lines of projection, along which the magical energy operated directly upon the air itself, transforming it to fire. Despite their complexity, the combined effects of the spell lasted mere moments, just long enough to immolate a single target. My mouth hung open. This spell read like a transmuter’s fever-dream. Whoever that transmuter was, he already seemed more exciting than all the dismal sages of Candlekeep combined. If only I had a chance to study for a season under him! I shot my hands out in front of me, pantomiming a casting, imagining eight jets of molten fire pouring from my hands. My fingers tingled just thinking about it. My scribing was careful, and the sealing successful.
Compared to the prior to spells, the final one was simplicity itself: a spell every mage and non-mage knew by the same name - “Magic Missile.” But this simplicity tempted me into haste, and the sealing failed. Disappointment stung for a moment, but did not enrage. In this world of arcane scribing, all happenings had an eminently rational cause. I understood why I had failed, and that was enough. Magic Missile was, after all, a boring spell. I flipped back to the Armor spell I had just scribed, to enter one line of specific accretia, “First spell scribed in my own power, alone.” Then, with a satisfied sigh, I gently closed the front cover. Now, really, it was time.
I took the final paper in hand, the one that had wrought such uncharacteristic despair on Imoen’s face. It read:
BOUNTY NOTICE
Be it known to all those of evil intent, that a bounty has been placed upon the head of Ausar, the foster child of Gorion.
Last seen in the area of Candlekeep, this person is to be killed in quick order.
Those returning with proof of the deed shall receive no less than 200 coins of gold.
As always, any that reveal these plans to the forces of law shall join the target in their fate.
Indeed, then, the situation was substantially different than I had previously surmised. Whether it was much worse, I had yet to decide. My operative theory had been that the Hakar would be roving the countryside himself, or would have dispersed a handful of select minions with a personal commission. Instead, he had declared an open bounty, enlisting the aid of all men who could be moved to do murder for 200 gold coins. I rested my head against my hand as I weighed a set of potential inferences. First, 200 gold coins was surely substantial enough for a common man, but it was no princely sum. In order to gain admittance to Candlekeep, every visitor “donated” a tome worth no fewer than 1,000 gold coins. Even Winthrop refused to part with the katana in his shop for fewer than 800. Whom he expected to buy such a thing was still a mystery to me - no scholar traveled to a library for exotic swords.
In any event, such a bounty would likely prove most appealing to two types of people. First, desperate men of scarce means - even otherwise good men, confronted with the specter of starvation for themselves or for their family, might entertain murderous intent for the short-term security of 200 gold coins. Such men, however, would likely be undernourished and underequipped, and were therefore likely to pose little threat. I thought back, with a pang of remorse, to the bedraggled man I had killed so easily in the Candlekeep priests’ quarters. I would spare such men, if I could.
Second, however, were any seasoned but underemployed killers who happened to be roaming the region. A villain already inured to murder would not shrink back for fear of the gods or love of innocent humanity. But neither would 200 gold coins likely be sufficient to induce such men to travel long distances or to turn aside, even temporarily, from more lucrative skullduggery. Because of their expertise, these bounty hunters would be exponentially more dangerous but, I hoped, few and far between. I frowned; the probabilities here were nebulous. Locked up in Candlekeep for my whole life, I was not sure just how densely the outside world was populated with such dangerous men. That the first assassination attempt under the bounty had occurred only two days after Gorion’s death, however, did not bode well.
I tapped my fingers against my temple. The posting of a general bounty implied that the Hakar still considered me a threat but no longer hunted me personally. And the size of that bounty suggested the reason: with Gorion slain, the Hakar thought me helpless. If the first one or two assassination attempts failed by chance, the third faceless vagabond with an idle sword, or the fourth, would surely succeed. I grit my teeth at the thought. Always, I had been underestimated. No more! I imagined hurling the Hakar to the ground, slamming my boot down on his throat, and projecting eight jets of fire straight into his baalor-head helmet.
I paused, and breathed. I forced my mind back up onto the steady track of reason.The inferences I had accumulated thus far could support two alternative theories about my relation to the Hakar’s larger designs. On the one hand, it was possible that I remained one of many serious threats that he faced, but that my elimination was not, at the moment, his most pressing objective. In this case, some element of his machinations required his presence elsewhere. He had therefore delegated responsibility for killing me to what he regarded as an efficiently-priced bounty. The Hakar may have been well-resourced, but his resources - both in time and in money - were not infinite. If this theory were correct, another personal confrontation might be imminent, depending on when he had finished attending to his slightly more urgent concerns. I posed sufficient threat that, if I survived long enough, he would return to finish the job himself.
On the other hand, it was possible instead that, with Gorion passed away - Oghma preserve him, I thought bitterly - the Hakar was merely tying the final knot on a deed already done. According to this theory, there had been something that Gorion was supposed to teach me or help me to do, that without his help I had little or no hope of discovering or accomplishing independently. When the Hakar had killed Gorion, then, he had substantially diffused the danger I represented. Now, he was setting the bounty as a form of insurance, commensurate with his new assessment of the risk. If this view were true, then the Hakar might never bother confronting me directly again, or even necessarily raise the bounty, unless I discovered something about myself, or about him, that radically altered the actuarial equation.
Each of these theories weighed about equally in my mind, and I could not find a strong reason for rejecting either of them. I did even know which of them I would have preferred to be true.
My mind raced on. I knew I was already crossing the chasm between sound inference and speculation, but I dashed forward anyway, trying to unearth the taproot of this entire bloody affair. I had been wrong in supposing that Candlekeep was a closed system. Sage Parda’s remarks clarified that my mastery had extended only to surface appearances, and that at least some of the sages, including Gorion, had involved themselves in intrigue invisible to me. The question of what all these intrigues might have aimed at was too vast. The narrower and more relevant question was: what part of them could have turned upon something I did not know about myself? Here, all signs pointed to my mother. She was the great mystery standing at the origin of my life. But here, all hope was lost. What more could I ever learn of her now that Gorion had passed?
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
Intrepid readers, thank you for braving a week's long interlude of relatively cerebral content, as Ausar collects his thoughts in his room at the Friendly Arms. I promise you that Monday's installment will see him out of these forests of the mind and back on the high road of action and adventure.
Intrepid readers, thank you for braving a week's long interlude of relatively cerebral content, as Ausar collects his thoughts in his room at the Friendly Arms. I promise you that Monday's installment will see him out of these forests of the mind and back on the high road of action and adventure.
Personally I've loved these last few posts, as the little details really bring the world to life! Your interpretation of the scribing process was incredibly interesting and I love your descriptions of the spells. I could happily read just an entire series of you going through the spell book and describing each spell in detail Also, Ausar's analysis of the situation was a nice touch, because I think it's easy for us, as players who probably know the game quite well, to skate over just how confusing and terrifying this whole experience is for our darling PCs. I'm looking forward to the next installment!
Suddenly, my stomach rumbled - loudly. I snapped out of my reverie to realize that I was absolutely famished. The cook down in the kitchen, a squat, doughy man, squinted at me, then threw his hand up in the air: “You want breakfast, elf? You don’t ’ave the the look of a day laborer ta me.”
“I’m famished!” I whined, “do you have any idea what I had to go through yesterday - and with no proper supper? This is a kitchen, isn’t it?”
“What? An’ I’m your personal servant? Elves! Bah!” he said, throwing up his hand again and turning his back. The cook trundled away.
“Hey! I paid good coin to stay here!” I said, raising my voice.
This comment seemed to deflect the cook from his intended course. “Alright, alright,” he said, shaking his head, “jus’ ta git you outta ma hair.” When he returned, he carried about half a palm’s worth of cheese in what must have been the smallest trencher the kitchen had on hand. He thrust it into my hands, not bothering to look up at me.
“This is it? Not even any sauce for the trencher? ” I stammered.
“One more complaint, boy, an’ Imma take it back! I ’ave work ta do.” The cook planted his feet, now looking me directly in the eye. The rumbling in my stomach persuaded me not to push the matter any further.
So, I retreated to one of the tables in the main hall - a wide-open space, sturdily built and simply designed - with my scrap of cheese and pathetic trencher. The cheese was gone in the blink of an eye, and I had not long set to gnawing at the trencher when I heard a voice a few tables behind me.
“B-be patient, Jaheira, my love, A-Ausar will come down soon enough.” I looked over my shoulder to catch a glimpse. The man - Khalid, no doubt - had a plaintive expression, but the woman - Jaheira - was stony-faced. All she did was grunt in response, her head leaning listlessly to one side so that her thick brown hair fell onto the table.
Swiping my crusty trencher off the table, I started walking over.
“I am Ausar. How did you know I was here?” I called out halfway. Upon hearing my words, they straightened immediately. Both of them had swarthy skin and dark eyes. But while Jaheira’s eyes were almost intoxicating in their depth, Khalid’s pupils looked as though they had been painted on with acrylic. They also both had the semi-pointed ears that were an unmistakable sign of mixed human and elven ancestry. My pulse quickened; perhaps their connection with Gorion stretched all the way back to the time he knew my mother. By now, I had reached their table.
“Greetings,” Jaheira said, “You . . . you look familiar, though it’s not your looks. I am not sure what I expected, but I believe you are Gorion’s child. I am Jaheira; this is Khalid.” Jaheira placed her hand on Khalid’s shoulder.
“G-good to know you,” he said.
“We are old friends of your adopted father,” Jaheira picked up, “He is not with you?”
I shook my head silently.
“Well then,” she continued, “I must assume the worst. He would not permit his only child to wander without his accompaniment.”
“If . . . if he has passed, we share your loss,” Khalid said. For a moment, no one said anything. I could feel my jaw tighten. Then Jaheira cut in again.
“Gorion often said that he worried for your safety, even at the expense of his own. He also wished that Khalid and I would become your guardians, if he should ever meet an untimely end. However, you are much older now, and the choice of your companions should be your own.”
Khalid’s abnormally large teeth showed in a forced smile, his best effort at consolation, “We could t-travel with you until you settled, help you find your l-lot in life.”
“It would be a fitting last service to Gorion, though” Jaheira cut in quickly, “we should first go to Nashkel. Khalid and I look into local concerns, and there are rumors of strange things happening at the mines. No doubt you have heard of the iron shortage? You would do well to help us. It affects everyone, including you. We are to meet the mayor of the town, Berrun Ghastkill.”
Ausar meets Khalid and Jaheira for the first time.
I finally spoke, mostly succeeding in mustering a steady voice, “Your company would be welcome, but there are a few things you must know.” I told them of Gorion’s death at the hands of the Hakar, of the cryptic letter from “E,” and of the bounty on my head. Khalid and Jaheira could shed no light on any of it. If their mission at the mines of Nashkel were urgent, I volunteered, they might reasonably refuse to become entangled in my so-far bottomless confusion, an entanglement that would court the ire of a foe as terrible as the Hakar. I appreciated their friendship with Gorion, and would take no offense.
“Just h-how big did you say his sword wa-” Jaheira cut off Khalid before he could finish.
“Khalid!” she hissed tersely, then, turning to me, “You do not know, Ausar, how dear Gorion was to us. He saved both of our lives many times over. We would never abandon his ward to such a piteous fate. As long as you travel with us, we shall shield you from this evil as well as we are able.”
“Of course, my s-sweet,” Khalid said to Jaheira, “to the death. If we must-”
“And when we find the fiend the slew Gorion,” Jaheira’s face reddened and her mouth worked wordlessly for a moment, “he will know justice!” she ended in a shout.
Khalid gulped, but laid a hand on Jaheira’s shoulder.
“Then, the deepest gratitude of my heart belongs to you. You shall have my succor in this mission. By sword and spell I will overcome all who oppose us. On my honor.” The words had sounded so majestic in my head, but when they fell out of my mouth they sounded horrifically overwrought. Jaheira raised an eyebrow. Before she could reply, I tried to rebalance the conversation.
“But you never answered my question.”
“And what question was that?”
“How did you know I was in the Friendly Arms before just now?”
“Ah,” Jaheira said, “we already met Imoen. To be honest, we were surprised. Gorion never said anything about you being married.”
“Married?” I exclaimed. As though my exclamation were a spell, I heard the clomping of feet. In a trice, Imoen had appeared at my side.
“You told them we were married?” I asked her in disbelief.
“S-she never said as much,” Khalid said, “but, well, you see-” Here, he cut off speaking, and jabbed a finger in the direction of Imoen’s left hand, where she still wore the enchanted amethyst on her ring-finger.
“Married? Me?” Imoen stuck out her tongue, and I blushed.
Khalid blushed too, “Oh my, so she is your w-w-woman, then?” The way Khalid said “woman,” turned my face an even deeper red. It was my turn to stammer.
“I-it’s not like that!” I protested, “We grew up together in Candlekeep, friends since childhood. She’s really more like a sister than anything else.”
“And I wasn’t going to let him sneak off and have an adventure all to himself,” Imoen piped up, also eager to dispel Khalid’s ham-fisted insinuation.
Khalid visibly relaxed, “Well, then.”
Jaheira chuckled. “You two have already had a very taxing journey. We will all take our rest here at the Inn today, and set out early tomorrow morning. Even eagles must find a roost from time to time,” she said. We all agreed.
Imoen grabbed me by the arm and pulled me over to the table where I had been sitting before.
“About time you woke up, sleepyhead!” Imoen chided, wagging her finger. “Did you know there is a gnome on the second floor - pretty sure she’s a wizard, or is it a wizardess? - whose house was invaded by spiders? Terrible things that moved into her house so now she can’t go back. Some people have terrible luck! She wants the place all cleared out - said something about a bottle of wine, but I don’t know if it’s for us to drink or if she wants it back. Everyone is so friendly here! Well, everyone except that smelly ol’ half-orc over there. He thought I was a serving girl, and we almost got into a shouting match. But I didn’t come all the way here to be his barmaid. Say, why do you have that crusty-looking thing? Did they run out of pie in the kitchen? That cook sure is a sweetheart, isn’t he? Almost as nice as old Puffguts, but not really. Oh! And that Mirrorshade, do you think he is related to the gnome-lady upstairs? He says the iron ‘round these parts is sick, been crumbling to bits for months now. Do you think Jaheir-”
I held my hand up, “Imoen, slow down.” She had been speaking in doubletime, hardly even stopping to refill her lungs at the halfway point.
“Okay,” she said, finally taking a normal-sized breath, “but I did promise someone you would help them with something. You will, won’t you?” She looked up at me expectantly.
“Wait - you promised someone else that I would do something for them?” I tapped my trencher on the wooden table to emphasize the key pronouns in my question. She had been served pie, while the cook had practically thrown this sorry excuse for a trencher at me. Why, I asked myself, did Imoen have all the luck?
“Well,” she said, “it wasn’t something I would be able to do all by myself. But it is the right thing to do, so I know you will help me do it.”
“And what exactly is this knightly deed to which you have pledged me?” I asked, with more than a hint of irony.
“Hey! It is important! There’s a woman who lives in the courtyard named Joia, who lost her flamedance ring to a pack of hobgoblins. She barely escaped with her life! She was ambushed just like us, Ausar. We need to help her get that ring back.”
“You promised a stranger that we would risk our lives fighting hobgoblins so that she could get back a little jewelry. That doesn’t make any sense, Imoen,” I said, shaking my head.
“She wouldn’t have asked if it weren’t important to her. What if it was her wedding ring, or the last gift she had to remember her mom by? And we can do something to help her! I already scouted.I know where they’re trompin’ around, proll’y looking for some other passerbys to attack. I can back you up, Ausar! Remember how I shot that gibberling clean through the eye?”
I stroked my chin. As Imoen spoke, a thought had begun hatching in my head. The value of the ring was immaterial and not worth the risk, even if it was a family heirloom. But to risk one’s life in combat against evil, to make whole the innocent victims of brutishness and rapacity, to bleed for the vindication of a noble principle, these were the marks of heroism. The gallant and the fearless, of whom I had read, for hours and hours between the dusty shelves of the Great Library, and whom I had lain awake, many a night, imagining I might one day become, had trod this very path, a razor’s edge between obscurity and death. It was no bolt of glory that, crackling through a life of banality, instantly transfigured these men into legends.
The thought now cracked its shell wide open. What reason did I have to hesitate? Why not claim a hero’s mantle? The obvious answer was that on the shoulders of most men that mantle quickly became a funeral shroud. But my life was already so full of death. I was in virtual exile from Candlekeep, the only community to which I had ever belonged. I had no family. I was a stranger to elven lands. Every step I took would be dogged by the shadow of an assassin’s cloak and dagger. If I wagered my life on heroism, I would have wagered but little.
And in fact, I saw, it was a necessary wager. The Hakar was no common foe and no common man would kill him. If I could not slay a few hobgoblins on a whim, then I would never defeat him. If I did not risk my life for goodness and for power, then I would never defeat him. And if I was not preparing myself for vengeance - the one fixed star in my life - then I was preparing myself for true death, utter annihilation. I imagined the hobgoblins who had ambushed Joia and stolen her ring. And then I felt it - I felt it under all these musings like the shadow of a bird passing underfoot. I wanted to fight.
I like how you're interpreting Imoen's high charisma score into the story. When I play BG characters without high charisma, I always put Imoen into the front position when we enter a town, so the party can benefit from her charisma score while talking to merchants and such. Then, when we go out into the wilderness or into a dungeon, I put Jaheira into the front position, so that her not as high but still pretty high charisma can keep Khalid's morale up.
“You there, Ausar?” Imoen waved her hand in front of my face impatiently.
“Let’s do it.” I said, rising from my chair. “But we are going to do this properly. Neither of us is about to get killed by hobgoblins.”
“I knew you would say ‘yes’!” Imeon cheered.
“First, I need to see about acquiring some metal armor,” I said. Even if I could not afford the full plate armor that shielded the guards at Candlekeep, a serviceable suit of chain or splint mail would do well enough.
“What did those hobgoblins have, Imoen? Swords or spears?”
“Uh...swords, I think,” she answered.
“And any archers?”
“No.”
Chainmail it was, then. The rings would not stand up well against a speartip or arrowhead, but no ordinary sword would slash through well-forged chainmail rings. A single suit of chainmail armor cost most of our gold, but perhaps, I thought, Imoen could be persuaded to part with that diamond of hers sometime in the near future.
When we had passed beyond the outer walls of the Inn, I turned to Imoen and we rehearsed our plan one final time. Once we had found a spot with some cover, close to where the hobgoblins roved, Imeon would scout up ahead until she was within bowshot of one. She would aim carefully, and then fire. Hobgoblins were stupid, impulsive brutes, and so one or two would probably instinctively charge her position immediately upon realizing they were under attack. Imoen would not stand her ground; instead, she would flee back toward my position, where I would wait, ready to intercept the creatures. In this way, we would winnow down the pack without risk of being overwhelmed by superior numbers. We practiced one bird call that Imoen could make as a signal for me to advance to cover further up the road, and a second call for emergencies. When Imoen had repeated the plan to me twice over, we set off toward where she had scouted the hobgoblin’s location earlier that morning. Before long, Imoen told me we were close, and that I should wait for her behind the cluster of tall firs just off the road.
Once I had settled into position, I closed my eyes. The air tasted cool, with hints of pine needles and resin. As the sound of Imoen’s footsteps receded into the distance, I imagined I could hear the quickened beating of my own heart. I tightened my grip on the hilts of my blades. There was no reason for fear, I chided myself. After a few months of training, no Watcher at Candlekeep had ever bested me in a sparring match; I was always smarter, faster, and stronger. Hobgoblins, from what I had read, were oafish creatures, dangerous to a competent warrior only in large numbers and confined spaces, where they could clobber a person to death in a tangle of heavy arms, hands, and boots. Some hobgoblins possessed the dexterity to shoot a bow, but most used any weapon in their possession more or less like a cudgel. Nothing to fear, I repeated to myself. Today, I would redeem my honor for the cowardly stroke against the assassin I had butchered in Candlekeep. The image of my bloodied blade cut across my mind unbidden. I could feel every sense in my body straining, every muscle primed for action. I slid my weapons out of their scabbards and opened my eyes. The world was utterly still; time hobbled on like a lame packhorse. Then, the silence snapped. A bestial snarling and bellowing broke the morning calm; cocking my ear in that direction, I thought I could distinguish two separate sets of those animal cries.
Sure enough, when Imoen raced around the bend in the road, she was being pursued by not one, but two, irate hobgoblins. Indeed, their appearance in reality made the picture I had studied in the Candlekeep bestiary seem like a lover’s sketch. The dignity sometimes imparted by aged parchment was altogether lacking in the scene before me. Their hefty frames lurched forward precariously, without a scintilla of grace or composure. The visage of each was repulsive: orange skin stretched over facial bones so heavy they seemed on the verge of crowding out the clumsy, misshapen features from which their faces had been cobbled together. They had snouts, rather than noses, and massive chins that seemed to weigh down the entire face like an anchor. When they yelled, their lips curled back to reveal a row of pointed teeth that, even from a distance, did not seem quite uniform.
Imoen had run past my position now. With a roar, I broke cover, charging at the hobgoblins from the side. With a wail, they skidded in an effort to redirect their motion toward me. Despite their manifest stupidity, they had instantly recognized me as the greater threat. Now that the three of us were close, I realized that each of the hobgoblins was a full head taller than I, and that their swords were about half a foot longer. But worry was a breeze that left me behind as soon as I had felt it. I threw a cut with my left-hand blade and, as the hobgoblin lumbered to its right to avoid it, I thrust up through its neck. The hobgoblin dropped its weapon to clutch at its throat with both of its hairy, oversized hands. The second hobgoblin had by now closed on my position, but the backswing on its cut was so exaggerated that the creature might as well have knelt down for summary execution. I blocked the blade high with my off-hand, while I plunged my other sword right into its chest. As I suspected, the hobgoblin’s leather armor, ragged and filthy, was of the lowest possible quality, not boiled and barely hardened. My sword point pierced it like cloth. The hobgoblin let out a spirited shriek as it toppled to the ground, but died only a few moments later.
Imoen ran over to me, beaming, “You did it, Ausar!” And then somewhat more subdued, “You made it look so easy, almost like you were shadow dueling, or dancing, and they weren’t even there. If I blinked, I’d ‘ave missed the whole fight. Weren’t you scared?”
Imoen’s praise surged into my veins like a draught of pure strength. My technique had been impeccable, and the fight had been effortless. I do not think I had even broken a sweat. Such, I thought to myself, was the true grace and power of an elf, to purge the world of evil without being threatened by it, like the sun burning away a shadow.
“No,” I said, “they were like training dummies with bad breath.” I had told no lie. There had been the pressure of anticipation, and then of necessity as they bore down on Imoen. Once I had entered melee, though, I felt as though I belonged there, that my blade held the doom fate had appointed for these creatures since the day of their wretched births. And the kills themselves - I shuddered at the thought for a moment, but then embraced it - the kills themselves had been sweet, a surge of glory, just as I had hoped they would. Righteousness and courage, I told myself, naturally bent an elf’s heart against the races of evil.
Imoen stepped forward to survey the bodies.
“There’s no good in a hobgoblin, is there, Ausar?” Imoen asked.
“Unredeemable,” I replied, pushing at the head of one with my sword. Its eyes were filmed over in death, and its mouth had fallen open, so that its teeth bit at the dirt.
Cool, I've been anticipating seeing how you handle action scenes. Very skillful use of details that engage all five senses.
I wrote a D&D action scene once for a college English journaling project. It was a scene where a D&D party fought a dinosaur, and I ended it by having the thief climb up onto a nearby cliff, jump down onto the dinosaur's head, and stab it in the neck. I was surprised at how difficult it was to write a very short action sequence. Something that happens in seconds took about three or four pages of writing for me to depict it in text in a way that the reader would be able to picture in her mind the scene I was imagining.
I never cared to try it again after I saw what a tremendous amount of work was involved, but I gained new respect for the authors of my fantasy books, such as David Edding's "Belgariad". Respect to you as well for tackling this writing project, with so many complicated action sequences coming. Respect also for having the patience to take the time to lay down plenty of detailed background and character development before getting to the game action, so that the readers (imagining that they've never played BG and that this is a new fantasy novel) care about what's happening to the characters when the action begins.
Thank you, @BelgarathMTH, for your kind words. I don't have much practice writing action, so it's nice to be able to start with relatively small, quick scenes, like this most recent one. As the party expands and the fights become larger in scope, it will definitely become more challenging to manage. There'll probably be a bit of a difficulty spike once serious spell-slinging starts. Hopefully I will be up to it by then! The first-person perspective is definitely going to be a double-edged sword.
Thanks also for sharing about your old assignment - sounds fun, even though it was a lot of work. If, despite your misgivings, you ever feel tempted to write up one of your own playthroughs on this board, you will have at least one reader
Imoen crept closer to the bodies, examining their hands, but careful not to touch them. “I don’t think either of these had Joia’s ring. Guess we need to keep going.”
So, we began a new iteration of the same plan, just a little bit further along the road. This time, however, Imoen had already wounded the single hobgoblin she had drawn toward my position. Before I could spring out of cover, though, Imoen had turned around and fired another arrow that struck the hobgoblin in the chest, killing it in its tracks. I caught a triumphant gleam in Imoen’s eyes. She too, perhaps, was beginning to feel invincible.
“Nice shot!” I yelled to her.
Imoen was breathing quickly, but with excitement rather than exertion, “We could take on the whole horde at once!”
“Let’s just stick to the plan,” I said, smiling. Part of me already believed that she was right.
In the next pull, Imoen drew two again, and we both killed one apiece, both, again, without so much as a scratch. The hobgoblin I had slain must have been the leader of the pack, because he not only possessed Joia’s flamedance ring, but also a magical scroll of Armor. For a moment, I imagined the absurdity of a hobgoblin bedecked in robes, trying to cast magic.
“We actually did it, Ausar! We have Joia’s ring - do you think they will sing songs about us back at the Inn?” Imoen asked, already turning back toward the gates of the Friendly Arms.
“Hold on a second. Do you know what this is?” I inquired, holding up the scroll.
“Some magic scroll or something. I don’t know - you’re the mage, aren’t you?”
“You’re right, but think! These hobgoblins weren’t about to self-study magic, or make an offering to Mystra. It means that Joia wasn’t the only one these hobgoblins ambushed.”
“But who knows who that scroll belonged to?”
“Returning the scroll is not the point. The point is finishing the job.” I gestured down the road with my sword. I still wanted to fight. “We can’t leave any of these hobgoblins loose to terrorize even more innocent travelers.”
Again, I caught the same gleam in Imoen’s eyes, “You’re right. Let’s make sure these nasty hobgobbers never bother anyone ever again.”
“But first,” she continued, “there’s something I want to give you.”
“Me?” I raised my eyebrows.
“I knew you would do the right thing, and I wanted to give you this when you did,” Imoen said reaching into her pockets. She pulled out a golden ring, with a dark red ruby set into its center. I reached out for it tentatively. “I found it while I was out this morning, scouting for the hobgoblins. People outside Candlekeep are really forgetful.”
When I touched it, I again felt that same faded echo - this ring was another item of power. Eager for a new experience, I quickly slipped it onto my finger. I gasped.
“What is it? Ausar! Are you okay?”
I felt as though I had been doused with a bucket of cold water. But then, the water had filtered deep beneath my skin, chilling the very marrow of my bones. From the marrow of my bones, though, the water had seeped, drop by drop, into a basin somewhere else even deeper inside me. Now it rested there placidly, like the water in the basin at the shrine of Oghma. I felt reinvigorated, strengthened, even without knowing yet how to reach down deep enough to tap into that source.
“I feel great!” I exclaimed, “Thank you, Imoen!” I picked her up and spun her around.
“Woah,” she said when I let her down, “what am I - ten?” But she was smiling, clearly well-pleased with herself. “What does it do?”
“I can’t say just yet. But this ring is powerful. Let’s clean up the rest of this sorry group of brigands!”
“But what about our plan?”
“We are more than a match! Not one of them has even been able to touch us.”
With Imoen taken up in my mood, we pushed forward. We came across a single hobgoblin. Between Imoen’s arrows and my blades, the creature never stood a chance. It actually panicked, trying to escape before we cut it down. Nothing could stop us.
And nothing did. Not a single hobgoblin remained - we had vanquished the pack.
At that moment, the entire world seemed to me to open up, as though my heart had finally joined my body beyond the walls of Candlekeep. The open road beckoned to me, but even moreso, the woods all around us. The sage’s stranglehold of rigidity and abnegation had been broken. The sun, the leaf, the bark, the breeze - the entire world - unfurled before me, invited me into a realm that, for the first time, did not demand to be analyzed, categorized, or even explained. The tree was not a quantity of timber in some sage’s manual of feudal economy; it was less and more - it simply was. And so could we be. Fear of the Hakar became a molehill in my mind. Let his killers come, and see the trail of hobgoblin bodies we had left behind us. We were powerful. And we were free!
“Imoen,” I announced, “Joia can wait for her ring. The day is young - let’s explore! Let’s see everything there is to see!” I rushed forward, sprinting through the grass. I kept the road in sight, but refused to walk along it. I could hear Imoen laughing as she ran behind me.
For hours Imoen and I roamed together, with every butterfly and every flock of birds seeming to me some small marvel. We chatted about how silly our old “field trips” to the small gardens outside Candlekeep seemed in comparison. Imoen picked a dandelion seed head, then blew on it so all the feather-tipped seeds glided toward me. I laughed, trying to blow them back; in the end, they all just swirled hopelessly in between the two of us. For hours we wandered without spying even a single soul.
Then, a little after noon, I spotted a man kneeling down at a bend in the road, his chainmail armor gleaming in the sun. I turned to Imoen, placing my finger to my lips. We crept forward wordlessly, surveying the vicinity for any sign of what he might have been doing there. No such sign was apparent, but as we advanced closer, I noticed that he was kneeling before a sword that he had planted in the ground, and that his left arm was extended out in front of him. A few more steps. It was a book in his left-hand - he appeared to be reading from it. A few more. If I strained, I could hear his voice; unfortunately, Imoen’s human ears were likely too poor to pick up anything but an indistinct droning sound. I placed my finger to my lips again, and then tapped on the points of my ears. Imoen nodded, placing her own ears to the ground, in what must have been some bizarre joke. I closed my eyes to focus my attention, but the man had stopped speaking. So I waited, trying to hold every single muscle in my body completely still.
It's nice to see a younger, more playful side of Ausar having fun with Imoen and the dandelion seeds. Age is weird for elves, especially in the case of the PC. Is he fully mature? Does being a Bhaalspawn make him age regularly? Regardless, it's nice to see him a bit more carefree and shedding his elven pride for a moment.
Also, his reasoning for helping with the hobgoblin problem was interesting. He seems more drawn to glory and being seen as a hero than helping people because they need it and he has the ability to do so. I wonder if when he suffers some sort of injury or loss he will continue to help people... (I'm enjoying that you blocked out his alignment at the start - makes things more exciting, and of course, people rarely fit into any one box neatly)
@energisedcamel - thanks! glad you liked the scene; it was also fun to write
An elf makes an odd Gorion's Ward for precisely the reason you mention: elven youth is supposed to be quite lengthy, sometimes lasting (I think) the better part of a century. Naturally, this sort of makes a hash of the standard timeline. I don't want to reveal too much here, because I have some plans for exploring this idea and "softening the blow" in-narrative. But you are insightful to point it out, and I do acknowledge that there's not really a completely watertight solution here (or at least, I haven't found it yet).
Also, you make a fair interpretation of Ausar's motivations thus far. Of course, we'll all just need to wait and see how he turns out Thanks, as always, for reading!
Only a few seconds passed before he started to speak again. His voice was hearty and deep:
“Deliver me, my god, for a dark hour is at hand.
The Abyss has opened its gates against me,
.....Pouring out its scourges like a thousand tongues of fire.
The dragon and the young lion devour my house
.....And prowl the earth for my blood.
My ruin is the mirth of the ungodly,
.....Those who blaspheme thy holy name
.....Without fear of thy strong right arm.
My enemies balance their daggers upon my throat.
But I have not turned aside from thy ways, O Lord,
For thy righteousness alone is my portion,
And thy justice alone do I desire.
In the day, my zeal blazes forth
.....In retribution against thy enemies.
In the night, I keep thy holy vigil,
.....Meditating ceaselessly upon thy decrees.
I suffer the iniquity of those who hate thee
And the scorn of those who revile thee;
Their death-strokes fall upon my own flesh.
Turn thy gaze, O Vigilant One, upon all plots conceived in darkness
.....That the wicked might know their wisdom is conceit
.....And that no sin lies hidden from thy sight.
Let their own snares strangle them;
.....Let their own lies choke them
.....And their own concealments blind them.
When they press upon thy gates at night,
.....Let dogs drag them naked before thy sight.
And when thou raiseth thy sword in wrath,
.....Kill their children and strike at their seed,
That their names die utterly and their profitless issue taste not of life.
Thy praise, my god, shall be ever upon my lips
.....And thy words ever upon my heart.
For never hast thou betrayed thy faithful ones
.....Nor suffered them to fall beyond thy sight,
.....Which hath searched the heart of every man
And every creeping thing.
Thou shall set a banquet for me in the sight of my foes,
.....Exalting thy faithful in the tower of thy justice.
And verily, thy holy Watch shall abide forever,
.....Til Nessus doth perish
And evil shall be no more.”
I blinked in surprise - this man was a worshipper of Helm, perhaps even a knight. His prayer apparently concluded, the man closed his book and rose to stand. I marveled at my fortune to happen across a real-life knight; this day became more like a storybook by the hour.
“He’s a Helmite, Imoen. Let’s go meet him. He will not harm us,” I said, tugging her by the arm back toward the road
“Do we have to? Knights are so boring,” and then, in a mock-baritone, “for honor, and for glory! A knight’s armor is light, his duty heavy. A vigil for the Vigilan-” Although he was still too far away to hear Imoen’s words precisely, the Helmite had turned in our direction. I cut Imoen off with a gentle shove, just in case.
“Be gracious,” I said, suddenly embarrassed to be with her. The Helmite had by now uprooted his sword and sheathed it. When we were close enough that even human eyes could see his face clearly, I called out to him, “Hail, and well met, my fellow!” waving my hand in the air. Imoen snickered under her breath.
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
Sorry again, folks, for the dots to indicate spacing. Formatting is so important in poetry, and this was is the best replacement I can think of for a simple tab. If anyone has suggestions, I am all ears.
The Helmite, somewhat paunchy in his cheeks, but with a strong nose and brow, did not smile. Instead, he answered my greeting with a flat command: “Halt! Be you friend or foe?”
I stopped, feeling my body tense. Perhaps I had been overhasty. In a cold flash, I recalled the antipathy that many sages in Candlekeep bore for Helm, and - unlike most of their folly - it was not a sentiment I could immediately discount. During the Time of Troubles, Ao the Overgod had banished all the other gods from the outer planes, stripping them of most of their powers and consigning them to walk the earth as mortals until the Tablets of Destiny were returned to his possession. This decree of exile had extended to every deity, with one exception: Helm. Ao had appointed Helm as guardian of the mystic causeway between this mortal earth and the divine realms of the outer planes, permitting Helm to retain the power of his divinity for that purpose. While the edict of Ao still held force, Mystra, the mother of magic herself, dared attempt to bypass Helm. In the battle that ensued, Helm slew Mystra, driving his gauntleted fist into her chest and crushing her heart. All the coldness and inflexibility of the Watcher’s duty was made manifest in this awesome act. Many of Helm’s followers turned away, and many wizards formerly sympathetic to the god of order grew to revile him. Certainly, Helm had gained no favor in Candlekeep. Reflection now tinged the unmixed eagerness I had felt before with strains of foreboding. What steely resolve was required to yoke oneself to a god who had killed the beloved Mistress of Magic?
I turned the Helmite’s question back on him, “Until you tell us who you are, how should we know?”
Without pausing, the man reported: “I am Ajantis, squire paladin to Lord Helm. I have come down from the city of Waterdeep to fight against the brigands that make these roads unsafe to travel. What of you?”
“We’re just travelers,” I replied. But the shine of his mail, the timbre of his voice, and the nobility of his mission had returned me to my nights reading of paladins by candlelight. I had played at being a hero, but now I glimpsed the luminous opportunity to adventure with a man destined to heroism. For none would stand athwart the forces of darkness with the same zeal as a squire-paladin, inflamed with righteousness and yet still with much to prove to his Order. A budding sense of high adventure crept into my head and flowered on my tongue.
“Travelers,” I continued, “recently come from slaying a pack of hobgoblin marauders laying siege to the goodly Friendly Arms Inn. We killed them, down to the last.”
“Laying siege?” Imeon laughed. Ajantis fixed his gaze upon her, but Imoen had by now developed an immunity to stern staring. I felt the warmth of embarrassment returning.
“They were harassing innocent damsels on the road. It had to be stopped,” I offered. Ajantis turned back to me and nodded.
“In that case, why do we not join forces against these contemptible lawbreakers? Surely, there must be more bandits than those.”
“Sounds good to us. We’re always on the lookout for another sword arm,” Imeon burst in with a grin. Imoen was clever, when she wanted to be, and her words had what I knew was their intended effect.
“Another sword arm?” Ajantis growled, raising his right arm from his side. “I am no common sell-sword. This arm dispenses the justice of Helm, shelters the innocent, upholds the peace of the realms. My sword,” he said, drawing it from his scabbard, “strikes for honor, and for glory.” He sheathed it again, at which I relaxed greatly, though the conviction of his speech rattled me somewhat. Remarkably, Imeon pantomimed a yawn. Well, if she could still play at this game, then so could I.
“Forgive her,” I said, shaking my head with an affected nonchalance, as though it was a request I had made a thousand times in the past, “she means well but is unaccustomed to the niceties of parley with squire-paladins such as yourself. She killed as many of those hobgoblins as I did and,” I continued, playing my trump, “the hunt of the hobgoblins was originally her idea.”
Ajantis seemed mollified, “Goodness of heart,” he conceded, “is to be acknowledged wherever it is encountered.” He offered a slight bow to Imoen, who - wonder of wonders - actually blushed. Perhaps his resonant voice was winning her over as well. “But does that mean,” he inquired, “that your time of hunting bandits is done?”
“Not at all. Imoen and I are traveling south to investigate the iron crisis. Surely the iron crises and the upsurge in banditry are related phenomena. And even if not, I am sure we shall cross many a highwayman on the road between here and Nashkel,” I answered him.
“Very well,” Ajantis consented, “under the Eye of Helm, I shall join thee.”
“It is an honor,” I said, extending my hand. My heart raced at the thought that I now joined forces with a squire-paladin; in my excitement, I overcompensated on my grip. Ajantis pretended not to feel it, but I noticed him absent-mindedly shaking out his hand afterward.
“Oh all right,” Imoen said, “but can we at least see what’s ahead before we go back? Looks like a farm, doesn’t it?”
“It is,” Ajantis answered, “but why so much eagerness for a farm?”
The three of us walked together toward the furrows of a field that must have been cleared and sown only recently. I began to explain to Ajantis that Imoen and I had grown up in Candlekeep and so had seen little beyond books our entire lives, but before I had said much, I heard a rumbling that seemed to rise up from the earth itself. All three of us stopped moving. Then, that same rumbling shook the ground again, pushing dirt off the top of some of the nearby furrows. I looked at Ajantis, raising my eyebrows, but he shook his head, equally uncertain of what might come next.
Then, only a few feet from where we stood, a gigantic shape burst through the topsoil, spraying dirt everywhere. It was a grotesque, insectoid-type creature with a pear-green carapace and tremendous mandibles. Without even having fully emerged from underground, it towered almost seven feet tall. The monstrous vermin screeched at us and raised its four above-ground limbs - how many it might have had below-ground, I shuddered to think - in what was unmistakably an animal display of hostility and challenge. Imoen screamed.
My immediate instinct was simply to bolt. Imoen and I had no quarrel with this aberration and we could probably outrun it. But in a split-second, awareness of Ajantis quashed this instinct. I would not run behind the shield of a paladin-squire, like some defenseless woman. If I did not charge now, I would surely lose his esteem; wiping the creatures blood from his own blade, he would call me “coward.” Even the thought filled me with second-hand shame. No, I would be second in courage to no one, not even a paladin-squire. So I drew my swords and charged.
“For glory!” I roared into the wind. The creature shrieked again, shaking the digging-hooks at the end of its legs. But no sooner than I had shouted these words, and committed to my charge, my heart emptied out like a glass of spilled water. I had catapulted myself into the jaws of this horrific beast, but had anyone followed? A sense of unreality enveloped me as I hurtled toward the cold-blooded blackness of that creature’s bulging insectoid eyes.
But then, this bubble of unreality popped at the sound of a battlecry behind me.
“For Helm!” Ajantis’ voice carried well, bolstering my spirits. At the cusp of striking distance now, I threw my momentum into a downward slash at one of the creature’s hooked appendages. I heard a clink as my blade made contact and rebounded off the chitinous shell covering the top of its leg. I hammered down again, this time on the vermin’s thorax, but with the same futile clang. The creature swept a gangly arm toward me, but I darted aside. I had to find an alternative tactic. My sword blade would not last much longer as a bludgeon against such a steely carapace.
By now, Ajantis had finally closed the distance, and we contended with the creature side by side. He batted aside one of the creature’s sweeping legs with his shield. His counterstroke, however, was no more effective than mine. The creature’s incessant chittering, punctuated by high-pitched shrieking, rattled my mind. Was it calling for help? I swatted another of its legs away, and tried to do the same with that thought. Then, my eye snagged on a subtle grey in the coloration of the part of the exoskeleton around the abdomen. With a rush, I realized that this greyish abdominal area was the creature’s underbelly. If it was vulnerable anywhere, it would be there.
“Strike for the stomach!” I cried over to Ajantis. A stray arrow whizzed over our heads. Imoen, it seemed, had not abandoned us. I dipped around one of the creature’s legs, which, it was evident by now, were mercifully uncoordinated, and thrust with all my might into the creature’s abdomen. I heard a crunching, and then a squelching sound - I had broken through! A horrific, pusy odor leaked out of the creature. Ajantis, inspired by my example, also rammed his sword into the vermin’s belly. Now the monstrous insect shrieked in what could only have been agony. It thrashed its limbs in a furor and then swung its massive head toward us. As I dodged aside, I gasped at the sheer weight of the creature; a head-on collision would probably have crushed a man’s skull inside his helmet.
Ajantis, however, had been caught wrong-footed, and barely had time to brace his shield against that devastating and ponderous arc. His shield, set on the wrong side of his body relative to the swing of that creature’s head, was not enough. The insect battered him from the side, and then locked him in its twin mandibles, pulling him off the ground. Another arrow flew harmlessly over the creature’s head. Ajantis did not have much time left. I threw myself at the creature’s head, hoping to bludgeon it into unlocking its jaws. But the creature was incensed, throwing its head back and forth, Ajantis in its jaws like a doll, so that my strike fell wide. Suddenly, I heard a cracking sound come from Ajantis’ body, followed by a steaming hiss, like water hitting hot oil. A smell ten times more putrid than the one from before mixed with Ajantis’ screams. Too late!, I thought in horror. Another arrow streaked through the air. The creature shrieked wildly, opening its jaws so that Ajantis thudded to the ground. I looked up in disbelief. Imeon had shot the oversized insect straight through the eye.
I have to say, as the author/player, rushing in like this was pretty foolhardy - all these characters are still level 1! Images of the battle will be held until next week so you can savor the suspense of Ajantis' life hanging in the balance.
Ankheg melee attack: 3d6 crushing and 1d4 acid damage. Odds of survival starting from 12 HP: less than half. At least, I'm assuming that's a melee hit from the description.
... Except that the lowest-level version of Ajantis is actually level 2, with 20 HP. His armor's no good (chain mail, shield, and helm, AC 6 vs. crushing gets hit on a 7), but he's tough enough to almost certainly survive one hit.
My first thought when I saw you were going for an ankheg was as a player, not as a reader of a story. "He's going for an ankheg with a first level party of three? That's a little, um, questionable."
So far it looks like it didn't spit acid, which would be a very lucky break.
If your main character dies, my vote would be to reload and write it into the story as the other characters getting him resurrected. That's the basic idea behind a minimal reload run. Too many resurrections of various characters would start to strain suspension of disbelief in the the story, though. Trying to write a story that follows what happens in a particular run of a computer game presents some unusual problems, doesn't it?
@jmerry - thanks for following along (wasn't sure you were here haha) and crunching the numbers for interested readers! Thanks as well for offering your correction to my post - Ajantis does, in fact, start at level 2, not level 1. If anyone had to take the brunt of an ankheg assault, I guess I am glad it was him.
@BelgarathMTH - my plan was just to clear a little fog of war, so that I could say Ausar and Imoen had been sight-seeing on the farm, as per the narrative up to this point. I was not expecting an ankheg to pop up, and when it did, I wanted to run. Unfortunately, that was not what Ausar wanted Maybe if Ajantis does die here, Ausar won't risk so much for his pride in the future, but then again . . . *shrugs in the uncertain character development of a hero with high INT and low WIS*
And yes, the computer game / story dynamic is exciting and, at times, trying. I wrote a post somewhere early in this thread about my general thoughts on reloading and character deaths, and they haven't changed much since then. If Ausar dies in-game I will, of course, reload without hesitation. As to whether his death will make it into the narrative, that is going to be a matter for some case-by-case discernment. I am leaning towards "no," in most cases, but that doesn't mean there couldn't be creative ways to write some suitable severe / consequential trauma into the narrative.
But the nightmare was not over. I rushed over to Ajantis, who was lying motionless on the ground. The area around Ajantis’ stomach and lower torso had been mangled and burned. I leaned down over him and caught that awful stench. I turned around and wretched, vomiting up breakfast. Imoen was sprinting over with the healing salve.
When I turned back, Ajantis eyelids flitted and then opened.
“We have healing supplies. You are going to be okay,” I spoke as reassuringly as I could under the stare of his gaping wounds.
“No,” he shook his head, “I do not need them,” he muttered feebly.
“No!” I shouted back at him with panic’s own fury, “You will take them! You will make it through this.” When Ajantis had spoken, I had thought he meant he did not need them because he was beyond saving. I rejected that possibility utterly. Completely! - I had not met a knight just to lead him to his death. He had to live.
Ajantis cracked the thinnest of smiles, “Helm alone is my portion and my power; Helm alone my strength and my tower.” With these words, Ajantis laid his hands upon his wounds, ever so delicately. And before my eyes, his burns began to fade; his flesh knit itself together again. The sight of rapid tissue regeneration was mildly sickening, but I was awestruck.
“Ajantis!” Imeon gasped, “How-”
“Helm sees all, and watches over his faithful,” Ajantis said, vitality already flowing back into his voice. In a few moments, he was standing again. He still required my support to walk, the healing only having remedied the worst of his injuries, but the man had at least hauled himself off death’s door.
“We better hightail it out of here,” Imoen said, “if another one of those bugs finds us, I ain’t saving either of ya.” She sidled over to the giant carapace turned corpse, holding her nose, and poked at its remaining eye with a stick.
“You have my thanks, m’lady,” Ajantis said, “You saved my life, and I owe you a debt of honor.” This time his bow was deep. I felt a pin-prick of envy.
“Oh don’t be getting all gracious on me,” Imoen protested, but only mildly. I could tell she enjoyed the praise.
“And you, bravehearted elven friend, do you usually rush so headlong into danger’s maw? You must have faced down that entire horde of hobgoblins at once,” Ajantis said, clapping me on the shoulder. I neglected to mention our extreme caution in the hobgoblin hunt. Instead, I just bathed in the praise of a paladin-squire.
“Still,” he continued, rubbing his side, “next time flight should be our course. These creatures are repulsive, and aggressive, but I do not think they are evil. It would have been no shame.” I nodded in agreement, but inwardly I groaned. So I hadn’t had to charge in after all?
“But,” I asked, “let’s take a trophy, no? I think you have bled enough for it.” I helped Ajantis hobble over to the insect’s carcass. Together we located seams of a sort in the insect’s shell, joints along which we carved out the head and a “mane” of scales. The stench was mortifying, but I was smitten with the idea. The Friendly Arms Inn would receive us with a heroic welcome at the sight of such a creature slain. In his weakened state, Ajantis struggled to move it, but for me, the burden was light.
Above, the promised images depicting the action in Part XXXVI. Ajantis lived, but just barely. Even one more graze from that ankheg would have spelled his doom. I do admit that, after just going through the trouble of composing a whole psalm for Ajantis, I was moderately mortified at seeing his HP drop down 90% in a single blow. Those were a tense couple rounds, but I am glad to be able to keep him in the story (for now! haha).
Comments
Thanks everyone for your questions and comments! I always appreciate hearing your reactions, and hope everyone who wanted to say something had a chance. Here is a mini-post, anticipating the continuation of regular installments tomorrow morning.
CHAPTER 1, Part XX
The stone edge of the stair is hard and cold against my cheek. My neck, though, burns with its cruel laceration. Breathing is like drinking fire and vomiting ice - an unnatural strain against nature that cannot long endure. I lift my eyes to look upon my murder. His eyes are as unflinching as the two blades he holds in his hands, those blades that severed the thread of my life, the thread on which my soul dangles above hell. I am immediately conscious of the full weight of my sins, a vast dung heap into which I had been rolling my soul for so long: larceny, brutality, fornication, pride, counsel to evil, even murder. But in all these sins there was no power, no power at all like the power in this man. Why did he even carry weapons, if he could take life with a look, with a thought? Could he see me now, or was I a mite in the shadow of a condor’s wing? If I screamed, would he hear me, or could he only hear words of power, think thoughts of power, do acts of power? He cried havoc, but I could not scream. Blood coursed through his veins, mine bled out impotent upon the stones. Fire shone in his eyes, my whole life had been the mere picture of a flame. Now, even that paper would be consumed. The entire world might be consumed by such strength! In the polish of his blades, I see the black and emerald of my robes, engorged in blood. My blood would not feed the earth. Suddenly, those blades flash, burning my eyes like sun-fire itself. The world is utterly blackened. And then, the thread snaps. My soul falls, somehow. I know he is at the bottom. Is his face not so much like my own?
I jolt awake, not knowing where I am. My hand shot to my neck. No wound, no blood. I slowly drew my hand away. As my eyes adjusted to the light streaming in from my window, recollection flooded back. Had I really killed another man? Had I stepped in his blood like he was some chicken slaughtered on the barn floor? It was a terrible thought, and I pushed it away into the fatigue-induced haze that surrounded all the events of last night. But I could feel my heart beating rapidly. It was all self-defense. I breathed a deep breath. Even a middling mage could burn the life out of an unshielded man in six seconds or less. I breathe again. I rise to sit upright on my bed. But his spell was purely defensive. He could have spun the illusion reflexively when he saw Imoen raising her bow. Another breath. But the paper showed we were blameless. But I had charged in without provocation. Another breath. The spell itself was a provocation. No! Yes! No! What did that paper even say? My thoughts tumbled all over each other in a hopeless flurry. I climbed out of bed. I was wearing the same travel-soiled pants, but no shirt. How had that happened? I needed to clear my head. If I could not deliberate rationally, then I would never untangle the events of last night. And if I could not understand the events of last night, I would never be able to solve for the optimal next step. With this end in mind, I dug into my pack and retrieved my spellbook.
A heavy hide-bound tome, its weight was reassuring even though most of its pages were as of yet unmarked. At Candlekeep, the sages had often referred to a mage’s spellbook as his second soul, as both the foundation and the crown of his wizardly craft. It was the repository of his entire knowledge in the Art and the prime instrument of its practice. I laid the book down on the wooden table in my room and gingerly opened the front cover. Inhaling deeply, I felt my muscles relaxing as my nose picked up the familiar musk of the Candlekeep libraries. On the first page was the very first spell I had ever scribed, a spell simply called “Shield.” For months before Gorion had permitted me even to attempt my first scribing, he had guided me daily through hours of mental exercise. Memorization, discrimination, concentration, and understanding - all four pillars were essential, Gorion had taught me, to the practice of any competent arcanist. Memorization, for the recollection of the patterns, contours, and words that comprised the symbolic form of magical power. Discrimination, for the recognition of the most subtle differences: physically, between two markings; analytically, between two systems; and observationally, between anticipated outcome and actual effect. Concentration, for fortitude of the mind. Gorion’s words were coming back to me in rivulets now:
“Ausar,” he had told me, “the master mage is a clockmaker who can just as easily assemble a timepiece in a blizzard, as he can spend twelve hours contemplating the rotation of a single gear, as he can tie his own shoes.”
“Remind me never to try wearing a clockmaker’s shoes then,” I remember joking in reply.
The memory was crisp as the day itself. I could still see the surprise in Gorion’s eyes, and hear the laughter that followed. The thorns of anger had not sprouted here, at least not yet. There was instead a throbbing sorrow, like a minor key echoing in an empty room. After a few moments, I turned it aside.
The final element was understanding. Without at least some insight into the relationships that explained a spell’s effects, mere memorization of the spell’s form would be - Gorion’s words again - “like chaff waiting to be blown away in the wind.” Understanding was a magical form’s deep tether in the mind.
I traced the lines of Shield with my finger. Again, like the smell of an old book, the familiar sensation of parchment was reassuring. First, I slid my finger over the dimensive lines. Dimensive lines encoded the most general information about a spell: the school of magic to which it belonged, whether its effect would be beneficial or baneful, what elements or forces would express its power, and the like. As my finger reached the sweeping tail of the final dimensive line, I traced down a side-channel, entering the dense labyrinth of the ley lines. Ley lines represented the spell’s more technical qualities, including its velocity, its range, its spatial extension, the number of bodies or minds it could affect, its intensity, and its duration. Tracing through these lines took appreciably longer, but I hardly noticed. Instead, I focused on repeating to myself the significance of each one. At last, I reached the accretia. Accretia were divided into two categories, general and specific. General accretia consisted primarily in the words that a mage had to incant while casting the spell, along with representations of the movements he had to make.
All of the above were, to a certain extent at least, uniquely styled, just as every individual has his own handwriting or manner of speech. After I had scribed my first two spells under Gorion’s careful supervision, he had remarked that my own style had a distinctly elven flair, with, and here he paused unsteadily, looking into the distance instead of at me, “a touch of something else.” I understood him to be thinking about my some quirk unique to my mother, and so I broke in with humor. “A touch of genius, I know!” I declared proudly. Gorion just chuckled and shook his head. Given how often I joked with him - it had never occurred to me until this moment - Gorion had much more patience with me than I would have had with a student much like myself.
In any event, the final category - the specific accretia - was by far the most personal. The specific accretia encompassed everything the mage adjudged especially significant in respect of his own relationship to the spell. For the more exegetically-minded, the specific accretia included historical commentaries on the spell that the mage had found particularly incisive. For the empirically-oriented, they included practical theories about the spell’s operation and the results of personal experiments. For almost all mages, however, they included personally meaningful memories of prior castings, both where they had succeeded and where they had failed. They included scribblings about hopes, fears, and desires for future castings, as well as the mage’s own opinion of the spell’s worth. Sometimes mages even recorded segments of dreams in which they had cast the spell in question. Largely because of these specific accretia, Gorion had told me, a mage’s spellbook became increasingly intimate as the mage grew older, to such a degree that some wizards would rather appear naked before a stranger than open up their spellbook to another mage. Recalling that metaphor still made me blush.
But I did not blush now, because I remembered, with a sinking feeling, that one of the spells in my book required updating. I fished into my pack for my arcanist’s quill and ink, choosing red for this particular entry. I found an open space on the page directly across from Shield, the home of the only other spell I knew - Spook. There I wrote of the man I had killed at Candlekeep, the spell’s spectacular success and spectacular failure, as well as my own. It would be a part of my spellbook forever now, and so a part of me. Dread, shame, confusion, and sorrow were lapping at the edges of my heart, but concentration on the spellbook had provided me with the discipline I needed to keep them there, at the edges, for now.
It was time. I cast about the room for the wad of papers I had stripped from the man in the black and emerald coat. The semi-crumpled mass slouched halfway under my bed. I picked it up, straightening the crinkled pages out as best I could. At the top of the stack, I recognized the parchment I had snatched from Imoen last night. The perspective-bending vividness of last night’s dream forced itself back to the front of my mind. Was that how my assailant could have seen me, as he breathed his dying breath? But I was threatened and exhausted, not some ruthless killer. The thought filled me with dread, and again, I shrunk back. So before I could catch more than a few words, I had cycled that particular page to the back of the stack. I would investigate that one last, I promised myself. How had Imoen seen something that I had missed? The question nagged me like a horsefly, especially because I still had not been able to puzzle out what exactly it was that she had seen. Perhaps, the other papers would provide some useful background information, pointing out the correct answer before I was forced to admit she had figured out something that I could not.
As I realized what the remaining three papers were, I forgot Imoen entirely. I cast the paper on the bottom aside, and swept myself and the remaining three papers back in front of my spellbook. For those papers were no ordinary parchment, far from it - they were scrolls of arcane power! For an hour or two, the world beyond me, my spellbook, and those scrolls would cease to exist. More than merely reminiscing about a spell I had already learned, I could scribe something entirely new. Then I would be able to confront even the most dire news rationally, unflinchingly, with all the self-possession of a true arcanist.
Many referred to the process by which a mage committed a new spell to his spellbook simply as “scribing,” but that common parlance oversimplified a complex and daunting challenge. In fact, the first and, in Gorion’s opinion, most essential step in the scribing process occurred long before a mage even touched his quill. First, a mage had to study the scroll: interpreting its dimensive lines and its ley lines to form an understanding, however rough, of the spell’s school, what its primary effects were, and how it produced said effects. “Scribing blind,” as Gorion referred to the mistake of skipping this step, would almost certainly result in failure. So, I pored over the first scroll on the stack, straining to recollect the rudiments of arcane interpretation I had learned at Candlekeep. The dimensive lines first appeared representative of evocation magic, but attention to their relatively gentle curvature suggested an alternative: conjuration. But here I furrowed my brow. Conjuration typically concerned itself with the summoning and binding of creatures and, in certain cases, even spirits or demons. But the dimensive lines here clearly indicated a spell that was defensive or protective in nature. Furthermore, despite my intensive scrutiny of the ley lines, I could uncover no description of a creature or even a symbol for life. Instead, all I saw appearing, again and again, were constructions for the manipulation of air. I double-checked the dimensive lines, but on second inspection I became even more certain that this spell was not evocation. I returned to the ley lines, trying to empty myself of presuppositions, allowing a technical scan of the ley lines to inform my understanding of the magical school rather than reading my assumptions about the magical school into my interpretation of the ley lines.
It was only then that the mechanism and the purpose of the spell became clear. The spelled pushed air from the surrounding area into an extremely dense but narrow shell around the caster’s legs, torso, and waist, binding the packed air together with a low-energy magical charge. The result would be, I inferred, a sturdy but not impenetrable form of personal protection that mimicked some of the effects of traditional armor without encumbering the mage. Its primary virtue, however, would not be incredible strength, but rather, the leylines implied, its incredible duration. The spell might last almost an entire day before dissipating. I smiled to myself. There was no mark on the page for which my theory could not account. Even without Gorion’s tutelage, I could do this - I could teach myself magic!
Next, the eponymous step, the actual copying of the scroll’s contents onto an open page. Every line needed to be traced over with absolute precision. One errant stroke and the entire endeavor would be in vain. I worked slowly and methodically, in blue ink this time: first the dimensive lines, then the ley lines, then the general accretia, starting from the top and then sketching down to the bottom. Once not a jot or tittle appeared out of place, checked my work, and then checked it again. Everything seemed perfect.
The final step was called “sealing.” It was both the easiest and the most tense, because it was at this stage that the mage’s work was subjected to the ultimate test. At this stage, the mage laid the scroll flush against the page upon which he had encoded its contents. Every genuine arcanist’s scroll was treated with an alchemical tincture that could serve as a catalyst in one of two magical reactions. The energy could be released to enable a single casting of the spell, regardless of whether or not the mage had previously scribed it. But alternatively - and more to the purpose here - the energy could be released to attempt to seal a scribed spell into the mage’s spellbook. If the scribing had been sufficiently precise, then the sealing would magically weave its contents into the very fiber of the page. If the scribing contained an inaccuracy, though, the page would be wiped clean. It was an unappealable verdict handed down under the laws of magic and mind themselves. A scroll’s alchemical treatment only contained enough substrate to power a single use, so such scrolls would always be consumed, irrevocably, regardless of the outcome. Holding my breath, I pressed the scroll against my draft in the spellbook. The blue in the ink intensified and began to glow. Then a flash blanketed the page with bright blue luminescence. Now was the moment of truth. The glow gradually subsided, and when it had vanished entirely, the spell remained. The sealing had been a success! Jubilation flooded me, and I let loose a loud, whooping cheer - I had done it!
Wasting no time, I reached greedily for a second scroll. This spell was even more conceptually tangled than the one before, but eventually I fought through the thicket to understanding, as fantastic as it seemed: alteration magic would weave the fire-resistant properties of salamander skin into the flesh on the caster’s hands and fingers, then the spell would superheat the mage’s fingertips until they glowed white-hot. Finally, jets of fire would appear to spring from the caster’s fingers; in reality, the caster’s fingers defined five-foot lines of projection, along which the magical energy operated directly upon the air itself, transforming it to fire. Despite their complexity, the combined effects of the spell lasted mere moments, just long enough to immolate a single target. My mouth hung open. This spell read like a transmuter’s fever-dream. Whoever that transmuter was, he already seemed more exciting than all the dismal sages of Candlekeep combined. If only I had a chance to study for a season under him! I shot my hands out in front of me, pantomiming a casting, imagining eight jets of molten fire pouring from my hands. My fingers tingled just thinking about it. My scribing was careful, and the sealing successful.
Compared to the prior to spells, the final one was simplicity itself: a spell every mage and non-mage knew by the same name - “Magic Missile.” But this simplicity tempted me into haste, and the sealing failed. Disappointment stung for a moment, but did not enrage. In this world of arcane scribing, all happenings had an eminently rational cause. I understood why I had failed, and that was enough. Magic Missile was, after all, a boring spell. I flipped back to the Armor spell I had just scribed, to enter one line of specific accretia, “First spell scribed in my own power, alone.” Then, with a satisfied sigh, I gently closed the front cover. Now, really, it was time.
I took the final paper in hand, the one that had wrought such uncharacteristic despair on Imoen’s face. It read:
BOUNTY NOTICE
Be it known to all those of evil intent, that a bounty has been placed upon the head of Ausar, the foster child of Gorion.
Last seen in the area of Candlekeep, this person is to be killed in quick order.
Those returning with proof of the deed shall receive no less than 200 coins of gold.
As always, any that reveal these plans to the forces of law shall join the target in their fate.
Indeed, then, the situation was substantially different than I had previously surmised. Whether it was much worse, I had yet to decide. My operative theory had been that the Hakar would be roving the countryside himself, or would have dispersed a handful of select minions with a personal commission. Instead, he had declared an open bounty, enlisting the aid of all men who could be moved to do murder for 200 gold coins. I rested my head against my hand as I weighed a set of potential inferences. First, 200 gold coins was surely substantial enough for a common man, but it was no princely sum. In order to gain admittance to Candlekeep, every visitor “donated” a tome worth no fewer than 1,000 gold coins. Even Winthrop refused to part with the katana in his shop for fewer than 800. Whom he expected to buy such a thing was still a mystery to me - no scholar traveled to a library for exotic swords.
In any event, such a bounty would likely prove most appealing to two types of people. First, desperate men of scarce means - even otherwise good men, confronted with the specter of starvation for themselves or for their family, might entertain murderous intent for the short-term security of 200 gold coins. Such men, however, would likely be undernourished and underequipped, and were therefore likely to pose little threat. I thought back, with a pang of remorse, to the bedraggled man I had killed so easily in the Candlekeep priests’ quarters. I would spare such men, if I could.
Second, however, were any seasoned but underemployed killers who happened to be roaming the region. A villain already inured to murder would not shrink back for fear of the gods or love of innocent humanity. But neither would 200 gold coins likely be sufficient to induce such men to travel long distances or to turn aside, even temporarily, from more lucrative skullduggery. Because of their expertise, these bounty hunters would be exponentially more dangerous but, I hoped, few and far between. I frowned; the probabilities here were nebulous. Locked up in Candlekeep for my whole life, I was not sure just how densely the outside world was populated with such dangerous men. That the first assassination attempt under the bounty had occurred only two days after Gorion’s death, however, did not bode well.
I tapped my fingers against my temple. The posting of a general bounty implied that the Hakar still considered me a threat but no longer hunted me personally. And the size of that bounty suggested the reason: with Gorion slain, the Hakar thought me helpless. If the first one or two assassination attempts failed by chance, the third faceless vagabond with an idle sword, or the fourth, would surely succeed. I grit my teeth at the thought. Always, I had been underestimated. No more! I imagined hurling the Hakar to the ground, slamming my boot down on his throat, and projecting eight jets of fire straight into his baalor-head helmet.
I paused, and breathed. I forced my mind back up onto the steady track of reason.The inferences I had accumulated thus far could support two alternative theories about my relation to the Hakar’s larger designs. On the one hand, it was possible that I remained one of many serious threats that he faced, but that my elimination was not, at the moment, his most pressing objective. In this case, some element of his machinations required his presence elsewhere. He had therefore delegated responsibility for killing me to what he regarded as an efficiently-priced bounty. The Hakar may have been well-resourced, but his resources - both in time and in money - were not infinite. If this theory were correct, another personal confrontation might be imminent, depending on when he had finished attending to his slightly more urgent concerns. I posed sufficient threat that, if I survived long enough, he would return to finish the job himself.
On the other hand, it was possible instead that, with Gorion passed away - Oghma preserve him, I thought bitterly - the Hakar was merely tying the final knot on a deed already done. According to this theory, there had been something that Gorion was supposed to teach me or help me to do, that without his help I had little or no hope of discovering or accomplishing independently. When the Hakar had killed Gorion, then, he had substantially diffused the danger I represented. Now, he was setting the bounty as a form of insurance, commensurate with his new assessment of the risk. If this view were true, then the Hakar might never bother confronting me directly again, or even necessarily raise the bounty, unless I discovered something about myself, or about him, that radically altered the actuarial equation.
Each of these theories weighed about equally in my mind, and I could not find a strong reason for rejecting either of them. I did even know which of them I would have preferred to be true.
My mind raced on. I knew I was already crossing the chasm between sound inference and speculation, but I dashed forward anyway, trying to unearth the taproot of this entire bloody affair. I had been wrong in supposing that Candlekeep was a closed system. Sage Parda’s remarks clarified that my mastery had extended only to surface appearances, and that at least some of the sages, including Gorion, had involved themselves in intrigue invisible to me. The question of what all these intrigues might have aimed at was too vast. The narrower and more relevant question was: what part of them could have turned upon something I did not know about myself? Here, all signs pointed to my mother. She was the great mystery standing at the origin of my life. But here, all hope was lost. What more could I ever learn of her now that Gorion had passed?
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
Intrepid readers, thank you for braving a week's long interlude of relatively cerebral content, as Ausar collects his thoughts in his room at the Friendly Arms. I promise you that Monday's installment will see him out of these forests of the mind and back on the high road of action and adventure.
Personally I've loved these last few posts, as the little details really bring the world to life! Your interpretation of the scribing process was incredibly interesting and I love your descriptions of the spells. I could happily read just an entire series of you going through the spell book and describing each spell in detail
Suddenly, my stomach rumbled - loudly. I snapped out of my reverie to realize that I was absolutely famished. The cook down in the kitchen, a squat, doughy man, squinted at me, then threw his hand up in the air: “You want breakfast, elf? You don’t ’ave the the look of a day laborer ta me.”
“I’m famished!” I whined, “do you have any idea what I had to go through yesterday - and with no proper supper? This is a kitchen, isn’t it?”
“What? An’ I’m your personal servant? Elves! Bah!” he said, throwing up his hand again and turning his back. The cook trundled away.
“Hey! I paid good coin to stay here!” I said, raising my voice.
This comment seemed to deflect the cook from his intended course. “Alright, alright,” he said, shaking his head, “jus’ ta git you outta ma hair.” When he returned, he carried about half a palm’s worth of cheese in what must have been the smallest trencher the kitchen had on hand. He thrust it into my hands, not bothering to look up at me.
“This is it? Not even any sauce for the trencher? ” I stammered.
“One more complaint, boy, an’ Imma take it back! I ’ave work ta do.” The cook planted his feet, now looking me directly in the eye. The rumbling in my stomach persuaded me not to push the matter any further.
So, I retreated to one of the tables in the main hall - a wide-open space, sturdily built and simply designed - with my scrap of cheese and pathetic trencher. The cheese was gone in the blink of an eye, and I had not long set to gnawing at the trencher when I heard a voice a few tables behind me.
“B-be patient, Jaheira, my love, A-Ausar will come down soon enough.” I looked over my shoulder to catch a glimpse. The man - Khalid, no doubt - had a plaintive expression, but the woman - Jaheira - was stony-faced. All she did was grunt in response, her head leaning listlessly to one side so that her thick brown hair fell onto the table.
Swiping my crusty trencher off the table, I started walking over.
“I am Ausar. How did you know I was here?” I called out halfway. Upon hearing my words, they straightened immediately. Both of them had swarthy skin and dark eyes. But while Jaheira’s eyes were almost intoxicating in their depth, Khalid’s pupils looked as though they had been painted on with acrylic. They also both had the semi-pointed ears that were an unmistakable sign of mixed human and elven ancestry. My pulse quickened; perhaps their connection with Gorion stretched all the way back to the time he knew my mother. By now, I had reached their table.
“Greetings,” Jaheira said, “You . . . you look familiar, though it’s not your looks. I am not sure what I expected, but I believe you are Gorion’s child. I am Jaheira; this is Khalid.” Jaheira placed her hand on Khalid’s shoulder.
“G-good to know you,” he said.
“We are old friends of your adopted father,” Jaheira picked up, “He is not with you?”
I shook my head silently.
“Well then,” she continued, “I must assume the worst. He would not permit his only child to wander without his accompaniment.”
“If . . . if he has passed, we share your loss,” Khalid said. For a moment, no one said anything. I could feel my jaw tighten. Then Jaheira cut in again.
“Gorion often said that he worried for your safety, even at the expense of his own. He also wished that Khalid and I would become your guardians, if he should ever meet an untimely end. However, you are much older now, and the choice of your companions should be your own.”
Khalid’s abnormally large teeth showed in a forced smile, his best effort at consolation, “We could t-travel with you until you settled, help you find your l-lot in life.”
“It would be a fitting last service to Gorion, though” Jaheira cut in quickly, “we should first go to Nashkel. Khalid and I look into local concerns, and there are rumors of strange things happening at the mines. No doubt you have heard of the iron shortage? You would do well to help us. It affects everyone, including you. We are to meet the mayor of the town, Berrun Ghastkill.”
I finally spoke, mostly succeeding in mustering a steady voice, “Your company would be welcome, but there are a few things you must know.” I told them of Gorion’s death at the hands of the Hakar, of the cryptic letter from “E,” and of the bounty on my head. Khalid and Jaheira could shed no light on any of it. If their mission at the mines of Nashkel were urgent, I volunteered, they might reasonably refuse to become entangled in my so-far bottomless confusion, an entanglement that would court the ire of a foe as terrible as the Hakar. I appreciated their friendship with Gorion, and would take no offense.
“Just h-how big did you say his sword wa-” Jaheira cut off Khalid before he could finish.
“Khalid!” she hissed tersely, then, turning to me, “You do not know, Ausar, how dear Gorion was to us. He saved both of our lives many times over. We would never abandon his ward to such a piteous fate. As long as you travel with us, we shall shield you from this evil as well as we are able.”
“Of course, my s-sweet,” Khalid said to Jaheira, “to the death. If we must-”
“And when we find the fiend the slew Gorion,” Jaheira’s face reddened and her mouth worked wordlessly for a moment, “he will know justice!” she ended in a shout.
Khalid gulped, but laid a hand on Jaheira’s shoulder.
“Then, the deepest gratitude of my heart belongs to you. You shall have my succor in this mission. By sword and spell I will overcome all who oppose us. On my honor.” The words had sounded so majestic in my head, but when they fell out of my mouth they sounded horrifically overwrought. Jaheira raised an eyebrow. Before she could reply, I tried to rebalance the conversation.
“But you never answered my question.”
“And what question was that?”
“How did you know I was in the Friendly Arms before just now?”
“Ah,” Jaheira said, “we already met Imoen. To be honest, we were surprised. Gorion never said anything about you being married.”
“Married?” I exclaimed. As though my exclamation were a spell, I heard the clomping of feet. In a trice, Imoen had appeared at my side.
“You told them we were married?” I asked her in disbelief.
“S-she never said as much,” Khalid said, “but, well, you see-” Here, he cut off speaking, and jabbed a finger in the direction of Imoen’s left hand, where she still wore the enchanted amethyst on her ring-finger.
“Married? Me?” Imoen stuck out her tongue, and I blushed.
Khalid blushed too, “Oh my, so she is your w-w-woman, then?” The way Khalid said “woman,” turned my face an even deeper red. It was my turn to stammer.
“I-it’s not like that!” I protested, “We grew up together in Candlekeep, friends since childhood. She’s really more like a sister than anything else.”
“And I wasn’t going to let him sneak off and have an adventure all to himself,” Imoen piped up, also eager to dispel Khalid’s ham-fisted insinuation.
Khalid visibly relaxed, “Well, then.”
Jaheira chuckled. “You two have already had a very taxing journey. We will all take our rest here at the Inn today, and set out early tomorrow morning. Even eagles must find a roost from time to time,” she said. We all agreed.
Imoen grabbed me by the arm and pulled me over to the table where I had been sitting before.
“About time you woke up, sleepyhead!” Imoen chided, wagging her finger. “Did you know there is a gnome on the second floor - pretty sure she’s a wizard, or is it a wizardess? - whose house was invaded by spiders? Terrible things that moved into her house so now she can’t go back. Some people have terrible luck! She wants the place all cleared out - said something about a bottle of wine, but I don’t know if it’s for us to drink or if she wants it back. Everyone is so friendly here! Well, everyone except that smelly ol’ half-orc over there. He thought I was a serving girl, and we almost got into a shouting match. But I didn’t come all the way here to be his barmaid. Say, why do you have that crusty-looking thing? Did they run out of pie in the kitchen? That cook sure is a sweetheart, isn’t he? Almost as nice as old Puffguts, but not really. Oh! And that Mirrorshade, do you think he is related to the gnome-lady upstairs? He says the iron ‘round these parts is sick, been crumbling to bits for months now. Do you think Jaheir-”
I held my hand up, “Imoen, slow down.” She had been speaking in doubletime, hardly even stopping to refill her lungs at the halfway point.
“Okay,” she said, finally taking a normal-sized breath, “but I did promise someone you would help them with something. You will, won’t you?” She looked up at me expectantly.
“Wait - you promised someone else that I would do something for them?” I tapped my trencher on the wooden table to emphasize the key pronouns in my question. She had been served pie, while the cook had practically thrown this sorry excuse for a trencher at me. Why, I asked myself, did Imoen have all the luck?
“Well,” she said, “it wasn’t something I would be able to do all by myself. But it is the right thing to do, so I know you will help me do it.”
“And what exactly is this knightly deed to which you have pledged me?” I asked, with more than a hint of irony.
“Hey! It is important! There’s a woman who lives in the courtyard named Joia, who lost her flamedance ring to a pack of hobgoblins. She barely escaped with her life! She was ambushed just like us, Ausar. We need to help her get that ring back.”
“You promised a stranger that we would risk our lives fighting hobgoblins so that she could get back a little jewelry. That doesn’t make any sense, Imoen,” I said, shaking my head.
“She wouldn’t have asked if it weren’t important to her. What if it was her wedding ring, or the last gift she had to remember her mom by? And we can do something to help her! I already scouted.I know where they’re trompin’ around, proll’y looking for some other passerbys to attack. I can back you up, Ausar! Remember how I shot that gibberling clean through the eye?”
I stroked my chin. As Imoen spoke, a thought had begun hatching in my head. The value of the ring was immaterial and not worth the risk, even if it was a family heirloom. But to risk one’s life in combat against evil, to make whole the innocent victims of brutishness and rapacity, to bleed for the vindication of a noble principle, these were the marks of heroism. The gallant and the fearless, of whom I had read, for hours and hours between the dusty shelves of the Great Library, and whom I had lain awake, many a night, imagining I might one day become, had trod this very path, a razor’s edge between obscurity and death. It was no bolt of glory that, crackling through a life of banality, instantly transfigured these men into legends.
The thought now cracked its shell wide open. What reason did I have to hesitate? Why not claim a hero’s mantle? The obvious answer was that on the shoulders of most men that mantle quickly became a funeral shroud. But my life was already so full of death. I was in virtual exile from Candlekeep, the only community to which I had ever belonged. I had no family. I was a stranger to elven lands. Every step I took would be dogged by the shadow of an assassin’s cloak and dagger. If I wagered my life on heroism, I would have wagered but little.
And in fact, I saw, it was a necessary wager. The Hakar was no common foe and no common man would kill him. If I could not slay a few hobgoblins on a whim, then I would never defeat him. If I did not risk my life for goodness and for power, then I would never defeat him. And if I was not preparing myself for vengeance - the one fixed star in my life - then I was preparing myself for true death, utter annihilation. I imagined the hobgoblins who had ambushed Joia and stolen her ring. And then I felt it - I felt it under all these musings like the shadow of a bird passing underfoot. I wanted to fight.
“You there, Ausar?” Imoen waved her hand in front of my face impatiently.
“Let’s do it.” I said, rising from my chair. “But we are going to do this properly. Neither of us is about to get killed by hobgoblins.”
“I knew you would say ‘yes’!” Imeon cheered.
“First, I need to see about acquiring some metal armor,” I said. Even if I could not afford the full plate armor that shielded the guards at Candlekeep, a serviceable suit of chain or splint mail would do well enough.
“What did those hobgoblins have, Imoen? Swords or spears?”
“Uh...swords, I think,” she answered.
“And any archers?”
“No.”
Chainmail it was, then. The rings would not stand up well against a speartip or arrowhead, but no ordinary sword would slash through well-forged chainmail rings. A single suit of chainmail armor cost most of our gold, but perhaps, I thought, Imoen could be persuaded to part with that diamond of hers sometime in the near future.
When we had passed beyond the outer walls of the Inn, I turned to Imoen and we rehearsed our plan one final time. Once we had found a spot with some cover, close to where the hobgoblins roved, Imeon would scout up ahead until she was within bowshot of one. She would aim carefully, and then fire. Hobgoblins were stupid, impulsive brutes, and so one or two would probably instinctively charge her position immediately upon realizing they were under attack. Imoen would not stand her ground; instead, she would flee back toward my position, where I would wait, ready to intercept the creatures. In this way, we would winnow down the pack without risk of being overwhelmed by superior numbers. We practiced one bird call that Imoen could make as a signal for me to advance to cover further up the road, and a second call for emergencies. When Imoen had repeated the plan to me twice over, we set off toward where she had scouted the hobgoblin’s location earlier that morning. Before long, Imoen told me we were close, and that I should wait for her behind the cluster of tall firs just off the road.
Once I had settled into position, I closed my eyes. The air tasted cool, with hints of pine needles and resin. As the sound of Imoen’s footsteps receded into the distance, I imagined I could hear the quickened beating of my own heart. I tightened my grip on the hilts of my blades. There was no reason for fear, I chided myself. After a few months of training, no Watcher at Candlekeep had ever bested me in a sparring match; I was always smarter, faster, and stronger. Hobgoblins, from what I had read, were oafish creatures, dangerous to a competent warrior only in large numbers and confined spaces, where they could clobber a person to death in a tangle of heavy arms, hands, and boots. Some hobgoblins possessed the dexterity to shoot a bow, but most used any weapon in their possession more or less like a cudgel. Nothing to fear, I repeated to myself. Today, I would redeem my honor for the cowardly stroke against the assassin I had butchered in Candlekeep. The image of my bloodied blade cut across my mind unbidden. I could feel every sense in my body straining, every muscle primed for action. I slid my weapons out of their scabbards and opened my eyes. The world was utterly still; time hobbled on like a lame packhorse. Then, the silence snapped. A bestial snarling and bellowing broke the morning calm; cocking my ear in that direction, I thought I could distinguish two separate sets of those animal cries.
Sure enough, when Imoen raced around the bend in the road, she was being pursued by not one, but two, irate hobgoblins. Indeed, their appearance in reality made the picture I had studied in the Candlekeep bestiary seem like a lover’s sketch. The dignity sometimes imparted by aged parchment was altogether lacking in the scene before me. Their hefty frames lurched forward precariously, without a scintilla of grace or composure. The visage of each was repulsive: orange skin stretched over facial bones so heavy they seemed on the verge of crowding out the clumsy, misshapen features from which their faces had been cobbled together. They had snouts, rather than noses, and massive chins that seemed to weigh down the entire face like an anchor. When they yelled, their lips curled back to reveal a row of pointed teeth that, even from a distance, did not seem quite uniform.
Imoen had run past my position now. With a roar, I broke cover, charging at the hobgoblins from the side. With a wail, they skidded in an effort to redirect their motion toward me. Despite their manifest stupidity, they had instantly recognized me as the greater threat. Now that the three of us were close, I realized that each of the hobgoblins was a full head taller than I, and that their swords were about half a foot longer. But worry was a breeze that left me behind as soon as I had felt it. I threw a cut with my left-hand blade and, as the hobgoblin lumbered to its right to avoid it, I thrust up through its neck. The hobgoblin dropped its weapon to clutch at its throat with both of its hairy, oversized hands. The second hobgoblin had by now closed on my position, but the backswing on its cut was so exaggerated that the creature might as well have knelt down for summary execution. I blocked the blade high with my off-hand, while I plunged my other sword right into its chest. As I suspected, the hobgoblin’s leather armor, ragged and filthy, was of the lowest possible quality, not boiled and barely hardened. My sword point pierced it like cloth. The hobgoblin let out a spirited shriek as it toppled to the ground, but died only a few moments later.
Imoen ran over to me, beaming, “You did it, Ausar!” And then somewhat more subdued, “You made it look so easy, almost like you were shadow dueling, or dancing, and they weren’t even there. If I blinked, I’d ‘ave missed the whole fight. Weren’t you scared?”
Imoen’s praise surged into my veins like a draught of pure strength. My technique had been impeccable, and the fight had been effortless. I do not think I had even broken a sweat. Such, I thought to myself, was the true grace and power of an elf, to purge the world of evil without being threatened by it, like the sun burning away a shadow.
“No,” I said, “they were like training dummies with bad breath.” I had told no lie. There had been the pressure of anticipation, and then of necessity as they bore down on Imoen. Once I had entered melee, though, I felt as though I belonged there, that my blade held the doom fate had appointed for these creatures since the day of their wretched births. And the kills themselves - I shuddered at the thought for a moment, but then embraced it - the kills themselves had been sweet, a surge of glory, just as I had hoped they would. Righteousness and courage, I told myself, naturally bent an elf’s heart against the races of evil.
Imoen stepped forward to survey the bodies.
“There’s no good in a hobgoblin, is there, Ausar?” Imoen asked.
“Unredeemable,” I replied, pushing at the head of one with my sword. Its eyes were filmed over in death, and its mouth had fallen open, so that its teeth bit at the dirt.
I wrote a D&D action scene once for a college English journaling project. It was a scene where a D&D party fought a dinosaur, and I ended it by having the thief climb up onto a nearby cliff, jump down onto the dinosaur's head, and stab it in the neck. I was surprised at how difficult it was to write a very short action sequence. Something that happens in seconds took about three or four pages of writing for me to depict it in text in a way that the reader would be able to picture in her mind the scene I was imagining.
I never cared to try it again after I saw what a tremendous amount of work was involved, but I gained new respect for the authors of my fantasy books, such as David Edding's "Belgariad". Respect to you as well for tackling this writing project, with so many complicated action sequences coming. Respect also for having the patience to take the time to lay down plenty of detailed background and character development before getting to the game action, so that the readers (imagining that they've never played BG and that this is a new fantasy novel) care about what's happening to the characters when the action begins.
Thanks also for sharing about your old assignment - sounds fun, even though it was a lot of work. If, despite your misgivings, you ever feel tempted to write up one of your own playthroughs on this board, you will have at least one reader
Imoen crept closer to the bodies, examining their hands, but careful not to touch them. “I don’t think either of these had Joia’s ring. Guess we need to keep going.”
So, we began a new iteration of the same plan, just a little bit further along the road. This time, however, Imoen had already wounded the single hobgoblin she had drawn toward my position. Before I could spring out of cover, though, Imoen had turned around and fired another arrow that struck the hobgoblin in the chest, killing it in its tracks. I caught a triumphant gleam in Imoen’s eyes. She too, perhaps, was beginning to feel invincible.
“Nice shot!” I yelled to her.
Imoen was breathing quickly, but with excitement rather than exertion, “We could take on the whole horde at once!”
“Let’s just stick to the plan,” I said, smiling. Part of me already believed that she was right.
In the next pull, Imoen drew two again, and we both killed one apiece, both, again, without so much as a scratch. The hobgoblin I had slain must have been the leader of the pack, because he not only possessed Joia’s flamedance ring, but also a magical scroll of Armor. For a moment, I imagined the absurdity of a hobgoblin bedecked in robes, trying to cast magic.
“We actually did it, Ausar! We have Joia’s ring - do you think they will sing songs about us back at the Inn?” Imoen asked, already turning back toward the gates of the Friendly Arms.
“Hold on a second. Do you know what this is?” I inquired, holding up the scroll.
“Some magic scroll or something. I don’t know - you’re the mage, aren’t you?”
“You’re right, but think! These hobgoblins weren’t about to self-study magic, or make an offering to Mystra. It means that Joia wasn’t the only one these hobgoblins ambushed.”
“But who knows who that scroll belonged to?”
“Returning the scroll is not the point. The point is finishing the job.” I gestured down the road with my sword. I still wanted to fight. “We can’t leave any of these hobgoblins loose to terrorize even more innocent travelers.”
Again, I caught the same gleam in Imoen’s eyes, “You’re right. Let’s make sure these nasty hobgobbers never bother anyone ever again.”
“But first,” she continued, “there’s something I want to give you.”
“Me?” I raised my eyebrows.
“I knew you would do the right thing, and I wanted to give you this when you did,” Imoen said reaching into her pockets. She pulled out a golden ring, with a dark red ruby set into its center. I reached out for it tentatively. “I found it while I was out this morning, scouting for the hobgoblins. People outside Candlekeep are really forgetful.”
When I touched it, I again felt that same faded echo - this ring was another item of power. Eager for a new experience, I quickly slipped it onto my finger. I gasped.
“What is it? Ausar! Are you okay?”
I felt as though I had been doused with a bucket of cold water. But then, the water had filtered deep beneath my skin, chilling the very marrow of my bones. From the marrow of my bones, though, the water had seeped, drop by drop, into a basin somewhere else even deeper inside me. Now it rested there placidly, like the water in the basin at the shrine of Oghma. I felt reinvigorated, strengthened, even without knowing yet how to reach down deep enough to tap into that source.
“I feel great!” I exclaimed, “Thank you, Imoen!” I picked her up and spun her around.
“Woah,” she said when I let her down, “what am I - ten?” But she was smiling, clearly well-pleased with herself. “What does it do?”
“I can’t say just yet. But this ring is powerful. Let’s clean up the rest of this sorry group of brigands!”
“But what about our plan?”
“We are more than a match! Not one of them has even been able to touch us.”
With Imoen taken up in my mood, we pushed forward. We came across a single hobgoblin. Between Imoen’s arrows and my blades, the creature never stood a chance. It actually panicked, trying to escape before we cut it down. Nothing could stop us.
And nothing did. Not a single hobgoblin remained - we had vanquished the pack.
At that moment, the entire world seemed to me to open up, as though my heart had finally joined my body beyond the walls of Candlekeep. The open road beckoned to me, but even moreso, the woods all around us. The sage’s stranglehold of rigidity and abnegation had been broken. The sun, the leaf, the bark, the breeze - the entire world - unfurled before me, invited me into a realm that, for the first time, did not demand to be analyzed, categorized, or even explained. The tree was not a quantity of timber in some sage’s manual of feudal economy; it was less and more - it simply was. And so could we be. Fear of the Hakar became a molehill in my mind. Let his killers come, and see the trail of hobgoblin bodies we had left behind us. We were powerful. And we were free!
“Imoen,” I announced, “Joia can wait for her ring. The day is young - let’s explore! Let’s see everything there is to see!” I rushed forward, sprinting through the grass. I kept the road in sight, but refused to walk along it. I could hear Imoen laughing as she ran behind me.
For hours Imoen and I roamed together, with every butterfly and every flock of birds seeming to me some small marvel. We chatted about how silly our old “field trips” to the small gardens outside Candlekeep seemed in comparison. Imoen picked a dandelion seed head, then blew on it so all the feather-tipped seeds glided toward me. I laughed, trying to blow them back; in the end, they all just swirled hopelessly in between the two of us. For hours we wandered without spying even a single soul.
Then, a little after noon, I spotted a man kneeling down at a bend in the road, his chainmail armor gleaming in the sun. I turned to Imoen, placing my finger to my lips. We crept forward wordlessly, surveying the vicinity for any sign of what he might have been doing there. No such sign was apparent, but as we advanced closer, I noticed that he was kneeling before a sword that he had planted in the ground, and that his left arm was extended out in front of him. A few more steps. It was a book in his left-hand - he appeared to be reading from it. A few more. If I strained, I could hear his voice; unfortunately, Imoen’s human ears were likely too poor to pick up anything but an indistinct droning sound. I placed my finger to my lips again, and then tapped on the points of my ears. Imoen nodded, placing her own ears to the ground, in what must have been some bizarre joke. I closed my eyes to focus my attention, but the man had stopped speaking. So I waited, trying to hold every single muscle in my body completely still.
Also, his reasoning for helping with the hobgoblin problem was interesting. He seems more drawn to glory and being seen as a hero than helping people because they need it and he has the ability to do so. I wonder if when he suffers some sort of injury or loss he will continue to help people... (I'm enjoying that you blocked out his alignment at the start - makes things more exciting, and of course, people rarely fit into any one box neatly)
An elf makes an odd Gorion's Ward for precisely the reason you mention: elven youth is supposed to be quite lengthy, sometimes lasting (I think) the better part of a century. Naturally, this sort of makes a hash of the standard timeline. I don't want to reveal too much here, because I have some plans for exploring this idea and "softening the blow" in-narrative. But you are insightful to point it out, and I do acknowledge that there's not really a completely watertight solution here (or at least, I haven't found it yet).
Also, you make a fair interpretation of Ausar's motivations thus far. Of course, we'll all just need to wait and see how he turns out
Only a few seconds passed before he started to speak again. His voice was hearty and deep:
“Deliver me, my god, for a dark hour is at hand.
The Abyss has opened its gates against me,
.....Pouring out its scourges like a thousand tongues of fire.
The dragon and the young lion devour my house
.....And prowl the earth for my blood.
My ruin is the mirth of the ungodly,
.....Those who blaspheme thy holy name
.....Without fear of thy strong right arm.
My enemies balance their daggers upon my throat.
But I have not turned aside from thy ways, O Lord,
For thy righteousness alone is my portion,
And thy justice alone do I desire.
In the day, my zeal blazes forth
.....In retribution against thy enemies.
In the night, I keep thy holy vigil,
.....Meditating ceaselessly upon thy decrees.
I suffer the iniquity of those who hate thee
And the scorn of those who revile thee;
Their death-strokes fall upon my own flesh.
Turn thy gaze, O Vigilant One, upon all plots conceived in darkness
.....That the wicked might know their wisdom is conceit
.....And that no sin lies hidden from thy sight.
Let their own snares strangle them;
.....Let their own lies choke them
.....And their own concealments blind them.
When they press upon thy gates at night,
.....Let dogs drag them naked before thy sight.
And when thou raiseth thy sword in wrath,
.....Kill their children and strike at their seed,
That their names die utterly and their profitless issue taste not of life.
Thy praise, my god, shall be ever upon my lips
.....And thy words ever upon my heart.
For never hast thou betrayed thy faithful ones
.....Nor suffered them to fall beyond thy sight,
.....Which hath searched the heart of every man
And every creeping thing.
Thou shall set a banquet for me in the sight of my foes,
.....Exalting thy faithful in the tower of thy justice.
And verily, thy holy Watch shall abide forever,
.....Til Nessus doth perish
And evil shall be no more.”
I blinked in surprise - this man was a worshipper of Helm, perhaps even a knight. His prayer apparently concluded, the man closed his book and rose to stand. I marveled at my fortune to happen across a real-life knight; this day became more like a storybook by the hour.
“He’s a Helmite, Imoen. Let’s go meet him. He will not harm us,” I said, tugging her by the arm back toward the road
“Do we have to? Knights are so boring,” and then, in a mock-baritone, “for honor, and for glory! A knight’s armor is light, his duty heavy. A vigil for the Vigilan-” Although he was still too far away to hear Imoen’s words precisely, the Helmite had turned in our direction. I cut Imoen off with a gentle shove, just in case.
“Be gracious,” I said, suddenly embarrassed to be with her. The Helmite had by now uprooted his sword and sheathed it. When we were close enough that even human eyes could see his face clearly, I called out to him, “Hail, and well met, my fellow!” waving my hand in the air. Imoen snickered under her breath.
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
Sorry again, folks, for the dots to indicate spacing. Formatting is so important in poetry, and this was is the best replacement I can think of for a simple tab. If anyone has suggestions, I am all ears.
The Helmite, somewhat paunchy in his cheeks, but with a strong nose and brow, did not smile. Instead, he answered my greeting with a flat command: “Halt! Be you friend or foe?”
I stopped, feeling my body tense. Perhaps I had been overhasty. In a cold flash, I recalled the antipathy that many sages in Candlekeep bore for Helm, and - unlike most of their folly - it was not a sentiment I could immediately discount. During the Time of Troubles, Ao the Overgod had banished all the other gods from the outer planes, stripping them of most of their powers and consigning them to walk the earth as mortals until the Tablets of Destiny were returned to his possession. This decree of exile had extended to every deity, with one exception: Helm. Ao had appointed Helm as guardian of the mystic causeway between this mortal earth and the divine realms of the outer planes, permitting Helm to retain the power of his divinity for that purpose. While the edict of Ao still held force, Mystra, the mother of magic herself, dared attempt to bypass Helm. In the battle that ensued, Helm slew Mystra, driving his gauntleted fist into her chest and crushing her heart. All the coldness and inflexibility of the Watcher’s duty was made manifest in this awesome act. Many of Helm’s followers turned away, and many wizards formerly sympathetic to the god of order grew to revile him. Certainly, Helm had gained no favor in Candlekeep. Reflection now tinged the unmixed eagerness I had felt before with strains of foreboding. What steely resolve was required to yoke oneself to a god who had killed the beloved Mistress of Magic?
I turned the Helmite’s question back on him, “Until you tell us who you are, how should we know?”
Without pausing, the man reported: “I am Ajantis, squire paladin to Lord Helm. I have come down from the city of Waterdeep to fight against the brigands that make these roads unsafe to travel. What of you?”
“We’re just travelers,” I replied. But the shine of his mail, the timbre of his voice, and the nobility of his mission had returned me to my nights reading of paladins by candlelight. I had played at being a hero, but now I glimpsed the luminous opportunity to adventure with a man destined to heroism. For none would stand athwart the forces of darkness with the same zeal as a squire-paladin, inflamed with righteousness and yet still with much to prove to his Order. A budding sense of high adventure crept into my head and flowered on my tongue.
“Travelers,” I continued, “recently come from slaying a pack of hobgoblin marauders laying siege to the goodly Friendly Arms Inn. We killed them, down to the last.”
“Laying siege?” Imeon laughed. Ajantis fixed his gaze upon her, but Imoen had by now developed an immunity to stern staring. I felt the warmth of embarrassment returning.
“They were harassing innocent damsels on the road. It had to be stopped,” I offered. Ajantis turned back to me and nodded.
“In that case, why do we not join forces against these contemptible lawbreakers? Surely, there must be more bandits than those.”
“Sounds good to us. We’re always on the lookout for another sword arm,” Imeon burst in with a grin. Imoen was clever, when she wanted to be, and her words had what I knew was their intended effect.
“Another sword arm?” Ajantis growled, raising his right arm from his side. “I am no common sell-sword. This arm dispenses the justice of Helm, shelters the innocent, upholds the peace of the realms. My sword,” he said, drawing it from his scabbard, “strikes for honor, and for glory.” He sheathed it again, at which I relaxed greatly, though the conviction of his speech rattled me somewhat. Remarkably, Imeon pantomimed a yawn. Well, if she could still play at this game, then so could I.
“Forgive her,” I said, shaking my head with an affected nonchalance, as though it was a request I had made a thousand times in the past, “she means well but is unaccustomed to the niceties of parley with squire-paladins such as yourself. She killed as many of those hobgoblins as I did and,” I continued, playing my trump, “the hunt of the hobgoblins was originally her idea.”
Ajantis seemed mollified, “Goodness of heart,” he conceded, “is to be acknowledged wherever it is encountered.” He offered a slight bow to Imoen, who - wonder of wonders - actually blushed. Perhaps his resonant voice was winning her over as well. “But does that mean,” he inquired, “that your time of hunting bandits is done?”
“Not at all. Imoen and I are traveling south to investigate the iron crisis. Surely the iron crises and the upsurge in banditry are related phenomena. And even if not, I am sure we shall cross many a highwayman on the road between here and Nashkel,” I answered him.
“Very well,” Ajantis consented, “under the Eye of Helm, I shall join thee.”
“It is an honor,” I said, extending my hand. My heart raced at the thought that I now joined forces with a squire-paladin; in my excitement, I overcompensated on my grip. Ajantis pretended not to feel it, but I noticed him absent-mindedly shaking out his hand afterward.
“Oh all right,” Imoen said, “but can we at least see what’s ahead before we go back? Looks like a farm, doesn’t it?”
“It is,” Ajantis answered, “but why so much eagerness for a farm?”
The three of us walked together toward the furrows of a field that must have been cleared and sown only recently. I began to explain to Ajantis that Imoen and I had grown up in Candlekeep and so had seen little beyond books our entire lives, but before I had said much, I heard a rumbling that seemed to rise up from the earth itself. All three of us stopped moving. Then, that same rumbling shook the ground again, pushing dirt off the top of some of the nearby furrows. I looked at Ajantis, raising my eyebrows, but he shook his head, equally uncertain of what might come next.
Then, only a few feet from where we stood, a gigantic shape burst through the topsoil, spraying dirt everywhere. It was a grotesque, insectoid-type creature with a pear-green carapace and tremendous mandibles. Without even having fully emerged from underground, it towered almost seven feet tall. The monstrous vermin screeched at us and raised its four above-ground limbs - how many it might have had below-ground, I shuddered to think - in what was unmistakably an animal display of hostility and challenge. Imoen screamed.
My immediate instinct was simply to bolt. Imoen and I had no quarrel with this aberration and we could probably outrun it. But in a split-second, awareness of Ajantis quashed this instinct. I would not run behind the shield of a paladin-squire, like some defenseless woman. If I did not charge now, I would surely lose his esteem; wiping the creatures blood from his own blade, he would call me “coward.” Even the thought filled me with second-hand shame. No, I would be second in courage to no one, not even a paladin-squire. So I drew my swords and charged.
“For glory!” I roared into the wind. The creature shrieked again, shaking the digging-hooks at the end of its legs. But no sooner than I had shouted these words, and committed to my charge, my heart emptied out like a glass of spilled water. I had catapulted myself into the jaws of this horrific beast, but had anyone followed? A sense of unreality enveloped me as I hurtled toward the cold-blooded blackness of that creature’s bulging insectoid eyes.
But then, this bubble of unreality popped at the sound of a battlecry behind me.
“For Helm!” Ajantis’ voice carried well, bolstering my spirits. At the cusp of striking distance now, I threw my momentum into a downward slash at one of the creature’s hooked appendages. I heard a clink as my blade made contact and rebounded off the chitinous shell covering the top of its leg. I hammered down again, this time on the vermin’s thorax, but with the same futile clang. The creature swept a gangly arm toward me, but I darted aside. I had to find an alternative tactic. My sword blade would not last much longer as a bludgeon against such a steely carapace.
By now, Ajantis had finally closed the distance, and we contended with the creature side by side. He batted aside one of the creature’s sweeping legs with his shield. His counterstroke, however, was no more effective than mine. The creature’s incessant chittering, punctuated by high-pitched shrieking, rattled my mind. Was it calling for help? I swatted another of its legs away, and tried to do the same with that thought. Then, my eye snagged on a subtle grey in the coloration of the part of the exoskeleton around the abdomen. With a rush, I realized that this greyish abdominal area was the creature’s underbelly. If it was vulnerable anywhere, it would be there.
“Strike for the stomach!” I cried over to Ajantis. A stray arrow whizzed over our heads. Imoen, it seemed, had not abandoned us. I dipped around one of the creature’s legs, which, it was evident by now, were mercifully uncoordinated, and thrust with all my might into the creature’s abdomen. I heard a crunching, and then a squelching sound - I had broken through! A horrific, pusy odor leaked out of the creature. Ajantis, inspired by my example, also rammed his sword into the vermin’s belly. Now the monstrous insect shrieked in what could only have been agony. It thrashed its limbs in a furor and then swung its massive head toward us. As I dodged aside, I gasped at the sheer weight of the creature; a head-on collision would probably have crushed a man’s skull inside his helmet.
Ajantis, however, had been caught wrong-footed, and barely had time to brace his shield against that devastating and ponderous arc. His shield, set on the wrong side of his body relative to the swing of that creature’s head, was not enough. The insect battered him from the side, and then locked him in its twin mandibles, pulling him off the ground. Another arrow flew harmlessly over the creature’s head. Ajantis did not have much time left. I threw myself at the creature’s head, hoping to bludgeon it into unlocking its jaws. But the creature was incensed, throwing its head back and forth, Ajantis in its jaws like a doll, so that my strike fell wide. Suddenly, I heard a cracking sound come from Ajantis’ body, followed by a steaming hiss, like water hitting hot oil. A smell ten times more putrid than the one from before mixed with Ajantis’ screams. Too late!, I thought in horror. Another arrow streaked through the air. The creature shrieked wildly, opening its jaws so that Ajantis thudded to the ground. I looked up in disbelief. Imeon had shot the oversized insect straight through the eye.
... Except that the lowest-level version of Ajantis is actually level 2, with 20 HP. His armor's no good (chain mail, shield, and helm, AC 6 vs. crushing gets hit on a 7), but he's tough enough to almost certainly survive one hit.
So far it looks like it didn't spit acid, which would be a very lucky break.
If your main character dies, my vote would be to reload and write it into the story as the other characters getting him resurrected. That's the basic idea behind a minimal reload run. Too many resurrections of various characters would start to strain suspension of disbelief in the the story, though. Trying to write a story that follows what happens in a particular run of a computer game presents some unusual problems, doesn't it?
@BelgarathMTH - my plan was just to clear a little fog of war, so that I could say Ausar and Imoen had been sight-seeing on the farm, as per the narrative up to this point. I was not expecting an ankheg to pop up, and when it did, I wanted to run. Unfortunately, that was not what Ausar wanted
And yes, the computer game / story dynamic is exciting and, at times, trying. I wrote a post somewhere early in this thread about my general thoughts on reloading and character deaths, and they haven't changed much since then. If Ausar dies in-game I will, of course, reload without hesitation. As to whether his death will make it into the narrative, that is going to be a matter for some case-by-case discernment. I am leaning towards "no," in most cases, but that doesn't mean there couldn't be creative ways to write some suitable severe / consequential trauma into the narrative.
Thanks for reading
But the nightmare was not over. I rushed over to Ajantis, who was lying motionless on the ground. The area around Ajantis’ stomach and lower torso had been mangled and burned. I leaned down over him and caught that awful stench. I turned around and wretched, vomiting up breakfast. Imoen was sprinting over with the healing salve.
When I turned back, Ajantis eyelids flitted and then opened.
“We have healing supplies. You are going to be okay,” I spoke as reassuringly as I could under the stare of his gaping wounds.
“No,” he shook his head, “I do not need them,” he muttered feebly.
“No!” I shouted back at him with panic’s own fury, “You will take them! You will make it through this.” When Ajantis had spoken, I had thought he meant he did not need them because he was beyond saving. I rejected that possibility utterly. Completely! - I had not met a knight just to lead him to his death. He had to live.
Ajantis cracked the thinnest of smiles, “Helm alone is my portion and my power; Helm alone my strength and my tower.” With these words, Ajantis laid his hands upon his wounds, ever so delicately. And before my eyes, his burns began to fade; his flesh knit itself together again. The sight of rapid tissue regeneration was mildly sickening, but I was awestruck.
“Ajantis!” Imeon gasped, “How-”
“Helm sees all, and watches over his faithful,” Ajantis said, vitality already flowing back into his voice. In a few moments, he was standing again. He still required my support to walk, the healing only having remedied the worst of his injuries, but the man had at least hauled himself off death’s door.
“We better hightail it out of here,” Imoen said, “if another one of those bugs finds us, I ain’t saving either of ya.” She sidled over to the giant carapace turned corpse, holding her nose, and poked at its remaining eye with a stick.
“You have my thanks, m’lady,” Ajantis said, “You saved my life, and I owe you a debt of honor.” This time his bow was deep. I felt a pin-prick of envy.
“Oh don’t be getting all gracious on me,” Imoen protested, but only mildly. I could tell she enjoyed the praise.
“And you, bravehearted elven friend, do you usually rush so headlong into danger’s maw? You must have faced down that entire horde of hobgoblins at once,” Ajantis said, clapping me on the shoulder. I neglected to mention our extreme caution in the hobgoblin hunt. Instead, I just bathed in the praise of a paladin-squire.
“Still,” he continued, rubbing his side, “next time flight should be our course. These creatures are repulsive, and aggressive, but I do not think they are evil. It would have been no shame.” I nodded in agreement, but inwardly I groaned. So I hadn’t had to charge in after all?
“But,” I asked, “let’s take a trophy, no? I think you have bled enough for it.” I helped Ajantis hobble over to the insect’s carcass. Together we located seams of a sort in the insect’s shell, joints along which we carved out the head and a “mane” of scales. The stench was mortifying, but I was smitten with the idea. The Friendly Arms Inn would receive us with a heroic welcome at the sight of such a creature slain. In his weakened state, Ajantis struggled to move it, but for me, the burden was light.
Above, the promised images depicting the action in Part XXXVI. Ajantis lived, but just barely. Even one more graze from that ankheg would have spelled his doom. I do admit that, after just going through the trouble of composing a whole psalm for Ajantis, I was moderately mortified at seeing his HP drop down 90% in a single blow. Those were a tense couple rounds, but I am glad to be able to keep him in the story (for now! haha).