Musings of a Messenger

Art of my unlucky wizard - OOC

2012-01-24T22:51:00.006-05:00

Unlucky, but I still like him. ;) Phillip is the main antagonist/protagonist/friend/foe in Meren's story, "Hidden Magic". I created a bio page for him, but I'll be adding the detailed character description later.

Anyway, this is an art post so onto the art!

Have I mentioned before that I love artsy presents? My very favorite kinds of gifts are handmade so it always makes my day when someone makes something for me. For Christmas my friend Niere (ya know, the super-talented girl who draws me the awesome character art I use on my blog?) offered to draw me something. I decided on Phillip since he's rapidly becoming a protagonist in his own right. I think she did a great job!

With him, I didn't have a clear mental picture of what he looks like. I can picture him now, as he looks after "Hidden Magic" and the magical mishaps, but couldn't picture him when he still looked normal, which was the art I wanted since my writing mostly takes place in his past. This is where it helps to have a talented artist friend; now I know what he looks like. ;)

When I gave Niere his physical description I realized, though, how similar in coloration he is to Cyneric and his brother. This turns out to not be a mistake; now I know where Cyn's family originated from and, in a weird, roundabout way, it gives me a heritage and extra background for a character I thought I'd developed fully. That's neat! (Or, as my fiancé says, he's "Evil Cyneric". Sigh. I can't seem to convince him that Phillip isn't actually evil.)

And I suppose here be spoilers if you haven't finished "Hidden Magic".

You've been warned. ;)

I made a plushie of Phillip during the summer that I haven't shared yet, but it's him post-"Hidden Magic", hence the spoiler warning. Here's that:

I'd thought about making him "normal", but I think the fact that I didn't have to give him hair in purple form was what decided me. That's always a step that takes forever!

Phillip does have something going for him, though. Despite absolutely hating the fact that he's now purple, not all hope is lost. He is an Illusionist so he can technically appear however he chooses... for as long as the spell remains active, anyway! Still, he wants to go back to being normal again, so we'll see. ;)

I'll be writing more about Phillip later this year; I'll be co-writing a story with my elf sister that tells of his past and his experience being apprenticed to a wizard who became an evil necromancer. Poor Phillip. He has to be the most unfortunate character I've ever written and that's some stiff competition!

Hidden Magic - Story, Part 10

2012-01-13T17:37:00.004-05:00

Banner art by JackOfClubs (jack_spire on livejournal).
You can find the whole cover art here- JoC did a great job on it!
There's also a great mix/soundtrack that goes with this story- you can find that here.

Hidden Magic, Part 10
(Prologue, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3,
Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9)

Meren continued south in a much better mood than she had been in. She would learn and do so quickly. She would get by fine without her brother's help. Now if only that mage turned out to be someone inclined to help a strange vagabond elf. Her smile faded as a thought occurred to her: what if the mage doesn't speak a language I do? This gave Meren a few minutes of panic before she recalled that her father had said it was a halfling village, as well. Even if the mage was not a halfling, someone there would be able to speak with her and point her in the right direction.

This conundrum solved, Meren traveled on almost cheerfully. It was a cool night, the moon was bright enough to see by, her brother would be safe with his own kin soon, there was the sensation of something brushing her arm... She jumped, yanking her arm away and twisting around to her right. Nothing was there. What the... She looked from side to side, but there were no trees this close to the river and her elven infravision wasn't picking up the glow of anything living in the area, either. When she felt it again, she almost let out a shriek and only years of training for silent scouting kept her from doing so.

Her heartbeat didn't slow until she heard a hoarse voice whisper near her ear. "Calm down, elf-girl. It's just me."

"Phillip? How? Where are-" she began to ask, then mentally chided herself. Magic, of course. "So that's how you got away from the clearing. I'm seriously beginning to think that you're following me around, you know."

"I think not… Alright, so this time I may have been." Now that she was paying attention to the spot to her right, she could see vapor rising about a foot above her head as he spoke. Guess he's still stuck with that, she observed as he added, "And I... er... did follow you back to your home."

"You did what?" Meren exclaimed, turning to glare at the spot she now knew him to be. "How many times do I have to tell you to leave the area? And could you please just make yourself visible again? I feel like an idiot talking to a cloud of smoke."

She heard Phillip mutter something under his breath, then he reappeared looking rather sheepish and from what Meren could tell through her night vision, still somewhat discolored. "Six, I would guess. But before you say anything else, you didn't seem too upset when I knocked out those orcs and put out that fire."

"So that's what happened? I should have known," Meren tried to glare at him, but found that she couldn't and felt dangerously close to smiling at the annoying human. "I suppose I should say thank you."

"Always a pleasure to help a woman in need," he replied with a smirk. Meren snorted, which didn't seem to take away his strange good mood. After a moment, however, he turned serious again. "If you don't mind me asking, elf-girl, what happened back in your … town? Encampment? Whatever it's called? Why are you going south and the centaur back into the forest?"

Well, there goes my good mood, she thought. But what was the harm in telling him? He'd probably just tag along, annoying her longer if she didn't. "East. I'm only going south until I can cross the river. My kin learned of my magic- thank you for throwing yours in there because they now think I have even more than I actually do, by the way- and they sent me off to some sort of mage in a town to the east. Kryro is going north to find his kin." There, that was vague enough, right?

Phillip's dark eyebrows wrinkled. "A mage? But I'd thought you were already trained."

Meren stared at him blankly. Why would he think that? "No, never. I can do magic, but my father thinks that a mage can help me not set things on fire."

The human shook his head slowly and gave a short, low whistle. Finally he said, "Hearing that, you do need to find a master. If you can do magic like that on your own, setting the forest on fire may be the least of your worries, Meren."

Being called by her real name for once made the elf realize that the man was serious, but a statement like that was downright terrifying when she'd already been fretting about her lack of control. Phillip tugged at the frayed hem of his sleeve and Meren got the impression that he was thinking hard about something. After a minute or two, he said, "I didn't mean to frighten you, only to give a warning. Just make sure the mage you find is a good one. I don't mean good as in 'competent'... well, I do, I suppose, but what I meant was someone who is a good person." His raspy voice grew quieter as he added, "Believe me, this is important."

As he spoke this, Meren recalled his earlier paranoia. She nodded; clearly he was trying to warn her away from his experience, whatever it was. "I will. But where are you going? More … things aren't following you, are they?"

He stared at the staff in his hand, studying it for a few moments, then glanced behind him. The wood elf was about to ask her question again when he answered softly, "I hope none are. And I don't know. I was going west, but how can I go home looking like this?"

"Wouldn't that be the best time to go home?" When the man looked down at her, confusion evident on his purple face, she explained, "If they're your kin, they won't mind who you are."

"As yours so readily accepted you?" His hoarse voice was bitter, but Meren didn't think he was actually directing that sharpness at her.

The wood elf frowned as she realized that he had a point. A rather good one, actually. "Alright, bad example, but you have to go somewhere you can be safe for a while." After saying so, she realized that she meant it. Despite the human's irksome tendencies, she truly didn't want those horrible things coming after him again. Drat. Chalk it up to that healer nature, she mused to herself.

An idea occurred to her: I don't really need this and I think it has something to do with magic... She reached into her pouch where she'd stuck the pendant earlier that day and pulled it out by the chain. "Here, take it back," she said simply, holding out her vine-patterned hand.

Phillip stared at the slightly luminous purple object for a long moment, then shook his head. He looked down at Meren and in the dim light she saw in his dark eyes an emotion she couldn't quite read. Is that concern? Before she could figure it out, though, he looked away again, but took her free hand in his for just a moment. "Take it with you, elf-girl. If the master you find is worthy, show it to him. It may help you. Otherwise, keep it a secret."

Meren could only nod dumbly, completely bewildered by his words and actions. This was the same person who had been a thorn in her side for years? Why was he being so helpful? Seemingly satisfied by her mute agreement, Phillip gave her a small smile. "Good. Stay safe, Meren."

His words echoing those spoken so recently by her brother left Meren even more speechless, and it wasn't until he'd walked out of sight westwards that she realized that she hadn't asked him why exactly he'd turned purple in the first place. As she walked across the stone bridge, she shook her head. If you couldn't trust your own curiosity, what could you trust? She couldn't help smiling to herself as she mentally answered her own question: spells to frequently be chaotic, a brother who always wanted to protect you and a human wizard to be dependably unpredictable. Now if only she could get that first one to function properly and the last two to realize that she could perfectly well take care of herself...

The End

((Figured since I was editing the chapters together so they'd take up less blog posts, I may as well finish posting the story. :) I'm currently doing research for Raff's next story but I have plans for a collaboration with my elf-sister for a story telling about Phillip's past. Look for those at some point this year.))

Hidden Magic - Story, Part 9

2012-01-12T23:29:00.008-05:00

Banner art by JackOfClubs (jack_spire on livejournal).
You can find the whole cover art here- JoC did a great job on it!
There's also a great mix/soundtrack that goes with this story- you can find that here.

Hidden Magic, Part 9
(Prologue, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3,
Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 10)

The young wood elf was broken out of this reverie by a shouted "What did you just do?" right behind her. Meren yelped and almost dropped her bow. Turning around, she saw the scout leader standing with her hands on her hips. Behind her was Eryndir and Meren wondered how much he'd seen.

The young elf was torn. Did she explain or deny what she'd done? Maybe she could pass the globes of light off as swamp gas... in the middle of temperate woodland. And the fiery attack she'd thrown... Meren cursed silently under her breath. There just wasn't a lie that could work to explain this away. As she begun to stammer an answer, her father spoke quietly but confidently, "That was magic, was it not, Meren?"

Knowing she had no other choice but the truth here, she could only nod. Tawarthel stepped back, her brown eyes narrow. "Magic, Eryndir? But the shaman should have caught any arcane potential-"

Eryndir locked eyes with his daughter who looked down at her feet. "Not necessarily," he answered, not looking away from his daughter, "Not if Meren's is a different sort."

"A different sort? How can there be a different sort?" the scout leader eyed Meren as though the young elf was something repugnant, "Unless her mother..."

"Was simply a healer," Eryndir quickly finished, clearly trying to nip that thought process in the bud, much to Meren's relief. He then asked the young elf, "But why did you not tell?"

Meren's answer was to glance over at Tawarthel. "Because of that reaction. I know elves shouldn't be able to do what I can."

The older woman crossed her arms over her chest. "See? She admits it. Eryndir, you must send her away. We cannot have that kind of magic being hurled around, alerting outsiders to our location and setting our home on fire."

Meren had been about to retort that that kind of thing hadn't happened before when her brother stuck his hoof into his mouth instead. "She did not mean to do that, sir," he directed at Eryndir, "She has never done anything harmful to the woods before."

Except for that time I created a pit, Meren thought to herself as the two elders turned their attention to the centaur, who shied backwards at their mutual stare. "You knew of this ability?" the scout leader demanded, putting an emphasis of contempt on the last word.

Now Kryro seemed to realize his mistake and opened and closed his mouth a few times before speaking again. "... Yes? I thought it would be better not to share that knowledge..."

Eryndir did not look happy, but Meren thought she saw more disappointment than anger on his face. "Meren, Tawarthel is right." The scout leader smirked at this as he added, "We cannot have you hurling fire around, even if you were able to put it out again." For a moment, Meren thought of explaining that she hadn't in fact done as much, but quickly realized that explaining that she had no idea how the fire had diminished would do little to help her case.

"I would not allow an untrained archer who knows not how to aim to scout, so a mage destroying our trees I cannot allow here, even if she is my daughter," he continued. Meren could feel her face turn white, as though all the blood in her body was draining into her overly large feet. This rose slightly when his next words were, "No, not forever, Meren; just until you have what you wield under control. There is a village of halflings and humans to the east where I know a wizard resides. You must go to her and see if she can help."

As Meren tried to make sense of the fact that it sounded as though she were being exiled, the tribe leader spoke to Kryro, "I need you to alert your tribe that there may still be intruders in the area. Go with Meren as far as the river, then find your kin. Likely they shall need your aid more than we at the moment."

The young scouts both bowed their heads in acknowledgment, but neither were pleased about the tasks set before them. We are his kin, Meren thought to herself as they walked to her tent to retrieve the rest of her scant belongings, and he's a warrior, not some errand boy.

The centaur remained oddly silent until they were a few miles away from camp. Finally, as they were weaving their way through the last outskirts of trees, he spoke up again, "I am sorry I said that, Meer. Perhaps if I had kept my mouth shut, you would have been able to stay."

Meren shook her head. "I don't think that would have made a difference. Even if I'd been allowed to stay, Tawarthel would have found a way to convince my father that I was a danger and I would have been sent off anyway."

"You do not know that-" the centaur began.

"Even if not, they do have a point, as much as I hate to admit it. I am a danger, 'Ro." When she saw her brother shake his head and look about to interrupt, she continued, "I am. Sometimes my spells work but when they don't, they really don't... and the thought of burning through my home has me terrified."

"Why worry of that? You stopped the fire before it could spread," he pointed out.

Meren looked down at her hands, then let them fall to her sides. "No. I didn't. The fire did go out, but that wasn't from me. I couldn't even cancel the lights I accidentally placed above camp. Even if some spells do work, I don't know enough of how to stop them if they get out of control. I am a threat, 'Ro."

Kryro still didn't look convinced. "But with even the magic you have, it could be used to protect the camp. No one else can throw jets of flame at an enemy."

Meren sighed; for all that the centaur had been uncomfortable with her new skill to start, he was now the one always pushing her to use it, but he couldn't know what it was like to have that sort of wild power... "That's actually fortunate. Trust me, this is for the better. If that mage my father spoke of can help me get this under control, then I can come back and use it to guard."

"And if she cannot? What will you do then?"

"Leave and find another mage who can help." The look on her brother's face made her heart sink into her stomach. He was clearly worried about her and if she was any judge of the person she knew best, he was beating himself up inside for not being able to help her out of this dilemma.

She looked up at him, meeting his eyes. How could she convince him when she was somewhat worried herself? "I'll be fine. I promise. If this town doesn't work out, I'll come find you and you can help me locate a different mage, okay?"

The centaur looked as though he was going to complain about this plan, but finally just nodded slowly. Meren thought for a moment that she'd accidentally set off that mind control spell again, but the lack of energy surging through her hands disproved that. No, he just trusted her, which was a far better reason, but if anything it left her feeling even worse.

The two continued on in thoughtful silence until they'd reached the water. In the dim moonlight Meren couldn't see the bridge spanning the Moon River, but knew it to be just south of where they stood, having frequently used it to reach the woodlands on the other side. "Go on, 'Ro. You need to spread word like my father asked."

The centaur remained still for a moment, making her wonder if he was going to demand she let him follow her, but eventually he said, "Alright. I still do not like this, but I seem to be outnumbered in this decision." He reached down to squeeze Meren's shoulder. "Stay safe, Meer. And when you reach that mage, please do try to not hurl fire around too much. She may be more inclined to help if her home is not burned to the ground."

He spoke those words seriously, but Meren knew when he was teasing her. She stuck her tongue out at him then smiled, "Oh, alright. If you insist. I'll stick with the boring magic. Maybe I can find a way to summon butterflies instead."

Kryro smiled back at her, then after another squeeze to the elf's shoulder, turned and trotted off to the north.

The next part can be found here.

Hidden Magic - Story, Part 8

2011-12-14T23:04:00.007-05:00

Banner art by JackOfClubs (jack_spire on livejournal).
You can find the whole cover art here- JoC did a great job on it!
There's also a great mix/soundtrack that goes with this story- you can find that here.

Hidden Magic, Part 8
(Prologue, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3,
Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 9)

When Meren neared camp she was greeted by the sound of raised voices. From the sound of things, Tawarthel was yelling at someone. The wood elf grimaced but was glad she wasn't on that side of the scout leader's temper for once. She'd begun to quietly move around camp towards her tent but froze when she heard the timid voice speaking quietly in reply: Kryro's. How did he get himself into trouble when he hasn't even been here? Meren wasn't about to leave him to the wolves, though.

Changing course to head in the direction of her brother, she remained out of sight in order to try to catch what was going on. From the sound of things, Kryro wanted permission to go out and find her, claiming some sort of hunch that he was needed. Tawarthel was not impressed by this and wouldn't let him leave, and from the sound of things seemed a bit confused as to why Meren was gone in the first place. Blast it. That spell that hit my father didn't extend to her. Why didn't I think of that?

But maybe she could try actively to get it to work this time? It would be worth it to get her scouting partner out of that mess he'd stepped into. Closing her eyes and focusing on the woman standing a few yards away, Meren began to softly chant. But as she stepped out, about to begin speaking with the scout leader to complete the spell, something went wrong again. Her hand grew tingly, as it had last time, but that was where the similarity ended. Instead of the woman being struck by a mind control spell, the energy flew off behind and above her, settling on top of the tents where it formed into four globes of light in the evening sky.

Uh oh... she though. How am I going to hide that? As she prayed silently that no one would notice, Kryro's head raised. Tawarthel noticed this even though she hadn't seen the lights, and turned her head, her long braid swinging around, to see what the centaur was looking at. Meren cursed under her breath as she attempted to figure out how to cancel out a spell that she hadn't meant to cast. She tried calling out a few words in elvish ranging from "dim!", "darken!" "snuff!" and a last desperate "go away!", but none worked. Tawarthel was now looking from the flickering torch-bright globes to Meren and back to the lights, her mouth agape. Kryro met Meren's eyes and shrugged helplessly, mouthing silently to her "Now what?".

Meren could only shrug in response. About to dart out of the temporary village when no other plan presented itself in her head, she froze when she heard more shouting, this time outside of camp and in a harsh, guttural language. A few yards away, the centaur's eyes widened and Meren saw his lips move. This didn't look as though he was trying to talk with her this time, however, and if the wood elf had to guess, he was trying to translate what was being said. When his face went pale, she realized he understood and that it couldn't possibly be good news.

"Orcs!" he said, turning to the blond elf and grabbing her arm to get her attention. "Orcs have found the camp and are attempting to surround us!"

Tawarthel blinked, then aimed a glare almost as fiery as the newly created globes of light at Meren before bringing her fingers to her lips and letting off a series of shrill whistles. Both Meren and Kryro recognized that alert; it was a warning that an enemy was close to camp and everyone was needed with their weapons ready now. When she saw that glare directed at her, Meren realized what had happened: her newly created lights had allowed the orcs to find a camp that was normally well hidden. But how had they gotten through past the sentries around camp? The wood elf's heart sunk into her stomach as soon as she'd posed that question. Of course. They'd probably followed her. She'd led them here.

Feeling a strong mix of shame at being so preoccupied that she hadn't noticed something trailing her, anger that something had and distress that something could happen to her kin, Meren took off running east, the direction she'd heard the orcs calling from. One elf might not be enough to keep enemies away, but she was going to try. Fear for herself was the least of those emotions right now, but she'd admit to feeling a lot better when she heard loud hoofbeats following her.

The two reached the edge of camp just as a group of orcs did. As Kryro began swinging the large club he carried, Meren held back, her hand paused above her quiver. She could trust her bow. The arrows wouldn't go astray. But... she also knew that she possessed a spell that would work far better on a troop of enemies in a time where there was no need for stealth. Magic, weapon, which should she use? What decided this for her was three of the orcs moving in formation to surround the centaur, their spears and swords raised in preparation to attack. An arrow would only be able to bring down one, but magic would have a better chance of clearing them all away from him.

Meren lowered her arm and brought her hands in front of her, her palms facedown. She began to chant again, this time calling on the fire spirits to aid her and not let this one backfire. Please, she pleaded silently, I need this to work! She felt her hands grow warm and sighed in relief, then took a step to the left to move around her brother. Keeping her attention on where she was pointing, small jets of flame shot out of her fingertips and into the band of orcs. Six gave various incarnations of yelps and shouts; two of these began beating at their tattered tunics while five fell to the ground. Three of these stopped moving but the other two slowly rose back to their feet after getting their flaming garments under control. What struck the young wood elf as odd, though, was one of the ones that was now still wasn't one she'd hit with flame.

Something worse caught Meren's eye and pulled her attention away from strangely passed out orcs. Two of her streams of fire had become errant, soaring past the intended targets and into the bushes behind them, and the plants were beginning to ignite. To a wood elf, fire is always much, much worse than any kind of enemy. Orcs may carry swords, but fire could jump from tree to tree at an alarming rate, destroying the land the elves were responsible for keeping safe. Now Meren began to panic. She didn't have any water spells and she doubted any water spirits could hear a non-shaman when this camp was so far from the nearest creek; fire, earth and air were always far more handy but she couldn't think of anything she could ask of them to help. As far as she could tell, her magic differed from that of a shaman, but as a wood elf, spirits played an important roll even to a scout. But what else could she do?

The centaur's shout brought her attention back to the small battle in front of her. In her distraction, Tawarthel and two other elves had come up next to her and had begun firing into the melee. The original orcs were still there, six still singed and smelling even worse from that, but another two had joined them, leaving six still attacking. Kryro now had a gash on his flank, probably what had caused the shout. Seeing him hurt brought Meren back to action. She unslung her bow from her shoulder and fired an arrow ahead at the orc swinging at Kryro, bringing it down. The centaur gave her a quick thankful smile before swinging the club at the next.

Aiming at a second one, Meren froze with the bowstring pulled back. The fire in the woods was shrinking, seemingly to be putting itself out. In a few moments it had all but vanished, fading into a few smoldering embers and curling leaves. There was now a burned gap there, but that was it. What? How? I didn't- Meren started to think before realizing that this was the least of her problems at the moment. Her kin had the upper hand, though, or at least more luck. When two of the orcs tripped over their fallen comrades, the elves were able to take those down, and when the remaining three tried to flee, a hail of arrows brought those down, too. Recognizing a forced slumber when she saw one, Meren opened her mouth to warn her kin that three fallen orcs weren't actually dead, but Kryro had that covered. Odd time for it though it was, Meren couldn't help smiling a little at that. We do make a good team, don't we? Now if only she could figure out why those now ex-orcs had been knocked out. In theory she could have caused it, a Sleep spell being one she possessed and having spells that infamously warped into other spells could have been another factor, but not this time. Two spells couldn't happen simultaneously and that fire one had gone off perfectly for once, even if it hadn't quite done as intended. Perhaps those orcs were just narcoleptic?

The next part of the story can be found here.

Hidden Magic - Story, Part 7

2011-11-16T21:31:00.006-05:00

Banner art by JackOfClubs (jack_spire on livejournal).
You can find the whole cover art here- JoC did a great job on it!
There's also a great mix/soundtrack that goes with this story- you can find that here.

Hidden Magic, Part 7
(Prologue, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3,
Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 8)

When the smoke had cleared, the young man's drastic change of appearance had startled Meren, but she knew better than to mention it. If he reacted the way she assumed he would, his narcissism would be a horrible distraction and he was already distracting her enough. His previously lightly tanned skin was now tinged a definite purple, as far as she could tell from the bits she could see, and that long hair of his was now scattered on the ground in black clumps, but even this was less strange than the fact that the purple smoke had returned when he'd spoken to her; this time, however, it was issuing from his mouth along with the words. Thankfully he didn't seem to notice this problem, either. Meren was no stranger to magical unexpectedness and she very much hoped she hadn't been the cause. This wasn't a reaction she'd ever experienced, but her magic regularly did some odd things. She had been reaching for the trees behind her when the smoke had surrounded him...

But that magic was her best chance at protecting her forest, and themselves, of course. The elf gave a silent prayer to the earth spirits to let her magic work this time and began the first words of the only spell she could think of that would help: the one that had given her such strange results last time. Focusing her power into the ground beneath her, she called to the roots, vines and bushes not far from where she knelt. This time the plants answered, to her relief, and she felt the green energy flow towards her. It moved quickly, much faster than it had done in the past, but she was able to keep it from pulling out of her grasp. When a thick tendril headed towards the man standing behind her, she forced it up rather than out.

Now sensing the familiar feeling of thick forest around her, she opened her eyes to glance up into a dense thicket of plant life that had once been a clearing and up at the only orc caught on this side of the thorny wall, who was about to beam her with a heavy club. Reacting rather than thinking, she rolled to the left, the ground jolting her ribs as she dove. She felt around frantically for her bow, knowing she would never be able to fire an arrow off at this close of range at such a disadvantage. The orc swung the club back but as he was bringing it back around, he flew over her into the new thicket. Meren climbed to her feet, rubbing her sore side. What happened? I didn't do that... The answer became clear, but surprising. Phillip, coughing uncontrollably with smoke blooming out of his mouth and looking quite ill under that new color, brought his quarterstaff back to the ground to lean heavily on it. Injured and clearly unable to breathe fully, the man had found enough strength to swing his staff around in her defense. This, as nothing else he'd done so far had, impressed the warrior-trained elf. Impressed and shocked; she honestly hadn't thought him capable of such an act, physically or by inclination.

As the man dropped to his knees in another coughing fit, Meren pushed through the circle of forest surrounding them to look for any sign of the other monsters. She circled outwards, finding bits of bone, which she kicked further apart in case they could somehow later reform. She assumed that as the trees grew, they'd pulled the slow-moving skeletons into pieces. This was a relief, but less of one was the lack of any orcs. Being much quicker on the uptake than the undead, they must have fled when the spell had begun. They hadn't seemed too happy to be working with skeletons in the first place, so perhaps trees springing up under their feet had pushed them too far. She only hoped that they'd become so frightened that they wouldn't come back.

Thinking they were at least safe for the moment, she retraced her footsteps back to where she'd left the human. Her knowledge of woodlands and a good sense of direction meant she was positive of this fact or else she would have thought she was in the wrong place. The small clearing now lacked any wizards, purple or no. Okay... Well, at least he's finally gone. This was mostly a relief but part of her had been wanting an answer about what had happened. Why skeletons? And why had the human's appearance shifted so drastically? This was certainly something she wanted to speak to her brother about. Kryro would be just as confused as she was, but perhaps he could reassure her that she wasn't going crazy. Maybe by now he's back at camp? That thought in mind, she headed back home.

The next part of the story can be found here.

About to take on the Brotherhood of Dread...

2011-10-24T11:37:00.001-04:00

July 4th,
2nd day of Brightmoon

The phases of the moon are particularly important at the moment; according to our "guide", we will need to be able to reach our destination within a certain phase. I explained this, as well as our adventures over the past week or so, over in the journal of my group. Here I will just write of things that are more personal in nature.

First, a minor observation- minor because personal is not the same thing as important. When trying to find ways to hurry to our destination, Ayman's Haste spell was brought up. Just... no. I am sorry but I will never allow that spell to be cast on me. Gaining a few minutes of extra speed is not enough to balance out making me one year older. This does not seem to bother the rest of my traveling companions but it very much does to me. Why, I will not explain though they are likely to learn the reason at some point, but I cannot do anything that will make me age faster than I already am. I have a good reason for this, even if I am too reserved to explain it.

Now to move on to what is actually important. If there is one thing I dislike more than the aristocracy, it is evil priests. "Loathing" and "repulsion" do even begin to describe that hatred. As much as I would like to never have to face these abominable creatures again, I am also quite impatient to get this quest sorted out and the duke rescued... if the vile priests have not already taken control of his will and bent it to their own. We certainly need to rescue the duke, but we also need to be prepared for what shape he may be in. This is not just goblins and a stray evil bugbear cleric or two anymore. This is a huge temple of the Brotherhood of Dread, the priesthood that already wants to see us destroyed. How can I get my friends to understand what we may face there?

I am not just speaking of undead or monstrous minions, either, which are things we have defeated before. My companions see me throwing around mind control magic on a regular basis with little effort and I am limited in what I can do with it, being bound to a priesthood of Good and my own principles (yes, mischievous people do have those). These individuals will not have my morals; they will not refrain from using us as they wish should their magic take hold. When you are mind-controlled, you lose who you are, your ability to think and react properly... that sounds obvious, I know, but it is not a good feeling to be on the wrong side of that, particularly if the person wielding the magic is using it for nefarious purposes. Even getting hit with mild mind-control is not pleasant (been there- how do you think we Messengers learned?) but my kind is at least harmless. I need to get my friends to understand what they may face so they can be wary. They are not nearly wary enough.

I do not think they understand how much of a threat Tarus still holds. I know I am coming off as paranoid and peevish, but I am feeling paranoid and peevish. I do not understand why the others seem to trust him. After using magic for well over a decade I know my limits and the reach of what I am granted by my god, particularly when it comes to charm and beguilement as those were what I was taught first. Something as empty-headed as a goblin will remain beguiled for quite some time, but a human priest? I would not be surprised if the spell wore off before we even reached the temple and then what? Once an evil priest, always an evil priest; how can we know that the moment he breaks free from the spell I placed on him, he won't gleefully stab one of us in the back- or worse? This is a spellcaster who has tried to kill us on more than one occasion. I know the kind of magic he wields and how it can be twisted so I will continue to keep a watchful eye over him, being the only one who truly knows what to look for and how to cancel it. This is fine and good for now, but one Messenger cannot possibly shield his friends from ranks of those with this kind of magic. Not for the first time, I wish I had one of my brothers or sisters by my side as I approach evil.

Hermes, please guide our steps, let me keep my wits and my magic ready so I can protect those I travel with. I know my magic is not the most powerful, but let it serve us well. Please.

Hidden Magic - Story, Part 6

2011-10-20T15:21:00.008-04:00

Banner art by JackOfClubs (jack_spire on livejournal).
You can find the whole cover art here- JoC did a great job on it!
There's also a great mix/soundtrack that goes with this story- you can find that here.

Hidden Magic, Part 6
(Prologue, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 7)

Meren retrieved the rope and stashed it back into her bag before turning to face the wizard again. Only then did she realize that she'd had her back to him the whole time, but he hadn't even moved. He had a sad, distant look on his face, as though he was thinking hard about something, and it wasn't until she'd walked over and poked him in the arm that he snapped out of it. As he blinked down at her, Meren noticed that his eyes were an uncanny shade of dark brown, almost a black. Is that normal for humans? she wondered, although this didn't hold her attention long. "I'll lead you to the edge of our lands. Be sure not to come across here again because the other guards won't be as kind."

"Trapping me in a hole is kind?" he asked bitterly. When he saw Meren frown again he bowed his head, letting his now rather-mussed long hair fall over his face, and clutched at his quarterstaff. "I didn't mean- look, thank you for getting me out and fixing me up. I do appreciate that, elf-girl."

Meren could tell that something was bothering him but wasn't sure if she should pry. Instead she just nodded as they began walking, or hobbling some, in his case. "It's fine. I do have a name, you know. It's Meren."

"Surprisingly pronounceable. I'll try to remember that for the next time I need a healer... not that if I get hurt, I'll wander around a forest, of course. And I'm Phillip, by the way." The wood elf was relieved to hear his voice take on a less cynical quality.

She couldn't resist asking, however, why a human wizard was wandering a forest. "Why were you here this time?"

There was that sad look on his face again and Meren almost felt bad for asking. Almost, because she knew herself to be far too inquisitive to let something like that go. "I'm trying to get home. My master-" he stopped in mid-sentence and began to look around again, frantically looking from side to side.

"Isn't here," Meren finished, assuming that that was who he was looking to avoid. She was sure of that; anyone wandering this area wouldn't be doing so undiscovered for long, whatever this master was.

As his dark eyes went large, the wood elf was sure that she'd hit a sore spot, or, rather, a paranoid crazy spot. He whispered to her, "No, you don't understand. He's... horrible, evil, unhinged. He may not be here, but what if one of his servants are?"

Now Meren was entirely confused. Why would servants be a problem? Didn't humans just use them for pouring tea or watching their children or something? Clearly this was a cultural misunderstanding. "Come again?"

Phillip shook his head and continued in a low voice, "You don't want to understand, elf-girl. Trust me."

The wood elf tried to shrug nonchalantly, but this actually had her somewhat worried. Whatever had gotten to the young man had obviously upset him and she didn't think he was faking that fear. Maybe if she changed the subject? "Alright, I won't ask. Where is your home?"

For some reason that subject did seem to calm him down and he loosened his grip on his quarterstaff, his knuckles fading from the white that they'd become. "Birchlyn. It's a village-"

"To the southwest," Meren answered with a smile, one mystery solved. So that was why he spoke Halfling! She knew that to be the nearest town to Woodedge, a halfling village and, oddly enough, where the shorter side of her family was from. Since he was local, that would mean that he at least had heard of the forest he'd ended up in. "You overshot when trying to get back there and ended up in the outskirts of Fayiron."

For the first time the elf saw the wizard give a genuine smile, which made him look a lot less haunted. "Then I am close to my destination. That is good to hear!"

Meren was extremely curious about those halflings who must have taught him their language; he was quite fluent, so it was likely that it wasn't something he'd picked up secondhand. She was just about to ask him more about his home when she was startled by horrible laughter to her right.

They'd left most of the trees behind them and Meren's curiosity had left her not to realize just how out in the open the two of them were, which wouldn't have been a problem, except for the group of monsters that seemed to have them surrounded. There was that orc the elf had wished for earlier and two more of its kin. But even worse than that were … well, they had to be what Phillip was talking about earlier.

Meren shuddered as she was hit with deja vu. Here was a handful- flock? Horde? Graveyard? Words flipped through her head- of skeletons, which were upright and walking towards them, clinking slightly as they moved. No wonder Phillip's so jumpy! she thought. Gripping her bow tightly, she drew an arrow from her quiver and put it to the string. If these things thought they could just stroll into her home, they had another thing coming to them, or so Meren hoped. She had a feeling arrows would only harmlessly go through the more boney enemies. She looked over at the man, her only backup in this mess. Phillip had frozen in place, his eyes wide again and he appeared to be trembling slightly. Meren sighed. Yeah, that's a big help.

Careful to keep the monsters in her line of sight, she kicked the wizard in the shin. It wasn't the injured one, but it hurt enough that he scowled at her, fear replaced by annoyance, which had been the elf's intention. "Now what?" she asked. Before the human could reply, one of the orcs began to speak.

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

"A new friend? Too bad for her we'll have to kill her, too," the orc said in the human tongue. Phillip glanced over at Meren, worried about her reaction to that statement. Upon seeing her expression of complete incomprehension, he realized she had no idea what the orc had said. One small favor there.

Taking a deep breath as he tried to keep his fear under control, he asked, "It was a waste of time to follow me, was it not? Don't you have something more important to do than follow one worthless apprentice?" Maybe they'd listen if he sounded like his master...

No such luck. The orcs only sneered at him while the skeletons, lacking faces with which to emote, remained still, which disturbed him even more. Maybe if I can get the green ones away, the creepier ones will follow, he thought as the skeletons continued to stare at him with empty eye sockets. He gave a shudder and looked over at the elf. She, too, hadn't moved further than to ready her bow and Phillip hoped she'd be be willing to cover for him with it if his idea didn't work.

The man reached into the neck of his robe with his free hand to retrieve the amulet he'd left hanging there and tugged the chain over his head. Assuming what he hoped was a powerful wizardly stance, but worrying he simply looked like a ragged, injured, terrified boy, he thrust the amulet forward. Doing his best to make his voice boom, he demanded, "Stand back or I'll unleash the full fury of this arcane amulet!"

To his amazement, this worked. Partly. The orcs stepped back, looking nervously between themselves. Phillip gave a quiet sigh of relief. Now can I get this thing to actually do something? For all that his master had desired it so much, he'd never actually used it, or if he had, it wasn't in his apprentice's presence. He concentrated deeply on the charm danging from his hand, trying to weave the power he controlled around it. Preoccupied by this, he didn't notice that Meren had begun chanting next to him. Since his eyes were directed at the item in his hand, however, he did take notice of its current state: the stone began flickering between purple and green. After a few seconds it settled on a deep blueish-purple, as though both colors had combined into one. He had only a moment to wonder about this, however.

Suddenly struck by what felt like a bolt of lightning, or as though a cat the size of an elephant had rubbed against his leg, he fell to his knees. As a cloud of purple smoke engulfed him, he began gasping to try to breathe through the heavy fog. His lungs felt on fire, his skin tingled, his head rang. What's going on? Never had his magic done anything like this, even as a new apprentice; the most he'd done was catch a book on fire, but this was a bigger problem than a bucket could fix.

As he gasped and wheezed, he felt something grope for his arm and he flinched back, knowing what kind of horrible things were near. When he saw the tattooed vines on the hand rather than bones or claws, he let out a sigh of relief, which caused him to break into another coughing fit. Leaning heavily on the elf and his staff, he was able to get to his feet as the smoke began to clear, but something was wrong... his lungs continued to ache and he felt a draft on the back of his neck, which contrasted greatly with the hot tingling of a moment before. And his hands, why did they look so discolored? Meren gave a gasp and he looked over to see her staring at him with her mouth open, but before he could ask, the sound of approaching rattling made him look past her. The monsters, no longer frightened since the smoke had all but dissipated, were approaching again. The orcs seemed to be staying as far from the skeletons as they could, but all were moving forward.

Phillip was at a complete loss. He couldn't run, he could barely breathe and what would happen to a spell if he couldn't stop coughing while trying to recite the necessary words? He was defenseless; all he'd be good for would be getting in Meren's way as the monsters sent after him got her, too. Perhaps if she could get back into the thick part of the forest, she'd lose them. He couldn't get away, but he had no reason to expect her not to want to flee.

His mind now made up in a decision he couldn't really comprehend, he found the elf's hand again. He dropped the amulet into it and whispered hoarsely, "Run, elf-girl. They want me, not you."

Her reaction surprised him as much as his own had. Meren looked up at him, her green eyes narrowed, and shook her head defiantly. "This is my home. My land. My magic. They have to get through me."

Before he could do more than blink at her vehement reaction, she dropped to the ground in a crouch, letting go of her bow to clutch the grass, keeping the amulet in her one hand. As the monsters neared, she began to chant in her unfamiliar airy language. Hoping she knew what she was doing, Phillip gripped his staff tightly with both hands, pushing back the pain in his ankle and the ache that still filled his lungs. If an elf was willing and brave enough to face monsters obviously arcane, then a wizard darn well could do the same.

Part 7 can be found here.

Hidden Magic - Story, Part 5

2011-10-10T19:40:00.007-04:00

Banner art by JackOfClubs (jack_spire on livejournal).
You can find the whole cover art here- JoC did a great job on it!
There's also a great mix/soundtrack that goes with this story- you can find that here.

Hidden Magic, Part 5
(Prologue, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 6)

Phillip wandered through the treeline in a stupor, leaning heavily on his new quarterstaff as he pushed through the undergrowth. The briars and thorn bushes snagged and ripped the hem of his black robe, but he hardly noticed this, so preoccupied by a memory he could not erase. His master had given up the illusion magic he'd excelled at and abandoned it in favor of Necromancy, the magic an Illusionist normally could not use any more than a snake could use a boot. Phillip still shuddered at the thought. And what the once-Illusionist had done with it... he shuddered again from the memory of those skeletons created when his master had looted a cemetery. He'd tried to convince the wizard not to do this, but Phillip had been so frightened and horrified that he'd ended up hiding when those pleas were ignored, invoking more anger when his master had realized his assistant was not there. The only thing going for the young wizard at that point was that the old man had been too preoccupied with his newly created servants to give much attention to the person he was supposed to be training.

The old wizard had been getting progressively more and more disturbing and this had been the last straw; grabbing what he could carry, his apprentice had fled. In hindsight, he should have left as soon as his master had begun slipping down that slope towards horrifyingly crazy, but Phillip had been holding out so that he could become a master wizard in his own right, not that it had become possible in the end. By that point his master had only been casting magic Phillip either could not or would not do. Caught not quite at the status of full Illusionist, but no longer truly an apprentice either, the young man had grabbed the amulet he'd recovered for his master years before on the way out, not trusting it to the warped old man, and with the vague hope that it could aid him in some way, possibly to fill in for the training he still lacked. Who would take in a mostly-trained twenty-six year old apprentice, anyway? That was why he hadn't left Bluecoast sooner; he'd had no idea of where to go.

He glanced down at the ash staff in his hands. It was a gift sent from his father, a skilled woodworker who knew nothing of magic but was aware that most wizards carried staves. He also knew that his son's favorite hobby was astronomy, or something with stars, anyway. That had always been a bit over his head, but the man had apparently caught on enough to know that it would be a good theme for an almost-wizard's staff. Seeing the intricate stellar carvings in the wood had sent a wave of sudden homesickness over the young wizard. A longing for a time when he didn't have to wonder what horrible monster he'd have to see that day (and that wasn't even counting his master...) had hit him like a ton of bricks. Home may not give him the new master he sought or the end to his training, but it was at least a destination.

He'd left the coast behind and headed west in a long trek back to his homeland. Slowed by the fact that he constantly felt the need to look over his shoulder in case skeletons or something worse were at his heels, he had made it two-thirds of the way when this pensiveness left him lost. He thought he'd been following a trail through sparse woodland but he had lost track of it.

Walking slowly in a small circle to try to at least get a bearing of which way north lay, he heard a snap and was dropped into a large pit. As he tried to push himself to his feet, he heard a quieter snap; the cause of this was readily apparent by the terrible pain in his left ankle. Trying to keep from blacking out, he used the staff to support his weight so he could survey the hole which he was beginning to suspect was actually a trap. The evenness of the dirt walls validated this assumption and the arrow drawn and aimed down from above the pit proved it. Yes, this most certainly was not his year.

He raised one hand up in surrender, the other being far too busy holding him upright to join its brethren. He began to wonder if he could fire off any sort of spell without falling over when this was interrupted when the figure said, "It's you again?" He recognized that voice and now very much wished he had a way to get out of here.

Grimacing at the pain that shop up his leg, he shuffled backwards until his back hit the dirt wall. Of all the elf traps he could have fallen into, it was the one she was guarding. At least this particular elf wasn't likely to actually fire at him- or so he hoped. He stared up and wondered if he should duck. As is probably obvious, the language the archer had spoken was Halfling.

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

Meren patrolled the forest alone. Occasionally Kryro had to report to his own tribe and this was one of those times. Wanting to stay on guard, however, she'd managed to convince her father to allow her to do so on her own. She still wasn't sure how she'd accomplished this, but she had a hunch. The centaur had kept insisting that she had magic, which she denied at first because wood elves were not magical, but soon she had started to experiment, figuring that it was a sort of weapon and it would be foolish to not use everything at her disposal to protect the forest and elf camp. This she kept secret from all but her brother and had tried to not use it anywhere near where her kin could possibly see; as well as being unmagical, elves were rather... superstitious about it, and that was putting it nicely, but she had a feeling that some magic had been working through her as she'd argued with her father. Her fingers had felt tingly, a sure sign that she was pulling energy again, and his green eyes had taken on a glazed quality while she was speaking. She hadn't stuck around to see if she'd truly been the cause and had hurried out as soon as she'd gotten his approval just in case she had done some sort of spell and said magic wore off.

So alone she roamed. Alone until she spotted a glint in a place that shouldn't have anything shiny. Sneaking forward in her soft leather boots, Meren crept behind some ferns and low greenery to get a closer look ahead. The glitter was coming from the sun reflecting off the silver-embossed tip of a wooden quarterstaff. The elf rolled her eyes. She was all for using bits of fallen trees as weaponry, but why wrap something so ostentatious around it?

When the figure turned, the reason became clearer- it was that blasted infuriating wizard again, wasn't it? Meren still wasn't sure what to make of him but knew she didn't want him roaming around her forest. Although was it more out of wanting him gone as she'd want any intruder to leave or was it not wanting a more trigger-happy scout to find this particular nuisance? The elf sighed. Trapping him would be best. Closing her eyes and trying to focus the green energy of the forest into doing her favorite spell, the energy decided that it had its own desire, as the elf had occasionally found to happen. Instead of the forest reaching out and rapidly growing into a dense thicket, it remained in place, but what didn't remain in place was the ground between her and the human. The black-clad man gave a startled gasp as the dirt under his feet vanished, then a yelp of pain as he apparently hit the bottom of the pit that had appeared under his feet. Well, that works, too, she thought with a shrug.

She put an arrow to her bowstring out of habit and crept forward to the edge of the pit. Now getting a good look at the man's rather pain-filled face, she saw that it was indeed who she'd thought it was. Unfortunately. Why couldn't she be rid of this human for good? I guess bats weren't enough to scare him away, she grumbled to herself.

"It's you again? You're trespassing on guarded lands." Why did she want to add "again"? The last time she'd had the pleasure of his acquaintance, he hadn't been in the forest. She could almost recall... she shook her head. No matter, that wasn't important.

"Would it help if I said I didn't realize where I was?" he asked hopefully, giving what she thought was far too innocent of a look.

Meren sighed again. He likely wasn't going to be a threat to the forest but why was he here? She lowered her bow and cursed at the complication that had presented itself. She was almost wishing she'd found an orc blundering through the underbrush instead.

Well, if he really had hurt his leg, as it appeared from his stance, he wasn't going to be able to move fast if she got him out of the hole. The trick would just be not to turn her back on him, which she vaguely recalled had been her mistake last time. And this time she had magic at her disposal, as well. She patted the pouch at her hip where she'd begun storing the bits of plants and miscellaneous trinkets that seemed to make her magic function better- usually, although that latest spell fumble could attest to this not always being the case- to reassure her that it was still in place. She gave a small smirk. Yes, she'd be alright even without her brother to back her up.

Leaning down over the pit, she crossed her arms over her chest. "I suppose I can let you out. But try anything and you'll find another pit beneath your feet." Not that she could likely duplicate a result like that, but he didn't have to know that. When the young man shook his head frantically, she asked, "Do you think you can climb?"

The human bit his lip, but nodded. "I'll have to try."

Meren took a few steps back and looked around for a tree to which she could knot the end of her rope. Luckily her misplaced spell had backfired in the middle of the woods instead of a desert, so she was able to find a good sized one. Pulling the grey rope out of her satchel, she knotted the one end around the tree trunk and dropped the other end down into the hole.

The wizard hobbled over and lobbed his staff up and out. It took all of his strength, but he was able to pull himself out. Once back on the surface, however, he sat down heavily, his face gone ashen, clearly hurt from that injured leg.

He's never going to get out of my forest that way, Meren thought, but pity was beginning to take the place of her irritation and she began to riffle through her bag to try to locate her healing supplies. Her mother had been the tribe's healer and had passed that knowledge on to the young elf; Meren had always assumed that the reason she was less inclined to automatic violence than the rest of her kin was because you don't really want to hurt something when you become used to patching things up instead.

Finding what she needed, she crouched down next to the human and began to tug at his boot. He immediately gave a shriek of pain and swatted her hands away. "What are you doing, elf-girl?" he demanded through clenched teeth.

The frown she gave made him shrink back; momentarily puzzled that he should find her threatening when she was clearly trying to help, she answered calmly, "You're hurt or have you not noticed? I was going to wrap that up for you until you can find a healer, but if you'd rather just sit here alone in an area known to be patrolled by wild cats, that's your choice." Okay, so that was a lie, but maybe he'd let her help if he thought trouble would approach soon.

His eyes wide, he began to look around desperately, as though Meren had brought an assortment of large pet cats with her. Holding back a chuckle, she grabbed his boot again. This time he remained still and allowed her to work, but it wasn't until she'd finished and given him some herbs to chew on to help with the pain- this time not lying about that, although she'd been tempted to hand him some simple tea leaves instead- that the color began to return to his face. Using the staff to get to his feet, the young man tested his ankle. He winced slightly, but this time didn't look about to faint, which Meren considered a job well done.

"You did well. Thank you," he told her, his voice sounding sincere.

Meren shrugged as she got to her feet and began putting the herbalism kit back into her bag. She didn't really know what to say to that because she probably shouldn't have helped him. Even her brother would have left him in the pit... or perhaps not. Kryro wasn't like the rest of her kin, either, and would probably have lifted him out of the hole, but only to leave him injured and to his own devices.

Part 6 can be found here.

Hidden Magic - Story, Part 4

2011-09-26T21:54:00.005-04:00

Banner art by JackOfClubs (jack_spire on livejournal).
You can find the whole cover art here- JoC did a great job on it!
There's also a great mix/soundtrack that goes with this story- you can find that here.

Hidden Magic, Part 4
(Prologue, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 5)

It appears that the centaur was right, Phillip mused to himself as he crossed the undeniably empty village. There was nothing. He could have charged in here with an army and trumpets blaring and there wouldn't have been any more reaction. There was also a definite lack of any centaurs; he'd passed many a monster corpse, but no sign of anyone not green and none of those once-monsters had on them anything remotely like what his master was seeking, either. About to give up the search and grumbling once again about this stupid quest, he jumped when he saw what appeared to be a ball of flame shoot up towards the sky not far to his left.

Quickly snatching up a rock and pulling a piece of lightly-glowing phosphorescent moss from the pouch at his belt, he muttered a few words and waved his fingers above both objects, causing the rock to emit a bright glow. This was likely a waste of magic, but he didn't feel like fumbling through his pack for a torch and he wanted to hurry to see what caused the blast without tripping over something in the rapidly fading light. Rock in hand, he scurried forward. If nothing else, he could beam anything that approached with the stone, as unlikely as that would be in this ghost town.

Phillip figured there there was no need to be silent and began softly calling out when he neared the spot he reckoned the blast had come from. As he approached yet more fallen masonry, he heard a weak shout come from somewhere nearby. Whatever it was, it wasn't a language he knew, but it didn't sound threatening so he bravely followed it. He was led to a small hole in what seemed to be a recently collapsed building. Holding the glowing rock above his head to try to see in the gap, he was startled by two gleaming green eyes staring up. Whatever the eyes belonged to said something; from the tone of voice, it was probably something like "help," although for all he knew, it could have been saying "artichoke."

"Stand back," he informed whatever was down there, not that it could understand him. "I'm going to drop this in so we can see." He could always make another lit rock if he had to.

Whatever was down there stopped blathering, like it- no, definitely a she. Possibly that centaur? How am I supposed to lift a horse up, anyway?- knew he was trying to help. He saw the eyes move back a pace and he dropped the stone. As she reached down to grab it hesitantly like she was afraid it would be hot, Phillip was again surprised. She was neither the centaur he'd been expecting nor the orc he feared it would be (or was it the other way around?). Instead, staring up at him with eyes so frightened and wide that he could clearly make out the whites, was a young elf. She appeared to be in her late teens, but with elves that guess could be decades off, garbed in mostly leather in shades of what must have once been russet and brown but were now almost uniformly grey; even the green tattoos that wound around most of the skin Phillip could see were mostly a dull, grimy grey. Her pulled-back brown hair had fallen partly out of its tie and was also caked in dust.

"Here, I'll throw down a rope," he told her. It wasn't until he saw the shocked look of comprehension on her face and her frantic nod that he realized he hadn't spoken in his language, but the Halfling tongue, the language he'd learned as a child and had rarely used since. Now why would I say that to an elf? he began to wonder, but shook his head. Whatever the reason, she seemed to know that, anyway. "Hold on," he added as he reached into his bag for the rope he'd picked up at the wall.

He dropped this down and within seconds the girl had scampered up it, weighing surprisingly little. Phillip realized why when she got to her feet after first giving what sounded like a small prayer of thanks to the ground. For all that she looked near his age, she was about a foot shorter than he was, which was normal for an elf, he supposed. The frantic, scared look was now gone from her eyes to the human's relief; he'd had no idea how to deal with a violent centaur and would have had even less of an idea of what to do with a frightened elf.

Dipping her head slightly, she said, "Thank you greatly for getting me out of there! I'm terrified of being underground." Even just speaking of this made her appear uncomfortable; she bit her bottom lip and stepped farther away from the crumbled building.

The human was about to brag about how it was no big deal and how he rescued young women on a regular basis when she snatched the rope out of his hands. "Wait a second, this is my rope, isn't it? Did my brother send you over?"

Thrown off by the fact that a girl was unmoved by his chivalry, he could only blink at the last part of her questioning. "That was your brother? He said he was looking for a sister, but I'd assumed that was another centaur." He looked off into the distance like the rampaging horse-man was coming after him with a log. "He was frightening! Err... no offense intended," he added hastily.

The elf... halfling? Was was he getting the idea of both from her, anyway? The elf did something he wasn't expecting. She broke into a fit of uncontrollable laughter. "Kryro? Frightening? What, did he get tangled in a tree and bring it down on you?"

Okay, that was maybe why he thought "halfling"; she certainly sounded like the ones he'd known. But she didn't have to be so dismissive of what he'd said, either. Crossing his arms over his chest, Phillip frowned. "I'm serious. There was a tree involved and he was beating a gate with it."

The elf looked at him for a second, then raised an eyebrow, shifting the vine tattoos near her eyes, which Phillip should have found disturbing, but for some reason didn't. He was glad when she interrupted that thought by saying, "You're serious? He must really have been worried. He doesn't usually-" A thought seemed to occur to her; did all elves jump annoyingly from subject to subject like this? "But how did you find me?"

"There was a ball of fire," Phillip started to answer. He stared. Surely this small elf hadn't... "Did you do that?" Was she a wizard, too? He didn't think elves, or at least any kind of elf colored to look like a tree, had wizards, but where else would that fireball have come from?

The girl looked confused, then thoughtful. Moving the glowing rock from hand to hand, she fidgeted. "I thought I'd imagined that. I was so frightened and worried.... then this necklace thing I picked up felt warm and then that..." she fumbled for words, "fire thing happened."

Now Phillip finally noticed the simple necklace hanging from her neck. In the light of the uncanny rock, it almost seemed to have a dim green glow. Was this what his master was looking for? He tried to recall exactly what the old wizard had said about it as they made their way over to the nearest part of the wall. But from what the girl said and what he thought he remembered about it... yes, it was likely one and the same as the item he sought. And even if it wasn't, something powerful enough to cause elves to shoot magic flame would likely be almost as good of a prize in the eyes of his master. How to get it off the girl, though...

As the elf secured the rope so they could climb back down from the wall, he asked as nonchalantly as he could in an attempt to keep his voice free of that hope of possible impending freedom, "Were you going to keep that?"

She looked confused by his question. "I did find it. Yes, I am."

Phillip cursed silently to himself. Trying to act as charming as possible, he asked, "But do you think I could have it? I did rescue you."

The elf almost looked as though she was going to agree then quickly shook her head. "No. If it's all the same, I'd rather keep it. This could come in handy."

He gave another mental curse, this time stronger. He'd have to do what he should and normally would have done in the first place. Why was this girl making him act so strangely? He began to chant softly, counting on her apparent lack of knowledge of his language to disguise what he was saying, and moved his hands in a theatrical gesture which he, however, couldn't hide. She had time to ask, "What are you-" before she crumpled to the ground, this time deep in sleep. He gently removed the chain with the now purple glow from around her neck and thought briefly of leaving her there and darting off, but that voice inside that he was coming to recognize and rather dislike instead made him pick her up and swing her over his shoulder. He dropped the chain over his neck and bent down to retrieve the torch-stone she'd dropped. Then, moving clockwise around the wall, he headed to where he'd last seen the centaur.

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Kryro was not happy. His sister had been in there for days now and that human still had not come back, either. He knew he shouldn't have trusted a shady-looking young human, but what choice had he had? He was probably long gone by now, having stolen Meren's rope and likely using it to scale from a side not visible to the centaur. Blasted two-leggers. Cannot trust any of them. Elves excluded, he added hastily, Those you could always just trust to do something thickheaded and dangerous.

When he saw the human come around the wall carrying some sort of light in his hand, Kryro had been about to take those silent insults out on him when he realized the man was also carrying an unconscious and rather grimy Meren. "What happened to her?" the centaur demanded, galloping over to them.

The young man lowered the elf gently, Kryro was glad to see, to the ground. He hesitated for a moment, then stood confidently, brushing at the embroidered stars on his black robe. "I think she was hit in the head. She should be coming around soon, but you should probably get her out of here."

You do not have to tell me that twice, Kryro thought to himself. He knelt down, never a fast motion when graced with so many legs, and felt her forehead. Or tried to. The centaur yanked his arm back when a spark leapt over to his hand.

Luckily that spark seemed to shake her awake; she gave an "Ouch!" and opened her eyes. Blinking up at the centaur, her eyebrows wrinkled in confusion. "You're green," she mumbled dazedly in Halfling.

Kryro looked down to see what she meant. Nope, still the same shades of brown he had always been. And why was she using that language, anyway? Now it was his turn for confusion. "Meer, are you alright? Why would I be green?"

Rubbing her head, Meren sat up. Still speaking that language, she muttered, "Feel all tingly..."

Yes, that really answered that one. He looked over at the human who was still standing there. Still there, but looking posed to run away. Realizing the centaur's gaze was in his direction, the man gave a sheepish shrug. Kryro had been called many things: large, good with languages, clumsy, horsebutt (Gee, thank you for that one, Meer), but never stupid. He knew that human was hiding something.

Dazed though she was, Meren was on top of this. How she was on top of it, though, left Kryro even more disturbed. She blinked at the man a time or two, then switched that to a vindictive glare as she climbed quickly to her feet. Without any hesitation, she spoke low in Elvish. To the centaur's bewilderment, it sounded much like "Winged mice of the forest, aid me". Wondering what she meant and thinking she must really have hurt her head, he saw her gesture towards the wood behind them, then point at the human, whose necklace momentarily flickered between purple and green. The young man was now most certainly not looking comfortable. When a swarm of bats flew out of the treetops and towards his head, he became even less so. Giving a yelp, he turned and ran, trying to outrun something that could move far faster than he.

This left Kryro satisfied, but also incredibly worried and even more disconcerted. Before he could ask Meren what in the name of the earth spirits had just happened, he saw her collapse to her knees, looking visibly drained. The centaur had the presence of mind to catch her before she fell and held her steady. "What is going on?" he demanded, his voice breaking from worry.

Meren blinked at him. "I don't... what happened?"

It was rather fuzzy to the centaur. Why did this feel so familiar? "There was a human here. You threw... bats... at him." He wasn't sure if he wanted that memory to clear up or not, it seemed so strange.

The elf looked perplexed for a moment, then simply nodded. If Kryro had to guess, he would say she was simply too overwhelmed and tired to care about flying things, a fact which was bothering him greatly. That had looked suspiciously like magic, but she was no shaman...

The centaur shook his head. Whatever Meren was or was not, she was still his sister and he still had to get her home safely. "Just get on my back."

Dazedly she started to argue, "But centaurs don't let people-"

"Most centaurs do not have exhausted elven sisters who have been throwing woodland creatures around until they appear ready to fall over for a second time," he pointed out.

That long sentence was clearly too much for her to comprehend in her current state. She obeyed, climbing up and wrapping her arms around his chest to keep in place. As they fled back into the woods, Kryro felt warmth on his chest. Looking down, he saw that emerald sparks were flashing between Meren's hands and grounding on his skin. It didn't hurt, but it tingled slightly and he wondered if this was the feeling she'd mentioned earlier. Whatever it was, he hoped it was harmless, but knew Meren would never do anything to hurt him. ...or at least the Meren he knew would not. The fact that his sister was sparking and summoning nocturnal animals had him worried; centaurs and wood elves were not keen on magic, to say the least. We better not tell her father, he decided, his gut telling him that this would be wise.

Part 5 can be found here.

Hidden Magic - Story, Part 3

2011-09-12T23:25:00.007-04:00

Banner art by JackOfClubs (jack_spire on livejournal).
You can find the whole cover art here- JoC did a great job on it!
There's also a great mix/soundtrack that goes with this story- you can find that here.

Hidden Magic, Part 3
(Prologue, Part 1, Part 2, Part 4)

The young man inched around the wall, careful not to make a sound. He was lurking here because of a quest given by his master. A quest, he grumbled internally, Right. To find some stupid item that he only heard rumors about. So of course the apprentice has to go on this fool's errand.

To make matters worse, leads that he had followed had led him to believe that it did in fact exist and was located here, in the same place as a group of orcs and who knew what else. Phillip knew, though, that if he came back empty handed, or at least without bearing word of its whereabouts, his master would not be at all pleased- and that would be an understatement. The old wizard had never been particularly kind, but over the past year or two he'd become downright... well, evil, in his apprentice's opinion, although "crazy," "paranoid" and "shady" would be other words said apprentice would throw into the mix, although most definitely not while in his master's presence. He liked his feet where they were, thank you very much.

As inane as this task was, perhaps if he retrieved that magic amulet for his master it would allow him to lose some of that horrible paranoia and return to normal... or at least to the level of eccentricity normal for a spellcaster. If nothing else, maybe it would please the old man enough that he'd finally advance his apprentice to full Illusionist, meaning Phillip could get as far away from Bluecoast as possible and never have to deal with that madman again.

So maybe this search wasn't so pointless after all.

Phillip had heard no sound coming from within while looping his way around most of the wall so he was surprised when a ruckus of clangs and thumps sounded from nearby. Stepping away from the wall to look around the curve of the stone, he spotted something that surprised him even further: a male centaur slamming an iron gate with what the young man could only think of as a tree. As he watched, the stallion- was that a term for someone with the top half of a human?- tossed the large log aside and with a growl of frustration, began pulling at the gate with his bare hands, accomplishing nothing more than rattling the iron.

Most of Phillip was telling him to quickly head the other way, as far from this angry beast as possible, but curiosity led him forward. Still moving silently in his soft boots, the young man crept forward, stopping a few yards away just as the horse-man gave another shout. As he watched, the centaur seemed to deflate; he gave one more shout of frustration, then bowed his head low, bringing his hands up to his head to pull at his already disheveled brown hair.

Unsure of what to do with a very distraught centaur, Phillip cleared his throat. Instead of jumping, as the young man expected he would, the centaur just turned slowly to face the sound. As the human got a good look at him, he realized why: for all the strength the centaur had been exhibiting, he appeared to be utterly exhausted.

When the centaur spotted the young man, his bleary brown eyes widened. Before Phillip could say anything, the centaur spoke up. "Please! Your aid I need. My sister in there be!" And here was another surprise: the pleading centaur spoke his language. Heavily accented, but perfectly understandable.

Understandable, but also unfortunately demanding. "Woah. Hold on," Phillip said, his arms held out in front of him. "There are orcs in there. I can't just wander in and ask they hand someone over."

The centaur shook his head hastily, his long hair flying. "No! Gone most of them should be. Her kin cleared them out and left, but never did she leave."

That didn't sound too hopeful. "But how do you know she's-" Phillip began to ask.

The centaur glared at him with enough hostility to cause the young man to take a few steps back. "Their injured they removed and with them she was not. Inside she must then still be. Get her, I would, but," he now directed his glare at the gate and Phillip was almost surprised not to see this one melt like what had apparently once happened to the one to the west, "enter I cannot."

Biting his lip, he again turned to look at the human. "Gone the orcs all should be. For now. Get her out before more come, I would like. For her please look."

Phillip sighed. This was not how he wanted to spend his day and any other time he'd have hurried away from such a request, but... he did have to get inside anyway, especially if it were true and the orcs were all vanquished at the moment, so this would be a chance to appear to do something heroic without that being his actual goal. And a small part of him actually wanted to help... he chose to ignore that voice and said, "I could try, I suppose... but how would I get in?"

The centaur turned and pointed to a rope dangling from the wall to the west which Phillip hadn't noticed. It blended so well into the grey of the stone that unless you knew it was there, it wouldn't be seen. "To get in that did she use." There was such intense entreaty in his eyes that Phillip had to look away. "So look for her you will?"

Phillip nodded slightly and the centaur gave a whoop and a swish of his tail, the human noted, and said, "Wait for you here I shall."

The young man walked over to the rope, tugging it to be sure of its strength. It seemed okay, so he quickly tied back his long hair and tucked his robe into his belt and began to scale it. It wasn't until he had reached the top of the wall, stored the rope on his pack and located a set of stairs leading down into the town that the thought occurred to him, Wait, how did a centaur get over the wall using a rope?

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Meren groggily opened her eyes and blinked dazedly at the dim light. Where am I? She thought sluggishly. She groaned and sat up, rubbing the back of her head. Ugh, I feel like a building fell on me... as she looked up at the small hole in the wood ceiling that was letting in the fading evening light, she recalled that it technically had. Groping around for her backpack, she found it near her feet. This she began digging through but quickly threw down with a frustrated curse. She'd left her grappling hook and rope behind on the wall, hadn't she? She'd been in such a hurry to explore that not only was it now no use for her, anything could use it to get in... but who would want to get in to a village of orcs?

Right, orcs, that's why she was here! Rubbing her head again, she stood and listened for any sound. Nothing. She could call out, but would alerting monsters to her location be wise? Probably not. But as the light faded, she now cursed the lack of something else in her bag: a torch, a candle, anything that lit. She'd never needed one before, being able to see fairly well in moonlight, so it had never occurred to her to carry a light source. Maybe there was something here she could use?

Dropping to the ground, she began poking around, her hand finding shapeless and unidentifiable debris, but nothing that had potential for fire. Poking around further, she located her bow, thankfully still in one piece; this she unstrung and tucked into her quiver, as it was little use at the moment and she didn't want to lose it again. Returning to her exploration, something sharp brushed her finger. She snatched her hand back and wrapped it quickly in the fold of her tunic. Now realizing that it was stupid to fumble around blindly, she half stood so she could feel along with her boot- then immediately fell back over when she tripped on something that rolled. Reaching down to see what she'd kicked, she instantly regretted it. It was smooth and cool; it felt like bone. Grimacing, she prodded forward and, yes, that was a skeleton, alright. Ugh. She wrinkled her nose in disgust. About to climb back to her feet to get as far away from this as possible, her hand knocked something that skittered across the dirt floor. Torn between disgust, some amount of panic at being underground, and curiosity, curiosity won out.

On hands and knees she went across the floor, now on the lookout for more glass and dead things, and soon found what she'd flung away: some kind of cold stone thing on a chain. Unsure of why she did so as it was absolutely no help in the dark, she dropped the chain over her head. Not knowing what else to do, she inched her way over to the wall. Was it really that close? Hadn't the area seemed... larger a moment ago? Was it a moment ago? How much time had passed since she fell down here? Meren shut her eyes tightly and grasped at the stone lying against her chest. Morning had to come soon, right? Perhaps in the light she'd magically be able to to see a ladder out of here. Right, she thought, and 'Ro will lead a centaur rescue party that's magically able to climb walls. May as well wish for the unattainable.

Light shining off some sort of mirror on the floor and into Meren's eyes woke her. Stretching out kinks from sleeping in a corner, she stood. Her view was no better by the filtered slight light of morning. No magical ladder or grappling hook- or centaur rescue party- greeted her. What she did learn, however, was that the skeleton had been staring at her all that time. This made her shudder and take a step back against the wall. Judging from the shape of its skull, it had been some sort of goblinoid. This didn't bother her too much at first, but as the day wound on and the little light filtering through the crack in the ceiling began to fade again, something was really starting to bother her: the lack of sky, trees, fresh air, locations without dead goblins... Would alerting potential monsters be any worse than another night spent underground? At this point, that would be a definite no. Unable to help herself, she started calling out. She shouted her brother's name, general pleading and cursing in shifts, anything to catch the attention of something, anything.

But this was to no avail. Shouting until she was hoarse and exhausted, Meren grasped for her waterskin, drinking the last few drops. She needed to do something to alert Kryro that she was here- he had to still be out there!- but nothing was down here except some trash and a goblin skeleton. That grinned at her somewhere in the darkness. Underground in a space that seemed to be getting smaller by the minute... Oh no, what had she gotten herself into?

Exhausted and starting to hyperventilate, she sunk to the ground directly under the gap in the ceiling, trying to get as far away from those walls as possible. Again she clutched at the stone laying against her leather armor; it was something vaguely green and gold, as she'd been able to make out in the dim light of day. She began to feel it grow warm and figuring she was growing delusional from being caught in the one place a wood elf would never voluntarily go, or possibly delirious from lack of water and that knot on the back of her head, she ignored this and instead called in a cracking voice, "Kryro, get help! I'm here!" Something made her point up at the bit of moonlight and she was shocked to see a bright flickering of flame shoot out of her hand. That got her to stop stressing about being underground. Staring at her hand in utter disbelief, she wondered if she was truly going mad. Elves don't spawn fire... she muttered to herself in a daze. She could almost hear that ex-goblin laughing. Covering her pointed ears with her hands and closing her eyes tightly, she silently willed her brother to get her out, Somehow, please! He always called himself her protector which she'd begrudgingly went along with, not feeling as though she had need of one. But at the moment? I take back every time I glared at you for saying that. Just get me back to the forest! With her eyes closed, she failed to notice that now some light did exist in the old cellar. The amulet had turned a shining green.

Part 4 can be found here.

Hidden Magic - Story, Part 2

2011-08-29T20:16:00.004-04:00

Banner art by JackOfClubs (jack_spire on livejournal).
You can find the whole cover art here- JoC did a great job on it!
There's also a great mix/soundtrack that goes with this story- you can find that here.

Hidden Magic, Part 2
(Prologue, Part 1, Part 3)

Seasons passed. It was autumn and Meren and Kryro were now assigned to the south; so far it had been uneventful but they figured it was at least a change of scenery. Assuming they were in for another long, quiet day on watch, Meren climbed up into a tree just off the narrow forest path while the centaur took up position further back, his brown coat and tanned upper half blending him into the surrounding foliage. The wood elf was just getting settled comfortably on her branch when she was startled by heavy footsteps sounding nearby that were approaching at a good speed.

She braced her back against the trunk, bow at the ready, but what she saw was far more enemies than one quiver of arrows could take down: a great rank of orcs. Knowing her bow to be of little use at the moment, she instead tucked it over her shoulder and stretched out flat on the tree limb, trying to get a better look at the monsters as they filed past. She could not tell what they were saying as they hurried along, but they seemed to be driven on by a single orc near the back. This one was garbed differently; instead of leather armor over a ratty tunic and carrying a club, spear or sword as the rest did, this one was wearing an assortment of mismatched leathers and furs and waving around a large staff, from which bones and other nasty looking adornments dangled. Meren wrinkled her nose, although it wasn't from smell; she was too high off the ground for that. Something told her that this one was a shaman, never a type of person to mess with, especially not when surrounded by a vanguard of heavily armed warriors.

Knowing it would be wiser to let them pass rather than make her presence known, Meren remained still, hoping that the centaur would do the same. He was further back, but would have had to be deaf to not hear the racket these green monsters were making, which she knew he was not. Once she judged the orcs to be far enough away, she swung herself down from the tree and darted off to find Kryro. This was too many for a single elf and her partner to deal with; they were going to have to alert her kin. She frowned at this realization and silently chided herself, That's what I get for wishing for some excitement.

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As they neared the wood elf encampment, Kryro could not help fidgeting nervously. This was never a place in which he felt particularly comfortable. He knew many of Meren's kin were not overly happy with the fact that she had chosen a non-elf as her scouting partner, but he was a member of her tribe and he was a centaur, not some strange non-woodland race. It was not that odd for wood elves and centaurs to work together, but he supposed it was more than slightly strange for one to be allowed the status of elf.

The tribe leader had approved of him, though... Without paying attention to the fact that he was doing so, he reached across his chest to touch the vine tattoo that trailed from his right shoulder to his collarbone. Mixed in with the green tendrils, hidden to all but those who knew what to look for, was the symbol of this wood elf tribe. Meren, along with the rest of her kin, also possessed this mark somewhere in her much more expansive tattoos. Kryro, however, also had the rune for his adoptive sister's name woven into the design, signifying that there was one elf in particular who vouched for him, or something like that. He had never quite understood what this all meant, but Meren had assured him that this was a great honor.

This reassured him slightly, but the not-particularly-approving looks he received from a few of the elves in camp still left him unnerved. When they reached the command tent, Meren gave him an encouraging smile before stepping in ahead, pulling aside the tent flap so he could duck under. Fortunately, once inside, the high roof- high for an elf, anyway- was above his head so he was able to stand comfortably. Well, comfortably in terms of space; the glares he received from two of the four elves at Eryndir's side did little to make him want to stick around.

Meren took a step into the center of the room, moving a pace ahead of the centaur. She bowed her head and brought her right hand behind her neck, the action for greeting elves higher than one's rank. The fact that a group of seemingly feral and individualized elves actually had some sort of organization had always surprised Kryro. When he had once asked his sister about this particular action, she'd explained that it meant that she was admitting that the other elf was in control; the movement signified drawing an arrow from her quiver and offering it to his or her service. What would happen if the elf doing the bowing were not wearing a quiver at the moment was something the centaur had always been curious about but too embarrassed to ask. Then again, he could count on one hand the number of times he'd seen a wood elf sans archery equipment.

As Meren began talking he wondered idly if some just wore it as an accessory rather than purpose, tuning out the necessary greetings and established words. This was another thing he never really understood about the elves. Why did they take so long to get to the point? Finally he heard his companion say, "Father, Kryro and I discovered what appeared to be a warbard of orcs led by a shaman. They were on the east path heading north."

"You are certain that was a shaman?" asked one of the elves. This was not Eryndir, but the tribe's own shaman, an elf seemingly older than the rest with jagged red hair streaked with a few strands of white. This was not one of Kryro's favorite people, to say the least; in the centaur's opinion, he always showed very little respect towards the young elf.

Frowning at Meren, the shaman continued saying to her, "As I am sure you are aware, orc shamans very rarely go into combat with their troops."

The centaur could tell that Meren really wanted to fire off a rude retort, but was relieved when she answered simply, "Yes, sir. I am positive of what I saw."

The shaman looked over at the leader, a deceptively unremarkable elf with close-cropped brown hair, clearly expecting some support there. Instead, Eryndir nodded. "I trust my daughter's judgment here, as I would hope you would. If she says she saw a shaman-led warband, then there is one heading north."

Meren looked pleased to hear this. Kryro knew that while her father did trust her, he also did not like to speak dismissively to the other tribe elders. Now the centaur just hoped that the news he was about to give would be taken so well.

Kryro stepped forward and mirrored the movement his sister had done in greeting, feeling somewhat foolish because he did lack a quiver. Trying to make his voice sound with a confidence that he did not feel- for all that he was always courageous while out in the forest, no matter the problem, stick him in front of an audience and he always felt like a colt again- he said, "Sir, I have information as well. As they went past, I heard what I assumed to be that shaman telling another, possibly an underling, that they had to hurry because someone else was seeking... something. A kind of magical item from the context, but I will admit that my Orcish is not quite perfect and the one speaking was vague about the subject matter." He was rambling, he knew it. Oh how he hated that habit of babbling when nervous! However, he was not really sure how to explain what he had heard any better than this. He knew at least a handful of languages, but Orcish wasn't one of his more fluent ones.

He glanced down at Meren in time to see her open her mouth then quickly close it, but her green eyes were wide. Had he forgotten to inform her that he knew a spattering of that language? It was not as though that came up in daily conversation... "Hey, Meer, can you guess what horrible monsters I can converse with today?". Reminding himself to apologize for that later, he looked over at the older elves. Most looked at least some level of skeptical, but Eryndir gave a nod and his green eyes, so much like Meren's, looked worried.

One of the elves, a blond female Kryro knew to be the scout leader, was the first to speak. "Eryndir, I have not heard of this and the centaur himself admits that his knowledge of that language is flawed. How would we know if this is the truth?"

I never said that, Kryro grumbled to himself but gained a boost to his rather low ego when Eryndir again surprised him by siding with the young scouts. "Kryro has proven his reliability in the past, as well as his skill with languages. He may admit to not speaking perfect Orcish, but likely he knows it better than he is claiming. We should heed the information he carries."

Kryro could feel himself blush; he could not recall Meren's father ever directing such supportive words towards him. He bowed his head again, half to show gratitude, half to hide his face behind his long hair. The leader's support was not gaining him, or by extension Meren, any friends, however. When the centaur lifted his head again, he saw that now all four of Eryndir's companions were frowning at them. He was relieved when the leader's next words to them were, "Thank you both for relaying the information here with such haste. The elders and I must now discuss how to handle this situation. You two are free to leave."

Meren and Kryro bowed again and it was all the centaur could do not to flee out of the tent, which was fortunate because his hooves likely would have gotten stuck. As it was, he again needed his sister to move the flap for him as they left. The centaur was actually glad to hear the elves bickering behind them since it meant they probably were not paying attention to his fumbling. Hopefully. It is bad enough that a centaur is Meer's protector, but a clumsy one is even worse, he silently berated.

As if sensing his mood, Meren placed a hand on his side as they left the last tent behind them. This action did help and Kryro couldn't help smiling down at her in gratitude. It was not always easy, but having a sibling and a scouting partner he trusted entirely did make all the interracial interactions worth the awkwardness. He worried for a moment if the elves would take a while debating this, then shook his head at his own obtuseness; of course they wouldn't. Wood elves were all about action and any intruders anywhere near their border would be dealt with quickly and efficiently, never knowing what had hit them. Kryro wouldn't be at all surprised if by the next morning an equally large vanguard of elves had been gathered, sent off and halfway to wherever the orcs were heading with the monsters taken care of by nightfall.

And judging by Meren's determined look and the direction of her steps, her goal was to get there first. Ah, there is that independent elven spirit! Kryro thought. Possibly not the best time for it, but it was his job to follow. He could always drag Meren away if there was a problem.

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Kryro's assumption had been correct. Without waiting to see what her kin decided, Meren had led them with little pause for rest back to where they had last seen the orcs. From there, picking up the trail had been simple. "Nothing like a troop of heavy-footed monsters to leave their mark on the place," he heard Meren mutter as she took in the blatant disregard they'd had for the forest.

As they had pushed their way through, the centaur's reaction was much the same and he shook his head at a snapped limb on a young sapling as they walked past. "There's a blasted path here!" Meren complained, "Why'd they have to destroy all the plant life around it?"

Kryro raised an eyebrow as though she'd asked the world's dumbest question. "Orcs, Meer. I do not think any orc in existence has ever looked at a tree and thought 'Gee, I should be its friend'. Only you elves voice that ideal."

Apparently choosing to ignore that comment, she continued walking, pausing only to say over her shoulder, "Come on, horsebutt. We have forest-wrecking green things to find."

I really wish she would stop calling me that, Kryro grumbled to himself.

They made good time and by sunset had reached the edge of the forest. The orcs had led them straight to that village, as the two of them could have guessed had their memories of the existence of the place not been horribly fogged.

"Oh, how wonderful," Kryro remarked sarcastically as he took in the high stone wall and the iron gate off in the distance, "Now they are fortified as well as numerous. I very much hope you have a good plan."

Meren shrugged. "I'm going to sneak in and scout ahead. I want to see what they were after."

Kryro rolled his eyes skyward. That was exactly the reaction he feared she'd have. Wood elves were not known for heading towards danger equipped with a plan and always assumed their bows would be all they needed. "I said a good plan. Going in alone is not a good plan, and unless those gates open, I cannot follow."

"We'll see." Meren said simply.

Kryro doubted even orcs would be dumb enough to leave their front door unlocked and sure enough, after circling the wall as stealthily as possible and checking the four gates they passed, no entrance passable by a man with four legs presented itself. One had been locked tightly and one apparently rusted shut; those had been the two most likely candidates. The farthest one had large boulders of fallen masonry blocking the entire entrance and the one they were now standing at had actually been melted into a mess of metal. What had caused this left Kryro more worried than he'd been when they had arrived.

"I'll have to scale the wall," Meren offered, her green eyes bright from the prospect of getting to climb something.

Of course, Kryro thought with a shudder, leave it to an elf to find any opportunity to end up high above the ground. "I was afraid you would say that. Are you certain that you do not want to wait for your kin?" Here was his stupid question of the day; of course she would not.

Meren smiled at him, clearly doing her best to make it seem like this was no big deal, which, to her, probably wasn't. "I'll be fine, 'Ro. I'll just pop in, look around, then climb back over. Alright?"

The centaur sighed, then gestured upwards. The sooner she got this foolhardy plan over with, the sooner they could leave. "Be careful."

--------------------------------------------------
Which she'd tried to be. She'd silently tossed a rope over the wall, dexterously climbed it and had landed lightly on the other side. Then she'd quietly snuck around, listening keenly for any sound of approaching footsteps. What she'd failed to do was wisely keep an eye on the ground in front of her. She got halfway across the town when her elven senses failed.

Her back pushed up close to the one remaining wall of a crumbled building, she took a step sideways. The weight of a small elf was too much for a wooden floor that had already met its share of fire, falling timber and clumsy orcs. It gave way, dropping her through the floorboards onto a dirt floor coated in dust. She would have been fine, had that remaining wall not decided to join her. Most of the stone rolled harmlessly but loudly in the other direction, but a few fell into the new hole, much like a large game of pool. As Meren stood on a shaky ankle, one of the smaller but far more enthusiastic stones ricochet off the cellar wall and beamed her on the back of her head. Her last thought as she fell forward was, "Dammit, 'Ro was right." Luckily it was a small rock because those would have been embarrassing last words, but as the world went black, she wished her brother had fewer legs.

Part 3 can be found here.

The Acolyte's Map - Story, Deleted Scene

2011-08-23T22:48:00.004-04:00

Banner art by Artmetica.
You can find the whole cover art here- the art is gorgeous!
There's also a mix/soundtrack that goes with this story- you can find that here.

The Acolyte's Map, Deleted Scene
(Prologue, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4,
Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10)

(Months after posting this story, I recalled that I had written a scene somewhere in the middle that didn't fit with the flow of the rest, so it was removed. After talking to my writing-partner-in-crime, she told me I should share it. This isn't particularly polished and it's downright sappy ~~probably why I dropped it early on~~, but when your elfsister asks for something, you give it to her. Unless you happen to like brooding, love-sick half-elves, feel free to ignore this. ;) ~Meri)

Raff was on watch or, rather, staring off into the distance with a hand wrapped around the jade pendant that hung from his neck and watching nothing but his thoughts, when he felt someone sit down on the log next to him. Too close next to him, as he scooted away with a half-hearted glare. Apparently not deterred by the stare, Charity moved a bit closer and asked, "What's bothering you?"

Can't she see I want to be alone? Raff moved away again. "How do you know something's bothering me?"

"Because you've been staring at that same spot for twenty minutes; at least we know nothing is going to attack from that direction," she replied with a mischievous grin, "And you won't let go of that necklace so whatever is bothering you must have something to do with that. I'm not blind."

He looked down at his hand as if just noticing that he'd been holding it and let go, trying to hide his embarrassment with a shrug. "I'm just worried is all."

"'Worried' seems to be an understatement. Is there anything I can do to help?" the woman asked in a soft voice. Is she flirting? Normally Raff wouldn't mind some amusing and harmless flirtation, but he was far too preoccupied to be anything but irked at this.

"Unless you know how to tell if someone far away is safe, then likely that's a no," he answered, trying to keep his voice just on the chilly side of calm. Yes, she was bothering him, but she also didn't deserve outright rudeness. Yet.

Still not getting the hint, or at least blatantly ignoring the hint, she continued prying. "Ah, that would be the girl who gave you the necklace?"

He silently cursed the inquisitiveness of his clerical brethren, but knew full well that he'd annoyed enough people the same way. He sighed, knowing that she wouldn't leave him alone until she got the truth out of him, but he couldn't help being a little sarcastic in his answer, "You're half right. Yes, I'm worried that something may have happened to her."

Inquisitive though she might be, Charity wasn't stupid. She caught that change in tone and Raff was pleased to see her quickly drop the flirtation act. Probably thinks that would be futile, which isn't strictly true, but I'll let her keep believing that. "He's another Messenger, isn't he? And since you mentioned that he's far away, you probably haven't heard from him in a while?" she asked, sounding genuinely concerned.

Raff blinked, both startled and impressed; he knew by now that Charity was quiet intelligent, but she was even sharper than he'd have given her credit for if she could jump straight to that conclusion without missing a beat. "How did you know that?"

"Like I said, I'm not blind. Whenever something about this quest and the attacks are mentioned, you get really quiet and grab that necklace."

"I didn't realize I was being so obvious." Raff had always prided himself on his acting ability and now it seemed to have failed him at a time that he really needed it.

"I doubt anyone else noticed. Everyone's rather preoccupied," she reassured him. "I only noticed because I was... um..."

She looked embarrassed, so Raff just shook his head, knowing the reason. "Don't worry about it. You didn't know." Changing the subject, he continued, "But yes, I am very worried; normally he sends me a letter every fortnight or so but I haven't gotten one in almost three months. I know letters can take a while to catch up to us when we're on assignments, but it shouldn't be that long."

"Maybe his were stolen?" That had also occurred to Raff, but hadn't cheered him up any then, either.

"That's what I'm wondering. The thought of some sick thief reading it isn't a good one, but it's better than what has me so frightened. What if he was attacked by that same thug who went after me? Last I knew he was over on the coast, but that was months ago and without a letter I don't have a clue where he is."

The woman thought for a while before saying anything else. "Do you think you'd know if something happened to him?"

"I don't know. Possibly. I hope I would." With a wry smile he added, "Although now I know why we're not really supposed to become close to anyone; in a situation like this it becomes a burden." The woman saw his smile grow softer as he went on as if just talking to himself, "But I'd never swap that burden for being in a position where I didn't have someone to worry about..."

He'd spent much of his life worrying that his boyfriend would get himself into some horrible trouble, so this was nothing new; yes, he wasn't completely innocuous and was actually far better than Raff at magic and let's face it, far smarter, Raff's thoughts chimed in to his vexation, but what good was magic if you were already run through with a sword or eaten by a dragon? Possibly you could still cast a spell while inside a dragon, but it wasn't something Raff had ever wanted to test in order to allay that particular fear. Yet all that worry was somehow worth it. Love really does make for a complete lack of sense, but as mine has pointed out numerous times, I'm already good at senseless. What's one more personality quirk when I already pride myself on possessing an assortment of them? He grinned to himself, not caring if Charity saw.

She noticed, but was just glad to see that he'd gotten himself out of his funk. "Ready to finish watch now? We don't want any orcs swarming camp, right?" she asked with a smile.

Raff stood up and dusted his robe off. "You know as well as I do that there aren't any orcs left in this part of the world." He returned the smile and gave her a hand to help her up. "Next time say kobolds or goblins. Nice try, though."

Costume time! Channeling a wood elf - OOC

2011-08-20T22:40:00.003-04:00

I've been knocking around ideas of dressing like my characters for a while. Eventually I'm going to be making a red robe and cloak so I can dress as V from Order of the Stick, possibly next year (maybe I'll get to a con next year? Who knows!), but the main appeal of that character is that I can use the same costume to dress as one of my Messengers for Halloween. I look nothing like Cyn, being a slight, short, pale elf-girl, but Raff I could pull off. Wouldn't be my first male costume. ;)

Unfortunately, fabric is expensive and I'm not so great at sewing yet, so I decided to work on a different costume first: Meren. Or a wood elf in general, but I look a lot like her so I'll say it's her. ;) So if you wonder what a real-life Meren would look like, it would be something like this:

Next time I wear this costume, I'll paint more tattoos on me since I now know the paint works well- and because Meren is covered in tattoos, as are most wood elves. (I do need a smaller brush, though, because the face vines were hard to keep thin.) Meren usually wears her hair in a ponytail, but I couldn't do that because then obviously my real ears would be visible. And I have to break the boots in better. Talk about ouch! I crocheted the green overskirt and made the leather cuff around my calf- you can't see it in the pictures, but it's this:

I do need to fix it because it ended up too loose for my arm. Most of the rest of the costume is handmade, too- the bodice/vest, bracers, pouch, ears, boots, makeup and necklace all came from artists on Etsy or Artfire. Yay, handmade! (Click the links to see the shops I found them.)

After wearing this to the renfaire for a bit, I realized no one knows what a wood elf is! I got called "Frodo", "dryad" and something from WoW. Next time I need more tattoos, I think!

It's not odd that I want to dress as my characters, right? No odder than the rest of my cosplays, I guess!

~Meri

Hidden Magic - Story, Part 1

2011-08-18T23:27:00.008-04:00

Banner art by JackOfClubs (jack_spire on livejournal).
You can find the whole cover art here- JoC did a great job on it!
There's also a great mix/soundtrack that goes with this story- you can find that here.

Hidden Magic, Part 1
(Prologue, Part 2)

"Meer, snap out of it."

The young wood elf looked down from her vantage point in the lowest branch of a mulberry tree to see her scouting partner giving her an exasperated look, an expression she was all too used to seeing on his tan face. He stood with his hands on his hips... flank... whatever it was called. Even after years of being his constant companion, she was still not sure which terms to use regarding her brother. She had, however, learned that he very much disliked the nickname "horsebutt," so of course she used it whenever possible. He wasn't her sibling by blood, which would be even stranger than her actual heritage, but sometimes life hands you family you wouldn't predict, and she certainly hadn't expected to find a colt in her tribe's storage tent a decade ago, asleep on a large bag of grain.

Meren made a face down at the centaur. "We're on guard. I'm keeping watch. What's the problem?"

"The problem is that you have been on that branch most of the morning and you have traps to check, which I am fairly certain you cannot do from a tree."

The wood elf briefly wondered if this would in fact be possible to do by traveling from branch to branch and tree to tree, but realized he unfortunately did have a point, irritating though it was. "Alright. I'll go." She paused, then admitted sheepishly, nodding towards the north, "I'm just wondering about the town out there."

Kryro looked puzzled and tilted his head to the side. "Why? What about an abandoned human village draws the attention of an elf away from what she should be doing?"

The wood elf chuckled wryly. "Oh, come on, 'Ro. You know we were sent to this border because nothing ever happens here." When she saw that he was about to speak again, she added, "And I don't know, okay? It just has me curious."

She swung down from the branch and joined her much taller companion on the ground, hardly making a sound as she landed in last season's debris.

"If you're so keen on checking them, let's-" she was interrupted by an abrupt "snap" to the east, followed by a muffled shout of some kind.

Kryro gave her an "I told you so" look. Spirits, did she hate it when he did that! He said, "Sounds like snare number three may have caught something interesting."

Meren shrugged, still not wanting to admit that he had been right. "We'll see about 'interesting'. Likely it's just a squirrel or a goblin or something," she said, thinking nothing was strange about listing small woodland animals and humanoid monsters in the same category of nuisance.

The two snuck quietly towards the trap, or as quietly as someone with hooves was able to be, and the elf continued ahead, being far more light on her feet. Well, that's certainly not an orc, she thought to herself as she eyed their visitor. What they'd caught wasn't the monster (or fuzzy thing) she'd been expecting; dangling by his ankles from the rope snare was what appeared to be a human, a young man who would probably have been rather attractive if not upside down with his face turning red, flailing at his black and silver robe to get it out of the way. To Meren's surprise, though, the man seemed to be able to wiggle like a fish. Within moments he'd writhed out of that robe, dropping it to the ground below his trailing dark hair, and had produced a dagger from... somewhere. Seemingly with little effort, he'd swung himself up and was reaching for the rope caught around his legs.

Meren had been so surprised by the fact that someone not appearing to be of elf-kind could move that way that she almost forgot her job. Mentally cursing herself for being so distracted, she moved to grab her blowgun from off her belt. She quickly stuck a dart inside and fired it off. A lucky shot- the barb stuck in the young man's hand. He gave a startled exclamation that could only be a curse and dropped the dagger, which landed point-down in his discarded robe. Surely not able to know where it came from, because she knew her green tattoos and forest-colored leathers and clothing blended her into the woods flawlessly, he still glared off in her general direction as he swung loosely back down, stretching to try to snatch up the hilt just beyond his fingertips.

Afraid that he just might be able to contort enough to reach, Meren called out, "Do not move or I'll fire something worse."

The man froze, but from the look on his inverted face, it was more out of confusion than fright. He said something again that Meren didn't understand. Now she was regretting leaving her brother behind as he was far better at languages than she. Trying one of the few phrases he'd taught her in the human tongue, she tried again. "Do not move. Trespassing you be."

Here he said something again, once again not anything the elf understood. Very much wishing she'd had her sleeping potion-filled darts on her rather than the plain barbs so she and Kryro could just do their usual "knock out and drag from the forest" act, she drew her bow and silently strung it. She was not keen on firing at someone trapped, but perhaps she could frighten him? Nocking an arrow, she stepped out towards the human.

She wasn't sure what she had been expecting, but the man crossing his arms across his chest and saying rather confidently in the language of the smaller forest folk, "Aren't you awfully tall for a halfling?" certainly wasn't it.

How had he known? Only other elves had ever been able to pick up on the fact that she was a half-breed. She looked down, but no, her feet were hidden away in boots. This young man was most certainly strange- a dexterous human who spoke Halfling and could pinpoint a hidden race? Although if he knew halflings, that could partially explain his level of coordination...

Breaking off her stream of thought, she answered in the same language. "I am an elf. You're trespassing on our land."

The human shrugged, which must have been difficult to do while upside down because his shirt got tangled on his shoulders for a moment. "And how was I to know? There were no signs, no warnings."

"This is the warning. You have crossed our border."

Now the black haired man looked rather less confident. "This is a warning? I'd hate to see the threat."

Meren raised an eyebrow, causing the green tattoos on her face to shift, and lowered her bow. "You wouldn't, believe me. Most of my kin don't even give warnings." Why had she told him that? Wood elves weren't supposed to share information with outsiders, but there was something about this man that caused Meren not to follow protocol.

Kryro, on the other hand, wasn't so kind. His large club raised in what Meren considered a rather threatening manner, he came forward. Nothing like a seven and a half foot tall horse-man to inspire fright where a small elf could not. The human gulped. "Look, I'm sorry. Can you let me down? I'll leave."

Meren frowned, then gave a small shrug. "Alright." She nodded to Kryro and he reached up to unknot the rope, not looking overly pleased to do so.

The man fell, but was able to turn the drop into a kind of cartwheel. Kryro rolled his eyes, clearly not amused by this show of acrobatics. Tugging on his robe, now containing a rip in the right sleeve from the dropped dagger, the human said shortly in Halfling, "Watch it, horse."

Now Kryro's annoyance turned into a glare. As the centaur reset the snare, he replied coolly in the same language, "And you should watch what you say, two-legger." The human's dark eyes widened and Meren stifled a snicker.

The man held his hands up in a complaisant manner. "Sorry sorry. Chalk it up to a bad day. I meant nothing by it."

Meren had to choke back another laugh at the snort of contempt her brother made. Yes, this was rather interesting. "You must leave the forest, but... how did you know I wasn't fully elven?" she couldn't help asking the newcomer.

He smiled sheepishly. "I used to know some halflings when I was young. Something about you reminded me of them."

'Young'. Meren knew enough about humans to know that this one couldn't have been any more than twenty, meaning this was recently. Or "recently," coming from a half-elf, anyway. She wondered if those were ones she was related to, but before she could ask, Kryro cleared his throat. "Yes, yes, how convenient that you speak her language. Meren, let him go." Switching to Elvish, he told her, "You know quite well that you are not supposed to be friendly towards intruders."

Which she did know, quite clearly, but... she'd always had a problem being as reticent as the rest of her kin. And this human intrigued her. Still, she did have a border to protect. "I must lead you to the edge of the forest, mysterious Halfling-speaking person. There's an old human village that way," she gestured vaguely north, "where you could possibly get your bearings from."

The man shrugged, as if the prospect of getting lost didn't bother him, but was it her imagination or did he startle when she mentioned the village? He looked over at the centaur distrustfully and whispered to the elf with a small smile, "Thank you. Sorry to have caused a problem."

Now it was Meren's turn to shrug as she tried to hide her embarrassment. As they led him through the woods, Kryro stayed a pace behind, acting far too much like he was guarding her for her liking. Surely this man wasn't a threat? He seemed rather nice. And someone who was sneaking around the forest with no apparent reason to do so, a logical voice inside her chimed in. Giving a mental shrug, she drowned out that voice with the thought, No matter. He's leaving now and won't return. So far no one she or her brother had sent away had ever returned, although little did she realize it was more because of where they had guard duty than any specific skill they possessed.

Kryro watched to be sure the man had left the treeline and had vanished around the wall of that old town, then turned to Meren. "Do not do that again. How do you know you can trust him?"

Meren's forehead wrinkled in confusion. Why was her brother chastising her? "Trust who? What did I do?"

Now it was the centaur's turn to express confusion. "There was a human... was there not? We caught... no. We were on border guard, keeping an eye out for orcs." He didn't sound so sure of himself, however.

Meren glared back in the direction of the wood elf camp. "Like always. I really think those are a story made up by my father to keep us occupied."

Kryro looked skeptical, but nodded. "Possibly, but we are still guards. We should go check our traps."

"But we just did." Hadn't they?

"Right. However something tells me we should again."

The elf shrugged her heavily tattooed shoulders. Her partner's attention to detail was rather obsessive at times, but she was used to that.

Still, for some reason before slipping back into the dense forest, she glanced back at the high stone wall in the distance, all that could be seen of the village.

Part 2 can be found here.

Hidden Magic - Info and Prologue

2011-08-18T00:27:00.018-04:00

Banner art by JackOfClubs (jack_spire on livejournal).
You can find the whole cover art here- JoC did a great job on it!
There's also a great mix/soundtrack that goes with this story- you can find that here.

(Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10)

Story info:
Word Count: 22,053
Rating: PG
Warnings: Unreliable magic? Rather vague battles? A surplus of wizards? Yeah, this story doesn't really need a warning. ;)
Summary: Meren, an unusual elf girl (and her more unusual centaur "brother") take up the task of hunting down a band of orc trespassers. When she stumbles into a pitfall, Meren finds an object: an amulet that gives strange new powers. Little does she know that an increasingly desperate young wizard is looking for the very same amulet, and that their paths are destined to crisscross in a weave of chaotic magic...

Should you want to read all of it at once rather than wait for me to post it here, the first part is here on my livejournal with links to the parts that follow.

Prologue
The frantic pounding at the upstairs door startled the young wizard; he dropped the vial he'd been preparing and it shattered on the workroom's dirt floor. As the liquid soaked into the ground with a slight hiss and a poof of odorous smoke, Wendell cursed under his breath. "What do they want now?" he grumbled to himself as he ran a hand through his short dark hair in frustration. Unbeknownst to him, the powder still on his fingers tinted it slightly white, although this did little to make him look any older than his twenty-five years.

He glared up at the ceiling in the general direction of the knock then nudged the pile of broken glass with his boot, surveying the newest damage. He gave a shrug. Just some more mess to an already littered room, but he could almost hear his former master complaining about a wasted concoction and such a disorganized work area. The old wizard had passed six months ago, but still his once-apprentice continuously felt the need to look over his shoulder lest his magic (or lack there of) was being watched by the keen eyes of his teacher. Besides, I work better with a mess, he tried to reassure himself to get that voice to leave, but it was no use. He knew it was more out of laziness than purpose.

He climbed the narrow, rickety staircase and once on the ground floor, closed the trapdoor. With a grunt- how had the old man done this so easily?- he managed to drag the small bookshelf over the entrance. It was probably a pointless try at camouflage as anyone who really wanted to get into the workshop could find it, but the young man had never been good enough at protective magic to try to seal it the way his master had done. Wendell's only result had been melting the padlock into a jumble of metal, which he now used as a paperweight, thus summing up his magical prowess in one simple action.

Taking a moment to beat some residual soot from his simple brown robe, Wendell opened the door just as the youth on the other side had his arm raised to knock at, or rather flail at, the door again. Momentarily thrown off balance, the young half-elf grabbed the doorframe.

"Yes? I had an important spell going," Wendell said as he crossed his arms over his chest and frowned down at the boy. No need to tell the youth- Dav, one of the helpers at the inn, as the wizard knew- that the spell had been simply a kind of cantrip for a bit of continuous light in a room without windows.

The boy didn't look overly impressed, but he did look worried under his mess of brown hair. "A band of orcs was spotted just inside the treeline to the southwest. You're needed at that gate," he informed the wizard, shifting from foot to foot.

"Am I?" The wizard frowned. Surely this was more a job for some archers or something? "Aren't guards ready on the wall? Shouldn't you be alerting the sheriff instead?"

Dav hastily nodded. "Aye, already have, but you're our wizard." He said this in a way that seemed to come across to Wendell as 'You're our wizard so you better well go do some wizarding'. "The old one. I mean, the previous wizard, always said he had some kind of magic to keep the village safe."

Wendell sighed. In his opinion the villagers had become far too dependent on magic and had a bad habit of asking for something he couldn't supply. It wasn't so much that he was loath to help, but for every little spell he cast for them, he had to spend a great deal of time resting to recover from that energy drain. 'Wendell the Wondrous', he cynically snorted to himself; his master had given him that title once after one of his experiments had actually come to fruition and it had stuck with him ever since, much to the young man's annoyance and the amusement of the villagers. For all that the old wizard had been brilliant, he just couldn't seem to grasp that his student would never be a particularly powerful spellcaster.

But his master had been perceptive enough to leave something behind for his less adept apprentice. Now where is it... he'd promised to keep it on his person, but a wizard's pockets were never a secure location. Digging through a multitude of pockets, flaps and pouches and dislodging an assortment of baubles and a small beetle, the wizard finally felt the chain. The youth caught a glimpse of something green and yellow before the wizard dropped it into the slightly more convenient satchel hanging at his hip. The beetle, now sensing impending freedom and possibly a chance not to be poofed out of existence as a spell component, scurried away.

The wizard echoed that scurry as he was all but dragged out the door, to the wall and up the stone staircase. The high wall encircled the entire town, except for two gates to the north and two to the south, giving a fairly good view of the area from the top. A view which left the wizard quite uncomfortable, first from the height, then from the sight of a group of monsters. A group far larger than a band, so either more had arrived or the boy wasn't particularly good at math. The wizard gulped. Yes, those were orcs, alright. Even from here he could almost smell them.

As the monsters began to approach, the wizard's hand found the amulet without him being aware that he was looking for it. Was it his imagination... no, it did feel warm, and for some reason he was getting the feeling that it was trying to do... something, although how a stone would be able to act was uncanny, even to a wizard. He frowned and closed his eyes. Whispering to it and feeling like an idiot for doing so, he said "Alright, you gaudy piece of jewelry. Time to do... whatever it was you were made to do." He was really beginning to wish he'd paid more attention when his master had explained this, but that man could ramble on and on and the apprentice had lost interest not long into the lecture.

Let's see... grip it like so... Don't think there was a phrase to say, was there? Please don't be something I'd have to say... right, concentrate on what I wish it to do. Get rid of the orcs would be a prime desire right about now, he thought to himself as he began to recall the needed combination.

He felt the stone grow warm again, but just as it seemed ready to act to his will, it flashed back to cold. "Curse it!" Why didn't that work? His master had explained that this was a protective amulet and that with a little effort it would protect the town. Great, but unfortunately rather vague.

Maybe 'getting rid of orcs' was too offensive for a protective magical item? Trying again, the young man instead concentrated on something more specific and less violent. Protect the gates. Make them stronger so nothing can get through them. As he felt the amulet heat again, this time giving off a slight grey light, as well, he let out a sigh of relief. Glancing back over the wall and trying to ignore the wave of vertigo, he saw the first ranks of orcs propel off of what appeared (or rather, didn't) to be an invisible barrier. Clearly confused and somewhat dazed, a few finally looked up, making what could only be rude gestures towards him. One, probably a leader judging by how much it was shouting to the others, had the wits to hurl a spear up at the wizard who dove out of the way just in time. As it quivered in the wooden crate next to him, Wendell, also now quivering, explained to the people stationed next to him, "Whatever I did, it won't stop weapons. Ducking would be wise, I think."

The nearest archer, the innkeeper, rolled his eyes. "Fighting by cowering is a great battle tactic. Go check on the other gates and get out of our way, please." In a far less sarcastic tone he directed to the half-elf, "Dav, go run north and see if the sheriff is in place."

The boy nodded and took off running as the innkeep shoved Wendell aside and took the position the wizard had been occupying, firing off an arrow.

That's the thanks I get? Wendell grumbled to himself as he scuttled low on the wall towards the next gate to the east, not noticing that the iron of the one he'd just left was beginning to give off a low, dim red glow.

*****
Other than a few townsfolk keeping watch, nothing had been near the southeast gate. Wendell continued circling the town until he reached the northeast one. Here, though, was a commotion, but not one that he had been expecting; there were orcs, but none were bouncing off invisible walls. Wendell wondered what he'd done wrong. Does that amulet only protect a small area at a time? But surely his master would have pointed that out. Unless he had? The wizard once again mentally cursed the fact that he hadn't paid much attention at the time.

Not only were the monsters not being kept from the wall, these had come prepared. A group had laid claim to a fallen tree and were using it as a battering ram, shouting as they charged the iron gate. Judging from how said gate was beginning to bend after each strike, it didn't look as though the it would hold up much longer. With each bang, Wendell cringed. Why couldn't this have happened a year ago? What do I do?

Gripping the pendant and chain tightly in his right hand, he tried thinking at it again. Do something, would you? That wall thing, fire, sudden localized earthquake, something-

Before he could finish that thought, a rumbling noise sounded; with each hit of the gate, it grew louder, as though echoing the movement. I was joking on that last one! he quickly shot at the item in his hand, but he realized it wasn't the ground shaking. It sounded more like it was coming from ...above? But why would something up high rumble? As his eyes rose, he noticed small pebbles and bits of masonry begin to rain down from the guardhouse built atop the parapet. No one else seemed to notice this, although the man nearest him had begun brushing flakes of mortar off his shoulder using the fletching of an arrow.

Now the stone beneath Wendell's feet was beginning to... pulsate, was the only sensation he could equate it to. And if stone suddenly became able to throb, that wouldn't end well for those relying on it to stay stationary. Grabbing the man who was now sporting a slight layer of dust, he shouted, "Get everyone away!"

The man glared at him as he drew another arrow from his quiver, "And let them break through? Are you crazy?"

"Look, would you!" Wendell shoved the man around so he faced the now trembling wall. "They're shaking the foundation! Guarding the gate is all well and good, but not if it's going to fall on you!" Okay, so the gate wasn't the problem here and he didn't think the orcs had actually been the cause, but he still considered his point valid.

The man's eyes widened. Winning the award for obvious understatement, he exclaimed, "They shouldn't be able to do that!" He grabbed the arm of the archer next to him and pointed, then ran to the next.

Word spread, but not fast enough. Before most could do more than move slightly along the wall and out of the way, the guardtower... sunk. Majestically. After a shrill sound that caused only Wendell to cover his ears, not that he was in a position to notice this as he scrunched his eyes closed, it exploded down, crashing through the stone walkway below it and taking a large chunk of the wall on a sudden unexpected trip to become far too large hats for orcs. As more of the wall began to crumble, the townspeople on either side of the recent gap fled, some west, some south, and some down what remained of the stairs that led back into the village. The stairs were nearest, so downwards the wizard went, tripping over the uneven stone. His ears still rang from what he was now thinking had been a sort of magical alarm bell.

Stumbling along, he caught a whiff of smoke. Oh no. Don't tell me it heard that, too! How is this protective magic? He had to be doing something wrong. Perhaps his master had left some sort of written instruction somewhere?

That thought in mind, Wendell ran back to his home, muttering a curse when he realized he'd left the door open. This time he kicked it closed behind him, rattling the doorframe. The bookcase was still in place and he gave another grumble as he shoved it out of the way with his shoulder, then yanked open the heavy trapdoor to take the ramshackle stairs down three at a time. Placing the amulet on the table, he fumbled to get the old lamp to light, burning his thumb on the firestick before he was able to ignite the wick. Now able to see better and wishing he'd had the chance to finish that spell he'd been interrupted from, he frantically began to search the workroom for his master's old spellbook or any kind of note he could have left behind. He ripped books and scrolls off shelves, heedlessly tossing what was of no use onto the floor and shoving anything with potential into an old rucksack.

After exhausting almost every shelf and surface of written material, Wendell finally located what he sought behind a dusty bottle of something that was blue and mostly dissolved. This he shoved aside to grab the thick, also dusty, book at the back of the shelf. He jammed the leather book into the bag and pulled the drawstring tight. As he threw the sack over his shoulder, he heard the rickety staircase behind him creak. Supposing it could be that half-elf kid again but thinking that wasn't likely, he reached over to snatch up the heavy glass bottle he'd knocked aside; this quickly became hidden in the folds of his sleeve. Armed as best as he could be considering the location, Wendell swiftly turned to face whatever had caused the noise.

Sure enough, it wasn't the boy. Standing at the bottom of the stairs with a notched short sword in hand and its expression one of permanent angry underbite, was an orc. Why do I never remember to lock the door? Wendell cursed at himself as he took a step back from the table in the center of the room. Would there be a way around it? Could he possibly sneak upstairs and lock the thing down here?

This idea was quickly dismissed when he feigned a step to the right; the orc lunged with the sword, seemingly to aim at the wizard, but the gas lamp got in the way. Had the floor been clear, this would not have been a problem and the dirt would have extinguished the flame, but in Wendell's frantic search the floor had acquired a carpet of parchment. As the fire began to leap from paper to ancient book, the young wizard hoped that for once in his life luck would prevail.

Knowing he lacked any kind of water spell, he tried the only option available in the rapidly smoke-filling room. While the orc was momentarily distracted by the flame, Wendell hurled the bottle at its head and ducked under the table, shoving the monster aside when he got to the other side. It wasn't until he'd reached the top floor, slammed the trapdoor shut and pushed the shelf back in place that he finally realized a flaw in this plan. Everything of any importance in his workroom was flammable except for one item: the amulet, which he'd left on the table. He hesitated for a moment and glanced at the floor, then decided no malfunctioning piece of jewelry was worth facing fire, smoke inhalation and an angry orc. Shifting his pack into a better position on his back, he fled from the building.

The next part of the story can be found here.

Art for Hidden Magic - OOC

2011-08-17T20:37:00.002-04:00

Since I wrote "Hidden Magic" for a writing/art challenge, this meant that I ended up with art to go along with the story. Yay, art! In this case, my fiancé picked my story and decided to draw Meren and Kryro, two of the four protagonists:

Josh based the character design for Meren off of this one that my friend Niere drew, which is probably really obvious. ;)

I'm just happy that he did in fact draw me my horsebutt, as I affectionately call Kryro, because Josh has never drawn centaurs before and I didn't know if he'd be inclined to do that or not. And Meren's in a tree, of course, which is her usual state of being, so yay!

Really happy with the drawing! I would have done the tattoos and Kryro's hair a bit differently, but that's a style thing, really. Although he did forget Meren's quiver so now she has a random extra belt. Which is fine. One can't deny the functionality of belts!

There's one other character in that story that I'd love a drawing of, so I'm going to see if Josh can do that one for me, too. I may try myself, but I'm not sure if I can do him justice or not. I did, however, already make a plushie of him, so I'll be posting that soon. :)

As for the story, I'll start posting it either tonight or tomorrow. Look for that soon!

Edit: There's also a soundtrack for "Hidden Magic", complete with album cover! You can find the cute songs and the cover art here.

~Meri

Adventures of a Young Messenger - And Here Begins a Lifetime of Pranks (Part 6)

2011-08-02T12:58:00.003-04:00

Part 6 - And Here Begins a Lifetime of Pranks
(Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5)

A strange sound close by Cyneric's head woke him the next morning. Opening his eyes, he saw that he was practically nose-to-nose with a small brown mouse that was sitting on his chest and chittering. He blinked at it in surprise a few times; he was more startled that an animal had already located him than at finding one there, however. "Good morning, little guy. How'd you get up here?" he asked it through a yawn.

As he sat up and moved the mouse into his hand, it chattering away in its rodent language all the while, he noticed there were a few bugs on the blanket, as well. That's rather odd, he thought to himself, but shrugged. A mouse showing up to have a morning conversation wasn't particularly strange, but bugs were new. Transferring the mouse onto his shoulder, he scooped the stray bugs into his hands and got out of bed, asking them in a soft voice how they ended up in here. He didn't expect an answer, but it had become instinct to talk to small critters, even the crawly ones.

It wasn't until Cyneric had walked over to the window to set the insects free that he noticed three of the other kids standing in the room, eying him in what looked like confusion mixed with amusement. One was a blond boy who had probably been the youngest acolyte until yesterday, another was a slightly older dark haired girl, and the third was the half-elf Cyneric had noticed the day before. He looked to be about fourteen, but with elves and half-elves, who can tell? With all those eyes on him, especially the uncannily bright green ones belonging to the elf, Cyneric became embarrassed, assuming that they had heard him speaking to the bugs; he didn't have a good track record for people reacting well to that kind of thing. He felt himself blush even more when they failed to say anything. I hate being the center of attention, so why are they here? They had to see how uncomfortable he was as he looked from the mouse to the floor, not daring to make eye contact.

Finally the younger boy broke the awkward silence and said simply, "Well, that backfired."

That got Cyneric to finally look at them from behind a curtain of black hair. "What?" That didn't even make any sense. He wondered if he should doubt the other boy's sanity, but realized he probably had no room to talk judging from the mouse perched on his shoulder like a parrot.

The older boy- the half-elf... what was his name? Something with an 'R', right?- looked sheepish. "We thought ye'd be afraid of them." He had an odd accent and spoke with something of a brogue, and, while understandable, still didn't make any sense.

Perplexed, Cyneric asked, "Come again?"

The girl ever-so-helpfully commented without elaboration, "The bugs and rat."

At the same time Cyneric and the half-elf corrected her by chiming in "It's a field mouse". They looked at each other in surprise but the human could tell that the other's was cheerful astonishment by the fact that he was trying to hide a grin behind his hand. Without thinking, Cyneric had defaulted to what his brother referred to as "annoyingly know-it-all", so he was glad to see that grin since it meant they likely weren't going to take offense.

Still not understanding, the newest acolyte asked, "Why should a mouse and an assortment of insects frighten me?"

"We heard you were … um..." the girl fumbled for a word to use here.

"Rich," the younger boy immediately supplied.

"Lyle!" That was obviously not the word she'd been looking for. Or possibly it was the word she had been diplomatically trying to avoid.

The boy shrugged. "What? Elli is and she's afraid of 'em."

She rolled her eyes in an exasperated manner. "Still, that's not polite, you know."

The half-elf meanwhile looked at the other two in amusement and explained further, "We thought it'd be a good prank t'hit ye with."

The girl shrugged. "Not the best try, I'll admit, but Lyle thought it would work."

"Hey, it should have!"

The half-elf and girl were both now rolling their eyes, but didn't actually seem upset at him. Cyneric began to get the feeling that those two didn't often go along with Lyle's ideas, but liked to humor him. Needless to say, he wasn't feeling so shy or embarrassed anymore, thinking the three were more comedy act than threat, even to someone so introverted. "You mean you thought I'd be afraid of a little mouse and some insects because I'm from an aristocratic family?"

"Possibly?" Now it was the girl's turn to look sheepish.

Cyneric pretended to eye the mouse suspiciously and said to it, "Are you in on this, too? You're not actually a rat in disguise, are you?" He was rewarded with more chittering as a reply, not that he knew if it was agreeing or not, but it was well-placed chittering at least.

He gave a small smile, trying to be friendly but being rather at a loss as to how to go about doing so; this was the most social interaction he'd had in... well, ever. "I guess next time you know not to get me this way." An idea occurred to him and he added, "If animals and such work on this Elli, perhaps I can help you catch them in the future? I'd imagine toads would function well."

The trio gave almost identical roguish grins and Cyneric couldn't help breaking into laughter. Maybe it won't be so hard to fit in here? As if echoing his thoughts, the older boy told him, "I think ye'll fit in jus' fine. Anyone who starts off wanting t'prank Elli is welcome in my book."

Cyneric grinned and handed him the mouse. "Would I be correct in assuming this is yours?" The animal acted more like a pet than something wild and he knew it was unlikely that field mice would be living in a city church. He supposed it was rather species-ist to assume an odd pet belonged to an elf, but sure enough, as soon as the mouse was in his hand, it scampered up his arm and onto his shoulder, where it promptly began to chew on one of his long braids.

The boy chuckled and asked "Are ye sure you're not pulling our legs and are actually a really young ranger?"

The baffled look the young human gave him caused him to laugh and he added, "'Tis strange, is all." Noticing Cyneric's returning embarrassment, he thankfully changed the subject. "Ye've probably forgotten all our names- I know I couldn't keep track when I got here. I'm Raff." Ah, so it is an 'R' name! Cyneric thought. Raff gestured towards the door, through which the other boy had already wandered off through during the mouse exchange, "That numskull was Lyle."

Here the girl added her introduction, "And I'm Liz. Pay no mind to Lyle- he doesn't mean to be rude but... the boy has no attention span."

Cyneric shrugged. "Not a problem. Okay, Raff, Lyle, Liz. Well, that's a start and hopefully I will remember what name goes with who."

Liz grinned back. "As long as you don't think either of us are Lyle, you'll be fine."

Cyneric smiled, mirroring their impish grins without realizing. "Ah, so you don't want to be mistaken for him. I see." Being who he was, though, he couldn't help asking about the mouse. "Now, does the mouse have a name, or is that going to make this name thing even more confusing?"

"Of course she has a name," Raff answered as he stroked the mouse gently between the ears, "It's Tyu." Well, that answered the last part of my question, too, Cyneric thought.

Echoing that inner comment, Liz piped up, "Which falls under 'more confusing'."

Raff laughed. "Nah, it's easy. And ye can call her 'Cheese' if ye want- that's what it's short for."

Realization dawned on Cyneric. "Oh! That's Elvish; I should have caught that." As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he realized how conceited that made him sound- again- and he started to apologize.

The half-elf looked rather shocked, but waved his hand to dismiss the apology. "You can speak Elvish?" he asked in said language. Cyneric thought that it sounded more like his reaction was over the fact that he knew the language, not over that specific comment, thankfully.

"Yes." Feeling that he should be truthful, he added, "However, it is the only other language I have learned. Is that odd that I speak it?"

"You know, I think I caught all of three words in there," Liz said in what appeared to be mock indignation before Raff could answer the question.

Apparently ignoring the girl, he nodded and answered, "Yes, it is sort of odd. I think you are the only other acolyte who came in knowing Elvish and you are excessively human."

"Thank you, I think?" How could one be excessively human, anyway? I guess from a half-elf's point of view, that statement works, Cyneric reasoned.

Raff shook his head, his braids whipping back and forth. "I just meant that it is surprising. There is more to you than you think, Cyneric."

That bewildered him; how was knowing a language or being good with animals surprising? It's not as though those were rare abilities, and neither had ever been particularly useful. Cyneric felt himself blush and switched back to Common so as to not leave Liz out of the conversation- and so that he could change the subject. "If you say so. But please just call me Cyn."

Liz jumped on that; Cyneric was beginning to notice that she'd take any opportunity to play a game of wits. "I take it not like moderate evil?"

Cyneric snickered, catching the pun. "Definitely not. Slightly, perhaps, but never moderately."

"Sure ye are," Raff grinned, then asked, "But why not 'Eric'? That would avoid those kind of comments."

"Gods, no. Definitely never 'Eric'." Noticing that the half-elf was taken aback by his empathetic reply, he tried to explain in a calmer voice, "That's a family name ending and I'd rather not be associated with them."

"Don't get along with them, I take it?" Liz asked.

"That would very much be an understatement." Cyneric shrugged, brushing this off and changing the subject again. I'm not very good at this, am I? "If you don't mind me saying, 'Raff' seems a strange name for someone who looks like an elf."

Raff tucked his brown hair behind an ear, as if that comment had drawn attention and reminded him that they were pointed. "Ye shorten your name t'avoid your family. Mine's short because my family made it too long- try getting stuck with a name like Rafion Goldenstrings."

Okay, maybe I have no room to complain about my name; at least it's normal. "Ouch. But that doesn't sound elven either." He quickly caught himself, not knowing what the half-elf's opinion was about his heritage, and added, "I am sorry! I mean, if you don't mind me saying so."

Raff smiled, apparently not offended. "'Tis fine. Blame my da- he decided his surname was too hard for audiences t'remember, and switched t'something easier. Unfortunately 'easier' also meant 'absolutely silly'."

Not knowing anything about that kind of subject, Cyneric asked about the part of the sentence that had caught his attention. "Audiences?"

"He's a musician."

Here Liz threw in another of her sarcastic retorts, "That certainly explains your flair for the dramatic; it must be hereditary."

Raff winked at her and said dramatically, "Alas! Ye have discovered something I keep secret. Here I was thinking I'd tricked everyone inta thinking I was bland and morose."

Liz broke into a fit of snickering and was finally able to quip back, "Right, keep telling yourself that, elf-boy. And Cyn here really is an ancient ranger."

Cyneric was really starting to enjoy the company of these two, out of his element though he was, and tried his own silly comment in defense, "Perhaps I am just cleverly disguised as a bewildered young priest-in-training. You never know." As if on cue, the mouse started chittering again and he added, pretending to understand it, "See? They don't believe us, Tyu."

As Liz started snickering again, Raff grinned at him and said "Ye'll fit in great here. That mouse's a good judge of people."

Said to almost anyone else, their reaction probably would have been laughter at that statement, but Cyneric just grinned back. "I hope so."

((And back to Cyn for a bit! I realized I'd almost finished this months ago but have been so distracted by writing Meren's story that I never posted it. I did change narrative styles, though; now that Cyn's backstory is crossing over with Raff's, it makes more sense to tell it in 3rd person since in the future I'll be switching back and forth between them for stories.))

Sneak peek at my next story...

2011-06-21T12:56:00.005-04:00

Hidden Magic
~Will begin posting in August~
Meren, an unusual elf girl (and her more unusual centaur "brother") take up the task of hunting down a band of orc trespassers. When she stumbles into a pitfall, Meren finds an object: an amulet that gives strange new powers. Little does she know that an increasingly desperate young wizard is looking for the very same amulet, and that their paths are destined to crisscross in a weave of chaotic magic...

Meren's Introduction

2011-05-26T23:16:00.001-04:00

Of Fayiron Meren Eryndiriel I am. Beginning to begin, yes? ... Begin the beginning... Beginning at the start... Blast it! I know my master wants me to write and speak only in Common, but I just can't get that sentence structure down! But you can understand me now? Odd, but that's better than you staring at me blankly, which is usually the reaction I get whenever I open my mouth.

Let me begin again in my own words. I am Meren, daughter of Eryndir; my father is the leader of the wood elves of Fayiron and the surrounding forests. ... but if this is an introduction, I should begin this at the start, right?

Life has never been particularly easy or straightforward for me or my brother and, as a result, neither of us are exactly what we appear. Yes, I'm a wood elf and Kryro, he's... well, he's not here at the moment so I suppose I'll have to be the one to speak for now. What has given me trouble the longest is that I've constantly had to work twice as hard as the rest of my kin to earn equal respect and to show them that I can be just as good a border guard and scout as they are. This is because by their reckoning I am still a child, which is extremely frustrating when I have been an adult for quite some time. Why the inconsistency here? I suppose I can explain, but you have to promise not to tell anyone, okay? ... What? Oh, I wasn't reaching for my blowgun for any particular reason, except maybe some added assurance. (This must be what Lady Kris is trying to break me of. I can't just knock out anyone who asks questions of my kin, as much as that goes against what I am...)

So you'll skip the nap and keep it secret? Then here it is: I'm a half-elf. I don't often let on that I'm not fully elven, as you can probably guess. To all but another wood elf, I look, act and sound the part. When I was sent away from the forest, my father told me it would be easier this way; people sometimes don't approve of those of mixed blood, and my kind... well, it's extremely rare. I'm the only one of my type in the forest, and likely the only one in the kingdom. My father says I may be the only one in the world, but I think that's just him trying to make me feel special... when it does almost exactly the opposite and has me yearning to just be like the rest of my kin. I suppose that's how parents are.

What am I besides a wood elf? It is hard to guess. My mother was a halfling. Strange, I know, but this was never really an issue; she was a healer and came to the aid of my father's people in a time of great need. After this, since she was the only healer the young tribe had, they weren't inclined to give her the kind of treatment most outsiders would receive and she was accepted in as an honorary elf. I became the end result and what held true for her would have extended to me... except for one problem. One very large problem.

Magic. Somehow, despite my only desire being to stay a guard and scout, about a decade ago I began to sense the energy possessed by greenery and became able to use it to make things happen, usually with strange, unpredictable results. This is not a normal ability for a wood elf, or at least it isn't without training as a shaman, so I kept this a secret for as long as I could. But eventually my kin became aware of this fact when I had to use it openly.

You see, magic is both my blessing and my bane. With it I will one day be able to protect my kin and forest in ways no wood elf ever dreamed possible- a wonderful thing. Until I have my magic under control, though, I am exiled from my home- a horrible, awful thing. My father's exact words were "Meren, you're going to burn the place down. I am sending you off to the wizard in Springwell until you can control what you wield. I wouldn't allow an untrained archer who knows not how to aim to scout, so a mage destroying our trees I cannot allow on guard, even if she is my daughter." As much as I hated to admit it, he had a point, and off I was sent to the nearest town.

I suppose I really have no room to complain. Somehow my intellectual brother became one of the strongest warriors of his centaur tribe and is now their scout leader, which I'm sure he wouldn't have predicted, either. ...Yes, you heard me right. My brother is a centaur. It's probably best not to ask. Anyway, at least Kryro becoming a warrior made some sort of sense. Wood elves aren't mages and halfling magic only involves healing. So how did I end up with this skill- or lack there of; numerous fires and explosive plant growth can attest to that- that I never wanted? That's something neither my master nor my father have been able to answer for me.

So here I am, neither fish nor fowl. Not a full mage yet, but no longer just a scout. A wood elf, but not entirely. Sort of a halfling and almost a centaur by association. It's a wonder I look normal and elven when these averaged together should give me one fuzzy foot, one ear much pointier than the other, magic arrows in my quiver and three legs to stand on. ...Hey, those arrows sound pretty good. That would be magic worthy of an elf, anyway!

((Say hi to Meren- she's my next protagonist. I'm currently working on a long story for her like I did for Raff last year, so that'll be posted sometime in the summer. I'm still not entirely sure what it's going to be, but it'll involve a lot of chaotic magic and likely a bit of memory loss; there's a reason Meren doesn't recall why as a teenager she suddenly picked up the ability to work magic.)

The Acolyte's Map - Story, Part 10

2011-04-14T13:03:00.001-04:00

Banner art by Artmetica.
You can find the whole cover art here- the art is gorgeous!
There's also a mix/soundtrack that goes with this story- you can find that here.

The Acolyte's Map, Part 10
(Prologue, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3,
Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9)

It turned out that Raff's fear was relatively unfounded, or possibly a well-armed and rather feral-looking elf at his side kept Charity from reacting too badly. She was frustrated at the news, of course (Raff got the feeling that she was thinking "Great, I'm still stuck with these fools?"), but the group now had plenty of time on their hands to sort out another plan while Jonathan recovered from his shock. They really didn't want to move on until he'd finished frothing at the mouth and staring vacantly into space, which, horrible as it sounds, Raff was willing to admit was an improvement on the boy's previous personality.

After much debate between the four Messengers and the wood elf which consisted largely of:
"Melt it with fire?" - "Couldn't find one hot enough. That's why we looked for a dragon in the first place."
"Bury it?" - "It would eventually get dug up by an animal or a treasure-seeker."
"Keep it at a Messenger's mosque?" - "Be realistic; everyone would be far too curious for it to be secure."
"Have Raff carry it around?" - "Very funny, guys. It's evil and weighs about fifty pounds."
and "Find another dragon?" with a much-echoed "No!", Mina finally hit on "Could we toss it into the sea? It would be least likely to get picked up there, right?"

Unable to find a better rejection than "Maybe someday a sentient sea creature may find it", the general consensus was that this would be the best course of action, especially since they were only a few days from the southern coast.

The trip to the coast was uneventful; perhaps the lingering aroma of evergreen-scented dragon snot was enough to keep any possible danger at bay. Even Jonathan remained quiet in his recovery; he was less moody and demanding, but still frequently stared off into space. From that expression on his face and the strange questions he asked about recent events, the others had come to the conclusion that he was trying to piece together what had been happening to him for the past year or two, as though his experience was now a jumbled jigsaw puzzle and he was still short about half of the pieces. He was especially surprised to find all those undelivered letters and scrolls in his backpack, but after some prompting, coaxing, and a bit of compelling magic from the others, was able to deliver one as they traveled past its intended destination without appearing particularly attached to it.

What surprised everyone the most, however, was that he seemed completely oblivious of the fact that the large stone of amber that Raff now lugged around was the cause of his fractured memory, which, as the miles dragged on and the stone seemed to be gaining weight, bothered the half-elf considerably.

I'm entrusted with your problem- your rather heavy problem- and I don't even get a 'thank you'? Raff grumbled to himself, glaring tiredly at the youth. He realized that his burden being ignored was likely a good thing in this situation, but a little recognition of his valiant effort would have been gratifying.

"'Valiant effort'?" Raff heard the dog send mentally; obviously it was able to tell the direction of his thoughts, which would have bothered the half-elf had he not been too exhausted to fret. "You have a ball. You should be glad to carry a ball."

And here I was thinking that having a dog would be easier than talking to a mouse. Are food and play all animals think about? Raff thought. He paused to blow a loose strand of hair out of his face before answering, "It's far heavier than a ball, you know. If you want to play, go bother Mina's dog."

"She's boring. Doesn't really talk and just wants to be carried by her human," the dog sniffed disdainfully before adding, "May as well be a cat."

The half-elf snickered but didn't have a chance to reply further as they'd finally reached their destination. Everyone, minus Mina's dog which had curled itself up on a sunny rock to nap, and Caledhrad, who looked terrified, inched their way over to the edge of the cliff to stare down. Even Raff's mouse glanced down before squeaking and returning to the cleric's pocket.

"No rocks. Good. That means the amber shouldn't smash when it hits the surface," Charity observed.

"Amber sinks, right?" Tomas asked. When the others stared at him, he blushed and said, "Hey, just wanted to check. The last thing we'd need would be an evil buoy."

"Yes, it will sink," Mina assured him, but then negated that answer by adding, "Although it may possibly act differently than we expect because the artifact was magical and the stone was made by something magical, but it shouldn't come back to the surface."

"Yeah, that statement was reassuring," Raff commented sarcastically. When the younger cleric frowned at him, he sighed. "Sorry, Mina; I didn't mean to be snippy. I'm just tired of carrying this thing around. Can I still toss it in?"

His question was met by shrugs but no one seemed inclined to want to stop him. "Okay. If something disastrous happens, I'm denying all responsibility in advance. I'm just the messenger. No pun intended."

Taking the last step forward, Raff held the amber out over the cliff... and was startled to find that he hadn't let go. He stared at his hands in confusion; he wanted to drop this. He wanted this frustrating quest to be over so he could go home. He certainly didn't want this heavy, horrible piece of resin. So why was it still in his hands?

"Raff, what's wrong?" He hadn't even noticed Mina walk up next to him as he tried to convince his hands to open.

"I can't … drop it," Raff explained through gritted teeth, mentally fighting with his body. "Did the dragon do something?"

The half-elf sensed someone else approach on his left and glanced over to see Caledhrad, who still looked extremely pale under his green tattoos and who was pointedly not looking towards the sea. Distracted though he was, Raff knew enough about elves to realize that this wasn't a fear of heights- a wood elf afraid of heights would be nigh-useless- but likely an intense fear of water.

The wood elf took a deep breath and stared down at the object in Raff's hands. "Kerethiana may have done something to it, but I'm not sure if it was on purpose," he said quietly in elvish, his voice quivering, "Amber dragons have the ability to bespell metal to make it magnetic to whoever holds it. This could be reacting with the magic of the items encased in the resin- particularly that metal scroll case."

This impressed Raff even as he continued to try to dislodge the amber; this wasn't Caledhrad's quest, but the wood elf was braving what must be his biggest fear to help out people he barely knew. From what Raff knew about that breed of elf, this was a strange fact.

"But Raff's hands aren't metal," Mina pointed out in the same language, "Why would it stick to him?"

The wood elf shook his head. "That does not matter. It's magic- the state of the wielder is irrelevant."

"So how do I get that magic to go away?" Raff asked. Despite the gravity of the situation, he couldn't resist joking, "As much as I love this wonderful piece of dragon excretion being stuck to my hands, it'll surely be a crimp on my social life."

Mina grinned. "You're so worried about this that you've forgotten that we're magical. Hold still."

The young woman placed a hand over Raff's and began chanting, her attention focused on the golden orb. When nothing happened for a few moments, Raff began to fear that her spell would not work. Finally, though, the feeling gradually returned to his hands, but before he could try dropping it again, the stone was snatched out of his grip. He looked up to see that Jonathan had nudged Caledhrad out of the way and was now holding the large piece of amber.

"Oh no..." Mina muttered, then said, "Jonathan, give that back to Raff."

"Why?" the teenager asked, sounding genuinely curious. "He was just standing there. We're supposed to toss this, right?"

"Yes, but-" Charity began as she tried to tug the youth back to where they'd been standing.

"If he won't, I will." Giving a shrug, he lobbed the heavy objected into the ocean. The others leaned over to see what happened; sure enough, it did sink with only a splash and a few lingering bubbles, as Mina had predicted.

"Well, that was anticlimactic. No smoke? No fireworks? No angry dragons swooping down to grab it?" Charity commented.

As one, the humans- and elf-kind- looked up at the sky to find it empty except for a few clouds and Raff's bird. "I guess we really did it," Tomas said, relief evident in his voice.

Unseen by the distracted companions and only noticed by the brown mutt, the sea bubbled again where the amber had been dropped; if dogs could see color, perhaps it would have noticed another change, as well- but perhaps not. "Bubbles where the ball fell," it informed Raff.

The half-elf waved a hand dismissively then reached down to scratch the dog behind the ears. "Yes, bubbles happen when something sinks. Stop worrying about that ball. I'll get you a non-evil one, okay?"

The distraction of ear scratches and a new toy pulled away the only creature paying attention. The dog trotted off happily as the map began its long trip to the sea floor. With the evil power sunk and its pawn being given the chance to atone for his misdeeds, the alignment balance began to shift back towards center. Mischievous Good may not be Evil's most powerful enemy, but sometimes it has enough weight to shift the seesaw.

The End

((I know the ending is rather abrupt, but since that artifact will likely make another appearance, had to go for vague. ;) I'll be writing more about Raff at some point- I like him too much to stop! But right now I'm starting to work on Meren's story, so my focus is on mages, wood elves and centaurs, not mischievous clerics.))

Two letters sent from Joven

2011-03-31T22:59:00.007-04:00

Ken, June 14th
Friends and I are heading west in company of ex-traveling companion. I have message of some importance to bring to Rinos; once delivered, I shall seek you out. Have much I want to tell you and would like to introduce you to said group.

Still no word from R and am rather worried, hoping you have news.

See you in a week or so,
~C

This first letter was tied to a bird and sent off about a day's travel away from Joven. On the outside it was addressed "Lieut Kendric Conroy, army barracks, Rinos". Short, but it'll get it where it needs to go, assuming the bird makes its way safely there. Kendric's fairly used to small animals showing up with things tied to their legs- comes from having Messengers as brothers. The note itself is short, as well; that's in case it gets waylaid. Cyn doesn't exactly want to advertise something like "Hey! The duke of Joven and us very famous and known adventurers are near!". He's smart enough... okay, paranoid enough to be vague.

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

This letter was sent north from Joven. Cyneric is from the south, but his parents have since relocated to the northern coast. This is quite to his liking, as it means he has an excuse for infrequent contact.

Father,
After spending my entire life avoiding what you tried to force me into, I've stumbled onto a path much like that anyway. Hope you are happy and thank you for leaving me so screwed up that I feel too guilty to enjoy it properly. You elitist snots can bite me.
... Where did THAT come from? He really needed to pay more attention to what he was writing as this clearly isn't what he wanted to say... although he'd sheepishly admit that getting those words out felt good. Crinkle that up and toss it into the waste basket. Try again with more tact.

I figured now would be wise to send you word as I am traveling through Joven and word would reach you quickly with the least amount of effort on the part of my brethren. No use asking one to travel far to where he won't be appreciated and likely will be thrown out on his arse as soon as he hands over this letter.
... Sigh. Crinkle that up, try once more. It's not like they'd actually do that. Probably. Possibly. Hopefully.

I am traveling through Joven and thought now would be a good time to contact you. As I've learned recently, word of the endeavors of my traveling companions and I has spread far, so I imagine you have an idea of what I have been experiencing, should you have cared to listen. Likely this is exaggerated, but perhaps now you will finally be pleased with your pacifistic, pariah son.
Crinkle crinkle, curse, grumble. One more try and if that doesn't work, he'll admit defeat and go back to pretending that his parents don't exist for a while.

Father,
I am traveling through Joven and, as I am relatively nearby, wanted to contact you. However, since it is west to Rinos my companions and I are headed, rather than north, a letter shall have to suffice. I hope that you and Mother are doing well and that the coast has proved an environment of comfort to the both of you.

Upon reaching Joven, I learned that news of my traveling party's exploits have reached great distances. I am not overly pleased with this, but I am going to assume that it means you've heard word of me, as well. Likely this has been exaggerated. However, yes, it means your clerical son has become an adventurer of some distinction. It is certainly not the path I wanted to end up on, but I am sure this is more to your liking than the thought of me toiling away in the backwaters, delivering mail from anyone who wandered into the mosque that day. I know you have always disliked that I entered into the priesthood (and this one in particular), so any amount of heroics is probably an improvement.

While in Rinos, I shall try to keep track of who is what and what is where because I know that sort of thing is of interest to you and Mother, but I have a feeling that Kendric is far better at relaying such news than I. Still, I will dutifully try to keep my eyes open.

We are setting out momentarily, so I must quickly seal this letter and ask one of my brethren to take care of it for me.

As I wrote above, I hope this finds you both well.
Your son,
Cyneric
Well, that'll have to do. It's unlikely his rather obtuse father would catch the contempt he felt, anyway, and this was about as civil as he could bring himself to sound. At least it appeared that he said all the right things, even if in actuality he'd either "forget" about that promise or give slightly wrong information, depending on what kind of mood he was in that day. Why did his family always have to be so difficult to deal with?

The Acolyte's Map - Story, Part 9

2011-03-28T16:13:00.002-04:00

Banner art by Artmetica.
You can find the whole cover art here- the art is gorgeous!
There's also a mix/soundtrack that goes with this story- you can find that here.

The Acolyte's Map, Part 9
(Prologue, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3,
Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 10)

The dog returned a few moments later, dragging a reluctant Tomas forward by the hem of his robe. When Kerethiana greeted the man with a sniff to his chest, the reluctance turned to fear as his face went ashen, but he didn't faint as Raff had feared his friend might. When the dragon made no hostile move, Tomas' color returned and he looked over at Raff quizzically. "She likes your amber," the half-elf quietly explained.

Looking down, Tomas seemed to finally take notice of the draconic-caused stickiness now staining his robe and Raff had to chuckle at his grimace of revulsion. "Congrats. You've been slimed, too," the shorter cleric whispered with a grin, hoping that if Tomas was thinking about the disgusting dragon snot, he would forget about being frightened.

When the dragon moved her head back to glance between the two Messengers, Raff caught on to what she wanted before the wood elf could translate. "Tom, pull out the map so we can explain what we need done," the half-elf instructed.

As the younger priest obeyed, his hands not shaking too much as he pulled out the metal scroll case containing the horrible artifact, Raff tried to explain the situation to the wood elf. "If it's possible, we need her to destroy the parchment that's inside the case. Does she have a way to set it on fire or the like?"

Caledhrad exchanged a few words with the dragon, then nodded. Switching to Common so that Tomas would understand, he answered, "Burning tree sap she says with which she can hit it. Fire it would not be, but melt most of the item she believes it would." He listened to another silent comment from the dragon before adding, "And in thick resin she says the remains encased would be."

After figuring out what the elf was saying through the strange sentence structure, Raff and Tomas nodded. Seeing that they agreed, the dragon began walking away- or, rather, began crashing through the underbrush as she headed in the opposite direction. The wood elf explained before the priests could question this action, "Set the woods on fire she does not want to do. An impervious spot she knows of which lead us to she will."

Raff shrugged and he and Tomas, along with Caledhrad, followed the dragon at a slow enough pace so the others could catch up with them. By the time the clerics had finished explaining what was to happen, Kerethiana had come to a stop. Unsure at first why this clearing was any different than the few others they'd passed in their travel through the forest, Raff noticed that the dragon was now partially obscuring a very large tree stump to the north of the clearing. "I suppose she wants you to place the map on that stump," the half-elf commented with a nod of his head in that direction.

Tomas nodded but looked terrified again. Raff was tempted to take the artifact from his hand and spare what obviously frightened his friend, but knew the others would never allow him to touch the map. Tomas took a deep breath to try to calm himself, then began slowly trudging towards the dragon, glancing behind a few times as if to check that the others were still there. Finally arriving at the stump, he removed the map from the scroll case and dropped both on the stump, bowed to the dragon, then quickly scuttled back to the group.

As they watched the dragon push the items into the center of the stump with a long claw, Mina caught movement out of the corner of her eye. "Hold Jonathan back," she whispered urgently. Charity and Caledhrad, the two standing closest to the once-cleric, grabbed hold of the boy's arms as his fidgeting was about to shift to bolting away. Being helpful for once, Mina's small dog grabbed onto the cuff of his pants.

The teenager glared and struggled to break free as the dragon started to spew forth what Raff could now, after having been coated with dragon-slime, only think of as the world's most awful and disgusting snot ball. The burning, honey-colored liquid doused the map, stump and all, leaving an overpowering scent of pine in an already evergreen-scented location.

The watchers were unable to observe this strange sight for long, however, as Jonathan's sudden shriek caught their attention. Raff glanced over to see that the boy was no longer trying to pull away from the woman and elf holding him in place, but had collapsed to the ground and was twitching slightly.

"I should have realized this would happen," Charity said as she knelt next to the boy, "I forgot he was so tied to that blasted map.... er... literally," she added when she realized the word she had used.

Biting her lip, Mina asked "Is he going to be okay?"

Charity shrugged. "I'd imagine he's feeling like something heavy is being dragged out of his head. He'll be fine when he snaps out of the backlash. Probably. Possibly. We can hope, anyway. He can't possibly end up any worse than he was."

When she caught sight of the expressions on the other Messengers' faces, she frowned. "What? I know you guys are thinking that."

Raff was saved from having to answer in the affirmative by the wood elf grabbing his arm and dragging him slightly away from the others. "Allow them to worry about the lad. Kerethiana says that you should get the map now."

The way the elf had said "you" made Raff think that Caledhrad hadn't grabbed him arbitrarily. "Why me? The others wouldn't even let me carry it."

"She says it's now safe to touch. I think her reasoning is that the map is, in essence, now amber, and you are the one she most trusts with such a stone."

Either she really does like me, or she'd just rather see it in the hands of someone not entirely human, Raff thought to himself. He gave a shrug; the reasoning didn't really matter, as long as they were able to break Jonathan free from the map's spell and somehow eliminate the object.

...but there was the flaw in this plan, which Raff saw as he and the elf walked over to where the dragon was using a great claw to carve the fossilized map out of the huge mass of amber that was once a tree stump and the surrounding grass. The large chunk of resin that Kerethiana held reflected magnificently in the sunlight, but a vague shape of what remained of the map and the still-intact metal scroll case could still be discerned inside- which would likely be a problem, as the half-elf now foresaw.

"So the map is harmless while in stasis, but what do we do with it to keep it that way?" Raff asked, frowning as he was hit with that concern.

The wood elf said something to the dragon then shook his head at Raff upon hearing the silent response. "She says that's not her problem now. You have the amber so you're responsible for its safekeeping" Caledhrad looked rather abashed under his green tattoos as he apologized, "I am sorry. If you wouldn't mind my company, I will join the group to help concoct a solution."

A helpful wood elf. Who would have thought such a thing existed? Raff couldn't help but smile as he replied "Of course; I have a feeling we could use all the help we could get. Tell Kerethiana thank you for her help. It may not be exactly the result we were looking for, but it's certainly a vast improvement."

As the two were walking away, a thought occurred to Raff. "I may need you to do me a favor."

"What would you need?"

"Don't let Charity throttle me when she learns that this solution isn't permanent."

Caledhrad snickered. "And I thought priests were supposed to be kind and gentle; perhaps you really should have been rangers."

The next part of the story can be found here.

((This is more part 8.5 since it's still the same scene as the last part, but figured that half would make my links all wonky.))

Adventures of a Young Messenger - Always Trust a Fox (Part 5)

2011-03-10T20:43:00.005-05:00

Part 5 - Always Trust a Fox
(Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 6)

It was an enjoyable trip to Woodland city, it being high summer and having the good companionship of the strange fox and the assorted animal life we met along the way, so I took my time. A day and a half after setting out from my family's manor, I arrived at the gates of Woodland just before sunset. Before I could ask the gatekeeper which way it was to the Messengers' Mosque, he pointed straight ahead and said "Go past the Temple of Apollo until you get to the fountain, turn left and go up the main street. The mosque will be on the left before you get to the fortress." Noticing my confusion- was I in a town of psychics?- he added with a chuckle, "It's the fox, lad. Been here long enough to know that foxes go with Messengers." How could I have missed that obvious fact? It wasn't like anyone who wasn't blind could miss a fox this large; he certainly didn't look like a dog or anything like that!

With a sheepish smile at my own obtuseness, I thanked him and continued on, eager to reach my destination and see what these Messengers were like. For one thing, were they really as strange as the impression I'd gotten after reading the scroll?

Turning the corner I saw the mosque before me: a large, old grey stone building with its red double doors ajar, although if this was to let in the cool evening air or out of welcoming, I wasn't sure. I walked up to the doors and, figuring that I wouldn't have to knock since they were already open, peeked in. The fox, knowing that we'd reached our destination and not understanding why I was hesitating on the doorstep, brushed past my legs and entered. I shrugged, then followed him in.

Inside was a small foyer; past that was a large room with many desks, tables, shelves, a great many scrolls and a great many industrious people dressed in red. There were a few adolescents in plain robes (acolytes, I realized), but all looked older than myself; if this was to be my home, it appeared that I was going to be the youngest. Well, at least I was used to that. I also noticed that everyone over the age of eighteen or so looked incredibly tan, but since this was unimportant, it got pushed to the very back of my mind to wonder about later.

The fox led me to an experienced -and busy-looking- priest who fell into the "very tan" category, but then vanished into the bustle as I was distracted by taking in my surroundings. Unsure of how the man would react to being interrupted by a random kid, but assuming that the fox had led me to someone who would be able to help, I cleared my throat and said as politely as possible, "Hello. I apologize for interrupting you but the fox brought me here and I'm not sure where exactly I'm supposed to go..." As the words came out of my mouth, I realized just how silly they sounded.

The man looked up from the parchment he had been reading, and, to my surprise, instead of brushing me off or looking annoyed, gave me a big smile as he said, "Ah, you must be the new kid Armand told us would be arriving. Follow me."

Nodding in agreement that I was, in fact, the "new kid", I followed him through the organized chaos of that work area and into a quieter hallway. He chatted cheerfully to me as we walked through the mosque, although I'll admit that I did more nodding than replying as he was the sort to dominate any conversation (not to mention that I was feeling quite overwhelmed), and we eventually reached a closed door, at which he knocked. A kindly voice invited us into what turned out to be an office; at the desk was a smiling, not quite middle-aged man with black hair and pointed beard, garbed in the most ornate robe I'd seen so far in the mosque. He thanked the priest, whose name was apparently Ronnis, for "not frightening the boy away", which I didn't understand at all, since the man had been nothing but friendly. Instead of looking offended, Ronnis just laughed and retorted "That was once! Besides, he only got as far as the door" before leaving the room. The man behind the desk laughed and muttered something under his breath about some Messengers being too mischievous for their own good.

By this point I was utterly confused; weren't priests supposed to be dour, serious, and... well, boring? This all fit the impression I'd gotten from the scroll, but not any of my preconceived opinions of clerics. The man behind the desk must have noticed the look on my face because he asked, "Not what you expected, lad? Messengers know when to be serious, but Hermes is a Trickster, as well; He likes His followers to have a sense of humor, but that's an understatement when it comes to some of us." He nodded his head in the direction of the recently shut door.

Looking rather embarrassed because I didn't know that and in fact knew very little about Messengers at all; on the rare occasion my family received or sent messages, it was through a horse courier. Not wanting to offend the priest, but figuring I should be honest here, I replied, "I didn't know that, sir. Hermes isn't a god that is often... mentioned by my family." Because the fools think He's a common god and are too pretentious to even stoop to talking about Him, I added to myself, not daring to say that aloud. The man must have had an idea of what I was thinking, though, because he gave me a reassuring smile and said, "It is true that Hermes and his priests are hard working, but that does not make us lowly. However, judging from your expression, you already understand that." I nodded; I found most of the things my family thought to be wrong or stupid, so of course this was no different.

"I'm Armand, by the way; I'm the Head Messenger here, but I'm assuming that since you're here, you got my letter, so you likely already deduced that." I nodded again, although thinking that it would be just like someone like Ronnis to lead a wild goose chase instead of going straight to a destination.

He then went on to explain what it was that Messengers did (carry messages, sort messages, write and read things out for people who couldn't... if it had to do with words, the Messengers were right on top of it) and what I'd have to do (watch and learn and do a lot of the busywork around the mosque with the rest of the acolytes for a few years until I'd be allowed on deliveries). Armand was pleased to learn that I already knew how to read and write in two languages and told me I'd be learning more; that made me quite happy because I'd always wanted to learn more than Common and High Elvish, that second one being the only non-human language my father would allow, and that was begrudgingly.

Armand then showed me around the rest of the mosque, introducing me to the acolytes and a few of the full Messengers who weren't too busy; there were two student-clerics about my age, though older, and a couple more a few years older than that (one of these was elven, which kind of surprised me since everyone else I'd met seemed to be fully human- but judging by the hairstyle and ears, there was no mistaking this boy for a full human), as well as a few older priests and priestesses coming and going. Everyone seemed to be pleasant and good humored, even though none were idle, which certainly fit what I've learned of the Messengers so far.

When we got back to his office, the high priest returned to his seat and asked, "So, do you think you're ready to learn how to be a Messenger? As you likely noticed, you are the youngest here, which might be somewhat challenging to start." Drawing myself up and trying to appear confident- I mean, I was intelligent and ready to work, even if I was also new and young- I replied, "Of course, sir! I don't mind being the youngest; I can work hard and catch up."

Armand smiled. "I thought you might say that. I do have a warning for you, though." That deflated me; don't tell me there was going to be pointless rules here, too? Catching my expression, he quickly added, "Nothing about you per se, lad. I just get the feeling that you haven't been around too many young people and I know how Messengers can be; they're the nicest people I've met, but they can be rather... enthusiastic about pranks, so be careful until you get your feet under you, okay? I don't normally warn the acolytes, but most of them have a better idea of what they're getting into."

I thanked him for the advice and said, "You're right; I'd probably have just walked right into something." I thought for a moment and added, "I probably still will, but at least I'll know to watch out. This is part of the 'learning' thing, too, right?"

"You're catching on, Cyneric. I wish you luck, but I'm sure you'll do fine. One can always trust a fox." He paused in thought for a moment, and added, "Alright, maybe not so much, but Messengers can always trust a fox, if just because we're the only beings more sly than they are."

It wasn't until that night, after I'd settled in and been given my acolyte robes, that I recalled the cryptic warning my brother had given me earlier that week. As I drifted off to sleep on my first night as a cleric-to-be, I mused over how Armand seemed to have echoed his words, only in a way that turned out to be a lot less unnerving. Yes, I knew I was going to like it here, even if my new brethren did turn out to be slightly crazy.

(Part 6 can be found here.)

((Yeah, I had this mostly written months and months ago, but got distracted by Raff and never finished it. Sorry, Cyn. I do love you, too, even if I tend to neglect you for my elves.))

The Acolyte's Map - Story, Part 8

2011-03-08T12:56:00.004-05:00

Banner art by Artmetica.
You can find the whole cover art here- the art is gorgeous!
There's also a mix/soundtrack that goes with this story- you can find that here.

The Acolyte's Map, Part 8
(Prologue, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3,
Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 9)

"When are we going to meet him? We've been walking forever," Jonathan complained as he dragged his feet along.

It's your stupid map, Raff thought, but wisely kept silent as that statement would just irk the boy who wasn't actually in possession of it at the moment. One of the other three had it hidden away, but the half-elf couldn't remember whose turn it was to keep it hidden. Even though he'd offered to help, they were trying to keep it away from him, as well. Sheesh, one lapse in control and you'd think I was the one possessed by it. Raff sighed and simply corrected, "Her."

"What?"

"Her. The dragon's a female. Calling her male pronouns won't exactly endear her to our presence." And you likely would get yourself eaten; maybe you should try it. Raff wasn't feeling quite callous enough to say that last part aloud, but he was getting close to it.

"How do you know that?" Jonathan asked doubtfully, clearly not believing him, although what reason Raff would have for lying about this would have been anyone's guess.

"The elf told us that her name was Kerethiana. If you knew any Elvish, you'd know that was a female name. Even in Common, that's not exactly masculine-sounding." Raff knew he was being petty, but this youth was enough to try the patience of a saint. He almost wished the boy would go back to being evil because Annoying Neutral didn't seem to be much of an improvement.

"She should be around here somewhere close," Mina commented, her voice quiet.

"How do you know that?" Raff asked incredulously. He was beginning to think that his ranger training had gone rusty because nothing short of a large flashing sign that read "Dragon is here!" would have clued him in to the location of the object of their search.

Still nearly whispering she supplied, "Look at the trees- there's an odd mark there."

Raff looked closely at the evergreen trees surrounding them. Sure enough, there was a strange triangular mark high up in the bark of some of them, which he'd completely failed to notice. Pines, of course. It's always pines that elude me. "How did you see that? And how do you know it's from a dragon?"

Mina looked bashful. "I read a lot and I find dragons intriguing. If memory serves me right, we're going to be looking for an amber one."

"Hey, don't blush. If you're right, then that's incredibly helpful," Raff told her kindly, then admitted, "I certainly don't know what we're looking for."

As Raff's newly acquired dog gave a low whine, Tomas, who had been leading the group with the silent help of the canine, froze in place. "Umm... something like that, I would bet."

"Like what?" Charity asked, dragging the still reluctant Jonathan with her to join the group, "I don't see anything-"

Then, much like how the wood elf had blended into the forest, the shadow of the trees a few yards ahead of them morphed into a large- and unmistakably dragon-shaped- figure as the dragon moved. Stepping away from the tree from which she had been feeding, Kerethiana moved to stab another one with the large horn atop her head.

"That's an amber dragon, all right," Mina sounded in awe, "although the book didn't give a good idea of the sheer size of one..."

"Yes, she's very large," Charity agreed, quickly stopping what would likely be the scholarly ramblings of an intellectual. "But what do we do to get her attention?"

She looked over at the rest of the party. Jonathan had taken a step back and was shaking his head emphatically while Tomas bit his thumbnail, clearly looking worried. Mina was still staring wide-eyed at the dragon as if trying to memorize what she looked like for an exam and wasn't paying the older woman any attention. Obviously those three weren't going to be any help. Raff shrugged and reasoned silently, Well, I'll just have to hope that being half an elf will help here...

As Raff closed the short distance between the group and the dragon, trying to put enough space between them that his traveling companions wouldn't be hurt should the dragon try to attack him with … fire? Acid? I should have asked Mina what they breathe, not that the knowledge would have helped- anything short of fluffy pillow breath would be lethal, he was pleased to notice that the dog had resumed its place at his side. The dog didn't look frightened, so hopefully that was a good sign; Raff for one was certainly worried.

"Hey, great dragon!" he called, his voice cracking slightly under the strain, then mentally kicked himself. That was not the right way to greet a dragon. He cleared his throat and tried again. "I mean, hail, great Kerethiana. My friends and I ask for your aid with the task we must fulfill. We were sent to you by the wood elf Caledhrad."

The dragon raised her bark-colored head and, dripping tree sap, looked at the half-elf standing nearby with what appeared to be a mixture of disdain (probably at an interrupted lunch) and curiosity. She didn't seem to have a response for Raff, though, so he repeated the same thing, minus the error at the beginning, in Elvish, figuring that would be a better approach for a forest-dwelling dragon.

This time the dragon reacted, but not in the way Raff would have guessed. She cocked her head to the side, clearly confused, and the half-elf heard in his head, "Humans... Elf... Caledhrad... Aid... My..." He'd had no idea how dragons communicated, but having spent the past fifteen or so years talking telepathically to animals, this didn't startle him. What did bother him was the fact that he seemed to be getting only about half of the conversation.

Unconsciously mirroring Kerethiana's head tilt, Raff tried again, this time trying to simplify. "You- great dragon. Us, Messengers. Clerics. We need help to destroy bad thing. Bad thing is very bad." After saying that he thought, I feel ridiculous.

"Priests... aid... bad? Sap... thing?"

Raff was torn between laughing at the asininity of this exchange and pulling his hair in frustration. "Priests need help. Need to get rid of bad thing-" his ramblings were interrupted by the sound of laughter coming from a different direction than where he'd left his companions. Both the cleric and the dragon looked up to see the wood elf Raff had suspected of following the group approaching. The elf bowed to the dragon and said in Raff's language, "My friends are asking for your assistance, great and wise Kerethiana," before switching over to Wood Elvish to say something else that the cleric was unable to follow.

Now I know how Charity feels when I'm talking to the dog, Raff mused while Caledhrad looked shocked, then thoughtful as the dragon was able to successfully communicate with him. The green-tinted elf and the dragon seemed to exchange a few more pieces of dialog before the half-elf was brought back into the conversation. "Take a look for yourself," the wood elf said, gesturing at Raff.

The cleric had time to think all of Huh? before the brown-hued dragon brought her head down to stare into his eyes, then moved to sniff at his chest, making sounds much like a large dog and dribbling tree sap down his robe in the process, staining the deep red fabric an even darker color. Oh, wonderful. Dragon snot, Raff thought, wrinkling his nose as his mouse scampered out of his chest pocket and back onto his shoulder, chittering in protest. The dragon continued smelling the robe for a moment and Raff heard a distinct "Amber" in his head before she turned her head to look at Caledhrad.

"She says you smell like amber and wants to know why," the wood elf explained.

Raff nodded. "Yes, I got that from her. Thanks, though." He reached into his robe to grab his feather-in-amber holy symbol; after managing to get the necklace tangled in the chain of his other pendant, his hair, and the miffed mouse, he was finally able to remove it. Holding it in his hand, and hoping she didn't decide to eat it, he said to Caledhrad, "Tell her it's the holy symbol of my order. All the Messengers are given one of these."

Once again there was a conversation Raff couldn't take part in before the elf said, "She wants to know by whom?"

Raff was silent for a moment. This was a subject the Messengers were told to keep hushed, but the truth would probably be best and would hopefully keep her from deciding it (or he) was a good snack. Still, he kept his answer short, "By our god, essentially."

The wood elf just nodded and didn't press for more, to Raff's relief, and appeared to pass this information on to the dragon. "She'll help with this item you're talking about; she says she likes your bit of amber and your audacity," he translated.

Just so long as I don't have to give her the amber and she won't eat me for being audacious, that works for me, Raff thought, then told his dog, "Go get whoever has the map and bring them over." He hoped that the dog would be able to suss out who this was; though the dragon seemed friendly enough, he didn't want to turn his back on her.

The next part of the story can be found here.

As we are about to face a dragon...

2011-02-18T18:13:00.001-05:00

May 22ndish, ? day of ---moon.
(We have been underground for far too long and I've completely lost track of the date or even the current moon phase. It's possibly Darkmoon by now, but don't hold me to that.)

Goblins, slaves, chaos... it has been an eventful past few days. We have freed those we set out to rescue, but are not in the clear yet. Our next task is to face a dragon and the bugbear goblin king at an underground lake and fortress, down at the bottom of the goblin mine. Straightforward enough, I suppose, but as we rest and try to prepare for an upcoming battle, as a priest I find myself facing somewhat of a moral dilemma.

There's a fine, fine line between mischief and harm, and that is a line which all Messengers must be careful to stay on the correct side of. Using our divinely granted magic to get someone to aid us who otherwise would be loath to do so is okay. Charming someone to ignore us and go away is obviously fine. Getting them to give us information? Fine, as well. But here's where the line gets sticky- it is not an act of Good to beguile someone into being friendly with the sole intention of killing them. In no way is it an act of Good to use mind-control with the direct objective being harm.

To explain this with relevance to recent events: using beguilement to acquire a monster as a guide? Perfectly okay. Using it to get information we need from a mimic? Fine. But I'm not entirely proud of the fact that I used it to send a group of goblins off to fight other goblins- that's too close to harm for me to be comfortable.

But I foresee us coming to a point very soon where I will have to use it for harm, and that fact troubles me. Part of the advice Hermes gave when I asked how to save those we came to rescue and get out ourselves was "join your strengths if you want to win", and, like it or not, beguilement is my greatest strength. I may prefer the more druidic magic Messengers are granted, but that is not our greatest ability. (Not being able to access that magic and having to rely on just beguilement has me longing to return to the surface, but I won't get into that here.)

The goblin king and dragon are most certainly Evil and have been capturing and killing a great deal of innocent people, so getting rid of them as quickly as possible is the ideal. My Charm magic may not be powerful enough to influence enemies of this magnitude, but it is my strongest weapon- in order to help my friends, that is what I should try, even if I am unsure of the result. But here my dilemma arises: since we do want to kill these two creatures, any amount of beguilement I do will be with harm as the direct intention.

Likely I am unduly worried here, as my god's words should reassure me that I would be allowed to do this and taking down Evil is certainly the righteous thing to do, but... I've just never been comfortable with doling out injury. Using my quarterstaff or flame magic to attack someone who is trying to hurt us is one thing (not that I particularly enjoy that, either), but mind-controlling them in order to hurt them... it just seems wrong.

So this is why I'm feeling rather torn. I know what I must do to aid my friends, but it's not something I want to do and I'm not entirely certain if it is something my god would approve of. But if I can charm something powerful into not harming my party- or even just distract it long enough for the fighters to take it down- surely that is the right thing to do. Maybe sometimes mischievous harm used in the name of Good is still a good act...

Or maybe I won't have to worry too much about this. We do have a potion of black dragon control and Linora has said that she knows Draconic (whereas I have a spell that will allow me to speak the dragon's language, but only for about ten minutes). With luck, she can handle this kind of thing and I won't have to resort to beguilement, giving me the option to instead focus on disruptive magic to try to nullify anything the dragon (dragons are magical, right?) or hobgoblin priests throw at us. I'll have my Charm magic ready as I always do, however, because it would be positively stupid not to. Fingers crossed and prayers sent, we'll get through this with minimal damage.

The Acolyte's Map - Story, Part 7

2011-02-15T20:33:00.003-05:00

Banner art by Artmetica.
You can find the whole cover art here- the art is gorgeous!
There's also a mix/soundtrack that goes with this story- you can find that here.

The Acolyte's Map, Part 7
(Prologue, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3,
Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 8)

"So your disguise is a lack of one?" Raff looked up from the letters he was reading- it turned out that Jonathan, brat though he was, had told the truth about their contents- to see Charity and the rest now garbed in eclectic greens and browns. He was surprised that they'd managed to throw together enough of the correct colors, but being allowed leather armor at least helped the color theme.

"Pretty much- without the conspicuous robe I'm just a woodsy half-elf. It's nice when you get to disguise yourself as yourself." He nodded towards a sheathed sword lying in the grass next to the napping dog; the mouse, wisely, had taken up residence in his pocket again while the cardinal hid somewhere up in the tree branches. "That's about all there is to it."

"Should I bother asking why you have a sword? You know you can't use it, right?"

Raff stood, grabbing the scabbard and attaching it to his belt. "I just can't hit anything with it. Becoming a Messenger didn't mean that I suddenly forgot how to wield it believably should I have to act like I can use it. Besides, it's less awkward than lugging around a bow and quiver I can't use. I notice you guys didn't think far enough ahead to realize a relevant weapon might help out a costume."

For the first time since he'd met her, Charity smiled sheepishly as she began unscrewing the silver fox from atop her wooden staff. This she stowed carefully in her pack before retorting, "What we have will have to do. At least our quarterstaves can pass as walking sticks." That's one good thing about being clerics of a mischief god, Raff supposed; Hermes was one of the few deities that didn't mind his flock hiding their holy symbols- or at least hiding them in the name of stealth and roguishness.

Charity turned to glare at the napping canine. "Now is the dog going to lead us or not?"

The dog opened one eye and yawned. "Pushy, isn't she."

Raff coughed to hide his laughter. "You don't know the half of it." Catching the woman's expression, he said, "I was talking to the dog, not you. We're coming. Right, dog?"

As the group set off, the dog and Raff leading, the half-elf asked the canine quietly, "Do you have a name? I feel silly calling you 'dog' all the time."

"Isn't talking to me already silly? And I am a dog."

"Both very good points. But you need a name-"

Raff's musings were interrupted by a well-camouflaged shape swinging itself down from the trees and landing lightly in front of him, nearly causing the half-elf to jump out of his skin. The figure had an arrow nocked on his bow, but wasn't targeting it- yet. And as Raff knew, one visible wood elf probably meant another half dozen hidden away who were aiming.

"Told you wood elves were near," the dog chimed in ever-so-helpfully as Raff tried to get his heart to stop racing. He silently berated himself for not noticing this elf sooner, Some almost-ranger I am. As Raff got a good look at the stranger, he noticed both that the elf was his height, making the newcomer fairly tall for an elf, and why he'd missed seeing him- well, other than being distracted by the dog- the elf's clothing and green tattoos blended him into the forest even better than the garb Raff wore.

I wonder if those are real tattoos; that must have hurt- rolling his eyes at his own short attention span, Raff recalled the correct greeting for this situation. Bowing low to the very green elf in front of him, and presumably the ones hidden nearby, he said, "Hail tree-friends, may the peace of the woods be with you" in his native Elvish. He hoped that this elf happened to know that dialect because he'd never had a chance to learn more than a few words in Wood Elvish.

The elf seemed to understand. Nodding his head, he gave the expected reply of "Well met traveler, from whence do you come this day?" in an only slightly accented version of the same language.

Raff had a moment of panic as he tried to recall what the last line to be said was; it had been years since he'd last recited this greeting. It was on the tip of his tongue... Something about pines and air... Aha! "From the forests and pines of my home where the air is good and all is well," he finished. That had always seemed silly to him- his forest didn't even have pines- which was likely why it was the line he never could keep straight.

His slight hesitation didn't seem to bother the wood elf, so possibly he hadn't caught it; the elf nodded again and when he reached over with a vine-patterned hand to grasp Raff's arm, the cleric knew that the disguise had worked. Now to just explain his traveling companions who likely weren't believably fluent in Elvish and certainly didn't know the woodland greeting...

Or maybe just not that last part. Mina stepped forward, echoing Raff's bow, and said, "Well met. My comrades and I are on our first mission under the tutorage of Rafion, and we were wondering if you could assist us with our task" in flawless High Elvish. The half-elf's jaw dropped. Why didn't she say she could speak it? I could have helped her with an elven disguise; she's certainly tiny enough.

Still dumbfounded, Raff wasn't sure how to jump back into the conversation and certainly didn't have a good explanation handy to explain their quest. Luckily Mina seemed to have a lie already thought up, "We were asked by druids to the north to research the mating habits of dragons in the area; a rather arduous task, to be sure, but we will not be allowed to reach the full rank of ranger until we complete this."

She's good, Raff thought. Something told him that Charity was about to open her mouth and demand to know what was being said, though- gods forbid someone speak a language she was unfamiliar with in her presence- so he hastily took a couple of steps backwards to join her. Sure enough, he reached her side in time for her to ask "What-".

He silenced her quickly with a jab of his elbow to her side and whispered, "Be quiet. Mina's giving a very good lie as to why we're looking for a dragon and I want to hear."

Charity nodded and remained silent, but his retreat caused Raff to miss the wood elf's response. He was able to catch Mina's sigh and her next statement of "It does seem like the novices always get the most tedious quests, does it not? But you say there is rumor of one in the pine forests to the west of here?"

Once again Raff missed the elf's response, this time as Jonathan leaned over to whisper, "Are they finished yet? Are they going to tell us about that dragon or not?"

Before the half-elf could answer, it was Tomas's turn to inquire, "And what is she saying about trees and something west? That's all I caught in there."

Raff rolled his eyes up to give a silent prayer asking for the patience to deal with such annoying traveling companions. He may not have the greatest attention span, but at least he could stay silent for a few minutes. "If you guys would stop talking, I'd be able to tell you," he hissed.

Tomas had the courtesy to look abashed, but Jonathan only scowled as Raff was finally able to hear Mina say "Thank you for your assistance; I am very grateful for your aid. I must now speak with my companions to explain this situation as a few of them do not yet know this language well."

The wood elf nodded and bowed low to her. His next actions surprised Raff; turning to face the group, the wood elf dipped his head and said in highly accented and broken Common, "Dangerous dragons often be, but tell Kerethiana that with our blessings you go and that vouch for you Caledhrad does. Young rangers, on this task well do we wish you."

Then with a wink at Mina, he stepped back into the shadow of the trees and vanished into the greenery as his mottled greens and browns seemed to become the foliage. Raff glanced at the spot uncertainly, but even with his trained eyes he couldn't tell if the elf was still watching them or not. Obviously the elves did not take them for a threat, but judging from Mina's blush, that particular elf could still be sticking around for a different reason.

"You charmed him or something, didn't you?" Raff asked her suspiciously. Having used that trick more than a few times himself, he was a pretty good judge of noticing when someone had just tried flirtation combined with magic to get desired information, even if he hadn't witnessed the whole exchange.

"I wouldn't say that. He was just friendly and helpful," Mina replied with a shrug, obviously trying to pretend that she hadn't been the cause- probably because Tomas was now glaring in the direction he thought the elf had left. And left was right, or correct, anyway; Raff was amused to notice that the young man was glaring in the wrong direction.

"Now where is this dragon?" Jonathan demanded, "Some of us just want to get this over with, you know. Who cares how he gave her the information?"

Now Raff had to do all he could to keep from laughing at the dirty looks both Tomas and Mina shot at the boy. This drama was fairly amusing, or at least more amusing than anything else on this trek, but the teen did have a point. Apparently Charity agreed, because she commented before Raff could get his smirk under control, "To the west, correct?" At Mina's nod, she continued, "Then west we go."

A thought occurred to Raff, "And we should get away from prying ears as soon as possible. Nice as these elves seem to be, we don't want them learning of our true mission," he whispered, "Obviously we'll need to explain it to the dragon- I'd recommend not in disguise, in case it doesn't work and she becomes angry- but the less who learn of it, the better." Not that he thought a map would be of particular use or attraction to a wood elf; they rarely left their forests and from what he knew, not many of them bothered to learn how to read, even in their own language. Still, it was better to be safe. Look at me, being all rational and thoughtful, he thought with mock-pride.

As if echoing his thoughts, Charity said, "That's an impressive statement. We'll turn you into a good, levelheaded Messenger yet."

Raff looked at her questioningly, wondering if she meant to be rude, and saw that she was grinning. "We'll see about that," he retorted, mirroring the grin.

The next part of the story can be found here.

The Acolyte's Map - Story, Part 6

2011-01-18T14:47:00.002-05:00

Banner art by Artmetica.
You can find the whole cover art here- the art is gorgeous!
There's also a mix/soundtrack that goes with this story- you can find that here.

The Acolyte's Map, Part 6
(Prologue, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 7)

Seated on the ground with his back against a tree, Raff spoke quietly with the mouse in front of him. Like most Messengers in their downtime, he was attempting some mischief out of boredom; in this case, trying to get Rhy to understand the concept of thievery and how to work a button on a backpack. The half-elf had a feeling that some of the stolen deliveries were in the bag Jonathan carried, but he had no desire to get close enough to the strange young man to rummage through it to find out. Still, he very much wanted to know if the letters he was expecting were in there... "No, no, no. You don't eat the button, you move it so you can get inside."

"But looks like cracker. Like crackers!" The mouse looked up at Raff expectantly. "Snack for Rhy?"

"You are crackers." When the mouse sent back a mental "?", he sighed, wishing he had a pet who understood jokes. "Look, it's simple. Slide the button like so, climb inside, grab paper with orange string... wait, can you see color?"

"See grass, see big elf, see tall leafy things. Not see this color." The mouse's nose twitched as he looked around, trying to scent the unfamiliar word.

The cleric covered his face with his hands, exasperated but slightly amused- was the mouse purposely being obtuse? Feeling this would be a lost cause, he wondered idly if he'd be able to find a cat or a weasel or some smarter animal nearby to train for this task. Before Raff could try explaining once again, he was interrupted by the sound of footsteps crackling through the underbrush at his back. Placing the mouse on his shoulder, Raff stood. When he saw that it was the person he was plotting against, he hoped the mouse would sit quietly and not get confused.

"Are you Raff Goldenstrings?" the once-Messenger inquired tersely, not looking at Raff.

The half-elf's hope was short-lived; when the mouse heard the name, it asked "String? That string? Orange? Where string?"

"Forget the string. Just stay quiet," Raff whispered to his pet. He narrowed his eyes, wondering what the recently-possessed boy wanted. When not openly glaring, Jonathan had spent most of the trip avoiding the half-elf and hadn't yet spoken to him directly. "Why do you want to know?"

Jonathan shifted his feet and kept his head down. "I've heard them calling you Raff. I need to know if that's you" he mumbled.

Raff rolled his eyes. "Fine, yes, that's me. Now why do you need to know that?"

"I wasn't going to give these back, but Edward says I'm going to need to eventually deliver everything and you're right here so it might be good to start." Drawing a selection of rolled up parchments out of the bag slung over his shoulder, Jonathan hesitated for a moment before tossing them over. He clearly did not want to get any closer to the older cleric, which didn't surprise Raff, although it still irked him to be so shunned. It wasn't as though he wanted that blasted map, contrary to what this boy believed.

Raff caught them, noticed the color of the strings tying them shut- three with orange, one with a green ribbon- and frowned. When he caught sight of the open wax seals, his anger changed to indignation. "You read them, too? What the hell's wrong with you!"

Holding his arms out in front of him to try to belay Raff's anger, Jonathan tried to play innocent. "It wasn't my fault! And if it makes you feel any better, I didn't just read yours."

"Oh, now that really validates your actions!" Taking a deep breath, Raff tried counting to ten. Then tried it again in another language when that didn't help. He tried to work through a third, but when he could only remember up to six, he gave up. Oh, forget this. I have reason to be angry! "Important messages are entrusted to us, you stupid boy! Possessed or not, it never occurred to you that people depend on letters making it to their intended destinations?" Raff paused to take another deep breath, clenching and unclenching the hand not holding the arrangement of scrolls, before continuing, "You never realized that people would be worried sick when they didn't hear from someone they were expecting news from? That sometimes letters are the only way of reaching those you care about?"

The youth muttered something, which Raff missed in his tirade. Ceasing his verbal reproach, he asked "What was that?"

"I said you didn't have to worry. He befriended a dragon, he wasn't eaten by one."

Raff stared then shook his head in bewilderment. Was this lad still lacking sanity? "Huh? What does a dragon have to do with anything?"

Now Jonathan looked up, but only to glance guiltily at the items in Raff's hand before returning his attention to his boot laces. The half-elf wished he had something heavier to throw at the young man than just a handful of paper, and had to settle on taking a step forward, all but seething. "And you recall the information of your thefts? You should be the one forced to encounter a dragon; maybe being faced with large amounts of acid or flame would set you straight." Realizing what he had just said, Raff reviewed that statement. "Meeting with dragon-flame or acid... that's it! Ratfink though you may be, you've given me an idea!"

The boy had begun to back away, but now finally looked up at Raff's face, his turn to be confused. "What idea?"

"I think I've found a way to speed up your atonement and eliminate the m- that item. We just need to find you a dragon."

"Just? A dragon?" the young man squeaked, sounding even younger and nothing like the attacker they'd foiled so recently.

While still peeved, that cooled Raff's anger into something more resembling pity. Quick to anger though he was, he was never one to hold a grudge- unless the boy had lied and the letters in his hand were bad news. Then all bets would be off. "You want to be normal again, right?"

Jonathan nodded dumbly, so shaken that he didn't cringe away when the older Messenger grabbed his arm to drag him back to where the rest of their party was setting up camp in a forest clearing.

*****
When Charity noticed the two of them in close proximity, she raised an eyebrow; this action reminded Raff of who he was dragging along. Dropping the boy's arm like it burned, Raff absentmindedly wiped his hand on his robe. "Guys, we need to find a dragon."

That brought Mina and Tomas over. "A dragon? Why?" Tomas sounded intrigued, which the half-elf took to be a good sign.

Jonathan tried to pout and glare at the same time and ended up just making faces. "Raff wants to get rid of me by dragon-fire."

"I said no such thing." Seeing the young man about to deny this, Raff rolled his eyes again and went on, "I'm miffed, not evil. My idea is to destroy the artifact with dragon-breath, not annihilate you with it."

From the look on Jonathan's face, Raff got the feeling that this would be much the same thing. Still, it was the best (in that it was the only) idea they'd had so far.

"There's a slight problem with that, though, Raff," Charity chimed in, always the voice of reason. "None of us happen to be carrying a convenient small dragon in our packs, you know."

"Technicality. There's bound to be one around here somewhere. I mean, Edward wouldn't have sent us south if there wasn't a good reason for it." The others gazed at him skeptically. "What? I can't possibly be the only one who trusts his judgment."

A collection of shrugs greeted this statement. "Besides, I know for a fact that there's a dragon... um... let me find it..." Raff began riffling through the messages Jonathan had so recently given him.

"Don't bother. That dragon is far to the northeast, halfway across the country and nowhere near the direction we were sent." Apparently as well as recalling the dragon, Jonathan still had the contents of the stolen letters memorized. Expecting Raff to be angry at this breach in secrecy, the youth was surprised to see him just shrug. Hey, it saved me time trying to skim through that tiny handwriting for the exact passage, the half elf thought to himself, maybe after this we could start using the kid as a scribe. He still wasn't happy about all this, but holding a grudge wouldn't get them anywhere on this quest.

"So we'd have to find another dragon. Who do we know who would know the location of one nearby?" Mina pondered.

"Rangers?" Tomas supplied.

Raff snorted. "Good luck finding one of them. The whole point of being a ranger is to keep from being tracked. Druids perhaps?"

"Possibly a bit easier to locate but not likely to help," Charity refuted.

"Wood elves."

"Come now, those would be even less likely to help than the druids and even more difficult to find," Raff commented. When the other four stared at him in confused surprise (well, confusion on the part of three of them; irritated bemusement on the part of Jonathan), Raff returned the gaze. "Okay, someone said 'wood elves'. I am not hearing things."

Once again, the group looked skeptical. Fortunately, before Raff could begin doubting his sanity any more than usual, a brown shaggy dog sauntered into the group and plopped itself down at his feet. "You again! What a fine mess you got me into earlier, by the way," the half-elf upbraided, not caring what the others thought about a one-sided conversation.

"Sorry. Had to leave and man got away."

"Obviously, which was the start of said mess." Raff crossed his arms over his chest, staring down at the mutt. If a dog could look chastened, this one did; dipping its head low it whined. Raff sighed and reached down to scratch it on the head. "It's fine. Forget it. Now what's this about elves?"

Either the words or the scratches cheered it up. Looking up with a doggie grin it sent mentally, "Smell wood elves nearby. Can take you to them."

Before Raff could agree, Charity interrupted, "Care to let the rest of us in on this conversation?" Taking his attention away from the dog, Raff saw that she had her hands on her hips and was tapping her foot. Never a good sign. Tomas and Mina both looked like they were going to laugh, while Jonathan was still trying to ignore him; both of these things were preferable to an affronted Charity.

Blushing, the half-elf explained, "That's the dog I met at the start of all this. He says he can take us to wood elves."

Charity nodded, which relieved Raff, and said, "And if there's a dragon anywhere near their forest, they'd know. But how would we get them to tell us once we located them?"

"Can't we just disguise ourselves as something they'd trust?" Tomas supplied. When the rest of the group turned to look at him in amazement, he shuffled his feet nervously. "We're all Messengers, right?"

When he caught Jonathan's scowl, he hastily corrected, "We all know how to use disguises, I mean. Can we make ourselves look like elves or rangers or something? Then it won't be as suspicious as a bunch of priests- sorry, Jon- looking for a dragon."

"That just might be crazy enough to work," Charity agreed. "Oh, stop moping. Maybe this will take your mind off of things," she then said sharply to the only non-Messenger of the group, choosing to ignore the glower he shot in her direction. She turned to the two shortest members of the party for their reactions to this idea.

Mina shrugged. "It's worth a try. The worst they can do is send us away."

Yeah, at arrow-point, Raff thought but refrained from saying it aloud. Instead he also shrugged. "Hey, at least this time it's a disguise where I don't have to change my appearance much. Works for me."

"Good, then it's settled." Talking directly to the dog, either assuming it understood her or figuring Raff would translate, she told it, "As soon as we're ready, I'd like you to lead us to those elves."

"She said-" Raff started to interpret.

"Tell her yes." Okay, then, Raff thought, either this is a really smart dog or there is some really powerful magic going on here. Even if he had cast the Speak with Animals spell, which he had already used up on the mouse, it shouldn't have been able to understand two humans (or close enough) at once.

Oh well, it wasn't worth worrying about. "He says he will."

Charity nodded. "Good. Now let's go see what kind of charade we can pull together."

The next part of the story can be found here.

((And if you were curious as to why Cyn has been so pissy lately, well, part of the reason is that green-ribboned scroll...))

Clerics in yarn form - OOC

2011-01-04T21:53:00.003-05:00

It's been forever since I made dolls for myself (and even longer since I've finished some; poor SwampFox still doesn't have armor or weapons), so I decided that, darnit, I was going to make a Raff. And, amazingly, I finished him! ...mostly. I still want to make him another outfit and his other animal sidekicks. And I even got some work done on the Cyn doll I "finished" two years ago.

So without further ado, a very image (and ramblings) heavy post- you can click the photos to be taken to flickr or to see them larger.

Here's Raff in his "official" outfit:

The priest robe and winged fox quarterstaff are what he needs to have when he's on duty as a Messenger. And yup, I did base the robe off the drawing Niere did for me.

If it wasn't obvious from the uneven hem of the robe, the dirt stains painted on (which are a lot more obvious in person- the picture washed that out), and the "stitches" on the one sleeve, Raff is a friggin' mess. As my fiancé so aptly put it, he's the elven equivalent of Pigpen. LOL! He was originally training to be a ranger, so he's constantly covered in dirt ... and small animals. That's his pet mouse on his shoulder.

There are two nice and neat things about Raff, though, that I made sure to include on the doll- his intricately braided hair (he has several tiny braids and two larger ones pulled back at the sides) and a jade and gold pendant necklace (I made that out of clay and gold-colored chain) that was given to him by his best friend. Otherwise, he looks like something the cat dragged in. ;)

Unlike a lot of religious orders, Messengers are allowed to be out of uniform, but only when not out on a delivery assignment (or if they have a really good reason to be going undercover...). This is what he looks like by default:

Yeah, Raff never quite got away from being a ranger, so that's his main disguise... although it's technically not a costume. He does have ranger training and this is how he's usually dressed. That sword at his belt is pointless, though; Messengers aren't allowed to wield harmful weapons, so Raff can only have this as part of a costume and never to fight with. It may as well be permanently stuck in the scabbard (which incidentally is how I sculpted it, lol).

He's wearing his crocheted leather armor and a gittern slung across his back. Here's a closeup of the gittern:

The gittern is really for his bard disguise, but I haven't made that yet.

This outfit is missing two things- a simple quarterstaff (or, rather, his actual quarterstaff, but with the fox removed- I'd have to make a different one, though) and dirt stains. This outfit should be just as messy as the robe, if not more so. However, I'm going to be making another outfit for this doll and with that one his legs and feet here would be visible- and that's a disguise he'd actually be clean for. So I can't dirty up this outfit the way I'd like.

And moving on, I didn't make too many changes to Cyn- I basically just added things he's acquired in the D&D game or that I added to his character design since I made the doll (here he is originally).

Basically he just got a fox, a javelin quiver, and some necklaces. The fox is hiding because I had to prop it up against Cyn's leg to get it to not flop over.

Here's a closeup of the quiver, along with the shield he already had:

The "H" stands for Hermes and the feather is one of the symbols of that deity.

It's not visible on the doll, but since these necklaces are Cyn's most prized possessions, I figured I should add them:

The Raff doll has an identical painted on one- that's supposed to be the amber pendant that all Messengers receive when they're Called by Hermes. (Cyn's should actually be on a gold chain, but copper was the closest color paint I had.) Cyn always wears these under his robe but never takes them off. Like I said, they're the two possessions that mean the most to him, but a Messenger isn't supposed to let anyone know about the amber necklace and the other has... er... personal meaning, so he's not about to let anyone see them. (In contrast, Raff's one necklace is always visible. That says a lot about these characters, but I'm not going to get into the reasons for this yet.)

I'll be making another outfit for Cyn at some point, but I'm going to wait until I either write about that main disguise or actually use it in the D&D game.

And here are the animals:

They're kinda wonky, but considering that the mouse is only about 3/4" tall and I'd never sculpted those kinds of animals before, they came out pretty well. I wasn't going to make a fox (the Cyn doll already has one I crocheted) but when I ended up with an animal shape too large for a mouse, I turned it into a fox and then retried the mouse.

I realized a few things as I made these dolls then placed them side by side:
1.) Cyn screwed up Raff's skintone. I should have used Cyn's (the usual doll color) for Raff and made Cyn the next color up (the color of my Caliban doll), but at the time I thought that darker color was too dark. So now Raff's stuck being pasty because I didn't want to make the two of them the same color.
2.) I make dolls differently than I used to; I didn't used to give humans ears and I used to set the eyes further apart. So Cyn looks strangely eyed or something. I was going to give him ears now but realized that if I give him that other disguise, they'd just get in the way.
3.) It's friggin' weird to see these characters the same height. Raff's a good six inches shorter than Cyn (the elf-boy is tiny), but I couldn't really show that in doll form. And yes, I do find it amusing that the physically strong, outgoing, protective fighter is so small, whereas the introverted, scholarly pacifist is about six feet tall.

Yeah, long blog post is long, but I wanted to ramble about all that. If you got this far, congrats! If not, I hope you at least liked the pictures. ;)

~Meri

The Acolyte's Map - Story, Part 5

2011-01-02T21:10:00.006-05:00

Banner art by Artmetica.
You can find the whole cover art here- the art is gorgeous!
There's also a mix/soundtrack that goes with this story- you can find that here.

The Acolyte's Map, Part 5
(Prologue, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 6)

Raff eyed the seemingly empty road- seemingly empty because all he could see was Mina, a short, slight blond woman in red robes that looked to be about two sizes too large for her. Fate (or something resembling it) had smiled on the Messengers- she'd returned to the Rinos mosque for a new assignment just as Kendric had handed over his letter, acting the part of pretentious noble as best he could while loudly demanding that someone carry it as soon as possible because it was vitally important that it reach one of Countess Berkeley's knights. The head priest hadn't missed that golden opportunity walking into his field of vision (dwarfed by the tall officer though she was) and had quickly handed the message over to Mina before Kendric had even marched out of the building.

The young woman had been slightly confused at first to be in such the right place at the right time to apparently have a delivery waiting for her, but after Raff had taken her aside to clue her into the plan- or at least a condensed version of it in case their target had a way of knowing if she knew this was a ploy- she quickly agreed to be the bait, consenting with a wicked smile.

With the bait thus selected, in less than a day they'd finalized the plan, created two fake deliveries to send off with obviously stronger and less tempting targets, called in a favor with one of Apollo's priests, found a wizard to help, and were now on their way. Raff was amazed at what could get done when an opportunity to trick someone loomed in the near future.

A soft thud and some muffled cursing sounded from a few feet away. Sounds like the others haven't figured out how to keep from tripping over each other, he thought, grinning to himself- and only himself. That was the reason for the "seemingly empty" road and the hired mage; Raff and the four others were invisible, trailing Mina as she headed southeast. The half-elf was doing pretty well at judging where his colleagues were located but the others weren't so lucky and kept tripping over themselves. Mina appeared to be ignoring the bumbling behind her, but Raff had caught her stifling a giggle a few times by pretending she was talking to the small dog strolling at her feet. Raff's bird wasn't happy about the terrier being nearby, but stayed quiet on Raff's shoulder. At least, he assumed the weight on his shoulder was the cardinal- like most of this troupe of plotters, Neru was invisible. Every once in a while he heard the bird give a cheerful chirp, so maybe it was enjoying itself. The mouse, however, wasn't handling this so well; Rhy had hidden itself in Raff's pocket and refused to come out.

The half-elf was beginning to wonder when they'd stop for the night and if he'd ever be able to lure the mouse from its hiding place when out of nowhere there was a young man standing off to the side of the road, leaning indolently against a tree as if he'd always been there. If it wasn't for the dog's sharp bark, Raff would almost have believed that. The others must have noticed this stranger, as well, because the sounds of stumbling and bumbling ceased as Mina crossed the gap to greet the stranger with a cheerful smile.

Raff was too far from the pair to hear what the man was saying in a low voice, but he caught Mina's change in demeanor. No longer smiling, she was grasping her quarterstaff tightly and her head was down, as if she could no longer meet the man's eyes. Her dog was standing close against her leg, growling up at the sandy-haired man, who was clearly trying to ignore it. Raff was starting to wish he could hear what was being said when the man switched from talk to action, shoving the girl and causing her to land heavily and awkwardly on the ground.

Raff brought both hands to the attack position on the simple wood staff he'd been given temporarily, getting angry that someone would knock around someone so innocuous, even if that had been their plan. When the man drew his sword and took a step towards the girl, the half-elf could hold back no longer. Forgetting that leaving the circle around his invisible companions would render him visible, he charged at the pair, calling out "Hey! Don't touch her!" His bird, also now in plain sight and sensing Raff's anger, sensibly flew up into the tree to get itself out of the way.

That shout got the young man's attention. With a scowl, he took a few steps away from Mina to brandish the sword in the other Messenger's direction. Raff was able to get a good look at him as he circled around, trying to put himself between the strange man and the prone woman. The man couldn't have been more than twenty and wasn't much taller than the half-elf, which was surprising, but an air of barely-contained anger seemed to make him appear more powerful. When Raff met his eyes, he quickly amended that assumption to "insane barely-contained anger" as he thought this guy's completely off his nut; Raff would be the first to admit that he wasn't exactly the most level-headed person on the planet, but the amount of crazy he was sensing from this individual would make him look positively normal in comparison.

While he was sizing up the would-be attacker, trying to decide if he'd have enough time to set off a spell, and if so, if he could do it unnoticed, he felt something touch his leg. Glancing down, he saw Mina pull her hand away to cork a vial of water as she chanted something under her breath. Mina, you idiot! he mentally cursed as he caught a few words of the spell she'd just cast- Protection From Evil. Why didn't you cast that on yourself?

The young man seemed oblivious of this, lost in his own angry world though he was, but had enough wits to ask- no, demand- of Raff "Who are you to care what I do?" Narrowing his eyes, he asked, "And how did you get here?"

There was no way Raff could resist that voice; he had the truth on the tip of his tongue, ready to tell this rogue exactly what he shouldn't, when a terse voice sounded in his head, "Do not tell. Remember, bard." That pulled him out of whatever glamour he'd fallen under- jolted him out of it, in fact. He blinked, looked down momentarily to remind himself that, yes, he was in fact garbed as a bard, and slid into that persona, grateful that Edward, the head priest, had suggested that he wear this disguise.

With his nose in the air and a hand on his hip, he kept his face expressionless and answered, "Mithlir Blackwind," with a slight nod of his head. Moving his long, currently still black hair out of the way, he adjusted the gittern case strapped to his back to draw attention to it and continued, "As you can guess, I am a minstrel; as such, I will not give away trade secrets that grant my clandestine comings and goings. Allowances must be made for a bard's... eccentricities." Hey, maybe if he played up his faux-craziness, he could get on the madman's good side. "As for why I care, I cannot stand idly by when a helpless girl is attacked; what kind of story would that make for myself?"

He looked over at Mina and caught the strange expression on her face before she covered it up by dropping her head to hide behind her hair. Please don't put us in jeopardy by laughing, he silently willed in her direction.

Fortunately, lost in whatever world most of his brain was inhabiting, the young man still failed to notice Mina and kept his eyes on Raff, who was developing the urge to fidget under that mad stare- he pretended to smooth down a crease in his black tunic to cover his discomfort. Raff was determined to keep up the disguise to keep the thief distracted, however, if just for the girl's safety; were the man to attack, Raff would much prefer the target to be himself- and if the man were evil as well as crazy, the half-elf would now be far safer than Mina.

The rogue slowly switched his sword back and forth between hands a few times, his lips moving as he silently said something to himself, possibly not knowing what to make of Raff. This, though, was something the half-elf was accustomed to, and he jumped on the man's distraction, pulling out his Charm magic again. "What say you leave this young woman alone; surely she has nothing of any interest to a traveler such as yourself." Whatever that type is, Raff thought scornfully, mentally taking in the state of the man's heavily disheveled appearance, greasy hair, and battered (but unfortunately still sharp) broadsword. If this was a Messenger, he's really let himself go. Although if that were the case, after seeing this individual Raff now could see why the older priests constantly badgered him about his travel-worn robes. It really didn't make you look particularly trustworthy, competent, or in this case, sane, to be so slovenly, although Raff generally lacked the eye twitching and glazed expression of which this man was in possession.

Raff thought his statement had worked as the young man began to lower the arm holding the sword, but that didn't last; he shook it off- actually shaking his head, and despite the gravity of the situation, Raff was almost surprised to not hear a loose marble or two rolling around in there. Taking another step away from Mina, he pointed the sword at Raff again. Blast! Why didn't that work? The Charm always works! Raff had time to think before having to quickly sidle out of the way as the blade swung past where his shoulder had been a moment before. The man's agility shocked him; surely someone with so few wits shouldn't be able to move like that! Feeling déjà vu, and once again being annoyed by the fact that he lacked a decent weapon, Raff brought his quarterstaff up into the defensive position.

The man didn't lunge again, but instead growled loudly, "Oh, but she does have something I desire." He didn't lower his sword, however, and was looking back at Mina, who was now trying unsuccessfully to get to her feet. Raff had a feeling she'd twisted at least one ankle as she fell.

That could have been taken to mean many things, but to Raff, it validated what he hadn't been completely sure of; this was the man they were looking for. The others heard this, too, and Raff caught mutterings behind him. Trying to keep the crazy man distracted and unable to hear what the half-elf hoped to be the chants of spells, he began talking to cover the noises of those still unseen. "I doubt you have ever seen her before. How can you know that she is in possession of something you covet? Perhaps this is just a case of mistaken identity. You could be wrong, yes?"

That last part returned the young man's attention to Raff. "Wrong? I am never wrong about something like this, silly bard!" he exclaimed, one eye twitching.

Who are you calling "silly," kettle? "Perhaps. How would I know such as what goes on in your head or even what you are looking for? I do know that whatever it may be, she has it not, so leave her alone."

"And you'd stop me?" Once again, Raff found the sword pointed in his direction.

"If I must." Okay, any time you guys get those spells going, that would be great. I only have this stupid staff to defend myself with, you know.

The man had his sword in an offensive stance, having brought it around to poke at Raff's chest (or, rather, the leather armor hidden under his tunic), when he was hit with the full force of several spells. As the crazed man went rigid, the tree behind the three suddenly joined the side of the Messengers as it began to wrap its roots around the man's legs, dragging him to the ground and causing the weapon to fall out of his hand. Knowing what would come next, Raff hurriedly began dragging Mina away as the rest of the vegetation in the area had a growth spurt, shooting out tendrils and roots to try to grab them.

Just out of range of the rampant greenery, Raff helped Mina to her feet as the others broke out of the invisibility sphere to encircle the grasping plants. The half-elf noticed Tomas poking at the edge of the brambles with his quarterstaff and made the obvious assumption about who had cast that particular spell, "A bit overkill, I think." At Tomas' look of chagrin, he shrugged, "Hey, don't worry about it. We got out fine."

"Thankfully." Edward commented, coming over and sizing up the new forest. "Thank you for your assistance, Tomas, but could you send those plants away, please? We need to be able to get him out."

"Out?" Mina asked, incredulous. She grimaced as she tried to stand straight. "Isn't it better to just leave him there for a while? Pardon me for saying it, but he deserves to stew in the pot he made".

"As tempting as that sounds, we cannot. Now please, Tomas."

Glancing back and forth between the angry and injured Mina and the calm but authoritative Head Messenger, Tomas threw his arms up in defeat. "Alright, alright." Concentrating on the mess of plants, he chanted a few syllables.

When the greenery began sinking back into the ground, Tomas came over to help Raff support the limping woman. "Why is nothing I do ever the right thing?" he mused to his companions.

"You did well," Mina reassured him, wrapping an arm around his waist so that Raff could let go. At least the half-elf assumed it was for that reason, but since he was eager to go help the others, he wasn't about to pry.

Raff made it to the other priests at the same time as the last of the tree roots vanished. He took a place in the circle they'd made around the now frozen-in-place thief; the man may not have been able to move or speak, but he could certainly glare and now that Raff was there, he was honored with the bulk of the silent anger.

Three of the priests- Edward, Charity- the conspiring woman he had met a few days before, and the middle-aged priest of Apollo who had been roped into this quest (Raff hadn't caught his name) were chanting. Charity came out of it first and remarked, "There's something magic in that scroll case on his belt... it's extremely magical, whatever it is."

"And radiating evil," the Head Messenger added as he, too, finished his chant. "As is the boy himself."

Raff started to reach down to grab whatever they were talking about, knowing it was a stupid move but not being able to resist its sudden attractiveness, when Charity smacked his hand away. "Do you want us to have to rescue two possessed evil Messengers, elf-boy? For the gods' sakes, you're as bad as Tomas." Raff was clearly confused, both by what had just happened and by how the heck Tomas fit into this, so she just grabbed his arm to pull him away before he could say or do something he'd regret.

"Raff, I know you're smarter than this," she said quietly so as to not disturb the others, "Snap out of it."

Raff blinked a few times, then seemed to come back into himself. "I … have no idea what just happened. Sorry about that."

Charity nodded. "Just as I thought; that item must be powerful if it can affect someone from a distance."

Worried, Raff asked, "But why me and not anyone else?"

"You're a few bricks short of a load?" She grinned impishly at his glare. "Sorry. Maybe it's because you're part elf, but I think it's likely because you've been around its influence for a bit longer than the rest of us have."

"Lucky me," Raff muttered, but was interrupted from saying more by a strange voice calling out for help. Charity tried to hold him back, but he brushed off her hand on his shoulder and walked back to the circle around the crazy young man.

Who was looking decidedly less crazy- or less angry-crazy, anyway. Someone must have dispelled whatever was holding him frozen because he was now sitting with his arms wrapped around his knees, looking pleadingly up at Edward. "It's magic. The map. It's making me do horrible things. Someone take it away before-" Noticing that Raff had come over, his expression hardened and he appeared to age a few years as a shadow fell over his face. "But not him. He can't have it!"

Okay, then... Raff thought, then moved behind the other clerics so he was out of sight again. As soon as he'd left the seated young man's field of vision, the boy reverted back to helplessness. "Please, sir, help," he pleaded to Edward.

Edward frowned, deep in thought. Finally he met the boy's eyes. "I think I have a plan. Would you be willing to hand over what you carry to us?"

The boy fought with himself, visibly torn about an answer. "Y... yes."

"And would you be willing to destroy it?"

That took even longer for a definite answer. Finally, so low that Raff could barely hear it from where he was standing, the boy whispered. "Yes. Please."

Edward nodded, seemingly satisfied.

"You can't mean that he's going by himself," Tomas replied, leading Mina over. Raff caught Charity rolling her eyes and had to suppress a laugh; it was obvious by now that the woman had been stuck working with Tomas on more occasions than this one.

"Of course not. You'll be going with him," the head priest explained, chuckling as the young man gaped at him. Looking around the circle, he added, "As will Raff, Charity, and Mina."

Raff and Charity both nodded, expecting that, although the half-elf was rather worried about having to spend more time around this strange once-priest and the item in his possession. Mina, on the other hand, glared at the boy, then turned (almost knocking Tomas off balance, small though she was) to look quizzically at Edward. "But... I'm injured, sir. I'm not going anywhere anytime soon."

Apollo's priest smiled roguishly and Raff couldn't miss the fact that he looked quite like Edward while wearing that particular expression on his face. "If you would stand up straight, I think you'll find that problem much improved."

Sure enough, Mina was able to now stand. Tomas let go rather reluctantly, which she either ignored or failed to notice. "Thank you, sir." Well, she said she was thankful, but the doubt in her voice was apparent; it was obvious that she didn't consider this much of a blessing.

I'm with you on that one, Raff agreed silently.

The next part of the story can be found here.

Yay for artsy presents! - OOC

2010-12-27T21:15:00.006-05:00

I know I'm not even close to finished posting Raff's story (and I've been meaning to work on Cyn's...) but it's time to unlock another character ~~mostly because I need a change from all these male protagonists~~. For a Christmas present, my awesomely talented friend Niere offered to draw me a character of my choice. I asked for Meren, one of the elves who has been hiding over on the sidebar of my blog. :)

Thank you so much, Niere! I just love those tattoos, by the way. :D

Meren is going to be the next character I write about, so I'll probably start alternating her with my Messenger boys' writing next month. She's a wood elfling, which actually makes her half-halfling, but she generally thinks of herself as a wood elf. Very few people would be able to guess the hobbit half of her background; she's the same height as a wood elf and usually keeps her furry feet covered in boots. The only features she has that give away her hobbity heritage is the fact that she smiles a lot (wood elves are not generally friendly people) and her face is a bit more round than elves generally have. Like the rest of her kin, she's covered in tattoos and usually wears greens and browns, even when she's garbed as a wizard. (The only time she doesn't wear those colors is when the weather is cold; then she'll wear white and browns to blend into the forest.)

By default and preference she's a fighter- a border guard, archer, and scout to her tribe- but somehow she's able to sense and use magic, despite magic not generally being something either halflings or wood elves use. Because of this she's a rather reluctant wizard and ... well, she's had some interesting magical results. These are what I'm most looking forward to writing. ;)

Another odd thing about her is that she has a centaur for a brother. Okay, so they're not actually related, but this fact will most definitely pop up in her writing, as well. There's a lot of contradictions and strange things surrounding this elfling.

I'll be posting her introduction and creating her bio page in the near future; I want to get more of Raff's story up first.

~Meri

Rant from the Goblin Mines

2010-12-22T11:25:00.007-05:00

((One of my friends was curious about the long rant Cyneric spewed in a recent D&D game, so I figured I'd share so she could read it. I wrote half of this and my fiancé, the DM, elaborated, apparently enjoying the fact that my poor character is slowly losing his marbles. This took place right after this journal entry and involved Cyn yelling at the top of his lungs at the rest of the party of adventurers. Never before has my usually-stoic cleric freaked out like this...))

"You are all a bunch of brash and recklessly addlepated twits! Morons! Complete and utter idiots! Do any of you have an iota of common sense? Don't any of you lot ever think? What a sorry bunch of so-called adventurers! Smart- get yourselves in a position where you have to be rescued. That will really help those we've come to help. I'll say it again- morons!

"I don't know what in the gods' names came over Ghost, but the rest of you... Why did you join in that madness? What are we, throwing a kegger out here? And don't get me started on the whole 'stealth operation' thing. What part of 'don't let them see you under any circumstances' was so difficult for you to wrap your heads around? AIIIIIGH!

"I don't believe this! I was under the impression that I was adventuring with a seasoned and experienced platoon of elite mercenaries, but APPARENTLY 'watch out for the goblins' wasn't in the curriculum! I've got half a mind to... RRRRRRGH! Hey! I've got an idea! Let's go in and get us all killed this time! It worked so well on the first attempt, I figured we'd take another shot at it! When they were handing out brains, you must have thought they said plains, and yours got burned up in a brushfire! I don't believe this! I thought my family was bad, but... my family! I have a family to feed! AIIIIIIIGH! ... I'm going for a walk!"

((At which point his rant quickly turned into utter nonsense and he stormed off in slightly-insane fury [like I said, some marbles have gotten loose] to spend the next few hours alone in the woods, talking to animals and praying to try to calm himself down. Messengers are rather eccentric to start and there's a reason for this extra level of... well, oddness. He's not "crazy" so much as distracted and out of sorts; to say he's not feeling like himself right now would be an understatement.))

The Acolyte's Map - Story, Part 4

2010-12-21T14:14:00.005-05:00

Banner art by Artmetica.
You can find the whole cover art here- the art is gorgeous!
There's also a mix/soundtrack that goes with this story- you can find that here.

The Acolyte's Map, Part 4
(Prologue, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 5)

A red bird flew through the window and landed on the desk right on top of the paperwork Kendric was reading, startling the dark haired man. About to shoo the cardinal back outside, he caught sight of a tiny scroll attached to its leg. A courier bird wasn't an unfamiliar sight in the barracks so he untied the green ribbon attaching the paper to its leg. Assuming it was meant for someone else, he was surprised to see his own name on the outside of the paper; generally if something was important enough to be sent by bird, it was meant for a higher ranking officer.

As he unrolled the small parchment an even smaller piece of purple ribbon fell out. This he placed aside as he read the short message:
"Kenny-
Meet me at Old Hamish's Inn tonight. Important situation to discuss- need your assistance. Neru will wait for reply."

He smiled to himself despite the seriousness of the wording; the only two people who called him that were his little brothers, and the color of the ribbon informed him that it was from the honorary brother rather than the one by blood, which was useful because the message was vague and not signed. He assumed the purple one was inside because two tied ribbons wouldn't fit on such a small bird.

He'd laughed at this color-coded idea originally, thinking it just one of the bizarre ideas his real brother was known for, but he'd come to realize that, although strange like most of those ideas, this one actually worked... Well, he was optimistic about the idea for vanishing paper, but his brother hadn't gotten that idea off the ground yet. In this case, though, it was a good way of saying a lot in a small space, or being secretive if that were needed. Green string or ribbon meant that the message was from Raff and the purple meant "disguise" or "be extra sneaky", which, coupled with the wording, meant both this time. A lack of bright red string told Kendric that this was sent in some sort of unofficial capacity; were that color there, it would mean that it was from Raff-as-Messenger, not Raff-as-brother- or more appropriately, Raff-needing-favor. Still, the cleric never asked for help if it wasn't needed, and even then often didn't notice until too late that he was in a situation where help was warranted, so Kendric wasn't about to turn him down.

Distracting the bird with a piece of bread leftover from breakfast, Kendric fastened two bits of string onto its left leg: one blue, one white. Blue was his personal color and white meant "yes" or a positive answer of some kind. If anyone noticed the random pieces of string he had laying around, no one had ever commented on it.

He picked the bird up gently and carried it to the window. As he watched it fly away, he wondered what trouble the half-elf had gotten himself into this time; trouble always seemed to follow him, although generally it became other peoples' misfortune. Yes, this is bound to be interesting, he thought, grinning as he stroked his short beard, I wonder what he wants me to do to help?

*****
The inn was full of patrons when Kendric entered that evening and he hoped that the large crowd would mean that no one would recognize him. He'd tried to garb himself in cheaper clothing than he was used and nothing he wore bore any insignia of his rank, but he knew he wasn't the best at hiding who he was. And, truth be told, he wasn't entirely comfortable around all these boisterous working-class people. He always tried to see everyone equally, but it's hard to fight your upbringing, especially when you're feeling rather overwhelmed. This is why, when he felt a hand tap him on the arm and he looked down to see a raven-haired youth of that aforementioned class trying to get his attention, his first thought was Why is this kid trying to bother me? His annoyance fled when he caught sight of the bright green eyes under that large hat and he grinned as the "kid" embraced him quickly before beckoning to follow him upstairs.

Once in one of the small rented rooms with the door firmly locked, Raff gestured for Kendric to keep silent; the man watched as Raff brought his hand to his chest and quietly began chanting and gesturing with his free hand, his focus seeming to be on the door. Once done, the half-elf noticed Kendric's confused expression and shrugged. Taking a seat crosslegged on the bed, he explained in a quiet voice, "I can't keep anyone from listening in, but if they put their ear to the lock at any time in the next ten minutes or so, they'll be in for a nasty surprise." When the confusion didn't lessen, he continued, "It's going to get gradually warmer and if anyone is touching it, we're bound to hear them start yelling."

"Isn't that rather cruel?" Kendric asked, raising an eyebrow.

Raff grinned. "Then they shouldn't be listening."

The man eyed the door uncertainly. "Do you think anyone would be listening? I had hoped no one would notice us."

The priest shrugged again. "If they did, I doubt anyone would care enough to even remark on it."

"Ah, good."

"They probably just think that you've taken on a young lover." Raff said, keeping his voice flat and impassive.

Preoccupied, it took Kendric a second before he exclaimed, "I've taken- what?"

Raff grinned impishly. "Just kidding, brother dearest. That's why I picked this particular disguise; if anyone happened to notice us or caught on to who you are, they'd probably just assume I'm your son or nephew or something."

Kendric felt rather skeptical about that. He did have a nephew about the age Raff was trying to pass himself off as, but... it was just strange to think of his honorary brother as being able to appear that young, even after he himself had already fallen for the disguise. On the other hand, Raff's age had always been a bit of a mystery. Kendric had thought the two priests had been playing a trick on him when they'd explained that the half-elf was actually four years older than he was because he knew for a fact that Raff had entered the Messenger's mosque not even a year earlier than his younger brother- so Kendric now had an older little brother. Why was everything so confusing when it came to elves? It was enough to give someone a headache.

Shaking his head to clear it, Kendric changed the subject to something that was randomly bugging him, "How did your hair turn black, anyway? Some of that mischievous magic of yours?"

Raff wrinkled his nose. "I wish. It's soot. Well, mostly soot. It ends up being a sticky mess, but it works for a while." He glanced at the door before continuing in a softer voice, "Kenny, I need your help."

"So I figured." Pulling over the room's only other seat, a rickety old wooden chair, Kendric sat close to the bed so the two could plot quietly. "What did you do this time?"

Raff pouted indignantly. "Why'd you assume I did something wrong?" Noticing the look on his brother's face, he remedied that comment before Kendric could give them away by breaking into laughter. "Okay, so it was a good guess. But I didn't, not really. We- that is, the Messengers- have a problem. A very large problem. Someone is attacking us and is stealing a good portion of the messages we carry."

"So why the secrecy if it's a large scale religious predicament? Or have you priests just become overly obsessed with costumes and charades?"

It was a sure sign of the gravity of the situation, Kendric noticed, that Raff neither stuck out his tongue nor fired back a quip. Instead the half-elf just looked troubled and remained oddly quiet. Finally he answered, "Because we can't be open about this problem, even with ourselves; the Head Messenger here in Rinos fears that the attacks and thefts have something to do with a Messenger, or at least someone who was once a Messenger. At the moment only a few of us are aware of who- or rather what- this criminal might be. Edward wants us to keep this as quiet as possible, in case he learns of our plans."

Kendric nodded, following most of this except... "Why tell me? You know I'll gladly help what I can, but I'm no priest or mage. I cannot track him down or anything of that ilk."

"No, but you are someone important." Raff saw that his brother was about to deny this, so he hastily added, "Ken, listen. What we need is someone in on the plan who isn't one of us because we need that person to send what is, to all intents and purposes, a real letter or message. An important real letter because it has to be enough to attract the attention of this renegade so he goes after it himself, rather than sending a lackey."

"Is he likely to do that?"

"He already has." Raff explained the attack and the minimal plan the few Messengers had come up with the night before, omitting nothing and hoping that Kendric would be able to contribute to the plan.

"I follow and of course I will help, but..." Kendric had a good idea what the answer to this would be, but still couldn't help asking, "Would something I send be that appealing? I'm just a lieutenant." That last part came out more resentful than he'd intended.

Raff sighed. "Stop playing modest. You're the best possible accomplice for this- a noble officer with no apparent ties to any priests in the area."

"But what about you?"

Raff eyed his brother- his muscular, tall, tanned, aristocratic, and above all human brother- and did his best not to laugh. "Be serious. If anyone caught on to the fact that you even know me, they'd have to be a mind reader and then we'd be caught in an even more difficult mess."

"Ah, right." There was a time when his connection to the Messengers had been obvious, but that had been more than a decade ago and half the kingdom away. No one here knew that he had family and friends in the order, so why could he never remember that fact? Trying to redeem himself from his brief absentmindedness, he supplied an idea. "I believe I could pull both rank and class fairly easily- would a letter going to a knight suffice?"

"Of course. Osric, right?" Raff asked, naming the oldest brother in Kendric's family. At the man's nod, he went on, "But can you trust him? I know you've said he's short a few marbles- and that was one of your nicer comments- and I'd rather not let anyone in on this who we can't entirely trust."

"But there's no need to tell much, correct? It just has to appear to be a real message," Kendric plotted, "I think for that we can trust Os, and if the letter slips past this thief and he winds up actually receiving it, well, I'm all for confusing and vexing him. We can straighten it out later if we must."

Raff bit his lip as he thought about this. "There's so many ways this could go wrong, but I don't see any other option. We'll just have to hope that it does get waylaid. Try not to fill it with too many outrageous lies, okay?"

"If you must insist. I'll do my best to make it befit your grand schemes," he assured with a smirk.

Now Raff stuck out his tongue. "You know, you'd have made a good Messenger. You have sarcasm and roguishness well-honed."

"And be stuck wandering backwater lands at the whim of whoever desired a message to be sent? No thank you." He chuckled at Raff's expression, then turned serious. "One thing is bothering me about this situation, however."

"Only one? I would have thought there'd be several."

"You were going to leave the city without bothering to say hello, weren't you?"

"That's what's bothering you about this whole thing? And they say my priorities are askew." At Kendric's glare, he sighed. "Look, I forgot what town I was in."

The man raised an incredulous eyebrow. "It's the biggest city in the kingdom. Next to a lake. How did you forget?"

Raff shrugged sheepishly. "It's a city, Kenny. They all look the same after a while; huge buildings, too many people, distracting noises, not enough trees-"

"All right, nature boy, I get the point." He shook his head and wondered aloud something he'd never understood about his brothers. "I don't know how you and Cyn can be so comfortable outside city walls."

"I was going to be a ranger, remember? Being outdoors obviously goes with the territory, no pun intended. Not so sure about him, but that happens to most Messengers, I think; when you spend most of your life traveling, you become as comfortable outdoors as in." Raff answered, then figured this was a good a time as any to ask what had been on his mind for a while. Trying to keep his voice steady and not sound too hopeful, he inquired, "But speaking of Cyn, have you heard from him lately?"

"Not in over a month," Noticing the half-elf's face fall, he asked, "Why? What happened?"

"Nothing's happened, which is the problem." At Kendric's blank stare, Raff sighed again. "I haven't heard from him in even longer than that. I'm worried. Possibly his letters are being stolen, but..."

"I'm sure he's fine, Raff. One of us would have heard if it were otherwise."

"You're probably right. But if this thief does have those letters, he'll regret it. I swear."

Kendric nodded, knowing that he wouldn't want to be on the bad side of the Messengers, particularly this one. Messing with people who have perfected practical jokes to a career is never a bright move. "Then we'll just have to do what we can to catch him. Assuming you priests have this sorted out on your end, I'll bring the message by in two days."

"Perfect. If anything changes, I'll send my bird again." As the two rose, he added gratefully, "Thank you so much, Kenny- with your help we just might be able to pull this off. The Messengers- well, the ones in on this- will be very thankful for your assistance."

The man reddened, feeling abashed but pleased. "Pah, you know you only had to ask. You don't have to twist my arm for me to admit that I miss spending time with you crazy clerics."

Before Kendric could say anything else, he was startled by his brother unexpectedly hugging him tightly with a muffled "Love ye." It shouldn't have surprised him since he knew that, despite being half-elven (elves, in Kendric's knowledge, were the epitome of stoic and bland), Raff always wore his heart on his sleeve, but it was something the man still couldn't become accustomed to; he was from a society where everyone- particularly the men- hid their true feelings and avoided showing any kind of passion or emotion. He could count on one hand (and still have a finger or two left over) the number of times his real brother had told him that, and Cyn was a self-proclaimed rebel of their caste.

Kendric's awkward return of the embrace seemed to satisfy the half-elf, though; Raff grinned rather waggishly before bounding out of the room. He does that on purpose, doesn't he? Kendric asked himself, shaking his head.

The next part can be found here.

The Acolyte's Map - Story, Part 3

2010-12-13T00:05:00.004-05:00

Banner art by Artmetica.
You can find the whole cover art here- the art is gorgeous!
There's also a mix/soundtrack that goes with this story- you can find that here.

The Acolyte's Map, Part 3
(Prologue, Part 1, Part 2, Part 4)

The head priest, who Raff had learned was named Edward, and two other lower ranking priests, who he was assured were of use in a fight (although he was a bit cynical about that after his scuffle earlier), followed the half-elf's lead. They made it there far faster than Raff's trip out, but still the sun had set by the time they reached their destination. Leaving his bird resting on a saddlebag (his mouse already safely nestled in his hood), he swung himself down from his horse and walked towards the tree while the others fumbled through their packs for a light source. Expecting to see heat radiating from the unconscious man and the dog, he was surprised to find neither. Thinking that maybe the man did get away and the dog had changed position to wait elsewhere, he moved to scan the area. Still nothing.

He waved to his traveling companions to get their attention, forgetting that they couldn't see him in the dark as anything other than a pair of glowing green eyes. Right, humans. No wonder humans are so good at not noticing things right in front of their noses, he thought as, not for the first time, he wondered how they got by with such a limited range of vision. He began walking back to the group, but unfortunately one of them managed to get a large lantern lit at just that moment- and since he had been looking in that exact direction, the sudden light blinded him. His companions located him this time by the string of muttered Elvish curse words involving the inconsideration of humans and their blasted need for light.

Hand covering his eyes, he brought the mumbling to a close and said, "They're gone."

"Are you sure? It's rather dark," the one younger Messenger replied, forgetting who (or rather what) he was talking to.

Raff removed his hand and blinked, trying to bring his vision back to the visible range. "Dark isn't a problem. Half-elf, remember? Yes, I'm sure they're gone." A thought occurred to him and he added, "Although... I know I didn't hit the thief hard enough to kill him, but maybe something else got to him after I left? Then he wouldn't be radiating any heat."

The head priest handed his lantern to the female cleric. "Charity, Tomas, circle the area and see if you can find any sign of them."

The two set off, taking the light with them. Raff blinked again, infravision returning as his headache began to fade. "Thank you for passing over the lantern. But now you can't see, which doesn't seem fair," he said to Edward.

The older priest shrugged and sat down on the side of the road. "We only brought the two lanterns so no more than two could search. To tell you the truth, I'm not entirely surprised to find the man and dog gone. … What have I just sat in?"

"Whatever it is, it's neither alive nor emanating heat or cold, so you're probably fine," Raff said without thinking, his ranger training taking over. Catching what he'd said, he blushed, glad that his superior couldn't see him, "Sorry, sir, I didn't mean to be curt." He realized that the man was chuckling and grinned in relief. "But what did you mean? You expected them to be gone; but one was unconscious and the other seemed well-trained by someone, even if that someone wasn't me," he couldn't help adding that last part in, figuring that this particular head priest didn't mind frankness.

"Tell me- did the man appear out of nowhere?" Edward asked as Raff sat next to him.

The younger priest looked embarrassed again, and once again was glad that he was talking to a human who couldn't see in the dark. "I don't recall. I wasn't really paying attention; he could have just been silent and snuck up on me. But thieves don't generally have the ability to just appear, do they?"

"Not normally, no. I ask because the records we've received of the thefts frequently involved the Messenger either being surprised by the attacker catching them unawares, or the man vanishing after the delivery was stolen. At first we just attributed that to head trauma from the attack, but too many stories have matched up for it to be anything so simple."

The half-elf frowned unseen. "There have been many attacks, then? Has anyone been seriously hurt or killed?" Please say no on that last one, he thought silently. He'd never forgive himself if he'd let a killer escape to hurt more of his innocent brethren. Stupid, that was stupid. I should have found a way to drag him back with me, regardless of what that dog said. It's not as if the dog even did what he said he would. That bothered Raff more than would be expected; humans may be good at lying, but previously he'd always been able to trust an animal's word, even if that word generally was blather about cheese.

"Yes, there have been many; as far as we can tell, they span back more than a year." Catching the worry in Raff's voice, he answered the next question in a reassuring tone, "We've received no word of any Messenger being killed. Yes, some have been more injured than others, depending on how hard they fought back, but no one was gravely harmed."

That helped ease some of Raff's apprehension, but he was still upset. "I just wish that I'd done something more to stop him. Now he's free and the gods only know where." This was likely an incorrect assumption considering how confusing the gods were making everything, but Raff wasn't to know that. "And I wish I knew where the dog vanished to!"

The mouse, possibly disturbed by his raised voice, climbed out of his hood and scampered down his arm to the ground, then darted away. Raff jumped to his feet, not hearing Edward's next reply. Calling "Rhy! Get back here!" in Elvish, the stress of the day causing him to revert back to his native language, he chased after the small glowing shape until it finally came to a stop and began chittering. Raff knelt down next to the mouse and cast the spell needed to speak with animals, assuming that his pet had something to tell him. Sure enough, after he'd waved his hands around and completed the chant, the chittering turned into coherent words in his head. "Teeth-growler was here. Pointy big thing here. Small pointy thing from wind not-mouse here."

Coherent, but not necessarily understandable. Such was having a mouse for a pet. Raff tried to get him to explain further. "Pointy things?"

"Pointy things. Big and small. Wind mouse sheds like small." That made a bit more sense; it occurred to him that Rhy called the cardinal "wind mouse", presumably because there was some sort of camaraderie between the pets. So "wind not-mouse"... another bird? "Wind mouse sheds"... a feather, of course! So the mouse was telling him there was a feather and... something else pointy.

The half-elf reached around, trying to locate these objects; his one hand found the feather laying in the grass at the same time he felt his much-abused robe acquire yet another tear, this time at the knee. Ah, "pointy big thing" would be a sword, then. About to grab it lightly to try to locate the hilt, he suddenly heard a thought echo in his head, "Don't touch that!". His hand shot back as if the air around the sword was a half-elf repellant and he wrinkled his eyebrows in confusion. His first instinct was always just to grab something; why would he tell himself not to? And, come to think of it, that voice didn't sound like him... he looked around to see if someone was nearby watching, but located no other heat source than the mouse, and that voice was far too … powerful to be a rodent. He shook his head. It's been a long day. I must be hearing things. Still, he quickly shrugged out of his robe, carefully using it to wrap around the sword while taking care not to touch it and doing his best not to snag the fabric. He'd surely catch some flak for being out of uniform, but it's not like he was technically on an assignment at the moment.

"Where is the dog now? When did he vanish?" Raff asked, mostly to himself, as he tucked the feather into his belt pouch. Sure enough, the reply he got back from the mouse was, "?" Too complicated. It's not like the mouse would have known this, anyway. He sighed and picked the mouse back up.

"Teeth-growler went away." The mouse chimed in again.

"Yes, I know that."

The mouse wrinkled its nose. "Went away! No trail. Went away." Raff had managed to teach the mouse what to call the path of another animal, even if he hadn't been able to teach it better grammar. But... "no trail"? That didn't make any sense. Everything left a trail. Beginning to feel overwhelmed, he figured it would be a good time to head back to the group; maybe they could figure out what was going on. Before standing up he said softly, "Thank you, Rhy," and handed it a piece of grain rations from his pouch, then put his pet back on his shoulder. As the mouse nibbled on its treat, Raff received ramblings of his hair being a secure den- and another of cheese, for some reason- which he always assumed was its way of showing affection. Or possibly the mouse wanted a better snack. It was hard to tell with mice.

*****
This time Raff made sure to let his eyes adjust to the brightness of the lamps as he approached the rest of the group now waiting by the horses. Before they could voice confusion at him carrying a bundle of robes in his hands, he explained, "I found the discarded sword but didn't want to touch it." Turning to the head priest, he elaborated, "If the man can appear and disappear, maybe it's magical."

Edward nodded. "That was wise. Perhaps we can track him or whoever he's working for using the sword. Truth be told, there's something I didn't tell you about this thief earlier; I believe that a renegade Messenger is involved."

The younger priests looked incredulous and rather offended. "The one who attacked Raff couldn't have been one of us. We don't know swords, for one thing," Tomas pointed out.

Here Raff quickly shook his head, his braids whipping around fast enough to cause the animal on his shoulder to squeak in protest and, since the spell hadn't worn off yet, Raff heard a mental "No shaking den!". Absentmindedly petting the mouse to calm it, he corrected, "We can't wield most weapons. Some of us may possess the knowledge or training." That was one point that had irked him when he'd entered the priesthood as a teen: having to give up the weapons he knew how to use in order to learn far less potent ones. "But you're right. That man certainly didn't seem like a Messenger, renegade or not."

"I think you're both correct." As the three looked confused, Edward continued, "My belief is that he's a thug hired by the renegade Messenger. The first reports were of a weaker opponent who seemed to always know where to find the most important deliveries; I think this was the Messenger."

"But that doesn't make sense," Charity chimed in. "We don't... well, renege! There's never been an instance of one of us going bad, right? Hermes has never made a mistake in the people he's Called." Raff reached up with a free hand to touch the feather-in-amber pendant now visible over his tunic, noticing the other three bring their hands to their chests to grab theirs still hidden under their robes. Despite the gravity of the situation, he couldn't help feeling amused that in times of spiritual crisis a Messenger would reach for that particular holy symbol, not the one that the rest of the world knew about; having two holy symbols certainly came in handy whenever they had to go undercover where the quarterstaff would be conspicuous. Not that I could grab the staff now if I wanted to. Hmph.

"You've hit upon the major flaw in my theory," Edward said, then sighed. "Perhaps he was forced into this or is being influenced by someone stronger. There is no way of knowing, unless..." The older man looked thoughtful as an idea struck him. "Maybe we could set a trap to draw him out?"

Raff grinned mischievously at that idea. Tomas still looked rather confused but the half-elf noticed Charity's smirk that mirrored his own grin- she, too, must have realized that this would be the perfect time to work some playful treachery.

Sure enough, she already was plotting something. "If there is a Messenger involved, how about we try to lure him out with an innocent and solitary piece of bait, possibly spreading a rumor that he or she is carrying something of great importance?"

Here Raff had to shake his head again. "That might not work. To all appearances I was an easy target, and that possible hired thug was still used."

"That is true. Hmmm..." Edward paused in thought, then went on, "If one person serving as bait would not work, what if there were several? Surely he wouldn't be able to acquire more than one or two lackeys or accomplices to assist him."

Finally caught up to speed, Tomas added his two coppers, "And with multiple targets, if there is a renegade Messenger involved, he'd go after the weakest of them."

Raff noticed three pairs of eyes simultaneously turn his direction. One time I could milk innocent and weak for my own enjoyment and it wouldn't work, he though and shook his head ruefully. "Sorry. I'd love to be this bait, but I have a feeling whoever is in charge of this scheme has already received word about a half-elf with a demonic dog. There aren't enough half-elven Messengers even without canines for this person to not realize that they'd be going after the same target, and a disguise would make me even more oddly conspicuous." The downside of being a half-elf: even good with disguises, there was nothing he could do about his height. He usually had to settle for either human adolescent or full elf, neither of which would work in this situation; no full elves were Messengers and teenagers weren't sent on important assignments, which a rebel cleric would know.

As the other three mused silently, probably wondering who else they could throw under the wagon, a flaw in the plan occurred to Charity. "But what if he found out that this delivery was a scam? The ideal would be an actual message from someone important who needed to send something important, right? Where would we find someone who fits that description?"

Here a plot contrivance fell into place as Raff recalled in just what city he'd ended up. "Don't worry about that part. I've got it covered."

"I thought you said a disguise wouldn't work?" Charity asked, eyebrow raised.

"Not me personally- I just know someone who fits the bill." He grinned impishly, knowing the person he had in mind wouldn't be able to turn down this opportunity. "Trust me."

The next part of the story can be found here.

The Acolyte's Map - Story, Part 2

2010-12-02T12:37:00.006-05:00

Banner art by Artmetica.
You can find the whole cover art here- the art is gorgeous!
There's also a mix/soundtrack that goes with this story- you can find that here.

The Acolyte's Map, Part 2
(Prologue, Part 1, Part 3)
The sun was beginning to lower on the horizon by the time Raff made it back to the Messenger's mosque in Rinos and he idly wondered if he'd be able to borrow a horse for his next assignment. Backtracking was boring. Once inside he was unable to locate the head priest, so he looked around to see if anyone of a high enough rank to help wasn't too busy. Spotting someone who looked to be both his own rank and apparently staring into space, Raff walked over to him. Still not able to get the man's attention, the half-elf was beginning to wonder if someone had charmed this cleric into not moving (it wouldn't be the first time a Messenger pranked one of their own in that manner) when he blinked, finally noticing the shorter priest standing in front of him. "Ah, Brother Rafion, you're back. And looking more unkempt, I see," he said, all but tsking.

"It's Raff," he replied automatically, thinking at least he didn't use my surname, too. I'm really not in the mood to be laughed at right now. Not that this guy looks like someone with a sense of humor- what kind of Messenger doesn't have a sense of humor, anyway? Then the rest of the comment made its way from his rather large ears and he looked down at his carnelian-colored robe. With a shrug, he added, "That's unimportant. I got into a fight and it got torn." Well mostly from the fight, he told himself, crossing his fingers behind his back, but surely he doesn't know about the frayed hem and a few stains it already had. That's one thing that never came easily to Raff as a priest- keeping himself as neat as their deity apparently required. He'd been training to be a ranger long before being Called by Hermes and was so used to ending up rather disheveled that he rarely noticed unless someone pointed it out. And he still couldn't understand why a mischief god was so concerned about clothing, anyway. Seemed silly and a waste of time, but maybe deities had a lot of time on their ethereal hands.

The other priest frowned at that comment. "If you plan to get into fights, that really should be on your own time, not when you're out on an assignment."

Raff blinked. Is he serious? I had one person underestimate my fighting abilities today and then would have killed me if it wasn't for my quarterstaff, and now this one thinks I go looking for scuffles? So much for appearing harmless and innocent. Part of him snorted at that and chimed in, Riiight. Harmless. Perhaps he's heard stories about us? The rest of Raff chose to ignore that inner voice.

Great, even I'm ganging up on myself now. Can I get a retry of this day, please? "No, look, I was attacked and someone tried to steal the message I was carrying." He had been holding the staff together because it didn't feel right to have it in two pieces, but now he separated his hands to illustrate this fact.

The man glanced at it and asked, "What, did he try to steal the staff, too?"

Raff rolled his eyes up to stare at the ceiling and wondered if hitting him with one of the pieces would knock some sense into him. How, in the name of Hermes, did this dunce ever reach full priesthood? "No," you stupid man, he silently included. "He tried to hit me with a sword and the staff blocked it. What would he want the staff for?" Realizing this was a dumb question to ask as the man probably didn't understand rhetorical, he quickly added, "Wait, don't answer that. A cloaked man tried to steal the letter from me and I got into a fight to defend it. Like we're supposed to, remember?" Yes, this was coming off snarkier than Raff had intended, but he was rapidly running out of patience.

Before the man could do more than open his mouth to spout another inane comment, Raff went on, "I knocked him out and the dog said he'd guard him while I got help."

"A dog said that?"

"Yes. Some stray dog came to my assistance and told me to get help." Please tell me he's not going to harp on this small point.

"But dogs don't talk."

Oh, for the love of- "You're a Messenger, aren't you? You should be aware that some of us can speak with animals." Not that Raff knew how that particular animal had talked to him, but he wasn't about to bring that point up here.

The other priest looked sheepish, which was an improvement on simple. "I never quite believed that was possible."

"Well, we can. Now will you please find me the Head Messenger? I don't know how long my attacker will stay unconscious." It was finally occurring to Raff that he probably should have tied the man up before he left, the dog obviously not possessing hands to be able to do that itself.

"He's busy-" the clueless cleric started to reply, but was interrupted by the voice of an older man.

"Not for something this important, Geoffrey. Please return to what you were doing," the high priest, a dark haired man just entering middle age, said. The moronic priest bowed his head and walked away as the Head Messenger turned his attention to Raff. "If you'd follow me to my office? I think I have some important information for you before help can be sent."

The half-elf wanted to comment that they should go now, but knew better than to backtalk to his superior. With a nod, he followed. Once in the office, the Head Messenger took a seat behind his desk. Noticing Raff's preoccupation directed at the quarterstaff pieces still in his hands, he knew what was bothering the younger cleric- or was at the top of the queue of things bothering him, anyway. "Do not worry about the staff; it served you well and we can reattach the symbol to a new piece of wood if you'll let it go for a short time. Hermes would rather have you in one piece than what you carry."

Raff looked up, surprised that he'd been able to catch what he was thinking. "I figured, sir, but... it doesn't feel right for it to not be together. I've carried this for fifteen years and it's never broken." Frowning, he placed the pieces on the desk.

The older priest gave a reassuring smile. "Sometimes things have to be broken so you can see what the risks really are."

Profound, but not particularly helpful, Raff couldn't help thinking. Trying to ignore the broken staff, he changed the subject, "We really need to catch that thief who tried to attack me. Shouldn't we?"

"Of course, but that's what I wanted to tell you away from … rather senseless ears." Well, at least he agrees with me about whatshisname, Raff thought as the man continued, "We've received word about attacks like this, but assumed at first that they were isolated events, targeting specific important letters that somehow someone had gotten word about. But they've picked up in frequency and range and two things bother me here: your attacker seems more skilled than the ones we had previously known about, and that message you're carrying isn't anything vital."

Raff shrugged, "I figured as much about the message, but he wasn't that good. I mean, the dog and I were able to take him out-"

"A dog that the man likely did not see until too late, correct?" At Raff's nod, he continued, "And skilled as you may be with a staff, a piece of wood is no match for a sword, as you learned. What happens if the man attacks someone without a trained pet or who isn't very good with weapons?"

Raff froze at that last comment, then brought his hand up to briefly clutch the jade and gold pendant always worn at his neck outside his robe. Raff's beloved was a Messenger who couldn't hit the broad side of a barn with any weapon, assuming that he was persuaded to even try; he'd have been no match had he been the one attacked. What if he was the next target? But he did usually travel with a group of mercenaries... Right, mercenaries. Like they'd be willing to risk their skin for a piece of paper; they have no regard for a Messenger's duty. Panic was starting to rise in the back of his throat. Trying to keep his voice calm but wanting only to run out of the room and take that would-be thief down before he could do any more harm, Raff tried to focus on the first part of that last sentence. "But that dog wasn't a trained pet. I'd never seen him before."

The older man saw that he was fidgeting and biting his lip, but only raised an eyebrow in response, which Raff was too preoccupied to take any notice of. "But you mentioned speaking to animals? I'd assumed it was one of your pets."

"I just have a cardinal and a mouse," Raff pointed to the mouse that was still perched on his shoulder, mostly screened by his long hair. "I've spoken to other animals before, as well, but only after casting a spell. That was another odd thing; the dog spoke to me first."

The high priest paused in thought for a moment. "I'm not going to belittle you by asking 'are you sure he spoke?' because I've heard of your bond with animals." As Raff opened his mouth to question this, he continued, "Head Messengers have to know things about the followers of Hermes, or at least the ones who work through our mosques."

Oh boy, Raff could just imagine the information his record included. Probably something along the lines of "Rafion 'call me Raff' Goldenstrings: half-elf. Hails from Woodland City and for some reason keeps trying to get sent there despite being a Messenger errant with no home base. Older than he looks, but is apparently younger than his years (says he's thirty-five, but we're not convinced; surely no more than twenty-six? See: half-elf). Often disheveled. Rather impulsive with a tendency to get into fights, frequently after someone comments on his name or stature (also see: half-elf). Good with animals, though. Also good with disguises and music; bets are on if he'll end up smacking someone with his gittern if irked while in minstrel disguise."

A knock sounded at the door, breaking Raff's reverie. The head priest stood up. "The horses are ready now so we can set off. We can worry about the dog later."

Yes, let's leave now, please! Raff thought, then felt rather embarrassed. Not for his enthusiasm, as protective enthusiasm was a normal reaction for him, but he should have known that a high priest would be smart enough to not waste time just chatting and would have already put a plan into motion. He just hoped, in vain, that he hadn't noticed how jumpy he'd become a few minutes ago.

The next part of the story can be found here.

((I really have to learn how to write chapters rather than scene chunks. This story wasn't written to be particularly split up, but it's far too long for one blog post ~~since I still have another 29 text pages to post...~~. The next chunk... er... part will be posted soon.))

Raff's (Delayed) Introduction

2010-11-29T12:24:00.004-05:00

Hullo! Nice to meetcha! The name's Raff. ...Okay, if you're insisting on my full name it's- don't laugh- Rafion Goldenstrings. Please just call me Raff, though. My full name is the unfortunate result of being the offspring of an elf and a human bard. Oh, and tack on "of the Order of the Fleet Fox", and you have a name that's far too long for any one person, even the ones with pointy ears where long names seem to be compulsory.

Right. Moving on. As you can probably guess from the fox thing, I'm a Messenger. A priest of Hermes. I know, I know- that's a human god and I certainly don't look like someone who'd fit into that priesthood. I'm not the only half-elf, but there certainly aren't many like me in the order. But, hey, Hermes is a Trickster, right? An almost-ranger-bard was probably a requirement to add more chaos to the ranks. Yup, you heard me right. I'm a priest with both warrior and minstrel training and was well on my way to becoming a ranger when I was Called by Hermes. Now that was an entirely unexpected, drastic change, let me tell ye! Unexpected and drastic, but absolutely amusing and different, so I was quite fine with the sudden change of plans. Well... except for the "no harmful weapons" thing. That irked me- it still irks me, really. But the mischief, magic, and traveling more than make up for the fact that I can now wield little more than a stick. A stick with a silver fox on the end, I'll give you, but still a stick. Which now has teethmarks in it from my dog trying to fetch it, by the way.

(... oh, hush. You did so try to fetch it. ... Just sit, would ye? ... No, you can't play with the mouse- you scare him when you chase him around.) Sorry, the shaggy mutt is annoyed that we're ignoring him and is reminding me that I should introduce my companions, too. ... Yes, I can talk to the dog, but no, I'm not crazy (shut it, Jack). That goes with being a priest of Hermes- most of us can speak with animals, although usually they're not as vocal as Jack here. The mouse hiding on my shoulder is Rhy and that cardinal perched in the tree yonder is Neru.

Okay, now that I've got all the introductions finished, I can continue. I'm a Messenger errant- this means that I don't work out of a particular mosque and instead travel from place t'place with whatever delivery I'm handed at the time. My home, as well as my heart, is back in Woodland, though; that's where I had my training as a youth. I'm not really sure why that wasn't chosen as a home base for me. Maybe the higher ups thought I'd do the most good always traveling? Maybe they needed a token non-human traveling out there openly? Who knows? I'm pretty happy with that decision, whatever the reason was.

Do I mind being a half-elf around humans? Nah, that's never been a problem. Personally, it's never bothered me and I'm all for being unique (and, okay, strange). I did spend the first half of my life mostly around elves before joining up with humans, so I've had the best of both worlds- 'though that does mean that my speech is a mishmash sometimes, ye ken? Anyway, as for outside forces... well, people don't generally mess with Messengers. Only the very stupid would insult those literate people who carry important news and correspondences, and the wisest recall that we're tricksters as well as letter-carriers. It's never a good idea to mess with practical jokers. Trust me on this.

I'd stay and chat, but I really haveta get going. I have a message I must deliver that's already been delayed too long. Maybe we'll meet again in another city someday... although I'll warn ye: you may not recognize me if our paths cross again when I'm not on an assignment- and even if you do, I'll likely answer with a different voice to a different name. There's a chance it'd be more unusual than my real one, but I doubt it.

((I realized as I was writing up an introduction for my next character that I never posted one for Raff before I started putting up his story. Whoops! The next part of his story will be posted soon- I wanted to get this finished first.))

The Acolyte's Map - Story, Part 1

2010-11-22T12:51:00.004-05:00

Banner art by Artmetica.
You can find the whole cover art here- the art is gorgeous!
There's also a mix/soundtrack that goes with this story- you can find that here.

The Acolyte's Map, Part 1
(Prologue and Part 2)
The new pawn- sorry, chosen, of the gods/dice/whatnot was a slightly older, half-elven priest named Raff. Assuming by now that he was safely a minor character in his own story, and thus immune to the random encounter generator or the flailing Epic Plot, he was surprised when a hooded figure appeared from behind a tree brandishing a short sword and demanding that he hand over the message he was carrying. Raff raised an eyebrow as the man scowled at him; he was aware that sometimes Messengers were ambushed for the important correspondences they carried, but he also knew that since he'd been sent on this errand alone he was carrying something harmless, so why was this person going after him? Besides, no matter the value, no Messenger would voluntarily hand over what they carried without a fight... Huh, he must be aware of that, Raff thought to himself as the would-be thief, not waiting for a reply, leapt at him to attack.

Bringing his quarterstaff up to block, Raff was able to push the attacker back a few steps, making him stumble slightly. A retaliated downward swing with his staff was barely blocked by the sword as the man regained his balance, and the cleric realized that, once again, he'd been underestimated. Anger burned in Raff's green eyes; this irked him, as it always did. This certainly wasn't the first time someone had taken "slight, elven-looking priest" to mean "weak, easy target". Spitting out an Elvish curse (and wishing he knew Dwarvish because that language was so much better for that purpose), Raff swung again.

All seemed to be going well for a while, despite the man recovering from his shock and having begun attacking in earnest, until fortune decided to favor the bandit. The half-elf was just barely able to bring his staff up in time to block a well-timed attack, and the power behind the swing snapped the wood in half. Raff stared at the pieces in his hands, momentarily distracted; that was my quarterstaff! How dare he break part of a priest's holy symbol! He placed the pieces gently on the ground, not wanting to just carelessly drop the winged fox icon atop the piece in his right hand, and said a quick, silent prayer.

This was a pious, but not very bright, move and could have been the end of the priest had he been alone; before the man could hit Raff while he was distracted, a bird gave an angry chirp and a streak of red flew at his face, giving Raff time to get to his feet and draw his mace. Rare is a Messenger without an animal sidekick and the cardinal was expected, but the bird's shriek was followed by a growl sounding behind the attacker, who froze in place. Having only a mouse and a bird currently trained, this surprised Raff almost as much as it did his enemy, but since the ... dog? Wolf? Raff couldn't really tell since it was staying behind the other man, seemed to be focused only on his opponent, the canine was a welcome surprise. With the attacker obviously distracted, it finally occurred to Raff to try what he should have done in the first place. Rather than attacking, he said in a calm, but forceful voice "Your bootlaces are untied. You should put your sword down so you can fix that before you trip over them and land near the teeth of that large wolf behind you."

Coming from almost anyone else, this would have resulted in the intended target either being amused and attacking or just plain attacking, but here it worked as the fate-seesaw tipped slightly in Hermes' favor. The man dropped his sword and fell to his feet, hastily trying to retie laces that weren't actually there in the first place. Raff kicked the sword out of the way, where the dog (definitely a dog, Raff saw; some sort of shaggy, medium-sized mutt) picked it up by the hilt and dragged it off, fetching instinct apparently taking over. Checking out of the corner of his eye to make sure that the dog had dropped the sword out of sight, Raff turned up the not-so-charming Charm to keep the man occupied while he tried to think of something. "Goodness, you're fumbling. You're all thumbs, aren't you?"

Flustered and now fumbling even more at his shoes, the man replied, "I don't know what's wrong with me today."

"Perhaps your boots are on the wrong foot and that's why you're fumbling?" Raff grinned as the man promptly began tugging at his shoes, still unable to do much about them. I love being a Messenger, the half-elf thought to himself. As the victim of his mischief unsuccessfully tried putting the left boot on the right foot while muttering “Which is left again?”, the dog returned to Raff's side and began whining. Raff made shushing noises and was silenced by a voice in his head that said, "Man under the tree. Can smell him". Still trying to keep his glamour going, the cleric told the man "Yes, you've definitely mixed right up with left again. Left is the other one" before reacting to the voice. Most people would have balked at a strange voice in their head, but Raff was well aware that it had the tone of an animal, and since it wasn't his mouse or bird, he figured it must then be the dog, unless someone was playing an extra cruel trick on him. Trying to appear nonchalant, he whispered to the dog, "I don't see anyone."

"Use your snout."

"I don't have a snout-" Raff shook his head. Why am I arguing with a dog? Must be the stress. "Forget it. Guard this man, okay?" At the dog's assent, he made another dumb mistake, not being at his error quota for the day. Rather than doing something bright to sneak up on that invisible person, he took a few steps towards the lone tree by the side of the path and called "Hey! You! Show yourself!" It didn't take the dog's immediate observation of "Man is gone" for him to realize that he'd forgotten to cast the Charm first. He muttered another Elvish curse.

The dog growled and he exclaimed a stronger one when he saw that with his concentration lost, the kneeling man was shaking off the mind-control. This is not my day. Reacting rather than thinking, Raff snatched up a piece of his discarded quarterstaff and brought it down over the man's head, being careful not to strike too hard; killing in cold blood obviously not being acceptable for Good.

"That man not a threat now. Good. Get help. I'll guard," the dog advised as the man slumped unconscious to the ground. After the day that Raff had been having, taking advice from a dog seemed perfectly reasonable. With a shrug, he dragged the prone man off the road and behind the tree, then picked up the rest of his quarterstaff to began the trek back to Rinos. So much for this message getting to Westwatch on time, he grumbled to himself, And I'd love to know what's so great about it to cause all this mess.

It wasn't until he was halfway back to the city that the thought that had been poking at the back of his mind for a few miles finally got him to listen. I never cast a spell to speak with animals... how did that mutt reach me? He absentmindedly reached over to his shoulder to pet the brown mouse that was currently nibbling on one of his long brown braids. Even my pets can't speak without a spell, and when they do talk, they're not nearly as articulate. "And would you quit that, Rhy? Do you see me chewing on your tail?" The mouse chittered at him in response, then went back to its task, ignoring Raff's laughter. Maybe I should train a dog- they seem to be slightly less bossy than mice.

The next part of the story can be found here.

The Acolyte's Map - Info and Prologue

2010-11-13T13:21:00.024-05:00

Banner art by Artmetica.
You can find the whole cover art here- the art is gorgeous!
There's also a mix/soundtrack that goes with this story- you can find that here.

(Prologue, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5,
Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Deleted Scene)

Story info:
Genre: Comedic/parodic fantasy
Fandom or Original: Original (But if it reads like a D&D game, it is. Or, rather, it takes place in the world my fiancé and I created for our games)
Word Count: 23,207
Rating: PG
Warnings: There are passing references to the main character being in a relationship with someone of the same gender, but that relationship is a very minor plot point (and said significant other isn't even in this story), so it shouldn't be a problem unless you're very easily offended. This is a harmless comedic adventure, not a romance. (The main references to this are in the Deleted Scene, which is rather sappy, hence why it was deleted.)
Summary: A powerful magical artifact has been unleashed! Unfortunately it has fallen into the unlikely hands of a hapless young priest who is now bound by its bizarre curse. This is the tongue-in-cheek tale of a half-elven cleric who is trying to locate and free the unwitting victim from said item's grasp with the help of his mischievous (and not always competent) brethren. Along the way there will be magic, intrigue, mischief, and a talking dog. ~~And a dragon, of course.~~

Prologue
It is a much overlooked but well-established fact that in order to excel at world domination, overlording, or even to just be particularly irksome in a fantastical setting, you need to get your hands on a magical item- if you can create said item, this is even more effective. This theme pops up so frequently that perhaps Magical and Evil Artifacts 101 must be a requirement to graduate from ODU (Overlords and Despots University, of course), with Item Invention as an optional lab-based minor. This certainly would explain why evil minions are so inept: they haven't gotten their tasseled hats yet.

Or perhaps there is some deity out there who gets his or her kicks out of sending out a telepathic memo to their flock, demanding some useless doodad, then laughing as the Plucky Hero subsequently Overcomes Adversity and those rather inept minions to destroy the "insert flavor of the week bauble name here", likely under the jurisdiction of an opposing god. Presumably this deity enjoys assigning the Good Guys mutually time-consuming quests to balance things out; there must not be a lot on television in the Great Halls of Whatever. They say that gods play games with the fates of men, which may be true, but there has to be a balance between the alignments so the entire world doesn't implode. ("Men" here doesn't necessarily mean "male" or even "human"; likely there's a kobold deity who sends his pawns on prolonged quests, as well, but since kobolds are too inept to be more than Haphazard Wicked, no Methodical Righteous have had to balance them out... which is fortunate, because that sounds more like a battle of the bands than a good plot point.)

Whatever the reason, artifacts end up in the hands of the bad guys nine times out of ten (but don't trust my math on that one; I may have forgotten to carry a one. My original calculation was twelve times out of seven, but surely that can't be correct) and it will always fall on the individuals of reverse alignment to achieve balance.

This is a story where that equilibrium has been knocked off-kilter.

--------------------------------------------------
Centuries ago, well beyond memory of any human but within range of the longer-lived races if they cared about such things, there was one such baddie. He was not a king, or an overlord, or a dictator, but he did desire power and knowledge; knowledge so he could usurp power, to be exact. He was also an adroit mage under the disguise of a harmless courtier, and, having a degree in Item Invention (or perhaps catching the eye of the deity on the Evil side of the seesaw), decided to forge an item of epic proportion to aid him in his endeavor- or, rather, penned an item of portable size since he was more scholarly than anything else. What he created was essentially a map, but not just any map. No self respecting would-be villain would be content with just a piece of parchment; can you imagine an antagonist trying to get himself situated and holding the map upside down and cursing at a compass because he thought Cartography was a boring subject? Of course not. This was a map made from the finest parchment, written with a feather of a gryphon and imbued with power, stored in a protectively magical case; not content with just a mere town-and-river affair, he crammed it with magic, the core spell giving the map the ability to tell him where to find the information he desired for blackmail and gain. This ability was assisted by spells allowing the bearer to coerce anyone into telling him the truth and locate any object, as well as any other spell the mage thought interesting at the time. Since he was a show-off with a lot of time on his hands, these were a lot.

With the help of this map, the sorcerer was able to wreak his particular brand of evil by drawing out information from the unsuspecting public. During this time many an innocent farmer or townsperson awoke with a bad headache after being tapped on the shoulder by a hooded figure, unaware of the knowledge they had just passed on- and those were the lucky ones. The truly unfortunate were the ones who knew something vital to the mage, who were able to block the mental assault to some degree, or who were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was never said that this spellcaster was a nice person, if you recall.

Unfortunately, the more he learned, the less satisfied he became; he found that the knowledge he acquired was never enough to reach his goal, was never enough to give the necessary blackmail for his plan. He became careless and began sneaking into places he shouldn't have entered and demanding information from individuals too high ranking, which is always just about where plans start to go awry; it's never smart to mess with people possessing power or wealth lest they take notice of you. Word began to get around that a wizard of some sort was looking for uncomfortable information regarding the king, and the mage was eventually caught and imprisoned, his prized possession seized. No longer possessing the map, tied to his soul as it had become, the mage quickly lost what was left of his mind and spent the rest of his days convinced that he was invisible- which, since he was ignored in case his insanity was contagious, turned out to be somewhat accurate. The scroll case was carefully labeled as dangerous and it and the artifact it contained were added to the royal treasury for safekeeping; the court's wizards weren't sure what it did exactly or what was in the case, but were smart enough to toss it into a neglected corner of the vault rather than trying to explore it further. The possibility of going mad is frequently a good deterrent for curiosity.

*****
Time passed, the throne changed hands (well, regal behinds), and no one noticed when this particular item eventually went missing. What's one more scroll case to monarchs who have a collection of them?

Here enters Jonathan, the helpful novice of a good (but mischievous) religious order, whose career would have continued rather normally had the dice not rolled a critical miss, the balance not been tottering madly, and a sudden rainstorm not caused a particular cart to get stuck in a ditch, sending its contents flying. Yes, chaos caused by a lack of paved roads; one of those time-consuming quests for a passing Good Guy should have been to invent concrete, perhaps by combining a fireball spell with a stone giant. (It makes one wonder why magic doesn't get used for useful purposes. Do wizards have to take a vow of eccentricity rather than practicality?)

The cart hit the unfortunately-placed ditch and some of its cargo of old scrolls, books, and various written works spilled into the- for lack of a better word- road. The young man jumped off the cart and began gathering up the dislodged items, completely forgetting that this delivery was going to a wizard's college- he was lucky to not have anything blow up in his hands. Most priests are wise enough to know not to touch anything related to those eccentric spellcasters without a pair of tongs, some gloves, and possibly a passing clueless person to happen to do the poking about for them; word gets around when singed eyebrows are the most pleasant of results. Despite the risk, this recently ordained Messenger, whose only thought was to impress with his helpfulness, appeared to have remained unscathed.

...Or so it was assumed, even by the priest himself, for quite a long while.

The last scroll case of the scattered collection had fallen open and the parchment it was protecting was now exposed to the rain. Quickly rolling the paper back up, Jonathan gently shoved it back into the metal case, missing the warning of "-ot open, for the love of-" just barely legible under the mud. He also failed to notice that rather than having tossed the case into the cart with the rest, he had instead tucked it into his belt, hidden by his cloak, before climbing back onto the cart. This story would have been far shorter, or at least drastically different, had the older priest he was traveling with noticed this. Thankfully for this particular narrative, he did not; he was too busy trying to get the horse to drag the cart back onto the road to pay any attention to his fellow Messenger, trusting that the boy had his side of the problem under control. That inherent faith and confidence these particular priests have in each other turned out to be the youth's undoing- as can probably be guessed, that piece of parchment was none other than the mage-wrought map, which had already begun to place its control over the hapless cleric. If you hadn't guessed that yet, more fantasy reading is needed; horribly powerful items always fall into the hands of the most innocent and harmless.

The lad, upon later finding the map in his possession after the delivery was completed, was unable to hand it over to another Messenger to remedy the delay; he found that he could no more part with it than hand over a hand, and, as the months passed, the map steadily gained more and more control over him. It started with simply just reading all the messages and letters that he was tasked to deliver- certainly forbidden by both the priesthood and their god. Then it shifted to him erasing the writing on the scrolls he didn't like and keeping the juicy, secretive, or important ones for himself; why should anyone else have this information? he (or rather the map) reasoned, if it's in my hands, it's mine. Finders keepers. He made sure to never work out of the same mosque or any in a near proximity to the last one, always convincing the higher priests assigning the deliveries to give him one that would take him far away.

From there, it wasn't a large leap to hoarding all the mail that came through him, even the most dull bits. Possibly at first the small part of Jonathan that still remained in his head imagined this was keeping them safe, but after a while even that part was silenced.

A Messenger's chief and imperative duty is to deliver and protect the messages he or she is assigned; to not do this meant that the young priest quickly fell out of favor with his god. Hermes sent warnings, but they remained unheeded as the youth lost control over himself and the evil influence of the map took over. Being a lower-ranking deity than the one empowering the artifact, there was little the god could do to shift the balance away from Evil other than forsaking the fallen Messenger and removing all the divinely granted abilities the boy possessed (largely out of anger, but perhaps thinking if his once-devoted follower was no longer god-touched and instead was normal, the map might loosen its hold on him). This, too, the youth did not catch on to; whatever reasoning hadn't jumped ship assumed that his god-granted Charm ability had actually improved and that was why he could now convince all those higher priests to do what he wanted them to, little knowing that it was the map allowing him to do this. Hermes' last-ditch effort failing, this proved that even deities are fallible when it comes to that cursed balance that plagues mortals.

Soon the map/boy (the two being utterly entwined by now) decided the information he was getting wasn't enough; he wanted to know everything about everything. His reasoning changed to "if I can have all of the information, I can control all of the information" and just stealing his own deliveries wasn't giving him what he desired to fulfill this. He began disguising himself and tracking down and attacking other Messengers in the hope that he could steal theirs, as well. Luckily for them, this was not initially effective because of the combination of the once-priest being fairly physically weak coupled with a Messenger's extreme aversion to giving up their deliveries even under coercion. This was the one place where the map failed him; the boy found it impossible to coerce his once-brethren to do something so entirely against their nature- or perhaps Hermes was able to work through his loyal followers to give them some extra immunity. This plan failing, the boy/map retreated to create a new one.

At this time the map or whatever knowledge remained in his head realized two things: 1.) that there were a surprising amount of copper and silver pieces making their way across the country via the mail, and 2.) that the Messengers were eventually bound to notice deliveries going missing if they always occurred around the same person. He sneered at this realization: how unobservant and naively Good those priests were to not have caught on, and how equally trusting of the general population to send money though them! This would play to his advantage, though- if he couldn't charm his way into getting the priests to give him their letters, why not use that coin to hire a thug or two to forcibly take it from them?

If nothing else, this was the thought that proved that the young man had fallen so far down the alignment chart that he'd barely had time to bang his head against anything neutral before hitting the ground hard at the bottom. Had the young man still been getting the letters directly from a mosque, surely someone would have noticed by now that, hey, that kid emanates evil! Alas, this was a continuation in the series of bad luck for the good guys- he wasn't, so they didn't. Good isn't always the most observant; the bad guy could be be living in a black tower, wearing a mask, laughing maniacally, and raising an army of misshapen beasts and the hero would still go "Nice to see you again! Care for some tea?" or if they were feeling particularly perceptive that day, "Say, did you change the paint in here? Something looks a bit different." Good's gullibility is on par with Bad's ineptitude; they tend to cancel each other out, which is why Neutral is able to get anything done when it's the weakest of the three.

Finally realizing that something had gone terribly wrong and was causing even more chaos as the balance had become even more askew, a new tactic was formed. The deities (or the dice or the seesaw- someday we'll know what makes the world tick), in the hopes that this time there would be better luck or that the target would be less stupid, decided to focus once more on the Messengers; perhaps either Hermes had lost a bet or was being given the benefit of a second chance.

The next part of the story can be found here.

A letter to Kendric, Cyneric's brother

2010-11-07T22:39:00.002-05:00

Kenny (oh, stop rolling your eyes; you should be well aware by now that we're not going to cease calling you that),
It is unfortunate that you are not nearby because I could really use your good sense and knowledge of military strategy. Yes, you read that accurately; I'm sure I've piqued your interest since I loathe military matters, so I should amend that to say that my traveling companions could use that expertise. They certainly won't listen to my reasoning. However much I've always avoided learning about martial tactics, even I realize that running into a battle where you're outnumbered in enemy territory after the warning alarm has been sounded is a bad idea. I like my friends, but gods, if there's an iota of rational thought in any of them, I'd be surprised. What's the use of charging in as a rescue party if you're just going to need to be rescued in turn? Times like this I look forward to the day when I'm in charge of a mosque and no longer have to deal with stupidity or recklessness. Oh, all right, that's naively optimistic; I see what complications Armand has to deal with on a regular basis and know that it will just be a different kind of asininity and stress. Let me have my moment of daydreaming, okay?

I know it irks my traveling companions that I'm not any sort of fighter and will avoid doing harm unless I have no other choice, but... I'm no adventurer. (I'm not even a normal Messenger, when you think about it, which would at least make me some help to the party...) If I must fight, I prefer to go into it with a carefully thought out plan and an escape route ready. For that matter, I prefer to go into anything with a plan and a means of escape, and I don't understand how people can just throw reason to the wind and hope for the best. But this is a rant I won't get into; you are already quite aware of my feelings on the subject.

Speaking of brash individuals, have you heard from Raff lately? Perhaps his correspondences haven't caught up to me, but the last one I received was well over a month ago and that's rare for him. I've sent a few letters in that time but I have no idea if he's getting them or not because surely he would have replied by now. I've heard some rumors while passing through Woodland, but... if they are true, I certainly cannot go into them here, so suffice it to say that it could explain this delay.

I'm going to try not to worry because I'm sure I would have heard word if something was amiss, but please let me know if you hear from him; last I knew he was traveling west, so you'll likely get in touch with him first. It's just my luck that the two people I hold most dear are to the west when that's the one direction I have never been sent.

If only the Messengers had a way of sending word over vast distances in a more expeditious (and secure, if my above speculations turn out to be correct) manner. The Gates are a step in the right direction (pun intended), but I can't help thinking that there could be another way- preferably a way that didn't involve things exploding. Sound travels well so perhaps there could be a way to harness that, or perhaps something involving telepathic magic... well, it's something I shall ponder.

Your exasperated little brother,
Cyn

((Look at me, sneakily tying together two of my plotlines and three of my characters. ;) I had originally planned on posting this after the D&D group finished our current adventure, but since we haven't been able to play, it turns out I'll end up posting Raff's story before that happens. And why does that matter? Because this letter ties into that story, which I'll start posting here on the 13th. Ye gads, do you know how hard it is to keep a story secret for five months?))

Story updates to come soon! - OOC

2010-09-24T13:37:00.006-04:00

I know I've been neglecting this blog, but I haven't actually been neglecting my writing. I'm working on a long story for a writing challenge with Raff as the main character, but I'm not allowed to share it until the due date. So look for more story updates in early/mid-November. :)

If you're curious about said challenge, you can find out more information about it here.

~Meri

Speaking of Cyn's best friend - OOC

2010-07-02T11:48:00.003-04:00

For a birthday present my awesome and incredibly talented friend Niere told me she'd draw me whatever character I wanted her to; after much thought (I love her art so much that it was hard to pick!) I decided on Raff, Cyn's best friend:

(Isn't Niere an amazing artist!)

Raff (his full name is Rafion, but he never goes by that) is a half-elf Messenger (the same rank as Cyn; they're basically the same age now, but half-elves age rather slowly, so that'll change; this is going to be a plot point for Cyn when he eventually realizes it) who shares Cyn's skill with animals; instead of a fox, though, Raff has a pet mouse. (He likely has trained a different animal or two, as well, but he always has a mouse.) His robes are always travel-worn (he gets yelled at by the higher priests for that- Messengers aren't supposed to look unkempt) because he just doesn't notice when they start to fall apart; he's one of the Messengers out on constant delivery assignments (rather than working from a home mosque, like Cyn does), so he's bound to look more travel-worn, anyway. Raff was originally training to be a ranger before he was Called by Hermes, and, charismatic as he is, he hasn't quite grasped all that goes along with civilization, such as tidy clothing, lol. Oh, and don't ask him to hide his ears to pass as a human- he prefers to look elven (that is, unless he's planning some sort of mischievous disguise, of course!) because then he can look more unique; there aren't a lot of elves in his part of the world.

I didn't pick him to be drawn because of Cyn's backstory (although Raff will be in that), but because he's going to be the main character in the next story I'm working on. Where Cyn's story is a kinda dull backstory (no wonder- I'm writing it mostly for myself so I can give him character development for the D&D game), Raff's is going to be an actual story not told from first-person point of view: it's a rather silly mystery involving stolen letters and a magic-possessed priest, and the shenanigans that ensue from the fact that Raff is more Charisma than Wisdom/Intelligence (ie more charm than brains; he's more inclined to try to influence people to get himself out of trouble than actually avoiding the trouble in the first place).

This is going to be a very fun story to write because I do enjoy characters with low Wisdom or Intelligence; they get themselves into so much amusing trouble. ;)

~Meri

A letter to Cyneric's best friend

2010-06-21T17:38:00.027-04:00

Raff,
I hope this letter finds you safe and not getting into too much mischief, but I know you far too well to assume that wish to be at all likely. (That no one is catching on that you are the cause of the antics you wreak would be a more appropriate hope.) I have a great deal I want to tell you since my last letter, but much will have to wait until our paths next cross, partly because I don't want this letter to turn into a tome and partly because some of this information I do not feel safe sending even with our brethren. Yes, I know you are rolling your eyes and thinking me overly paranoid but I do have my reasons to be so worried.

I will give a vague warning here that I will elaborate on when I next see you: please, please be careful with a certain disguise. My party has become unfortunately high profile and as a result that disguise may no longer be safe for you to use on this side of the continent; in fact, it's probably not safe since being conspicuous means my group has made enemies. Once again, I am likely being unduly paranoid, but... well, please be cautious. And do not worry about me; you know I am not a risk taker, and traveling with adventurers has not changed that fact. I even have a bodyguard now who I trust to always have my back; he's an orc we met on the road who is bereft of his kin, so I'm hoping that traveling with my group makes him feel less alone. I know from experience that having friends can fill that kind of void, as you are quite aware.

So much has happened to me and my traveling companions lately that I can't possibly fit it into one letter, so I'll just give you a short summary. (Honestly, there are so many monster infestations around the area that I'm having some trouble keeping track of what's happening where and what the locations are that we're likely to be sent next; you know I have a horrible head for anything involving battle plans and fighting.) I mentioned earlier about being high profile; well, you know the dragon Khrom-Vel that I've mentioned before? We've become his champions (complete with uncanny wrist tattoo) after we helped heal him from a battle with two other dragons. I'm not entirely sure what this entails, but it seems like it means that we now can call on him if we have the need, and having a dragon on your side cannot possibly be a bad thing.

We've been traveling up and down the coast for a while; we were in Joven recently helping out Dwight, our old traveling companion, with a gnoll problem in that area. While there we also had an ill-fated encounter with a wizard that resulted in the death of one of our party members, the gnome Caleb. (I'm beginning to think that wherever we go, trouble is bound to follow close behind.) Our travels have finally taken us back to Woodland, but since the mosque has no assignment for me at the moment, I'll be going south with the rest of the group on a task set by the mercenary's guild. Between my duty and the tasks set by the guild, I'm rarely in Woodland anymore for more than just a quick stop over; I'm aware that sounds silly when you spend even more time away from there than I do, but I can't help feeling a bit homesick when on the road for an extended period of time. I know that soon enough I'll have permanent duty there, though, and will then yearn for all this traveling. Go figure!

Anyway, I've had an ongoing assignment for a while that you will find quite interesting. The Messengers in Port Town have developed a kind of magic... thing (I still do not completely understand it) that allows one to travel between mosques in a matter of moments, no matter the distance between them. It involves a stone altar-type thing and a canopic jar; the jar powers the Gate and allows it to function. (I think.) I have been dropping off the plans for this gate at each mosque I pass through and sending some along with those I deem trustworthy. Once every mosque has one, I'd imagine our assignments will be safer and quicker, but I'm still having mixed feelings about it since it means less traveling and that has always been what Messengers do. I can't say that I dislike being able to get home from, say, Joven, in seconds, though!

There is so much more I want to tell you, but, judging from the length of this letter, it will have to wait until I see you in person. Speaking of... do you think you could perhaps hint that you'd like some assignments that will take you back towards Woodland? I have no idea if the mosques you've been working through have any deliveries that have to come that direction, but I know you're quite good at persuading people to do things to your advantage. I'd like to give you a copy of the Gate plans to take back in that direction and have new information to give you for a disguise, but I'll admit that my wish to see you is not entirely (alright, not even close to entirely) duty or mischief-related; I miss you terribly. I'd joke that Hermes is having a good laugh over our assignments keeping us so far apart, but knowing Him, that's probably the truth. Hmph.

Sending my love,
Cyn

((I'm still not quite done the next part of Cyneric's backstory, but Josh [the DM and creator of this world] mentioned that since Cyn has letters he wants to send to a few people in-game, I may as well start writing them up. This isn't quite up to date, since it's a few gaming sessions behind [because it's a letter, it's only up to date to the last place he was able to mail it from], but it's the most "now" thing I've written in a while.))

Question/prompt #1 - Are clerics allowed love?

2010-05-20T12:58:00.012-04:00

My ~~writer~~ ~~mundane~~ ~~constant cause of annoyance~~ Elf-girl has decided that she's going to give me random prompts to answer to alternate with the longer backstory, and (surprise) she picked the most embarrassing one to start. Gee, thanks, Meri. She's asking whoever reads this blog to supply random questions if they'd like, and please do- I don't want to have to answer more of her absurdity.

Her question is "are clerics allowed love?".
Short answer: yes. Longer answer: depends on the deity involved, the kind of love, and the particular priest.

Longest answer:
Most deities (at least most of the good and neutral ones) are absolutely fine with their clerics having close friends and family, if not outright encouraging of those bonds. The evil religions are just strange, and, honestly, I have a hard time thinking of them as the same thing as the non-malevolent ones, so I won't get into those. As for romantic love, some deities allow it, some don't. Hermes is one that allows it (Trickster, remember? Tricksters are all about fun), although it's usually limited to the occasional fling; most Messengers don't have room left in their hearts or schedules for a single person, and the fact that we're always traveling doesn't help that, either. If someone was capable of putting another thing or person before their calling, they wouldn't have become a Messenger, and if somehow their priorities do change and they can no longer put their duty first, they're excommunicated. That occurrence is extremely rare, however, because almost no Messenger could even dream of doing anything to risk being exiled from their order.

Then there's the particular priest involved; Hermes may allow trysts and relationships, but that was never any real use to me- and, believe me, my friends have tried to change my mind. When we were younger, Elli tried for years to make me become enamoured of her before finally giving me up as a lost cause, and most of our fellow acolytes at some point tried to set me up with at least one random girl they knew, although I'm fairly certain this was less out of concern for me and more out of the amusement of watching me flounder about, completely abashed and disconcerted. When he saw that females weren't working for me, Raff even tried himself. That was both embarrassing and hilarious, but it had slightly more of an effect on me than previous endeavors- if just for the fact that it was amusing and novel, and I tend to have more patience where my best friend is concerned. (Poor Raff; he wasn't going for "embarrassing" or "amusing" as an intended reaction, but those were what he got.) I could have told him that approach wouldn't work had he bothered to ask first.

However, this meant that my friends now realized that they could at least get a reaction out of me that wasn't annoyance, so they switched tactics to "strangest and most random attempt to catch Cyn unawares wins". I agreed to this on one condition: that they stop involving random girls they knew; I'd put up with the other teenaged Messengers (and their sisters, since I figured they knew what they were getting into) and their silliness, but that was it.

I took all this as amiably as I could for quite a while (okay, you don't have to twist my arm; I'll admit that I took this better than I make it sound- I began to enjoy the attention even if I was indifferent to the means. I realize now how horribly attention-starved I was as a youth) before I finally got frustrated enough that I told my friends that if one more person tried to kiss me, I would get revenge on the nearest suspect- and by then I was known for witty pranks (pranks never came easily to me, but what I could come up with was brilliant, if I do say so myself). This worked somewhat, but friends being friends... well, they wouldn't be friends if they let a good chance for amusement go- and yes, I pranked them in return. It turned into a cycle of "Catch Cyn by surprise, get pranked, retaliate, et cetera" for quite some time; I didn't mind so much because it gave me a clear target for retaliated tricks. Ah, friends: making the awkward years even more humiliating. It's amazing any of us grew into responsible, competent adults.

I'm decidedly ~~reminiscing~~ rambling at this point, so to summarize: no, I'm personally incapable of romantic love or physical attraction, but an amiable nature, friendship, and appreciation of attention and amusement can almost sort of pass for it. If you squint and look at it from a different direction, possibly.

That isn't to say that I'm completely incapable of that particular emotion, just that one side of it. For all that my colleagues like to torment each other, they're still very important to me (especially the handful of Messengers I grew up with, although we don't see each other much since we're now scattered around the continent on various delivery quests), I certainly care deeply about Raff, scamp though he is, and I've always admired and loved my older brother Ken. In terms of my current traveling companions, I think of Linora as a sort of little sister, much to her vexation (sorry about the fish, Lin; I'm sure you'll get me back), and even though SwampFox is an orc, he's like another brother. He certainly ranks above Osric; I'd trust SwampFox over most of my real family any day.

((Meri here. I love how good Cyn is at avoiding telling the truth. None of this is really a lie, per se, but... well, he's not being entirely truthful, either. Sheesh, what good is giving you questions to answer, Cyn, if you refuse to give correct answers?))

Adventures of a Young Messenger - Breaking the News (Part 4)

2010-05-18T12:07:00.015-04:00

Part 4 - Breaking the News
(Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 5, Part 6)

I awoke the next morning to an unfamiliar weight on my feet. Climbing out of bed, I noticed that the fox had returned, likely through the window that was now slightly ajar. It's a good thing my room was on the ground floor, because otherwise the fox would have... needed wings... actually, that wouldn't be so strange, all things considered, would it? Anyway, determined to leave that day regardless of my parents' opinions, I got dressed and packed my belongings. Here was yet more proof that I was never cut out to be noble; everything important to me fit into one bag with room to spare. This I slung across my back, then headed to the kitchen to find some food to take with me, knowing that it would take me at least a day to get to Woodland on foot.

Leaving the fox in the hallway with my backpack, I found the kitchen bustling as the cook and her help put together breakfast, so I was able to grab some meat and bread and an apple without anyone taking particular notice of me. The kitchen workers were used to my coming and going over the years as I grabbed lunch on the run from my lessons or a few odds and ends to give to my animal friends, and an innocent expression usually got me out of trouble if the cook happened to catch me. This time I earned a raised eyebrow from said woman, but fortunately she didn't try to stop me as I hurried out. I was thankful for small favors there; my mother must have forgotten about me enough to not warn her that under no condition was I to be allowed outdoors, which, as the staff knew well by now, was always my intention when I entered the kitchen.

I figured that by now my family would be sitting down for breakfast and hoping that would distract them some (and counting on Kendric to come to my aid or, knowing him, cause extra distraction if necessary), I picked up my bag, and with the fox at my heels, headed for the dining area to tell them my intentions. Luck was with me because I arrived at the same time as my brother, who gave the fox a head scratch and me a reassuring smile before going in. I waited a few minutes, then followed him with the large fox close by my side. Unsurprisingly, even after clearing my throat a few times my parents failed to notice our presence until the fox made a little growl, at which point my mother and sister began shrieking about how there was a wild animal in the house and how dare I bring that dirty thing in. My brother and I exchanged amused looks while our father tried to calm the women down; the fox gave the scene a vulpine grin, seemingly pleased. Figuring this was a good time while everything was in chaos, I loudly (and with pride, I'll admit) stated above the din, "Just to inform you all, I have been Called by Hermes and, as I'm now under his jurisdiction, will be leaving for Woodland today."

That got everyone's attention. My father looked rather bewildered while my sister wisely said nothing and seemed to be concentrating far too hard on her breakfast. My mother, on the other hand, glowered and exclaimed with disdain something along the lines of "Hermes? Why would you ever pick him?" (Even from across the room, I saw that she was giving Him a small "h".) After my brother finally explained to our father what "jurisdiction" meant (I couldn't even look at Ken at this point, fearing that if I did, I'd break into laughter at the absolute asininity of this whole thing), my father frowned, but began to try to quiet my mother down lest she say something that would earn them dangerous attention from a deity (never a good idea). Looking from the fox to me and back to the fox, she finally lowered her complaints to an inaudible grumble. Before they could think of any sort of logical argument (unlikely as that would be), I then let them know again that I would be leaving now and not to worry about sending anyone with me (also doubtful, but to keep up appearances they might have) since Woodland was hardly a long trek away.

Trusting that Ken would handle his side of the plan, and not wanting to give my parents any time to stop me, I said a quick goodbye and walked out of the room. I later learned from my brother that the fox gave a long, unblinking stare to both of my parents in turn, leaving them speechless for quite some time, and then gave a sly grin to Ken before following me out.

(Part 5 can be found here.)