DM Bigrin's Second Darkness (Inactive)

Game Master bigrin42

Oleg the Giant Bane was surprised by the messenger that came to his place. Elves were rare in the Linnorm Kingdoms, not unheard of, but this one certainly was a southlander. Still, a guest was a guest ,and a messenger was a messenger was let into his hall.

"Your business? " Oleg Giantbane said "Before you partake of our food and mead?"

At the word 'mead' the elf made a face as if he was asked to suckle directly from a goat, but it passed before offense could be taken, "You are Oleg, father of Lefrik Demon-Harrier?"

Oleg rose confused, "Lefrik? Little Lefrik? Demon Harrier? What... is my son alive?" Oleg would not be surprised if Lefrik had died. His youngest son could be reckless at times. The boy did not always think things through. It was possible he had died heroically against a monster too great for him, or at the hands of an angry husband whose wife had hidden her status for the night.

"Alive, and well, as are many more thanks to him," The Elf said, "He asks that I give to you this message from him, and this sword," The elf unwrapped the leathers from a great two handed blade, "This is Stormbite. A weapon he used during part of his journey though not his favored one."

Oleg was impressed by the blade, it was a fine one, a good weapon, but he was even more pleased as he read the letter and began to grin at what it said, in summary at least "My son is a hero?"

"Yes," The Elf comments.

"And an Elf friend?" Oleg verified.

"He and the others are more than elf friends, they have been saviors of elf kind" The messenger said, "He has earned great renown and reward among us..and beyond."

Oleg beamed with pride, realizing that his seventh born has proven to be as great as any of his offspring, perhaps having done more yet! And, again he looked at Stormbite, "Ah, it does make a father proud. I see also that he has kept my lucky javelin."

"Javelin?" the courier said, he remembered no such thing and was unaware it wast lost if not destroyed deep in the darklands.

"Oh yes, my lucky javelin," Oleg puffed up "I trust he used it well. That thing NEVER missed!"

Somewhere in Isger:

"There it goes!"
"Come on, shoot it, shoot it!"
"You're going to wash out of the army if you don't learn to shoot better than that, boy!"

Nazdrün the hobgoblin cursed and yelled for the other soldiers to stop shouting at him, they were putting him off his aim. He drew back the bowstring and took aim at the zigging, zagging, screaming little green booger. He let fly the arrow, and thank the barghests, this time it grazed the little vermin's leg...! After four misses, the hobgoblin soldier felt he was more than due, and he muttered a prayer of thanks when the infant goblin fell down, screaming and weeping in agony as it clutched its leg.

"Well, you did it -- barely," Old Hagral said, taking the pipe out of his mouth to deliver the backhanded compliment and the ensuing order. "Go kill it off, then."

Nazdrün set off with the powerful, loping stride of a trained hobgoblin soldier and muttered another prayer of thanks. Let Old Hagral say that shooting baby goblins on the move was an easy test of his archery, Nazdrün found it a chore. Still, knowing he'd be forced to clean the platoon's latrine again if he didn't kill his target before it made the treeline? That was what he called a powerful motivator.

The little green booger was trying to crawl away when he caught up to it, but its leg was a butchered ruin of torn flesh. At the rate the blood was pumping out, Nazdrün could just wait a minute and the wretched thing would be dead of blood loss -- which would never do. Grinning at the ugly little thing, Nazdrün drew his curved dagger and said: "We're going to toss you into the pot and eat you, you little rat-monkey."

He bent over to cut the thing's throat, savouring the way its breath died in its throat and the beady little red eyes went wide - killing was always a pleasure, even if it was just killing a goblin slave's brat chosen for target practice - and pain exploded in his right shoulder, pain sufficient to make his hand spasm and the dagger to go flying. Yelling his shock and agony, Nazdrün looked at his shoulder. There was an arrow sticking out of it! Someone in the forest had shot him! Unable to believe this completely unjustified twist, Nazdrün turned to look at the forest ... and saw the bralani eladrin step forward.

Of course, Nazdrün was not educated enough to recognize a bralani for what it was; to him, it was some kind of elf. Growling, Nazdrün started to fumble at his sword with the hand that still worked. He heard the yells and approaching footfalls of the other hobgoblins behind him, and they gave him strength, gave him courage!

And then he heard the chanting. Felt the rumble, deep underground, followed by the rending of earth and stone. The eerie, shrieking "Teelee? Lee! Tekeli-li!" behind him. The screams of horror and agony of his comrades. The snapping of bones, the last exhalations of breath from broken bodies.

Something, something huge, was moving behind him and Nazdrün did not dare turn around. He dared not draw his sword. The elf was watching him, arrow nocked, face utterly, terrifyingly impassive. Nazdrün fancied the arrow was pointed right between his eyes.

And then the thing happened, the thing that turned this nightmare from simply nightmarish into nightmarish and shameful. A goblin, a pathetic little greenskin slave with a face ful of brands, tattoos and scars, came scuttling out from behind the elf. Bold as brass, ignoring Nazdrün, it moved towards the infant. It made soothing noises and convinced the weakened whelp to drink something from a metal flask -- a healing potion, judging by the way the cub's leg mended before Nazdrün's eyes.
The adult goblin scooped up the whelp, which clutched him like a baby monkey and looked up at Nazdrün with wide eyes and trembling ears. In contrast, the adult's scarred face expressed nothing but contempt. A notched ear flicked dismissively, and then the adult turned his back on Nazdrün!
Trembling with anger and humiliation, tears blurring his vision, Nazdrün could only stand there while the goblin and the elf-thing exchanged a few sentences in a sing-song language that hurt his ears. Then the adult goblin chanted something -- and they were just gone. The two goblins and the elf, gone!

Nazdrün was alone. Behind him, there was a kind of sighing sound. When he finally dared turn around, all he saw were the crushed bodies of his companions. How was he going to explain this to his commander? Who would ever believe something like this could happen?!

Riddleport; Golden Goblin sub-basement:

The new place was like a cave, but not a cave. Walls of stone, but straight-straight, made of blocks fitted together with what looked like hard mud. Strange! But dim, cool, peaceful. The baby goblin relaxed a little -- and the adult, the stranger who had saved it, used that moment of relaxation to pluck it off and put it down on ... what? A thing made of trees with a flat top and four legs. Strange!

"Can you talk?" the stranger asked, his accent strange, his voice also strange. Not shouting orders, not laughing shrilly, but also not snivelling. (The baby had no experience with people showing patience yet.) Strange! "Can you talk?" the adult repeated. He had the burned face and notched ears of an outcast, but he was the only goblin the baby could see.

The baby struggled. The hobgoblins had taken it from the cage before its time had come, had taken the whole cage and the tribe besides. Gone now, all gone. So it struggled for the stranger, and managed to utter a few words in the Goblin tongue.

"Talk," it squeaked. "Little." And, with a flash of inspiration: "Boss!"

The adult male outcast goblin chuckled. Also strange...! The baby felt that it was not being laughed at, not the way all the adults it had known used to laugh at other goblins (when they suffered pain or humiliation), and the look in his eyes was... it was...

"Here," the outcast said, turning to another four-legged thing made out of trees, then returning with a bowl full of something that smelled delicious. "Eat."

The baby wolfed down what turned out to be food. (Noodles with a thick, meaty stew on top.) It was ravenously hungry, which was basically the ground state of all baby goblins. What was not the ground state of all baby goblins, was the deep feeling of satisfaction that spread through it when it finished the bowl and realized that its belly was actually full...!

"Drink," the outcast said, offering the baby a waterskin and helping it to drink.

Milk, the skin was full of milk! Not goblin milk, but still -- milk! Again, the baby goblin was allowed to take as much as it wanted -- as much as it desperately needed -- and the male only chuckled when the baby belched loudly and sagged back against the table. The look in his eyes was... it was...

"Come," the outcast said, gently picked the baby up and carried it along to another room.

In the other room, there were strange things, things that the outcast taught the baby words for. 'Bath'. 'Shoes'. 'New clothes'. 'Mirror'. Strange! Strange smells! Strange textures! But ... good things.

"There," the outcast said as he stood the baby before the 'mirror', having put it in 'new clothes' and 'new shoes' after the 'bath'. "How's that?"

The baby understood that the mirror was like a bowl of water, only upright. Looking into the mirror was to see yourself. It saw itself, standing beside the outcast, who was taller than it, and... and it had to admit, they both looked good. 'New clothes' were better than what the goblins in the tribe wore. A 'bath' made their skin look better, brighter green. It struggled to find the words, yelping them at the adult: "Good! Boss!"
And the adult patted it on the head!

"Come," the outcast said, taking the baby by the hand.
He didn't drag it, he guided it as it toddled alongside him, doing its best to keep up. From the second room, they went into a third.
The baby had no words to describe it, but the place smelled strange in a whole new way and it was full of interesting-looking things.
Among the interesting things was a group of other goblin youngsters, all wearing 'new clothes' and 'new shoes', scrubbed fresh and clean, but some of them with hobgoblin slave-brands on their faces. They were all sitting on smaller four-legged things made of trees, attentively watching a thing that was like a black mirror, only it didn't reflect anything.
A little creature, like a little winged she-demon wearing a red dress, was making pictures on the black with a stick of chalk as long as it was tall. The young goblins obediently chorused strange sounds at each new picture.

"Boss?" the baby squeaked, looking up at the outcast. How could there be an outcast near where there were youngsters? Wouldn't the females run him off, wouldn't the males try to kill him? The thought ... it did not sit well with the baby. "Tribe?"

"Maybe," the outcast said, shrugging in an unconcerned sort of way. "Someday. But not now. They're like you; from ruined tribes. I bring them here. Maybe someday, you'll all be my tribe. You can help make the world different."

That was too complicated for the baby goblin. It struggled with what it was feeling, what it was thinking. Strange! Everything was so strange! All those young goblins, but none of them screaming, none of them leaping about! An outcast who wasn't an outcast, but Boss! What it wanted to know, what it really wanted to know was...!

"Cage?" it squeaked. It felt awfully tired all of a sudden. So much fear. So much food. So much strangeness. Such relief, right down to the bone. Its legs were trembling.

"No," Anklebiter said, gently, as he picked the youngster up. "No more cages. Come along; I'll show you the dorm room, my little apprentice."

Winters in Varisia are cold, much like anywhere else, but the weather there turns rainy rather than snowy. And here in Janderhoff, it has been raining for two days straight, turning the light gray stone of the Sky Citadel dark and puddle-strewn. Its angular construction funnels the rainwater into channels that fill reservoirs and rain barrels alike. The rain is cold and unrelenting, much like the dour folk that built its strong, sturdy walls millennia ago upon the completion of their Quest For Sky.

Azisi had felt the storm coming long before its first thundercrack. She felt it in her lower back, the site of an old wound that had once been healed by priestly magics. While the cleric had mended the flesh and staunched the bleeding, she could always feel when the weather would turn and her lower back would stiffen. It was days like these she hated the most, as this is when she was reminded of everything she'd lost. Her old position, her reputation as one of Janderhoff's greatest cavescouts, her two sons...

No, she thinks, reaching for a crystal bottle half full of Taldan brandy. One. I have one son. And he is dead.

She pours herself a glass of the brandy, draining it swiftly and with practiced ease. Her hands tremble as she sits down the glass. Cold in here, she says to herself. She glanced up at the open doors to the balcony on her room, watching as the winds blew the diaphanous window dressings in its strong breeze. The rain falls upon the outer half of her balcony, preventing most of the rain from getting into her room. The wind that permeates the room is frigid enough that she can see her breath in the air, and she rises to close the doors. She needs another drink, though, and pours herself another snifter full of the brandy. Her hands steady slightly as she closes and latches the doors, and she raises the snifter to her lips again to empty the glass for a second time.

"You should slow down," calls a voice from within her room, graveled and even. "Even for a dwarf, you need to pace yourself."

Azisi jumps at the admonishment, causing her to lose grasp of the glass, which shatters on the stone floor. "Who is there?", she shouts, searching in vain for the source. It had been some time since she'd had to use her training, but even in her state she could tell this person - male, definitely - was good at keeping themselves hidden. "Guards! There's an intruder in my chamber!"

"There won't be anyone coming," he replies with cool reassurance. "That sounds worse than it is. They're just unconscious. They'll have one Hell of a headache when they wake up, but they'll be fine. I just didn't want us to be interrupted."

Azisi grimaces at the reply, circling the room slowly, searching for whatever corner the intruder was hiding himself in. "I'm being targeted then. What for?"

"Simple," a voice whispers from directly behind her, making the old cavescout jump once again. "I needed to have one last conversation with you."

She spins, swinging a wildly off-balance hook at the man behind her, but he dodges - no, bends, almost unnaturally - away from her punch. Losing control of her momentum, she staggers and trips over her chair, tumbling ass over teakettle onto the floor. Looking up, she sees another dwarf, wearing a breastplate made of shadows and a fine longsword peacebonded at his hip. Her eyes widen as she notices the dwarf's tossled mop of black hair and piercing gray eyes, as well as his complete lack of a beard.

"Bruendor!", she spits, scarcely believing that he of all people would dare show his face here.

"Yes," he says with some resignation as he reached out a hand to help her to her feet. "Let me help you up, mother."

"I don't need your help, Sundered!", she cries, slapping his hand away, slowly finding her feet. "You have no right to be here in Janderhoff. Torag still has not forgiven you for your transgression." She rights the chair she tumbled over and takes her seat back at her table.

"I know," he says. "If the Sky Magistrates find me here, I am to be apprehended and executed for breaking the terms of my Sundering. Never return until a hundred and one dwarven lives are saved in exchange for failing to save Imrik. My brother.

"Mother, I..." he starts, seeing her tense with fury as he calls her by that familiar term. He clears his throat to start again. "Azisi, I believe that he never intended to keep that promise."

"Unlikely," she scoffs, folding her arms around her. "Saving those lives would be your crucible. Burn out in the fire or be purified into something stronger and better."

"And what if the forgemaster does nothing with the iron in the crucible?" he asks, meeting her gaze with his own unwavering stare. "What if the steel melts and purifies and does everything the forgemaster intended the steel to do, and then is never put into a mold?"

Azisi was about to reply when she finally sees into Bruendor's eyes. This was not the same disgraced man who was thrown out of Janderhoff, but someone who had undergone trials - physical, mental, perhaps spiritual - and come out the other side. There is a steel in his words and voice that had not been in the same man who had the Sundering placed upon him and his beard stripped from him.

Bruendor senses his opening, and continues. "One hundred and one dwarves, mother. That's all he wanted. A mere pittance of the length and breadth of all the dwarves that draw breath under Sarenrae's light. And I did it. And then some. I saved every gods-damned one of us - not just the dwarves, but all of us. All the lives on the planet saved. And he still didn't give me my damned beard back!"

Azisi finally recovers from her shock, and laughs at Bruendor's words. "Like Hell you did," she says mockingly. "Like Hell you could! You're no hero, you couldn't save your own flesh and blood from dying in the Darklands! I don't care whether you killed the Whispering Tyrant or closed the Worldwound or prevented another gods-damned Earthfall-"

"I mean, I actually did one of those," he mutters under his breath as she rants.

"-you are as dead to me as your brother is!"

The silence that follows after her words lingers in the room for some time. When he speaks again, it is in even tones.

"I don't care if you believe me, Azisi. In fact, it doesn't matter if you believe me or not. All that matters is that I know I saved the world, and so does He." He withdraws a wooden holy symbol of Torag and places it softly on the table. "And if he knows, and reneges on his end of the deal, then he's a right bastard."

She begins to object, but he continues over her. "And you're right. I didn't save Imrik that day. I saved you. And looking at how you've handled yourself over the last few years, I can see that you were right, all those years ago. I should never have saved you. You, who used your influence to get me cast out. You, who drank away your fading years until you had to be stripped of your own rank. You, who live on the mercy of those who remember what you did years ago, knowing your best days are behind you. I'm glad my brother never lived to see what you became."

She moves to strike him, but he catches her wrist with practiced ease. She couldn't deny it any longer - she had slown down in her advancing years, and Bruendor had gotten faster. He pushed her back down into her chair with a force that surprised her, and she balled her fists in impotent rage.

"You'll never see me again, mother," he says, rising from the table. "I'll never darken the halls of Janderhoff again, if I can help it. And you'll find I've left you a small pittance of my wealth to live off of - if you ration it well, it should get you through the rest of your life, especially if you keep drinking like that." He glances to the bottle of brandy that sits between them, its crystal gleaming in the dim light. "I just wanted you to know that you were absolutely wrong for casting me out. You, the priests that went along with it, - all of you were wrong. But somehow, all that placed me in the right place to do the right thing. And thanks to that, we all get to live.

"Except Imrik. He is dead. He has to be. I couldn't find him when I went into Zirnakaynin. Not even any mention of him. Knowing what I know now about them...I have to believe him dead. Any other option is just too terrible to comprehend." For a moment, Azisi sees frailty in her son's eyes, and for a moment, she feels an old, uncomfortable desire to hold him to her breast and let him cry out the pain he has been holding within him.

The moment passes, and she sees the familiar steel come back over him. "Keep the symbol," he says, withdrawing another one from his pouch, this one of a smoldering forge. "I have a new one. I always was a terrible worshipper of Torag, but I find Angradd may still have use of an imperfect tool." He leaves her, moving swiftly to the balcony door and diving off the ledge.

She rushes to her feet, calling his name at the top of her voice. "Bruendor! I'm sorry! Please!", she screams into the storm, her face pelted with the rain, soaking her to the skin with the downpour. No response comes. She stays there for sometime, thankful that in the rain, no one can tell of the drops are her tears.

Bruendor easily makes his way out of Janderhoff, also drenched by the rain. He puts on his new holy symbol, kissing the forge and drying the rain off of it. "We've work to do in Kyonin, don't we?" he says. He wipes the rain from his face, and suddenly freezes. Slowly, with trembling hands, he removes the glove from his right hand and gingerly runs it across his mouth and cheek.

Stubble.