Year: 3045 AGD
Month: Midwinter
First Firstday
Abandoned Mine
That first night alone was the worst night that he could remember. There had always been sounds around him: people moving, snoring, coughing, and talking. The absolute quiet that had greeted him in the guard room was almost more than he could take. His time in the caved-in part of the mine with the two Goblins—that he realized he had still never learned the names of—had helped prepare him a little, but even then, there had been noises if he listened closely. As he sat alone inside the guard’s room, he strained his hearing as hard as he could, but heard nothing beyond his own breathing.
There was a pile of wood in one corner of the cave for the fire pit that sat in the middle of the space. He had no idea how to start a fire, however, and his few attempts at doing so had failed spectacularly, and he had to remove the slivers he had gained in the attempt. Luckily, he was used to sleeping in the cold. His best discovery of that first evening had been a well-worn old cloak under the pile of wood. It had helped divert his attention from being alone for the first part of the night as he meticulously removed small chunks of wood from the cloak's fibers.
He had finally fallen into a blissfully dreamless sleep late in the night. When he had awoken, it was to a strange mewling sound coming from the direction of the cave entrance. The first thing he noticed as he rounded the corner was that the sun was out, and much of the snow that had been covering the trees had melted away. The snow on the ground was still up past his ankles, but he thought he might be able to see the ground in a few days if it continued to be this nice. The second thing he noticed was a small furry creature; if it hadn’t been making noise, he might have thought was just a pile of dirty snow.
The boy inched forward. He was only a few arm lengths away from the ball of fur when the creature seemed to register his presence. It rolled around and tried to stand; that was when he noticed that one of its legs was lame. This didn’t prevent the little guy from growling heartily at him, however. The creature’s aggressive posture had afforded him a better look at the little beast. He realized that, while the thing was small and cute, an older version might be rather intimidating.
As it was, however, the small ball of fluff was making it very difficult for him not to smile. The creature’s tail was short and furry, and its ears were round little nubs that were probably as big as the boy’s thumb. It had an elongated snout that ended in a small black nose. In fact, the only thing that wasn’t cute or cuddly about the little guy was his rather sharp looking teeth and the currently extended claws that protruded from his wide paws.
“Hey little one,” he whispered. “Where did you come from?”
At the sound of his voice, the creature stopped growling, and a small pink tongue popped out for a moment, before lifting his muzzle to get a good sniff of the air. The little guy seemed to decide that the boy wasn’t a threat as he flopped onto his butt and eyed him curiously. A moment later, the little guy seemed to remember that he was in pain and whimpered quietly. His muzzle swung around behind him and grabbed what at first glance looked like a large stick. Upon closer examination, however, small bits of flesh hung off one end, and the other side ended in a wicked looking point.
“What do you have there?”
In response, the little guy growled quietly and thrashed the tail around.
“Is that what happened to your leg?”
A loud crunch sounded as the exoskeleton of the tail cracked under the powerful jaws of the small ball of fur. It seemed that whatever had attacked the creature had lost its tail in the process.
“Alright, so we know not to get our fingers anywhere near your mouth.”
As if to agree, the little guy shook his head up and down vigorously before spitting the tail out into the snow. They stared at each other for a few moments before the little fluff ball seemed to decide that he wasn’t in danger at the moment and started licking his wounded leg. Moving away from the creature, the boy used his eyes to follow the tracks that had been left in the snow, and they seemed to lead back south. He wondered how far the creature had come from where he had started, and how far away the tail had come from. When he turned back around, he noticed two small bright blue eyes staring at him curiously.
“Well, we probably shouldn’t stay out here.” He made to move closer to the little guy, who immediately started growling. “Alright, well…” Moving towards the cave mouth he motioned towards the entrance. “… whenever you are ready, I’ll be in there.”
He could feel the creature’s eyes on his back as he disappeared into the mouth of the cave. Realizing that there was very little that he could do to help the little guy if he wasn’t willing to be helped, the boy started rummaging around the meager supplies. It didn’t take long for him to sort through the paltry pile of goods. There was a small ball of string, half a knife blade, two of the grain bars that he had eaten every day for as long as he could remember, a water skin full of something pungent, a ratty old cloak, and a whole lot of firewood.
None of his dreams had dealt with any kind of situation like this, and he had no idea what he was going to do if Pershanti didn’t come back for him. As he sat staring at his small pile of supplies, he remembered that there were chains and manacles down the tunnel. He didn’t know what he would use them for, but as the thought came to him he realized that there might also be a pickaxe left down there. Running down the tunnel, he was excited to see that he had been right and there were actually four pickaxes lying around near the pile of chains. He tried to pick up all of the pickaxes at once and realized that he was never going to get all of them to the front of the cave in one trip, so he decided to take them two at a time.
It took him three trips to get the pickaxes and drag the chain into the guard’s quarters. When he came around the corner with a long line of chain spooled out behind him, he noticed that he was no longer alone in the room. A small furry shape was sniffing at the pile of supplies that he had set out, and he noticed that half of one of his grain bars was missing.
“Hey!”
The small shape ignored him and took another bite out of the bar.
“You little bastard, that’s all the food we have!”
Happy blue eyes greeted his statement as the last bit of the first bar disappeared into his toothy maw.
“Well I hope that fills you up some,” he said, walking across the room. He was well within bite range as he picked up the other bar and hid it in the pocket of his cloak. “Because if Pershanti doesn’t show up in the next day or two we are going to be out of luck food wise.”
A short growl accompanied his movements, but it seemed much more playful than it had been earlier.
“Alright, try not to get into too much trouble, I’ll be right back.”
Picking up the chain once again, he began to drag the hefty links towards the front of the cave. He began to lay the chain from one side of the cave to the other in a tight weave back and forth. As long as the chain was, he only managed to cover about five feet of the entire entrance in chain. He hoped that it would be a big enough surprise that the chain rustling would give them enough warning to stand and fight whatever came in. Of course, if they did notice the chain and simply hopped over it they might still make enough noise for him to hear them coming.
Coming back into the room, he noticed the small white and brown furred creature playing with something in the corner of the room. Moving closer, he found that the thing was rolling around the ball of string one end of the ball was loose so every time he swatted at it, the ball became a little smaller. This seemed to confuse and sadden the little guy as each time the ball got smaller he would be slower to swat at it. When his last swat made the thing unravel entirely, the fuzzy creature looked back at him with a look that seemed to say it broke.
Laughing, he moved towards the little guy, who for once didn’t growl as he reached down and grabbed the string. It took him a few tries to figure out how to wind the string up to make it into a ball shape once more, but once he figured it out, he tucked the loose end in so that it wouldn’t unravel as easily. When he set the ball down in front of the little ball of fur, the creature's eyes lit up and his tongue lolled out of his mouth for a second before he went back to work swiping at the ball. When he seemed to notice that the ball was no longer getting smaller, his swipes came a little faster.
The little guy hit the ball too hard one time and when he went to snatch it with his other paw, he over extended and let out a whimper as his back end seemed not to want to cooperate. Lying on the ground, he stared at the ball rolling away in defeat. That was when the boy noticed that neither one of the pup's back legs were working now. Whatever it was that had stung him, it had left something nasty behind that was slowly working its way through the little ball of fluff.
“Hey little guy, you don’t look like you are doing very well,” he said, moving towards his new cave-mate.
Blue eyes stared back at him, cautious but no longer afraid. He put his hand a little way away from the thing's nose allowing it to get a good sniff.
“I don’t know anything about wounds, but I should probably look at that leg of yours to make sure it isn’t about to fall off or something.” He placed his hand slowly down on top of the creature, petting it gently. It seemed to be okay with that, and as it closed its eyes its short tail twitched sporadically. Whatever it was that was slowly coursing through the creature's system was making the movements awkward. Slowly moving his hands back towards the rear end of the creature, he eventually made it to the wounded leg.
As he reached for the creature’s leg, a small pair of bright blue eyes were suddenly inches from his face. He was sniffed several times accompanied by several loud, quick, grunts. Finally, the little guy seemed to decide that he wasn’t being threatened and laid down, allowing the inspection. Examining the legs, he noticed the wound because there was something sticking out of the back-left leg that wasn’t on the right. A thin membrane of some sort was implanted into the back of the thing's leg—clearly something left behind from the stinger.
Grabbing the knife blade, he wrapped the end of his cloak around one finger and pressed the membrane between his wrapped finger and the blade, pulling the end free. The tip of the stinger came out still dripping fluid. He dropped the tip into the fire pit, even though there was no fire—he felt it was the safest place for it at the moment. Next, he wiped off the knife blade before tearing off a thick section of the ratty old cloak, throwing that in the fire pit as well.
“Well little buddy, that’s as good as I can do. Hopefully your body can get rid of that crap, or Pershanti knows what to do.”
Serenity Valley
Shawnrik was nervous. As nervous as he could ever remember being. He was pretty sure he had been less nervous waiting to ambush a patrol of Blood Orcs. His hands were sweating, and he had barely been able to follow along as Master Orsoe demonstrated different maneuvers that could be used from the forms they had been perfecting over the last three Eightdays. Master Orsoe had noticed his lack of concentration and had shot him several questioning glances, her Half-Orc visage giving her concern an almost feral aspect.
Halfway through the class, she seemed to realize what it was that was on her young student's mind. One would have to be blind to not notice it after watching him for half of the afternoon, as his eyes kept darting towards a particular person. She was two rows ahead of him to the right, barely large enough to intimidate a Gnome, and yet here he was sweating more than he had since Ashur’s first month of training sessions.
Olivia Little. She had already essentially told him that she was waiting for him to ask her to the Winter Dance. Even with the knowledge that she was more than likely to say yes, his nerves were frayed. What if she doesn’t, though? What if someone asked her this morning while you were trying to figure out the right words? What if she figured since you didn’t ask her yesterday she would ask someone this morning? Shawnrik knew that he was overthinking the whole thing, but he couldn’t stop the thoughts from pouring out. His heart was beating fast, its palpitations the only noise he could hear beyond his own breathing.
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That was why it took him a moment to realize that Master Orsoe had just asked him to come forward and help her demonstrate how the latest maneuver worked. Realizing that he had not been paying attention at all, he tried to remember what his body had been doing only moments before. By the time he made it to the front of the students he thought he had a pretty good idea about the way that the encounter would play out based on the movements his body had been making. It only took him ending up on his back twice before he executed the move correctly and dropped Master Orsoe to the floor. He had no illusions about his success as no doubt the wiry Half-Orc had a dozen ways in which she could have turned the move back around in her favor, but because it was a demonstration, she let the move play out like it would against someone without her experience.
“Nice work, Shawnrik,” she said aloud as he pinned her to the grass. In a much quieter voice she added. “Think of it like you are going into a fight. You are either going to overwhelm her immediately and everything will work out, or she’ll punch you in the gut and it’ll hurt for a while.”
It took a moment for him to realize that she was talking to him about his nervousness. He simply froze, looking down at his surprisingly helpful Instructor.
“Alright, get up,” Master Orsoe said in a louder voice. “We’ve got work to do.” She winked at him with the eye that wasn’t facing the students as he helped her to her feet. “Get back in line.”
The rest of the class went by much smoother for him, and his heartbeat had normalized to something more akin to its usual tempo for this type of exercise. While the advice was barely different than some of the things he had been telling himself for the past day, its source had managed to surprise him enough to divert some of his thoughts away from what he was about to do. He realized at that moment that he owed his Instructor a debt of gratitude. It goes to show that you can never guess which person might give you that little boost you need at the perfect moment.
When the class was dismissed for the day, he kept his eye on Olivia. Normally they would all gather together and walk towards the dining hall as a unit, but his mind kept telling him that she might disappear if he looked away too long. His fears were rendered obsolete as she and the rest of the girls began to converge on him. Shawnrik realized a moment later that Verrian was standing beside him.
“Wow buddy, you got it bad. I hope you manage to ask her this time, because disoriented Shawnrik is not a very fun guy to be around.”
“What? Verrian, I’m not…”
“Right,” Verrian laughed. “Then it’s okay if I just tell the girls that you have decided to take Olivia to the dance, then.”
Shawnrik’s eyes went wide at the thought. “Verrian…”
“I’ll tell you what, my friend, if you don’t manage to ask her by the time we get to the dining hall I’ll do just that.”
“Do what?” Vivianne asked, as she was the first of the girls to come into earshot, although if either of the boys would have thought about it they might have realized that Syranna more than likely could have heard their whole conversation, if she had a mind to.
“Oh, nothing,” Verrian said, accepting the arm that she held out without thought. “Shawnrik was just telling me he had come to a decision.”
“Oh do tell,” Rebecca said, taking his other arm.
“Sorry ladies, not my secret to divulge.” He started walking towards the dining hall before he turned his head and mouthed one word to Shawnrik.
Yet.
Motivated by his friend's ultimatum and his Instructor's wisdom, Shawnrik decided that prolonging the situation wouldn’t be a benefit to anyone. Olivia, Sara, and Syranna were only a few steps behind Vivianne and Rebecca, Shawnrik took a deep breath and held it for a moment as the young women approached.
“Oh, someone is serious today,” Sara said giving her cousin a pat on the shoulder as she passed. “About time,” she whispered.
Syranna looked between him and Olivia quickly before squeezing Olivia’s hand quickly and running to catch up with the rest of the group. Shawnrik swore he saw a slight frown on her face as she passed. He didn’t have long to think about it, however, as Olivia took his arm and turned him around in the direction their friends had gone. She was smiling, but something told him that she was nearly as nervous as he was, which didn’t make sense to him.
“So…” Olivia started to say at the exact same time that Shawnrik began to speak.
The pair laughed, some of the discomfort they were both feeling melting away. Shawnrik continued when it became apparent that she wanted him to go first. “Listen, I don’t know what I’m going to be doing a few years from now, likely it isn’t going to be anything safe…”
“Shawnrik,” Olivia said. “Are you asking me to marry you?”
“What?” Shawnrik stopped in his tracks for a moment before he noticed the light of mischief in her eye.
“Well, if you aren’t asking me to marry you then it doesn’t really matter what is going to happen years from now, or even months from now.” She squeezed his arm. “What matters is where we are right now, and what we do with the time we know we have.”
Realizing she was absolutely right, Shawnrik smiled down at this wonderful young woman who managed to confound him entirely from the moment that he first met her in the wilds south of Stalwart. “Alright then, I was wondering if you’d do me the honor of accompanying me to the Winter Dance.”
“Why Shawnrik, I was beginning to wonder if you even liked me.” She squeezed his arm, letting him know she was messing with him.
“Of course I like you; I have just never had to deal with anything like this. The first time I met you was my first real interaction with any girl my age who didn’t look at me like gutter trash.”
“I assure you that the young man I see before me is anything but gutter trash,” Olivia said sliding her hand down into his. “I can tell you where you are going to be years from now.”
“Really? Some sort of premonition?” Shawnrik joked.
“Nothing as serious as that,” Olivia said, her eyes telling him not to joke lightly about such things. “I can tell you because I know the type of person you are.”
“Alright, what will I be doing a few years from now?”
“Protecting,” Olivia said, as if that was all the explanation that was needed.
“Protecting?”
“That’s right. You will be protecting your friends and protecting people who have no one else to stand up for them.”
“That’s a tall order for a guy who had to have his friend sacrifice his freedom to keep everyone safe,” Shawnrik said, moisture forming in his eyes. The high opinion that Olivia seemed to have of him mingled with the feelings of helplessness that he had felt when he found out what Victor had done were more than he was used to dealing with.
“Hey,” Olivia said, pulling him to a stop. She stood on the tips of her toes and cupped his face with her hand. “No one ever said that you were the only person that gets to protect people. You will never be able to control every situation, but you will do everything in your power to try, and that is what will make you a man to be reckoned with. Wherever Victor is, I’m sure he is fighting with everything he has.”
Abandoned Mine
“Come on little guy, don't you give out on me,” the boy said, cradling the nearly still furry body in his arms. The creature’s condition had grown steadily worse throughout the day, and it had begun to lose control of different parts of its body. He had done everything he could trying to help his furry companion, but he had no idea how to treat something like this.
Each beat of its heart was coming slower than the last. Caring for the animal was starting to take its toll, and exhaustion slowly took hold of the boy. He fell into a deep slumber, his dreams coming at a frantic pace, one after another in high speed. He saw people and creatures he had no name for dying in more ways than he thought possible. There were rooms full of the dead and dying, people sick from every known disease, and more than a few unknown. Hundreds of successful treatments and thousands of failures flew by in a maelstrom of sickness and grief.
How long he laid there stuck in a myriad of painful memories he didn’t know, but after a thousand lifetimes they started to slow down, some part of him having found what it was looking for. Once the memories died out, the pain began. It moved through each and every fiber of his small form. Then the heat came, as if every muscle and vessel in his body were on fire, being purged of the foulness that had taken control. The pain slowly receded but the heat remained, hot, but no longer unbearably so. His limbs twitched, and he looked up and felt a moment of confusion as he saw his own form lying prone next to him. It took him a moment to realize that he was no longer in his own body; his consciousness now inhabited the body of his small furry friend.
Thank you.
It came more as a feeling much more than actual words, but its meaning was clear. With the thought came a gentle push. Go back. He realized that somehow, he had taken control of this small form, and that realization made him sick. Instinctually, he knew that what he was doing was wrong, but he also knew that his little furry companion would have died without his intervention. The boy understood that he had burned out the toxin that had been spreading through the creature’s body, but how he had accomplished it, and why it worked were still beyond his knowledge.
Finding an open pathway back towards his own body, he began to withdraw his consciousness from his furry companion. Before he was completely withdrawn, however, one more message was sent to him. It was a stream of connected thoughts. A much younger version of the furry form before him stuck his nose into an ant hill only to get bit and then swarmed. Slightly older now, the little guy came upon a mass of writhing snakes and almost got eaten for his curiosity. Lastly, an image of him digging in the snow, and finding a scorpion den. It only took moments for the scorpion to shake off its hibernation and spring to the attack. The fight that ensued was short and vicious, and ended with his furry companion ripping off the scorpion’s tail and running away. It all coalesced into one final thought.
I am Troublefinder.
Opening his own eyes, the boy first noticed that the fire was lit and had burned down to coals. He felt odd for a few moments, as his body worked differently than that of Troublefinder. Looking down he saw a pair of bluish gray eyes looking back at him. They seemed slightly different than they had earlier in the day, but he figured that was just the firelight messing with the colors. Troublefinder sat on his haunches, his tail wiggling back and forth in rapid succession.
“Hey little guy, that was some day, huh?”
In response, Troublefinder licked his hand and cuddled up next to him. Throwing a couple more pieces of wood onto the coals, he wrapped his arms around his new companion. For some reason he felt drained, and the steady breathing of Troublemaker lulled him into a blissfully dreamless sleep.
Month: Midwinter
First Secondday
Freeport
Stewart Cantel was cold, tired, and pissed off. He had spent the last three Eightdays running around Freeport, always a step behind the Doppelganger and its royal prisoner. During that time, he had been exposed to the harsh realities of this thriving trade city. Freeport was corrupt to its very core. As High Commander, he had been privy to reports from the city, but those reports had been seriously lacking.
Criminal organizations controlled most of the city, heavily extorting any of the businesses that wanted to stay on the correct side of the law and providing ample opportunity to thrive to those who had a more flexible moral compass. He had uncovered more instances of slavery than he was comfortable thinking about, the majority of which were young women being forced into prostitution. Every time he thought he had uncovered the worst that the city could offer, it managed to surprise him once again with its level of malfeasance.
Something drastic would have to be done to clean up this city, but that would have to wait until the princess was free and safely in Protectorate hands. All he could do was file a report on some of the things he had seen and hope that it would make the city a little safer until he had time to lead a concerted effort. He wondered how many people knew just how bad things had become in this city that was well within Protectorate lands, and who was ultimately responsible for it.
Over the course of the last month, he had been within hours of catching up with the princess on a dozen different occasions, but each and every time the underworld of the city seemed to come together to delay him just enough for the princess to once again slip from his grasp. No matter how many of the thugs he killed, or maimed, it never seemed to dissuade the local toughs from getting in his way. Now he had learned that the Doppelganger and the princess had most likely boarded a ship that had come in during the night. By the time he had reached the docks, the vessel was a dot on the horizon.
You would think it would be an easy thing for the High Commander of the Protectorate to commandeer a vessel in a Protectorate city, but the fact was that most of the ships were run by crews that had grown up in Freeport and like the rest of this city, they seemed to have no love or respect for what the Protectorate stood for. It had taken him the better part of a day to find a captain with a crew willing to assist him in the chase—for a fee.
From what little he had garnered from the unwilling captains, the most likely destination for the mysterious vessel that had taken the princess away was the Dracair controlled port of Drayfjord. The only real port of note in Dracair controlled territories. The Dracair and the Blood Mages had tried for hundreds of years to establish other ports in order to wrest some control of the seas around their side of the continent, but small fleets from countries around the world made them eventually realize that it was an impossible task. Not that they didn’t still try to build a new port every thirty years or so, but each time they did it was blasted into oblivion before they even started building the ships.
Stewart Cantel now sat on the bridge of a small schooner, the city of Freeport slowly disappearing behind him. In some ways, he was glad that the chase had finally left that vile city because it would make the hunt a little easier, but he also knew things were about to get a lot more hectic, and a lot more violent.