I was on a high. After more than a year, our gaming group had finally vanquished Morgrumash, the God Slayer. We’d played past midnight before Jax, my 20th-level nimble rogue felled the monstrosity with a fatal sneak attack. The critical hit with his twinned Blades of Shadow, seconds before he’d have to start making death saves, was the highlight of the whole campaign. There was more than a little luck involved, not to mention the skills of his equally brink-of-death companions, but they’d done it. At last, they’d done it.
When I’d crashed into an exhausted sleep that night I’d expected to wake to a blaring alarm reminding me it was time to get ready for Uni. Instead, I blinked and grunted when something hard slammed into my chin. I stumbled backwards, dropping to one knee on the soft wooden floor boards beneath my feet.
Wooden floor boards? I glanced around, thrown not just from the blow but from the whole strange room around me. The walls were lit with smoking torches. Pillars of sunlight shone through high angled windows that looked out on a gray sky. The lower windowed walls were red with the shadows of dozens of trees and shrubs. Beneath my feet were worn floorboards. This, very definitely, was not my bedroom.
“Pay attention!” snapped the hissing snarl of a towering man in cobalt robes. My eyes travelled up from the man’s cloth bound feet and leather strapped calves over the silver linen belt tied at his waist. I blinked, not sure I could trust my eyes when I saw the scaled, gray skin and strange yellow eyes on the face of the… man?
I was going to say something, but the strange being was already turning, bringing an arm down towards my head with a thick staff between his hands. I gasped, diving to the right, then rolled across the floor, narrowly avoiding the blow. “Woah!” I cried, holding up my hands.
The creature’s yellowed eyes narrowed and the slits that served as nostrils in his scaled face flexed. He stepped, his feet circling around me. His whole body looked alert, ready, waiting.
“What are you?” I asked. The guy looked like a dragonborn. But he couldn’t be, obviously. Those only exist in the game.
I rose to my feet, wary, then stumbled back as the creature launched toward me with a dance of blows. The staff darted first toward my shoulder and then up from beneath to sweep my leg out from under me. I managed to duck under the overhead blow (Staff: 3+7=10) and leap over the sweep (Unarmed: 6+7=13). “Wait,” I cried.
The man tilted his chin, watching me with a steady gaze that seemed to assess me on every level. “Fight me,” he snarled. His voice, not cruel but firm, seemed aged and I couldn’t help wondering how old the strange creature was. The tufts of white hair on his head, brows, and long ears made him look ancient but he moved with the lithe vigor of a much young man.
“I don’t understand.” I glanced around, looking for some way to defend myself. Across the room, perhaps twenty feet from us, lay another staff. The trouble was, the strange scaled man stood between me and it.
“Stop wasting my time, Lo’Kryn. Pick up your weapon and strike at me.”
I hesitated. Lo’Kryn very definitely was not my name. I was Nik, at least I always had been before... this. But I couldn’t take the time to correct the strange man because he was already advancing toward me again. Instead, I broke into a sprint. I’d wanted to dart past him but, sensing the manouver, the man struck out with the staff. It cracked against my hip as I ran by (Staff: 13+7=20; damage: 1+3=4). I dove into a forward roll, feeling the pain lance up my side, but managed to grip the staff between my hands and round out to my feet to rise facing my enemy.
The man’s silver-scaled lips curved in a smile. “Good,” he said, “now show me.” He paced carefully as I sized him up. He was a big man and the scales probably provided protection my body didn’t share. Still, I felt a strange strength in my arms and unlike the clumsy oaf I’d always seemed to be when I moved, this body cooperated in lithe forms as if it knew better than I did how each action should be taken.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
The man huffed, clearly growing impatient. He circled forward.
Realising he wouldn’t wait before striking out again, I took the initiative. I circled, closing the distance between us and then swung out with the staff. It cracked hard against the creature’s upper arm (Staff: 10+5=15; damage: 5+3=8), and turning into the manouver, I pushed the advantage forward to land a second blow into his solarplexes (Unarmed: 15+5=20; damage: 5+3=8).
The man grunted, gasping as he stepped back from the hit. His lips curved, almost imperceptably, and he nodded his head. “Good, good,” he said, but he was already shifting his feet. I sensed the move before it happened so ducked low under the high sweep of the staff that came for my head (Staff: 6+7=13). I was so preoccupied with the sweeping staff, however, I didn’t see the lizard-like leg that snapped out to hook my ankle until my face was against the wood floor and the staff came down hard across my back (Unarmed: CRIT! 20+7=27; damage: 1+1+3=5). The hit took the wind from my lungs and I lay there, gasping, as I tried to catch my breath. Dust crusted my lips and swirled across the floor as my burning lungs tried to refill with air. I lifted a hand to swipe away the spit and blood as I rose, slowly, to my feet.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked, fixing a dirty glare on the scaled creature. It was clear the man wasn’t truly trying to hurt me. There was a wisdom in his eyes. Careful consideration in every blow. This was clearly some form of sparring but I couldn’t understand the purpose or intent.
“You must learn, Lo’Kryn.”
My head was hurting but I circled, wary of the staff in the man’s hands. “Why do you keep calling me that? My name is Nik.”
The dragonborn tilted his head, pausing. There was a clear wave of confusion across his face and he peered closer. “Lo’Kryn?” he asked, stepping forward.
Wary, I stepped back, holding my staff in front to protect myself. I kept my gaze on the elder monk as he took another step toward me. The floorboards creaked under his weight and I couldn’t resist a smirk as I realised the power I’d gained because of that duel weakness. This fighter was both heavier and slower than I was.
I listened, waiting for the next blow to come. When the monk’s heavy staff came up between us I knocked it aside (Staff: FAIL! 1+7=8) with my own, his elbow was following up the strike (Unarmed: 6+7=13) so I dropped low to sweep the man’s feet out from under him. Then I came down on top to slam the tip of my own staff into the creature’s sternum (Staff: 9+5=14). My aim must have been off, or perhaps the scaled flesh of the man was tougher than I’d imagined, because the blow proved glancing. My staff slammed into the floorboards rather than causing any real damage to my foe.
I was turning away when a crack of pain lanced up from my knee (Unarmed: 19+7=26; damage: 1) and I crumpled, clutching my shin. My vision wavered and I gasped trying to clear my head. I flinched when clawed fingers closed around my upper arm but the gentle nudge was simply helping me to my feet. “Enough,” the man said, his lips forming the word with a slight lisp, “You must rest.”
“I don’t understand.”
The dragonborn tilted his head and leaned forward past my weak defences. His silver fingers gripped my chin as he peered deep into my eyes. I could feel the dragonborn’s breath on my lips. Well, this has got to be the weirdest near kiss I’ve ever experienced.
“Ah ha!” the man cried, clearly gleaning something from the moment. “You are a Traveller. Chosen of the Gods.”
I shook my head, starting to think maybe I’d not woken up from that killer night after all. Surely I must still be dreaming. “Traveller?” What the hell does that mean?
“Yes, yes. In times when great evil seeks to overwhelm the midplanes, the Pantheon of Balance call forth Travellers. They are ones of proven skill and experience. The only ones with means to throw down the rising tides of evil lifted by the Pantheon of Power.”
I blinked and raised a disbelieving eyebrow. The strange creature seemed to clearly see my confusion. “Lo’Kryn,” he said again, his voice a little tight with his impatience at what I assumed he thought my own stupidity, “you are chosen. I do not know the all of it. Only that Travellers have been called over the millenia to do great deeds.” He stepped back and ran his eye from the top of my head to my feet and back, then tutted, his tongue slipping from his lips. “There is much you still must learn. Come.” He gestured to door that lead out of the room up a set of stairs.
I glanced that way but then turned back to him. “Why do you keep calling me Lo’Kryn?”
“It is the name of your incarnate self. I am Hayvik, your teacher among the Palladium Rise.”
“I must be dreaming.”
Hayvik gave a strange, almost sad, smile. “If only,” he whispered as if not intending for me to hear him. “Come,” he said, his voice louder. “We must speak with Siria Ninn, she is the Head Archivist of our Talazen temple.”