The fallen spirit of the lost wanderers."Here, this, take it!? a grim looking barbarian woman said, as she handed a sack to Ranamar, a monk of Selûne. Dressed in the rags of rusting armor, bloody and ripped cloths, the woman seemed as to have never washed herself. In the City of Coin this was most unheard of.
"Now, what I want you to do, is to use the bounty from it, to rebuild the asylum in the island of Brynnlaw."
Ranamar hadn't really listened to anything before this and hadn't even noticed the woman before she had given him the sack, as he had his hand full of the day?s works.
"But wh..." Ranamar got to say, but the barbarian interrupted him again, "I have a friend that needs your help." She said, turned and walked away.
Ranamar just stared the woman as she walked, and when she turned at a corner, he turned his attention towards the sac. He opened it, and surprised by its content, dropped it down onto the street. It was a human head, a famous sea captain's!
~*****~
As she awakened with Ajantis, she knew something was horribly wrong! As she tried to lift her head up to sit, there was an invisible wall build by headache, striking at as she tried to raise. The magical poison, that ran its course strong, was still in her veins. Even more so for Ajantis, he was still out. The ghosts, hunters, trappers or whatever had managed to completely surprise her and her companions. And as she tried to ignore the aches, she had the most grim realization, all but one of her friends and allies, were... gone.
~*~
For Branwen this was just another test of Tempus, her fate. After all, she had lost her weapons, most of her friends, but she had her armor and faith. She would do fine without the, she had lost.
So, when Ajantis was up and about for a run, Branwen decided that they should split up, to cover more ground, in search of their lost friend. Ajantis would head to South, while Branwen went North. And if they discovered some kind of a clue, they would contact the other with the usual means.
~*~
As Branwen didn't have a weapon, she decided to visit one of the old hunting lodges, just a little north of where she woke up after the ambush, to get one.
But the cottage was nowhere to be found! There was just a thick forest around her, and a long but narrow pond She couldn't remember having ever been there. She was lost. And even worse than the fact that she was lost, was that she began to hear wyvern attack calls, from above the trees. And from the sounds of them, she knew there were several of them.
Ok, she decided, as this was going to be the last test of courage, hers, she wouldn't back down.
As she came to a clearing, she saw a pile of dead cows, their flesh ripped open; the blood was still flooding through the pile. But the wyverns hadn't done the massacre! Spear traps had, the same once that had brought two of the monsters down. One had been killed by two traps, and the other one was severally injured to its wing and tail by another trap's hit. The third wyvern just flow by the pile as it probably could see just several more traps hidden. Then an arrow flew past it, so it turned around flow past the pile once more and went to search more easy prey somewhere else. The archer was in a tree, and when he began to climb down, Branwen recognized him, as Kivan.
But when she was a little closer to him, he raised his arm and said. "No, don't!" To which Branwen just stared him until she heard an elf putting it's dagger into a sheath besides her. "This is Coran, we were on a wyvern hunt together, but where is..."
"Well, this is a little embarrassing, as I don't know. We were traveling with him, Imoen, Jaheira, Khalid, Minsc and Dynaheir, but as the night came I couldn't see much, and then it was too late. I got hit to my throat with these poison darts and then I fell. I was still awake when they came closer, but I couldn't move when I saw one of them, they took my warhammer, and then when I..."
"Hhmm, so they surprised you, that's strange. But I thought that you killed all the Sarevok's men."
"Well yes, we killed Sarevok himself too, but then again, there is always more of those enemies, probably... everywhere."
"Ah, a new enemy! But you said we?"
"Yes, me and Ajantis, we were both passed by the attackers, our weapons were taken, and I think that they had too much already to carry us with our plate armors..."
"Aah, as he doesn't wear one. So you think that your attackers knew who they were to capture."
"Well, not exactly, but good enough info still not to take us, me and Ajantis."
"So, where is Ajantis?"
"Well, we decided to try to split up to cover more ground to find him faster."
"So, you wouldn't mind, if we were to tag along, now would you?" Kivan offered.
"No, none at all! Welcome to join, but ah, could you lend me a weapon as..." Branwen smiled and raised her empty hand.
"Ouh, and besides that she is stupid and ugly, lost all of her friends, she doesn't even came with a weapon! Now tell me again Kivan, why would I let myself to be led to an obvious trap, by this ugly wench that I wouldn't let to touch me even with a mile long stick?" Until now silent Coran burst into a speech.
"Ah, she can heal you!"
"Ouh, my bad! Now tell me exactly where are we going? And how much gold is in it for me?"
Once Coran had handed Branwen a warhammer from his backpack, and killed the near dead wyvern with Kivans and Corans bows, they started to travel along a small path, which ended up to a road that leaded to Berogost. There they went to the Jovial Juggler and met Officer Vai. To whom they told what had happened, but as there was no one that had seen the attackers that Branwen described, nor dressed like one. They decided to collect the wyvern bounties from officer Vai, and return back to the road.
~*~
When they arrived at the Friendly Arm Inn, they saw a familiar face at the main gate, it was Gellana Mirrorshade.
"There is a message for you, it's from Ajantis. It seems he has gotten to Athkatla. And by the looks of it, he says that some attackers were Shadow Thieves working for someone else."
"But, we just got here, how was he able to learn all this so quickly?"
"The message says that Ajantis met a mage that his family knows, and that took him strait to Athkatla. This is because the Most Noble Order of the Radiant Heart had some assignment for him. But as he had some time before he had to leave, he was able to find this much of the attackers." She replied.
"So what should we do now?" Kivan asked from Branwen.
"Well, we should go to Athkatla, but as we are a little out of coins now to hire a mage to take us there, I don't know."
She answered, but not wanting to give away any of his hard earned money, Coran said.
"Well, we could take a ship from Baldur's Gate to there, and explore the waves."
"That would definitely be a more dangerous rout that to walk around the Cloudpeek Mountains, but it might be a quicker path." Kivan said and Branwen agreed.
They exited from the Inns courtyard, leaving poor Gellana to wonder what this business was all about, what did the Amn's dangerous Shadow Thief's had to do with Ajantis and Branwen...
And so... they went to Baldur's Gate, and they got themselves hired on a ship to Athkatla, as its guardians.
~*~
The ships journey was full of adventure too. When they came out of the river Chionthar, to the Sea of Swords, there was a ship in the horizon. The captain ordered all men on deck and work as hard as they could, as the ship could be a pirate ship. And it was! The winds gale was to West by South West, so the captain decided to take advantage of their bigger sail with full power to avoid a fight with the smaller pirate ship, even though this just took them farther away from the cost and their destination.
Once the pirate ship was out of sight, they could turn back to east. And they saw an uncharted island. But not knowing what dangers laid in waiting over there, the captain steered the ship far away from the island. The winds that favored them earlier now were against them as they had to zigzag mostly against it to east.
The worst was yet to come as the weather worsened and the sky darkened. A storm erupted, and the wind broke the ships main mast, and with all the means to furthering their travel. So they were alike a duckling in a way too large pull of water.
To make things more difficult, the pirate ship came to a view. As it came close two fireballs scorched what was left of the main mast, and then the pirates invaded the ship, coming to the deck in pairs to investigate at the empty ship.
As Branwen had led the ship?s crew to the waters, giving them all short water walking ability and then leading them from the rear of their ship to the backside of the pirate ship, and then inwards with the anchor chain. Kivan and Coran killed the pirate ships battle mage with their bows and while the pirates were still just searched the empty and damaged ship, they managed to free the ships from each others, before the pirates had really noticed. After this, the rest of the journey with the pirate ship to Athkatla was smooth sailing until the docks, but a captured pirate ship drew the attention of the authorities only for so long as there were other problems the city had.
~*~
As Branwen came to Athkatla, following the clue Ajantis had sent to her, the lead had already dried up, as most of the Shadow Thieves were dead, and the rest were on the run. The peculiar thing was that Ajantis hadn't even mentioned this, but then again, the info was almost two months old already.
The weakness of the formerly so strong Shadow Thieves had raised a quite bad undead problem for the city. There was skeletons and other undead creatures, even a few vampires moving in the night throughout the city. The problem needed to be solved, and so the city council had arranged a reward for a proof of a solution. Although Branwen wasn't an expert of the undead, she knew she could solve the problem by killing the source of them, and might find a few answers to her own questions that seemed to stem from the problems on Athkatla. But to do so, she would need more help than Coran and Kivan would be able give her, as bows aren't the best weapons to fight the undead. And because they were in need of the rest, they decided to search for help another day and went into a shady inn called the Copper Coronet, in the city's slums.
When Branwen walked inside the door, she heard yelling. "Darn human wench, I need my money, and I need them now! It's for a proper drink, and not some elven piss!"
It was Kagain. So Branwen intervened, saying.
"Kagain, could I hire you for a job?"
"Yep, but I need my money from this harlot first to quench my thirst."
And, when Coran walked inside from the door, a scream was heard.
"Ouh, Coran my hero! You got to help me!"
It was the woman Kagain was angry at, another familiar face, a one that Branwen knew would only bring harm to her cause. It was Safana, as Branwen saw it, one of Corans conquests on the wrong side of the battle field. As for her, live is like building a castle to the shore line, with hard work one can compile a wall that will hold the burdens of the tides forever, but building a sand castle to every shore, you get only a lot of sandy water.
She came rushing into meet Coran, she hugged him and gave him a kiss and spoke again after a while.
"You left me all alone, so I didn't know where to look and I found a map in the Entar Silvershield's Estate, that shows a way into an Elven City in the woods near here, so when I heard you being in a ship to here, I decided to come to look for you, as the elven city is in Amn. But I am in a little bind, as I am out of cash and this dwarf that I hired to guard myself for the journey, is now the brute that's threatening to kill me! I can't pay him just now! You got to help me! We could have so much fun in finding the city and then taking all the gold from the elves." She winked at Coran, promising more than just the shine of gold to warm his heart.
"Would you be willing to come with me?"
"Ah," But Branwen interrupted Coran.
"Well we can give her the coins, but if you are swooped by what she has, I don't need you, nor would I mind you, gone!" This was a cruel judgment, but she had grown impatient of his so tiresome hinting, that always ended up bad or worse.
So Coran just left with Safana, giving Kivan a hard look, but he just raised his hands to signal that he could do nothing.
"I don't understand that boy, with the items and we are going to get from this quest, he could buy any of the harlots in the Sword Coast, and he goes after that one now?!?" Kagain noted his disapproval.
When the two had left, and Branwen had paid Kagain the amount Safana had owed to him, there was still yet another familiar face in the crowd. Minsc was there carrying an unfamiliar two-handed sword in his hand, and was with a woman, but the strange thing was that it wasn't Dynaheir, the woman was a moon elf dressed in an almost black dress with a hood that covered her face. Branwen noticed this, went to meet Minsc to ask.
"Where is Dynaheir, and what's that in your hand?"
"Well, it's kinda sad tale and Boo doesn't like me to tell it to you, the sword I found under this very structure, as Boo smelled something in there, and it was an evil Carrion crawler and evil Kobold Shaman planning evil deeds. But... Ah."
"But what?"
"But Boo tells me that we must go on, so we can kick more of the Evils buttocks! But oh, this is Nax, Boo says that she can lead us to a quest against undead monsters, after we have rested of course."
Surprised by the fact that their quest would be the same Branwen looked the woman, said nothing for a while. And then she coughed to say something, but Minsc looked at her and said.
"Could you not interrogate her, as Boo says that as she has many secrets, but they will all soon be revealed to us, so there is no need to drive her away just for them, and we couldn't get all of them that way."
This just added suspicions to Branwen's mind, especially as Nax's black dress was decorated with golden skull buttons.
"So what do you exactly do, and why the dress with a hood?" She asked.
With a whispering voice, like a ghost she answered.
"I am a necromancer, and I wear this hood so other people won't be afraid of me, because of the little scar that I have on my face."
There was a quiet chill in the air, as Nax spoke. Branwen heard from the voice that obviously the scar wasn't so little.
"The scar." She said.
"Yes, it was done to me by my brother, as we were still young siblings and he didn't know what he was doing. The blade was magical, and it inflicts wound's that can't really be closed in the normal way, or with the magic my parents had in their possession at the time. So the wound was closed by another mage, a necromancer. It saved my life, but the scar is..."
Nax stopped speaking, as she hadn't more to say.
"Can we kill something now..." A voice was heard.
When they had memorized their spells, bought a few things and rested, they began their new mission that took them first to Alkathala's graveyard, and then to the tunnels beneath graves. Even though there had been reports of massive army of skeletons rooming around the city at night, there was only a few moving one's even in the tunnels now. And the ones that did, never really tried to hamper the journey of the adventurers. So Kivan got the scout duty, using his new torch arrows to light up the dark tunnels.
"What about now, please, pretty please?" Then they came to a cross tunnel junction, Nax said.
"It's this way; I can sense the skeletons in there."
As they then began to follow Nax, Kagain left himself behind and kicked a wall with his steel plated boot. Branwen looked the strange behavior of the dwarf, for a while. Then he just stood there looking at the wall. Branwen went back to him and asked.
"What...?"
But the dwarf had the answer already.
"Well the tunnel, it's a 'dead end', so I'll be here building a small trap to whatever lies at the end in there. Just yell when you are coming."
Branwen looked at the dwarf a while, but decided not to ask. After all, he was a dwarf, so if anyone would know, then he would. She continued to join the others.
And after a while they had advanced, Nax followed Branwen and said.
"I want to know, is this really worth a try? Or even the effort of it. You know one such as you or I could easily use these undead for our advantage."
"You begin to sound like a man I knew, but what you are suggesting doesn't sound like him, nor do I approve the suggestion of using the undead. After all, most of them are just tools of evil." Branwen said.
Nax just stared at her, and although her face was mostly covered by the hood of her dress she always wore, Branwen could have sworn there was nothing but two red dots and a skull in the hood. But being the leader of the group, she also had to keep it on check, meaning she had to trust Minsc's trust on her, as much as any cleric can trust a necromancer anyways.
~*~
Short while after this, they came to a large room. And Branwen noticed that Kagain had told the truth, there was no other exit tunnel! The interesting thing was that although there were a few sarcophagi, a chest and two dead thief corpses and a shattered skeleton on the moddy floor, there was no guards in the room. Unless of course! Branwen casted a spell, a prayer that would reveal any and all traps. But there was none! A little disappointed to the reaction she ordered Kivan to check the chest, but Nax went ahead first and opened the lid. There were no traps, and there was quite much of treasure in the chest. Gold, a magic bastard sword, dagger, belt, some magic scrolls and an amulet. When she had gone thought them all and taken the scrolls and the belt they heard an ominous sound. It was like aloud resound inside one of the sarcophagus. Then a skeleton appeared from the mud.
"Darn, of course there are guardians for the treasure." Branwen said. Then something began to push the lid on of the sarcophagi. So she jumped on top of it.
"We don't want these to open!" She said, and as if ordered Kivan and Minsc jumped on top off two other sarcophagus, but Nax didn't move, she just throw the items on the mud and just cursed something. Then more of skeletons came out of the mud and the party began to be surrounded by them, so Branwen toke her holy symbol from her necklace and began to pray. At the same time Minsc had taken his the sword and began to slash the skeletons from the top of his sarcophagus.
"Kill, Kill!" Sounded!
As Kivan didn't really have any better weapon to fight the undead with, he had taken a quarterstaff and as to his mind, it was a little out of balance, the swings weren't very deadly, or lively depending on whom you ask. But he got one of them good.
"Damn, it's not here!" a masculine voice said as Nax knocked the chest over on the mud. Then there was another skeleton right behind her and between her and Minsc. He saw this as an opportunity and jumped on top of it to smash it to bits. But this just made two other skeletons rise before him. Then again the voice was heard.
"You really think that you can take them all." Nax said as she turned and as did, Minsc's froze for a second and said.
"Xan?"
"You, you know of my brother? You know of the one that did this!"
She threw away her hood, but as she did, the horribly scared face had become males, it had the resemblance of Xan but the black scar was made it clear, it couldn't have ever been Xan, and the voice was 'it's.
"Of course I know you Xan, we were kinda friends, although you were a little bleak!" But then he noticed Boo biting to his hand, but it was too late as the hit was already coming. The magic touch, colder than death itself, ate a part of him before he fell on his back! The vampire had risen from its sarcophagus and hit him with its dreary hand. This made Branwen, who was too far away, to throw her symbol at the vampire, which then fell to its back as the symbol burned its dead flesh away. She then casted a fast protection from mass protection spell, and hit at the nearest skeleton with her warhammer.
"So you were Xan's friends, for that you shall be my mindless slaves forever! I used these skeletons to scout out the place, but now I shall kill you with them. Raise my army; raise my army of the dead." Nax began to cast spells to raise more of the monsters.
As this happened, Branwen had also heard steps at her backside, Kivan had jumped down from his sarcophagus to come near her, so she said.
"Just a while longer, protect me."
"OK." Kivan said back and smashed the zombie that she had assumed to be Kivan with the staff, as she began to gate in a Pit Fiend.
The Gate opened to where Minsc had been standing; the demon came out of it and jumped in the middle of the skeletons breaking and crushing most of them, while it approached Nax, and smashed the vampire that stood in the way, with its claws. Nax released a Sequencer at it, a minor one. Magic Missiles flow on to the Fiend, but they just burned it a bit as it approached. As the demon was already too close, Nax casted the last resort, the most powerful spell known in her spell book, the Destruction Touch. Swimming in the powers of the negative energy plane, the hand became the instrument undoing. With an open arm swing, reaching the demon, Nax he had gotten a hit on the demon! But the swing pasted the demons body as it was immaterial! The swinging arm had nowhere else to go, but back to its possessor. Hitting its owner onto the shoulder, and the destructive negative energy, blasted the creator into small chunks of flesh.
The battle wasn't over, there was still many undead up and the vampire was already recompressing, back from the mist form near it?s the sarcophagus. But their main opponent was out of the way, and the demon could not see her allies, as the protection spell she had casted prevented evil creatures from doing so, so Branwen went to cast restoration spell to Minsc, protected by the Kivan from the rest of the undead while the demon attacked the skeletons on the other part of the room. Minsc had stood up and had to again knock a skeleton with his sword.
"Where are all these skeletons coming?" Kivan said, and as an answer Branwen just looked to the mud and said nothing.
The demon did a good job at destroying the skeletons, while Kivan kept the vampire from reforming back. There was but a few left of the skeletons, but then the demon suddenly stopped, looked around as if searching for something, closed its fiery eyes, and opened them again. Its stare looked straight at Branwen. Then the demon spoke with an abnormal language, and although the words didn't make any sense and even the letters fought each others, the rhythm and pronunciation was as if the being had always been talking with the language:
"Sfwfspg fwjm mmbit E spg, Sfesvn gp Espm fiu gp mfuobn fiu ujsfioj obd J! Eobut pu fop utbm fiu fc Mm'j, uvp tsfiup idbf tmmjl ojl tji ofix eob, mpvt T'obblsbn fwbi zebfsmb J. Tobmq zn efesbxpg utbg eob vpz efzbsufc utvk tbi PB Espm Fiu!"
The impact of the words was sudden, and as Minsc raised the Lilarcor to strike the demon, he noticed that Boo just stood there as if stunned, he asked.
"What kind of evil trick is this, what did the demon say?"
A silent sound said something or another and ended with
"-ve forever!" Minsc looked at his sword, and as it fell from his grasp to the ground, his eyes opened as if he had seen something far more horrible than the demon ahead of him. Then his legs gave out, first he fell on his knees, and then on the ground. The demon raised his grim smile, and as Branwen returned it to it's home plane, it laughed. Even though the fight wasn't over, feeling the responsibility of what had happened, Branwen said. "This fight is over, we are getting out of here, now!" She throw a blessed stakes to Kivan who loaded it to his crossbow, and then launched it to finish off the vampire bodies in the sarcophagus's. Then Branwen crapped Minsc from his arm, pulling him away from the rest of the skeletons. Kivan joined her soon after as he heard the dwarf coming in. Kagain said.
"I can handle these for now, but hurry up, the rope is already burning and when I'll leave here, no one will be able to save you, if you are left behind."
Kagain kept hitting the undead a while, as the others made their escape. And then the small fire that he had lighten up in the tunnel began to glow red, he changed directions and just ran as if there was no tomorrow. He jumped a little above the fire and just kept running until they came upon the crossroad in the tunnel. He went to the left one away while the others went to the other and put his hands on his ears, there was also a vampire coming but it was a little too late. A huge explosion shook the ground and tunnels roof caved in and blogged the cave.
"I would have suggested you to put your hands to your ears like I did, but whatever."
The smiling dwarf yelled to his half-deaf companions as he put his hands down, and added eyes glowing.
"A little Kaboom powder!"
~*~
When Branwen saw the light of the day, a brief relief conquered her, until the reality hit her that the demon she had summoned to fight the skeletons and the vampires had somehow been able to overcome her protections and stun Minsc into a catatonic state.
Now she began to become desperate, none of her, nor even the high priest of Helm spells were able to cure or even identify the source of Minsc affliction. His body was fine, but it didn't even react to anything, it was just like his mind wasn't ever there. The eyes didn't react, even to the brightest of lights, the muscles were flabby, and they didn't even react to pain. More than ten times it had been tried all failed in everything else but slashing wounds and spilling more blood out of him. And this all took weeks.
The demon had broken his mind, or taken his soul, and it was all her fault, everything. Branwen though, that she had failed. To her was it like the previously so radiant Team Spirit had been replaced by a ghost or been possessed by the demon, she had conjured. But her guess was that this is, what happens when you combine a cleric, a necromancer, and more than few dead corpses.
This all, could be seen in the way the rest of the group behaved. They really didn't talk. Kagain once said, "Above all else, there is gold, ale, and only more gold." as he left, and was not seen by the others anymore. Guarding Minsc, Kivan couldn't stay at anyone place, he walked back and forwards, always. Or if he did, it was because he had not slept but had fallen into it. But as the time passed, he always woke up and was frightened by the fact that he had fallen asleep.
She left Kivan, as she thought that it was time for a renewal, but where to search it? To find another path, a path that would bring a redemption. Not for herself but for the friend that laid there in front of her, every day. That maybe there could be a new horizon out there, which could bring all the things she wanted.
But it never came.
~*~
On one day, when she had already lost all hope, and the faith she carried was becoming a burden that could hardly be lifted from the ground, came a sign of hope, a sign of possibility.
There was great kerfuffle in the docks, it seemed like the whole Amn wanted to go to the sea. After all, there was bounty notice for Saemon Havarian's head, 100 000 gold pieces, to the first one to deliver his true head on a stick, to the honorable clerics of the Helm. The Church of Helm had a small reputation of dealing with the bounty business, one that would guarantee the payment as the church had already been paid off.
Nobody knew why the priest wanted this, nobody wanted to know! As the ships were loaded...
~*****~
"She could resist temptation. Really she could. Sometimes. At least when it wasn't tempting." - Calli Slythistle
"She was a fire, and I had no doubt that she had already done her share of burning." - Lord Firael Algathrin
"Most assume that all the followers of Lathander are great morning people. They're very wrong." - Tanek of Cloakwood
we are all adults playing a fantasy together, - cmorgan
- Tempest to me.
