More old writing (of a geeky nature)
Nerd alert! This is some fantasy-esque writing I did for one of my characters in one of those online RPGs. I don’t really play the game anymore, but I like the characters I developed (you had to play in-character at all times), so I kept up with them. If you’re curious, Lenus is my drunken alter-ego, and Jacques is actually my friend Daniel Sherwood.
The Harrowed Wold is said to be haunted by the souls of travelers who lost their way or met untimely ends. Why the Wold would be haunted and the surrounding lands would not wasn’t a question Lenus had an answer for. Not that she cared. She just wanted to see a ghost and challenge him to a game of dice, and she’d heard that this was the only place to do it.
She had just watched the sunset through the trees from the north bank of the nameless river that ran through the Wold. The only sounds so far were the trees being shaken by the breeze, the far-off growls of angry bears, the steady flowing of the river, and the increasingly loud sound of crickets chirping in the nightfall. No ghostly whooshes, no haunting moans. Of course, night was still falling.
Why Lenus was out here to begin with, even she didn’t know. Partially curiosity as to whether such a thing could exist (Lenus was skeptical); partially boredom, as her life was less exciting since she had left the Thieves’ Guild; but mostly, she just wanted a good story to tell in the tavern. She wouldn’t admit it, but she had been desperately telling and re-telling stories in the tavern to get a laugh, win some respect from novice adventurers (mostly tailors who had ventured into hunting for their own skins), or even receive a sympathetic look for a lifetime of mistakes. Any sort of heart-felt response would do, really.
She turned around so that she was facing south, looking across the river, and scanned through the trees for any signs of the massive dire kobolds that roamed the forest during the day. After several unsuccessful scans, she spotted one, retreating to wherever it was that those monsters slept. She smiled as the last bit of light disappeared below the horizon on her right and she lost sight of the beast.
Suddenly, Lenus was on her feet by no act of her own. A large hand had grabbed her shoulder and yanked her up violently. She reached for her dagger, but a smaller set of arms (although still larger than her own) reached under each of her arms and pinned them up, lifting her off the ground. The large hand released her shoulder and she heard a man laugh to her other side.
Stupid! she thought, How could I be so stupid?
“Well, well,” came the voice that had laughed at her. He stalked around in front of her so she could see him. He was a human, only slightly taller than she was, wearing a black cloak and ringmail hauberk and carrying a worn but sturdy-looking spear. It was hard to make out in the dark, but his black hair looked matted to his sullen face. “Look ‘o we ‘ave ‘ere,” the greasy man said.
Lenus heard a growl of a laugh behind her and a chill shot down her spine. Oh please no, oh please no, she silently pleaded. A clumsy, lumbering giant stepped out in front of her—undoubtedly an ogre, which confirmed Lenus’s fear—wearing equally massive hard leather armor and carrying the biggest hammer she had ever seen.
A quick reach backward revealed that the man holding her arms was wearing studded leather armor. Against one of the two humans, she may have stood a small chance, but against all three, even if she wasn’t pinned, she had virtually no hope for survival.
“She young,” said the ogre.
“Let’s get a better look at ‘er face,” the greasy man said, reaching up for her soft leather helmet. Lenus kicked as hard as she could, aiming for the man’s groin, but he swung the shaft of his spear hard, stopping her leg in mid-kick. She gasped at the pain. The man kept going as if nothing had happened and removed her helmet. Clumps of bright red hair fell across her face. The man laughed.
“A fire-mane, this one is,” he said, looking over at his ogre friend, who laughed ominously. “We’re goin’ ‘ave some some fun with this one.”
The man holding her arms began stroking the front of her shoulder as the other two laughed together. Lenus had heard plenty of stories of unrestrained chauvinism in the tavern, so she knew full well the extent to which they would go to gratify themselves. She didn’t want to think about the ogre. The greasy man reached slowly around her waist to unhook her hauberk, his spear pressed against her shins to prevent her from kicking again. She flailed her arms, but the man in back of her jerked them up, eliciting a brief scream from Lenus.
“Unhand her at once!” came a shrill voice to Lenus’s left. All faces looked over at the voice. A young-looking elf stood firmly with a crude wooden shield in one hand and a copper sword at the other, pointed at Lenus’s attackers. Lenus guessed him to be about her age (around eighteen). The wooden shield was a bit disheartening, as was the soft leather armor that he wore (which looked no better than her own, Lenus thought).
“Go away, boy!” the ogre threatened, baring his fangs.
“No, stick around,” jested the man holding her arms. “You can have what’s left of her. Assuming there’s anything left.”
“I said unhand her, villains!” the elf said defiantly, not changing his stance. (Did he seriously just call them villains? Lenus thought in a moment of detachment.)
“Boy, go away, or there’ll be two murders here instead o’ one,” the greasy man said, lowering his spear toward the elf.
The elf stood strongly for a moment, then opened his mouth to speak. Instead of a word, a violent noise came out, causing all to wince and cover their ears, although the sound was gone in a moment.
Concentrate! Lenus thought. She envisioned the arrow in her head, imagined the placement, and concentrated, concentrated. A blinding purple light materialized an arm’s length from the greasy man’s face and in an instant connected with his face. The man shrieked. The illusionary arrow had struck him right below the eye, which opened up a wound that immediately started bleeding. She kicked back at the man in back of her and connected hard with his shin, which threw him off enough for her to break free of his grip. She immediately grabbed one of her daggers and stabbed at the ogre’s exposed neck. She missed all the vital parts, but startled him enough to fall back a step and allow her to pass by.
The elf raised his shield and fixed his eyes on Lenus.
“Are you alright?”
“Run!” Lenus yelled, sprinting past him.
Unless the men were very fast, she knew she could outrun them. It was a long run to Halerma, but she knew she’d be safe once she got there. All she could think of right now, though, was to run, which she did. She gasped as she realized that the elf might not be as quick as she was. She stopped and turned around and the elf sprinted past her.
“Come on!” he shouted. The three men were in hot pursuit. She took off after him.
Lenus ran until her legs burned and her heart begged for her to stop. The elf seemed to have no trouble keeping up—in fact, he may have been holding back to keep pace with her.
After what seemed like eternity crammed into an instant, she saw the light of a campfire outside Halerma. She made it halfway down the beach and then collapsed next to the campfire, hitting the ground hard and spraying sand all over a surprised orc and ogre who were putting away their fishing supplies for the night. The elf had collapsed in a similar fashion a few seconds before she did. The orc and ogre fishermen stared in utter shock at the two panting, disheveled teenagers lying on the beach in front of them.
It was a few minutes before the two of them could offer any sort of explanation. The fishermen were kind enough to offer large flasks of water and spots next to the fire for the night.
After everything had calmed down and the four of them were settling down for the night, Lenus finally addressed the young elf.
“What’s your name?” she asked him.
“Jacques,” he said. “Jacques the Gentile.”
“Lenus,” she replied. “Lenus Lionheart. Nice to meet you.”
“Is Lionheart your real surname?” Jacques asked.
“Is Gentile yours?”
Jacques turned his face away from her and gazed up into the sky. “Point taken,” he said.
There was silence for a few moments as the waves crashed onto the beach and the light of the fire danced across their faces.
“Jacques,” Lenus said.
“Yes?”
“Thank you.”
Jacques paused for a second to make it appear as if he did this sort of thing every day. “Think nothing of it.”
“Well then I’ll think nothing saved my life, and that’s not true.” Jacques stayed quiet, but this time out of genuine amazement as to what had happened that evening. “Thank you,” Lenus repeated. Nothing else was said until morning.
The next morning, Lenus woke up sore and exhausted. Her bruised shin had swollen overnight, undoubtedly in retaliation against the running she had done on it. She groaned and looked around her. The orc and ogre had gone, and their fishing supplies were gone as well. Jacques was still asleep next to her. The sun was already well up into the sky. Just east of where she was, Lenus could hear the bustle of activity: children running and playing, shoppers haggling at the fish market, people swapping stories at the tavern. Lenus wondered how many people had walked past them, wondering what such sluggards were doing, sleeping the day away. She shook her head and got up to head to the tavern.
Halerma was a small fishing town, and as such, most of its citizens were small-town fishermen or merchants; but, being right across the great bay from New Jollis, there were a handful of seemingly important people with business or family ties to the capital. One such woman was talking to a friend at a table in the center of the room (the nicest table in the room, Lenus noticed). Both were wearing deep red dresses with red and yellow cloaks. Lenus paid for a glass of mead and sat at the bar, as close to them as she could manage.
“And what about that son of yours?” asked the haughtier of the two. “Is he still romanticizing the Jondan way, or have you talked some sense into him?”
The second woman’s face dropped. “He… has left for Kaj Blood to start a new life,” she said without looking at her friend.
There was an awkward pause as the first woman seemed to be taking this in. “This is the first I’ve heard of this, Ralna,” she said.
Ralna sighed deeply, then looked up at her friend. “He left in the middle of last night,” she said, “after a fight we had. He expressed an interest in joining the groups of would-be heroes over in Kaj Blood, at that new— that— Adventurer’s Guild!”
“And you let him go?”
“No!” she exclaimed, exasperated. “Aramos wanted him to become a hunter, and I wanted him to finish his schooling. We could never agree on that. But neither of us wanted him to go! We told him no! We told him a hundred times, no! I just… Urgh! That boy! Stubborn as a mule!”
Ralna’s friend smiled. “You know he takes after you in that,” she said.
“I know who he gets that from! I don’t need you to remind me!”
Ralna took a good, hard drink from her glass. Her friend gazed wistfully down at her own. “So he’s off to be a hero. What’s he calling himself again?”
“’The Gentile,’” Ralna said, not looking up from her glass. “’Jacques, the Gentile.’ Can you believe that? Not even good enough to keep his family name!”
“Well, the strength of Ralix be with him,” said Ralna’s friend, raising her glass. “Not that he’d accept it.”
Lenus realized she had been holding her tankard of mead in front of her face for some time, feigning interest in it while eavesdropping on the conversation behind her. She noticed the bartender staring at her and quickly shot her gaze down to the bar. She finished up her tankard and left to go find Jacques.
Lenus wandered back to the fishing camp to find that Jacques was not there. She heaved a sigh, then began scouting around, as though he would have stayed within the camp’s line of vision.
“Lenus!” came a voice from behind her. She turned around to face the woods that they had burst out of the night before and saw Jacques running down the great hill toward her. “There you are!” said Jacques as he got closer.
“Listen,” Lenus stated, “would you mind traveling with me for a bit?”
Jacques had pulled a lute from a sack off of his back and began plucking it. He nodded eagerly, too enthralled by the lute to actually respond verbally.
“There’s an Adventurer’s Guild of some sort in Kaj Blood that just opened,” Lenus said, staring directly into Jacques’s eyes as if to keep his attention on her and off of the lute. “Do you know of it?”
Jacques nodded.
“Well, uh… do you know where it is, or anything?”
Jacques nodded again. Lenus was waiting for some elaboration, but Jacques just kept picking notes with a gleeful look in his eye and a dull smile on his face.
“Would you put down that blasted instrument and talk to me?” Lenus exclaimed.
“I’m healing you,” Jacques said at last. His words caused him to miss a few notes.
“What?” Lenus asked.
“You were limping,” Jacques said, “on your right leg.” He played a few more notes, then ended with a slow strum on all the strings. “Try it now,” he insisted.
Lenus, who had had all of her weight on her left leg, now shifted to her right. She made a puzzled face, then jumped up and down a few times to test her newly-healed leg.
“Bardic magic will never cease to amaze me,” Lenus said. “I could have sworn you were just goofing off.”
“Tell that to my mother,” Jacques said with a grin, but he looked sheepish the second he said it.
“So, the Adventurer’s Guild…” said Lenus, changing the subject.
“Ah yes! You’ve heard of it too?” Lenus nodded, much to Jacques’s delight. “What a coincidence!” he exclaimed. “I was just heading there myself!”
Lenus gave a small chuckle to tell Jacques that this was indeed a coincidence and not something she had heard his mother talking about in the tavern.
“Do you, uh, have anyone you need to say goodbye to?” Lenus prodded.
“Me?” Jacques scoffed. “No! I’m what they call a loner, you know? I’m just a lone adventurer, traveling all alone. I don’t need people. In fact, I don’t even live here. I’m just passing through. Alone.”
“And where are you from, then?”
“I’m from… the… east,” Jacques stated with a nervous tinge in his voice. He reached back and scratched the back of his head nervously.
Lenus nodded, although she was looking down at the sand at this point. After a somewhat awkward silence, she said, “So, shall we?”
Jacques smiled and began walking northwest. Lenus followed.
“So Jacques,” Lenus began, “what can you tell me about this Adventurer’s Guild?”