Posted by: Domi
« on: July 04, 2004, 04:03:17 PM »DISCLAIMER: It's mushy and there is no helping it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~The Virga~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Minsc - human ranger who carries a hamster called Boo and serves a witch, Dynaheir, who is imprisoned in Gnoll’s Stronghold
Coran - an elven rogue of happy disposition
Xan - an elven sorcerer of pessimistic disposition
Kivan - an elven range, whose true love is dead
Minuwiel - an elven cleric, who due to her upbringing venerates a human god, Lathander.
A group of pissed off gnolls guarding their Keep
The clouds lingered above, gray and wispy; the warm and soggy air clung to Minuwiel’s bare skin. By all rights it should have rained, but it did not. Minuwiel pushed the clammy blanket off her with a sigh and cringed at curly smoke blackened on its edges. Coran tried to prove to their miserable camp fire that life was worth living. Sleepily, Minuwiel picked up the discarded coverlet and wrapped the gray wool around her shoulders. Then she crouched by Coran. The rogue did not miss the opportunity to touch her hand, which was sticking at an awkward angle from under the thick fabric.
“Do you know how we call rain that starts high above, but never reaches the ground?” he asked quietly, and his sensual voice thickened by the tepid fog turned the simple question into a veiled caress. It was so vague, that Minuwiel might have imagined it.
The human ranger who came among them a few days ago, and who was leading the elven group to save his country woman from gnolls, had a strange effect on all of them. They were all speaking Common now, laughing uncomfortably when a Quenya word slipped from their lips. Coran never teased Xan any more and did not court her with single-minded bravura. Xan never complained any more, and to think on that he rarely even spoke, perhaps at a loss of what he can talk about to a robust and loud man with a heavy and plain sword. Kivan on the opposite was as long-winded as she ever heard him, thinking perhaps that his custom brevity would offend their human companion. Or, maybe since human were generally regarded as an outspoken nation he tried to be the same with Minsc? Be it as it may, she learned more about Kivan in these three days than in the past three months, listening to his exchanges with Minsc.
Minuwiel pulled her blanket tighter. “No, I do not know, Coran. What is the name?”
“Virga,” Coran replied softly.
Minuwiel nodded. Coran had a childish like for beautiful things, even if they were mere words. “I wish,” Minuwiel looked up at the sky, “I wish for a downpour. I cannot stand this feeling of being on an eve of something... “ “You are not alone in that, sweetling.” Coran never made his desires a secret, but it surprised Minuwiel, that he would wish her so intently. If that what was he meant. She noticed that the rogue still eyed women in taverns, but her pride did not allow her to find out if that was all that happened when they turned in for the night. Indeed, she did not even know what she was waiting for. Refusing Coran’s advances simply became a part of her nature, and she did as automatically as she lifted a shield when a weapon was swung at her in combat.
But an adventurer who stops his quest when uneasiness descents upon him is bound to end up a drunk in a tavern’s corner telling an incoherent and endless story of forgotten or unaccomplished deeds. The large Rashemi’s witch had to be delivered, despite Minuwiel’s heartaches and the rain that had never fallen.
They packed the camp and walked across a flimsy bridge, which swung lazily in resonance with their steps. In the ravine underneath them, once a small creek was now raging swelled with recent rains. It tore into the shores, undercutting roots of dark fir-trees and washing away sands and pebbles from the red stone of the valley bottom. Minuwiel can see layering in the glistening rock with narrow strips of grey or brown, angled oddly just like the gnarled trees on the slopes. The opposite shore was higher than the one they started at; a well-trodden road curved upward from the bluff climbing to a fortress made of the native red stone, its low turrets and wall cut out and shaped in the hill itself. It was a primitive keep, with no bulwark, ramparts, crenelation or other adornments, military or eye-pleasing. But Minuwiel doubted that it was made by yapping, quarrelsome gnolls. Someone who had patience and persistence far greater than the present occupants must have created the fortress... and they had done it in the centuries long past. Minuwiel could not say why she was so sure that the fortress was ancient; she just knew it.
The elves grew somber, standing by the bridge and viewing it from a distance, except for Coran who was still in the middle of the flimsy structure, jumping and throwing himself at the sides, to produce the most quivering. The human ranger was not disheartened by the rogues antiques, advancing steadily, clutching to the hemp ropes and rusted chains. He squinted at the hold up on the hill with his untroubled blue eyes. Minuwiel guessed that be it Castle Neverwinter that stood in front of them or elegant towers of Evereska, Minsc’s mind would not have wandered from his purpose, from his witch. In fact, she saw a strange similarity between him and the hold that he was about to assail. Both were sturdy, single-minded and radiated a dignified strength. Either that finally occurred to Coran as well, or he simply got bored, but he ran after Minsc and the whole company now was assembled. Kivan strung his bow, and Xan shufled his bundle from his left shoulder to his right. Minuwiel tightened the laces of her tall boots.
“Boo wants to know what little Minuwiel is waiting for?” Minsc asked, puzzled by the passivity of his elven companions.
A first heavy drop of rain fell on Minuwiel’s cheek. The elf smiled at Minsc: “The rain. Now we are ready to go.” She started walking uphill, confident that the rest would follow.
They made a slow circle around the fortress, and offended Minsc by a refusal to storm the front gate. Instead, Coran scaled the slick wall, carrying a coil of rope on his back. His ascent looked almost effortless off the ground, but Minuwiel’s keen eyes saw whiteness where skin tightened against his finger and toe bones, when he gripped to near invisible cavities left by the wind on the red stone. First time he fell, he was almost half-way, and almost run up the wall, embarrassed... only to loose his hold once again, when he was no more than two meters above the ground. This time he sat in silence for long minutes, his eyes closed and when he restarted, his lips where stubbornly pinched. This time his open palm hit the top of the wall, and he pulled himself up and sat there for a moment pretending that he enjoyed the view. But his feet and hands trembled from the relieved strain.
It took their joint effort to pull the huge human up, but there was no need to lower him. With a crazed and long repressed fury he dove off the wall and engaged the closest gnoll. The yells, the bunging of weapons and the sound of warhorns filled the air. Coran and Kivan loosed arrows from their vantage point on the wall, keeping the ravaging gnolls at bay to allow Xan and Minuwiel to descend in a less dramatic manner than Minsc.
Cursing his luck, Xan wriggled free of his cloak, which had already soaked through and was now so heavy that it was obstructing the movements of his slender arms. In his silken robe alone and a score of amulets the wet mage leaned against the wall and prepared to chant.
“Do not sneeze!” Coran cried sliding down the rope. Xan sighed and closed his eyes.
“Oh, Nine Hells!” Minuwiel parried a halberd’s blow and called for Coran desperately. She could not hold her own against three tall muscular creatures with canine heads, and her mace had too short of a reach. Coran popped up by her side and pushed his long blade into a gnoll’s gut. It took him a significant effort to pull it back, now that he was not aided by the momentum. He jerked his head to get rid off the wet hood, echoing Xan’s curses, moved his palms on the handle of his sword, to get a better grip and swung dangerously again. Thin glowing purplish streak appeared in the air connecting Xan and one of the attackers around Minsc; the gnoll wailed stupidly, turned around and thrust his halberd into his kinsman.
Kivan’s arrows fell from above as persistent and near as thick as the raindrops.
Then arrows stopped and a bulky form slummed into the muddy puddle on the ground, showering the elves with red water. Minuwiel looked upward and yelled on top of her lungs: “Jump, Kivan! JUMP!”
Despite the lack of discipline, the gnolls apparently did patrol the outer wall. Now they come upon the ranger five strong and he was hacking at the cruel half-moon blades of halberds with with sword frantically. Couple more corpses landed in the mud before Minuwiel finally saw Kivan.
“He did not jump,” Coran muttered through clenched teeth. “Too proud.” And then shouted: “Xan! There is no time for spells. Min needs cover!”
Minuwiel slipped in the mud, half-falling half-jumping the distance that separated her from Kivan. She stayed kneeled, while Coran and Xan shielded her and Kivan. “Get up if he is dead,” Coran commanded curtly.
“I will. Give me a minute.”
The halberd that ripped the archer’s boiled leather jacket and wrecked his abdomen fell with him, and the rain was washing the blood off it making the mud to take a richer red shade. In contrast, the color went out of Kivan’s tanned face; only his hair was still as black as Minuwiel remembered it. The wound was mortal. It was beyond her power to recall the dead to the Material plane, so she had to keep him alive and bring him back one breath at a time. Minuwiel slipped into a trance as hastily as she dared and the world seized to exist.
When the bloodless, pale face came into her view again, Minuwiel had expanded the grace bestowed on her by Lathander. She trembled, and leaned over Kivan, expecting her cheek to be more sensitive than her blood covered palms. Warm air touched her skin coming from the fallen. Relieved, Minuwiel allowed herself another moment looking at the man whose spirit was turning back... and for a brief moment, just before it realized that it was bound to the Material Plane, just after it settled again in the unyielding sorrow for the lost love, the man’s lips curved in an unshaded smile.
“At least his dreams were good,” Minuwiel got up from her aching knees and extended her hand to the now fully aware grim man. He gripped to it and got up. He swayed, and put one hand on the cleric’s shoulder; and in another second he was walking on his own, with uneven steps of a dizzy man. Not trusting himself with the weight of a spear, he took a short sword of his hip and went to relieve Minsc. Minuwiel joined Coran and a couple of other gnolls that Xan managed to put under his spell and turn against their own kind.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The world was wet after the rain, but cleansed and glad as well. The humans set their fire few meters apart from theirs; tomorrow Minsc and Dynaheir would be on their way. Tomorrow the four of them will again speak Quenya; Coran will court her and tease Xan, the sorcerer will complain at every turn of the road, and Kivan will be quiet. Minuwiel wondered if there was something that her companions would think she’d resume doing after they will be alone again. She sighed and for a moment she did not want the humans to leave. Who knows, maybe their openness would have rubbed off on the elves after a while?
“Do you know how we call love that is born in one’s heart but never reaches another?” Minuwiel asked thoughtfully of Coran. “We call it love, sweetling,” Coran responded with certainty.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~The Virga~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Minsc - human ranger who carries a hamster called Boo and serves a witch, Dynaheir, who is imprisoned in Gnoll’s Stronghold
Coran - an elven rogue of happy disposition
Xan - an elven sorcerer of pessimistic disposition
Kivan - an elven range, whose true love is dead
Minuwiel - an elven cleric, who due to her upbringing venerates a human god, Lathander.
A group of pissed off gnolls guarding their Keep
The clouds lingered above, gray and wispy; the warm and soggy air clung to Minuwiel’s bare skin. By all rights it should have rained, but it did not. Minuwiel pushed the clammy blanket off her with a sigh and cringed at curly smoke blackened on its edges. Coran tried to prove to their miserable camp fire that life was worth living. Sleepily, Minuwiel picked up the discarded coverlet and wrapped the gray wool around her shoulders. Then she crouched by Coran. The rogue did not miss the opportunity to touch her hand, which was sticking at an awkward angle from under the thick fabric.
“Do you know how we call rain that starts high above, but never reaches the ground?” he asked quietly, and his sensual voice thickened by the tepid fog turned the simple question into a veiled caress. It was so vague, that Minuwiel might have imagined it.
The human ranger who came among them a few days ago, and who was leading the elven group to save his country woman from gnolls, had a strange effect on all of them. They were all speaking Common now, laughing uncomfortably when a Quenya word slipped from their lips. Coran never teased Xan any more and did not court her with single-minded bravura. Xan never complained any more, and to think on that he rarely even spoke, perhaps at a loss of what he can talk about to a robust and loud man with a heavy and plain sword. Kivan on the opposite was as long-winded as she ever heard him, thinking perhaps that his custom brevity would offend their human companion. Or, maybe since human were generally regarded as an outspoken nation he tried to be the same with Minsc? Be it as it may, she learned more about Kivan in these three days than in the past three months, listening to his exchanges with Minsc.
Minuwiel pulled her blanket tighter. “No, I do not know, Coran. What is the name?”
“Virga,” Coran replied softly.
Minuwiel nodded. Coran had a childish like for beautiful things, even if they were mere words. “I wish,” Minuwiel looked up at the sky, “I wish for a downpour. I cannot stand this feeling of being on an eve of something... “ “You are not alone in that, sweetling.” Coran never made his desires a secret, but it surprised Minuwiel, that he would wish her so intently. If that what was he meant. She noticed that the rogue still eyed women in taverns, but her pride did not allow her to find out if that was all that happened when they turned in for the night. Indeed, she did not even know what she was waiting for. Refusing Coran’s advances simply became a part of her nature, and she did as automatically as she lifted a shield when a weapon was swung at her in combat.
But an adventurer who stops his quest when uneasiness descents upon him is bound to end up a drunk in a tavern’s corner telling an incoherent and endless story of forgotten or unaccomplished deeds. The large Rashemi’s witch had to be delivered, despite Minuwiel’s heartaches and the rain that had never fallen.
They packed the camp and walked across a flimsy bridge, which swung lazily in resonance with their steps. In the ravine underneath them, once a small creek was now raging swelled with recent rains. It tore into the shores, undercutting roots of dark fir-trees and washing away sands and pebbles from the red stone of the valley bottom. Minuwiel can see layering in the glistening rock with narrow strips of grey or brown, angled oddly just like the gnarled trees on the slopes. The opposite shore was higher than the one they started at; a well-trodden road curved upward from the bluff climbing to a fortress made of the native red stone, its low turrets and wall cut out and shaped in the hill itself. It was a primitive keep, with no bulwark, ramparts, crenelation or other adornments, military or eye-pleasing. But Minuwiel doubted that it was made by yapping, quarrelsome gnolls. Someone who had patience and persistence far greater than the present occupants must have created the fortress... and they had done it in the centuries long past. Minuwiel could not say why she was so sure that the fortress was ancient; she just knew it.
The elves grew somber, standing by the bridge and viewing it from a distance, except for Coran who was still in the middle of the flimsy structure, jumping and throwing himself at the sides, to produce the most quivering. The human ranger was not disheartened by the rogues antiques, advancing steadily, clutching to the hemp ropes and rusted chains. He squinted at the hold up on the hill with his untroubled blue eyes. Minuwiel guessed that be it Castle Neverwinter that stood in front of them or elegant towers of Evereska, Minsc’s mind would not have wandered from his purpose, from his witch. In fact, she saw a strange similarity between him and the hold that he was about to assail. Both were sturdy, single-minded and radiated a dignified strength. Either that finally occurred to Coran as well, or he simply got bored, but he ran after Minsc and the whole company now was assembled. Kivan strung his bow, and Xan shufled his bundle from his left shoulder to his right. Minuwiel tightened the laces of her tall boots.
“Boo wants to know what little Minuwiel is waiting for?” Minsc asked, puzzled by the passivity of his elven companions.
A first heavy drop of rain fell on Minuwiel’s cheek. The elf smiled at Minsc: “The rain. Now we are ready to go.” She started walking uphill, confident that the rest would follow.
They made a slow circle around the fortress, and offended Minsc by a refusal to storm the front gate. Instead, Coran scaled the slick wall, carrying a coil of rope on his back. His ascent looked almost effortless off the ground, but Minuwiel’s keen eyes saw whiteness where skin tightened against his finger and toe bones, when he gripped to near invisible cavities left by the wind on the red stone. First time he fell, he was almost half-way, and almost run up the wall, embarrassed... only to loose his hold once again, when he was no more than two meters above the ground. This time he sat in silence for long minutes, his eyes closed and when he restarted, his lips where stubbornly pinched. This time his open palm hit the top of the wall, and he pulled himself up and sat there for a moment pretending that he enjoyed the view. But his feet and hands trembled from the relieved strain.
It took their joint effort to pull the huge human up, but there was no need to lower him. With a crazed and long repressed fury he dove off the wall and engaged the closest gnoll. The yells, the bunging of weapons and the sound of warhorns filled the air. Coran and Kivan loosed arrows from their vantage point on the wall, keeping the ravaging gnolls at bay to allow Xan and Minuwiel to descend in a less dramatic manner than Minsc.
Cursing his luck, Xan wriggled free of his cloak, which had already soaked through and was now so heavy that it was obstructing the movements of his slender arms. In his silken robe alone and a score of amulets the wet mage leaned against the wall and prepared to chant.
“Do not sneeze!” Coran cried sliding down the rope. Xan sighed and closed his eyes.
“Oh, Nine Hells!” Minuwiel parried a halberd’s blow and called for Coran desperately. She could not hold her own against three tall muscular creatures with canine heads, and her mace had too short of a reach. Coran popped up by her side and pushed his long blade into a gnoll’s gut. It took him a significant effort to pull it back, now that he was not aided by the momentum. He jerked his head to get rid off the wet hood, echoing Xan’s curses, moved his palms on the handle of his sword, to get a better grip and swung dangerously again. Thin glowing purplish streak appeared in the air connecting Xan and one of the attackers around Minsc; the gnoll wailed stupidly, turned around and thrust his halberd into his kinsman.
Kivan’s arrows fell from above as persistent and near as thick as the raindrops.
Then arrows stopped and a bulky form slummed into the muddy puddle on the ground, showering the elves with red water. Minuwiel looked upward and yelled on top of her lungs: “Jump, Kivan! JUMP!”
Despite the lack of discipline, the gnolls apparently did patrol the outer wall. Now they come upon the ranger five strong and he was hacking at the cruel half-moon blades of halberds with with sword frantically. Couple more corpses landed in the mud before Minuwiel finally saw Kivan.
“He did not jump,” Coran muttered through clenched teeth. “Too proud.” And then shouted: “Xan! There is no time for spells. Min needs cover!”
Minuwiel slipped in the mud, half-falling half-jumping the distance that separated her from Kivan. She stayed kneeled, while Coran and Xan shielded her and Kivan. “Get up if he is dead,” Coran commanded curtly.
“I will. Give me a minute.”
The halberd that ripped the archer’s boiled leather jacket and wrecked his abdomen fell with him, and the rain was washing the blood off it making the mud to take a richer red shade. In contrast, the color went out of Kivan’s tanned face; only his hair was still as black as Minuwiel remembered it. The wound was mortal. It was beyond her power to recall the dead to the Material plane, so she had to keep him alive and bring him back one breath at a time. Minuwiel slipped into a trance as hastily as she dared and the world seized to exist.
When the bloodless, pale face came into her view again, Minuwiel had expanded the grace bestowed on her by Lathander. She trembled, and leaned over Kivan, expecting her cheek to be more sensitive than her blood covered palms. Warm air touched her skin coming from the fallen. Relieved, Minuwiel allowed herself another moment looking at the man whose spirit was turning back... and for a brief moment, just before it realized that it was bound to the Material Plane, just after it settled again in the unyielding sorrow for the lost love, the man’s lips curved in an unshaded smile.
“At least his dreams were good,” Minuwiel got up from her aching knees and extended her hand to the now fully aware grim man. He gripped to it and got up. He swayed, and put one hand on the cleric’s shoulder; and in another second he was walking on his own, with uneven steps of a dizzy man. Not trusting himself with the weight of a spear, he took a short sword of his hip and went to relieve Minsc. Minuwiel joined Coran and a couple of other gnolls that Xan managed to put under his spell and turn against their own kind.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The world was wet after the rain, but cleansed and glad as well. The humans set their fire few meters apart from theirs; tomorrow Minsc and Dynaheir would be on their way. Tomorrow the four of them will again speak Quenya; Coran will court her and tease Xan, the sorcerer will complain at every turn of the road, and Kivan will be quiet. Minuwiel wondered if there was something that her companions would think she’d resume doing after they will be alone again. She sighed and for a moment she did not want the humans to leave. Who knows, maybe their openness would have rubbed off on the elves after a while?
“Do you know how we call love that is born in one’s heart but never reaches another?” Minuwiel asked thoughtfully of Coran. “We call it love, sweetling,” Coran responded with certainty.