3. It was a silly thought...

It was a silly thought...


  • … that brought her to the roof of the farmhouse... she was pretty sure they hadn't heard her come up so she wouldn't have to worry about an angrily heaved pitchfork.

    Why was she up here again? Oh look a light in the distance...

    No no ... she had to focus. She was going home and if she missed the signal she'd be walking the next hundred miles.

    ...

    There was the light again.

    ...

    She lept off the roof and landed in that handy hay-pile sitting on the side of the house. She made almost no noise as she rolled out of the hay and darted towards the nearby road. It was her ride that was drawing closer, that single little light visibly bobbing as it drew closer to the sleepy farmhouse.

    She looked back at said "sleepy" little farmhouse. It would be nice to have one of those for herself to put a library in, or maybe a room full of pillows, perhaps a room filled with shifting paper walls to make for some interesting duels. Her head snapped around as the horse hoofs finally became audible, she had forgotten to put on her disguise. Putting on disguises in pitch black was probably her least favorite thing to do besides swallowing bugs. Oh yes, and crossing large bodies of water were never her cup of t--

    Where had that eyepatch gone? That was a bit of a pickle, how would she complete her disguise without the eyepatch. Well she didn't have time to look for it anymore before she got on the cart... except that it was on her forhead ... of course, she had put it there a couple hours earlier.

    It's a good thing that cart-drivers can't hear thoughts, she thought, because it's hard to keep your mind quiet when you're sitting perfectly still. She hoped the cart driver wouldn't be a psion of some sort, she had run into one a couple months back for the first time in her life and it had just ended badly... though she still wondered what it'd be like to bed someone who could read your every thought... but that wasn't really important because the cart she intended to comandeer for the great cause of Ting was currently rattling by her hiding place.

    She didn't really remember when she had climbed into this hiding place but it didn't really matter in the bigger picture so she just darted out into the road behind the cart and swung herself into the back with a thud that was inaudible due to the rattle of the wheels.

    She could sit here for a good hour or two before they reached the crossroads where she would have to convince those two cart-drivers that her direction was the direction they should be going.

    In the meantime there were oh so many boxes to explore ... quietly of course... Jerr wouldn't approve ... she'd "borrow" something special to gift him with when she got back...

    Hmm... thinking along those lines there're plenty of other people that she should find gifts for ... ooh shiny...


  • Sorry for the intermission my loyal readers (of which there are not a whole lot of I don't think) but I just got distracted by school mostly and forgot to keep doing these though I do enjoy them immensely. And here we go again.

    It was this feeling that made the explosion that followed all the more surprising. She thought for a moment or two that perhaps she had died but this thought was rather quickly if not unpleasantly replaced by the thought that her cell had erupted around her and she was getting bombarded by flying chunks of stone. A large impact in the back of her head made her black out.

    She did not know how long she was out, it mustn't have been more than a few seconds because her ears were still ringing from the explosion and everything around her was blurry. It was brighter,but blurry. She was still in the contraption that held her uncomfortably in place and the ringing was getting rather annoying, but the blurriness was fading slowly. The last time she had felt like this was perhaps the time she had experimented with exploding doorknobs and packed enough explosives into the first trial to literally blow the door into splinters. She had been a safe distance away in her mind, but a safe distance for perhaps half of the explosive force that actually occurred. Yes … this was very much like that time.

    There were shadows now from the bright light flooding the room from behind her, and not only her shadow. There were others moving around, and a buzz as if someone was talking to her from very far away. She couldn't understand them at all over the ringing that still was dying away but refused to stop. And then suddenly the contraption that held her sprung open and she flopped onto the ground.

    Her head hurt a lot whatever bastard had just released her had let her head hit the ground and there was a lot of pain now.

    A face swam into view in front of her and she realized that her vision was a lot more blurry than she had at first assumed, but this underwater face was saying something she could understand. It was in elven.

    "Sister, are you alright? Can you hear me? Can you see ok? These fools placed the explosives far too close to your holding cell and had no consideration to the fact that you were right inside."

    It was definitely her brother, no one else spoke prettily like that in such dangerous situations.

    "Ishhasihhh ushh shsishhh ush."

    She wasn't having as easy of a time getting her syllables out clearly.

    "Concussion..." his voice reverted to the trade tongue, "Mates! She's been 'it summat fierce inna back o' 'er 'ead. Gimme one o' em bottles m'kay?"

    He pressed the bottle to her lips and tilted her head back as he poured it in. She couldn't think very clearly but this was her brother and she felt safe so she swallowed the liquid down. Things became clear enough for her to make out his features and to hear that there were actually a good number of people in her cell.

    She looked around at them all, the pirates her brother had been working with. They were all wearing armor of the "Soldiers of the Lord's Gauntlet" which had first captured her. She could only guess how they got them, but her guess probably wouldn't be too far off. And just outside the wall of the cell that had a very clean looking hole blown through it stood a number of horses, enough to allow them to get away after a short battle no doubt.

    "C'mon sis. Let's git outa 'ere afore more o'em guards sho--"

    BOOM!

    The door to the cell block hit the ground, it's hinges having been torn clean out by the force which hit the door. In came Pierre in all of his armor with some rather amazed looking guards trailing behind.

    Pierre! Of course, the name of the fellow. She hadn't been able to remember it until just now. She made a mental note to write it down somewhere and send him flowers after her daring escape.

    He ran straight up to the bars of the cell and drew out his sword before he realized that he didn't have the keys to get through and get at them. His voice boomed out, "DAMNIT TING, I CAN'T TO LET YOU GO AGAIN!"

    "Doesn't look like you've much o'a choice mate." Ting's brother chimed in rather cheerily.

    "NO ... NO YOU'LL NEVER GET OUT OF HERE!"

    Pierre was saved a witty retort from Ting by the three soldiers of Ting's father coming in through the busted down door in dark strike uniforms of her father's men. The first one stated simply in elven, "We've recovered the objective."

    Then there was an awkward silence. Ting, her brother, and the pirates inside the cell with the blown out wall. Pierre and his soldiers in the hallway just outside the cell. And then the three elven soldiers in the doorway. Everyone was perhaps considering exactly what the best course of action would be in this new unexpected scenario when they were saved the trouble by one of the three soldiers blurting out, "We will meet you outside sir!" and proceeded to cast a spell from a scroll.

    The other two immediately jumped into defensive positions as Pierre's men realized that they had enemies actually within arms reach and began to charge, all too late of course. The next bit happened surprisingly fast in Ting's mind. The elven soldier who read off the scroll clapped his hands onto the shoulders of the other two and they vanished into thin air right as the guards reached them. Meanwhile, Ting's brother tossed her over his shoulder, ran out the hole in the wall and swung up onto a horse with the rest of his men following suit.

    A short battle ensued as a few of Pierre's mounted men attempted to give chase but --pirates being renowned for dirty tricks-- one of her brothers men lit a small fuse sticking out of a bag and tossed it behind them. A cloud of smoke erupted from the bag and engulfed the pursuing horses, panicking them and providing an apt distraction.

    ...

    Over the next few days the group met back up with the elven soldiers, they had teleported themselves to an agreed upon safe spot and were waiting with their own horses for the group to arrive. They then went north and east. Ting and her brother talked little about important things during the trip, him explaining to her that he was just going to ensure she got safely back to the place she was calling home. They had little trouble on the long road from bandits and Pierre's men didn't seem to want to give chase. Eventually they arrived at a place on the road only a few hours outside of the Gypsy camp.

    ...

    "Promise me you'll stay way from that wonderful gentleman Pierre, ok?" Her brother said to her in his educated elven (that was so drastically different from the way he spoke the trade tongue) as they rode out a little ways away from the others. "I think he's got a massive crush on you. What'd you do to him anyway to make him hate you so much?"

    "I embarrassed him in front of his men once when he was leading a small band of bandits. So much so that they offered to let me take his place and oust him. I had no interest in the position and I guess they went back to him as he was the next best thing, but it seems he took it to heart." She was looking distracted at the feel of the frigid Nars winds slicing down the roadway.

    "Men have always had an odd way of displaying their love for you. Except perhaps Rusty..."

    "I've told you all you need to know about why I wouldn't go back to him."

    "I understand what that fellow has done to you, but you can't just give up sis. He had no right to do that. None at all... why do you insist on staying in this frigid place in the north where none of us ever see you? Do you think you deserve this place as some sort of penance?" He looked at her with a very concerned look.

    "It's my home now. Even if they don't all accept me here. This is where I'll die I suppose." She said in a very distant voice.

    "That mystic has gotten to you... you're not dying before me, you hear? And definitely not before I see you again." He tried to give her his most cheerful smile though he felt she wasn't very receptive to it despite her faint smile back, "And do let me meet your friends here. I won't stay long... or are you afraid that I'll reveal that you haven't been giving them your real name. I don't think I'll ever understand why you insist on going by what the Dambrathans call you." He chuckled softly at this.

    She chuckled as well, "Well now I for sure cannot let you come with me. You'll put my trading permits in jeopardy."

    "Write. And build your tower, I want to see it when I come visit."

    "Please don't visit, I don't want to subject you to this place." She frowned at him.

    He turned his horse around. "It was good seeing you, I'll visit you here next time and you're not getting out of it. I still love you far too much for you to keep your life a secret from me forever. Farewell ... Tiain"

    "I keep teling you, Ting now. Ting!" She slipped off of her horse and started walking off towards the camp but after a few steps she turned back to see him grinning at her. "I love you too brother! ... Now get your sorry self out of here before you freeze your grinning self to death."


  • His name escaped her. She was never good with names, really. Places and dates were one of the lower things in the hierarchy of her memory as well; surprising, considering her knack for remembering directions. Names were the worst though, and she had nothing better to do than try to think what his was after she had annoyed the guard into leaving the hallway containing her cell.

    They had chained her up pretty well. Considering her background in highway robbery, he had probably spent a good bit of time in a cell and learned all about what can and can't hold someone. This lead to the escape-artist's cell that Ting had been placed into ever so carefully. Her legs bound in a device such that not only could she not see them, but she was stuck in a fairly uncomfortable kneeling position. There was a harness around her shoulders that ran up to the ceiling so she was forced to keep her upper body upright, but strangely her hands were left free.

    It did not take long to find out why though, a nondescript little man brought in an easel and then dissapeared again without answering any of her questions. She looked at it sitting lonely in the corner of her cell and waited fo the little man to come back. After a few hours, he still had not come back and she decided that she might as well spend some time in reviere while she waited.
    –---
    Her brother had led her away from that barfight she had at her arrival rather quickly and with a strong arm around her shoulders he twisted her through the confusing alleyways of the port town. She could make her way through alleys easily enough, but there seemed no sense to the madness of this town.

    "Sorry sis, forgot to remind you that "The Bar" aint a pub like that'un back there. 's a rusty ol' pole stickin out afront o' tha guvners mansion. Hang flags from it and the like, y'see. Realized my mistake an' been checkin round by Moe's for ya. Arrived right in time. Was told a ship came in looked barely seaworthy y'see. Thought to meself that oughta be sis. She never was one for the water and couldn' choose a boat to save 'er life. An sure enough -- watch yer head now -- There ya were. Come on in here now, some o' me mates are in thisaway. We're scroungin' up money for a ship, see."

    As they ducked through the dorway under a hanging blanket for a door, Ting got her first words in to her brother since he had first saved her in "Moe's".

    "Your grasp of the trade language is terrible."

    He laughed heartily and switched into his pristine elven.

    "Pardon me, sister. Some things never do change no matter how many decades it's been. You've been keeping yourself well, I trust."

    He guided her though a completely barren and dark room in through a doorway with candlelight pouring out and some quiet voices inside. Once they entered, attention shifted briefly to them but then everyone returned to their respective tasks. Three of the men, Ting recognized. They were soldiers of her fathers, likely sent along to protect her brother on whatever task he was on. They sat around on the ground playing a game of dice, their fancy elven armors hanging up on the wall as they wore comon sailor's garb. The rest of the men were either half-elven or human, all with rather plain weapons or armor hanging on the wall next to the elven sets. There were about ten in total, playing cards or grabbing a bottle from the small collection in the corner for a drink. They all bore tatoos and looked like rather hefty men, especially the bear of a human who seemed to be suffering the worst losses from their card game.

    Ting commented in elven, "Interesting assembly of friends you've got. What in the world does father have you searching for around here."

    Her brother smiled in reply and continued in elven, "This one was actually my idea. There's an island near here, we hear there's an underwater entrance to a cave with some old famous pirate--"

    He was cut off by the booming voice of the giant man in the corner, "Mate! None o' that round 'ere. Even with yer sis 'n whatnot. Y'all should speak plain fer us all. Rules iz rules... an flush, gimme yer chips Joe."

    Her brother laughed returning to his version of the common tongue, "Course. An' mates. Me sister Ting, pretty as she is in all 'er clothes I was invitin' 'er to maybe 'elp us out get a ship, resourceful one she is y'know."

    She butted in before anyone else could respond, "Come now, you know I hate water."

    He smiled down to her, "What if'n I told ya I convinced lil' Rusty ta come 'round ta 'elp?"

    She sighed, knowing that she'd have to tell him about Ilthoran. That bond being torn had destroyed her inside. She had kept it secret from her family for so long. But now, confronted with the prospect of seeing Rusty again she knew it was going to come out. She had had a romance with Rusty that lasted a very long time, but eventually had ended when she decided that she needed to see more of the word when he wanted to bring his adventure to a close and make some money back in their home city in the woods.

    She immediately reverted back to elven, "There's a problem, brother..."

    "Is there now?"

    ... that voice didn't belong in her memory... her eyes snapped open to be face to face with ... him ... she still couldn't remember his name.

    He grinned at her surprise at seeing him. The grin was a handsome look on his otherwise intimidating appearance; then he spoke again, "I've reconsidered chopping of your hand and have an offer for you. First, you're going to paint a portrait of me. Something grand I can hang in the entrance hall to my fortress. As without hands you'd be no good at all at painting, I'm going to leave them attatched. They're pretty little things anyway. Oh, and next you're going to tell me where you hid the stuff you took."

    She was irritated that he was pressing this theft issue, "I don't know what you're talking ab--"

    He cut her off, "No no no no no. No lies, my pretty little elf. But painting is coming first; truth will come later."

    He turned and walked out of the cell and turned down the hallway as a guard slid the door to a close and locked it. She called after him, "Please, you can't keep me like this! I wasn't so bad to you as to leave you in this sort of discomfort!"

    He called back over his shoulder without breaking stride, "You caused me more discomfort than you will ever know."

    She had a feeling she'd be in this cell for a long time...


  • "I see you let your hair grow out…" She drew herself up into a sitting position on the cold stone floor.

    "I see you haven't changed at all." He stepped forward to stand over her with surprising speed and grace for a man of his size. The way he stood there over her reminded her strangely of the banites of narfell like Zanetar. It just became frightening to be so close to him.

    As she looked up at him in the awkward silence that hand descended on the hall like a dense fog and she thought for the first time what she would do if she died somewhere where she had no friends. No one to recover her should she fall. She wasn't terrified at this, just surprised that she wasn't terrified. The way that knowing powerful priests and being well off sort of cheapened death was just became very apparent. She made note in her head from that point she would never ask for help from a priest … but if they insisted she wouldn't refuse.

    Silence always made her mind wander.

    "You remember, I guess."

    "Yes, I remember." He said with a terrible calm in his voice.

    "I hope you're not looking for an appology."

    He laughed in a way that reminded her of him when she first met him. When he was scrawny and cocky leading an old band of highway robbers out on the Long Road. Then with a small smile he looked down at her, "Why would I want an appology? It's because of you that I have all of this!" He swept his arm and out of the archways along the hall all of the swordsmen dressed purely in black stepped into the light.

    "That was nicely staged–"

    His boot swung for her face as she looked back to see the swordsmen and she had no time to dodge. The collision send her tumbling back away from him.

    "BECAUSE I HATED EVERYTHING YOU HAD DONE TO ME!"

    "I–"

    "I should just gut you right here in my hall," he drew out a short blade, "be done with you for coming back into my life and trying to mess things up for me."

    "I don't even know what I did this time!"

    He sighed and continued with the terrible calm in his voice from before, "Take the actress away. I don't have time for this. Tomorrow we'll give her to the dogs and she'll remember very quickly why she killed my man and where she hid the goods he was transporting on the cart."

    "Artist, not actress… usually ... but wait, that cart was yours? Wait, but I --"

    "Oh look, she's starting to remember… too late Ting... too late. Take her out of my sight."

    The guards immediately siezed her by both arms and she did nothing to resist as they dragged her back down the hallway away from the ghost from Ting's past.

    "Can I at least get something nicer than these prision rags to wear… and could you stop hanging my paintings in dark hallways where no one will ever see them?"

    As he turned away from her, "So you noticed, did you?" Then he just walked back towards his throne in silence as Ting was dragged down the hallway between the two rows of black swordsmen and her paintings hanging on the wall.

    "I didn't do it this time, I swear. And I was just trying to … last time I was just trying to--"

    The doors slammed shut behind her as she was dragged outside of the hall and back to her cell.


  • Thoughts sort of swam back into order as she blinked herself awake. She was on a cold floor … probably stone ... yep definitely stone.

    It felt like a thousand needles shooting into her head as she sat up slowly and tried to focus her eyes on something. It was definitely a cell of some sort; the lack of proper furniture and the bars that made up the doorway made that a dead giveaway. There was something fuzzy floating around outside the doorway too...

    She shook her head and blinked a couple of times...

    Oh, it wasn't floating. It was one of those goons that she had been harassing at that inn; the other possibility being that they all look the same. What was it that had happened at the Inn? Her head hurt as she tried to remember. She must have been bashed over the head, and that's the important part of the story as far as she was concerned.

    Then something barked some words and the door swung open with a creak. Two of the goons stomped in and grabbed her roughly, she would have ducked, rolled, and sprinted out of the open cell door but the pain in her head made that idea seem less pleasant than allowing the big fellows to carry her.

    And so she was dragged forcefully out of the cell with one goon on each arm. She took this opportunity to examine the pleasant architecture of the hallways she was being dragged through. It became obvious she was being dragged deeper into this stone fortress or castle or whatever it was. The place was designed perfectly for defending against intruders that were proceeding the way Ting was being dragged. There were also a rather large number of people moving through the hallways and they all parted as Ting was dragged through, but none of them paid her much mind.

    Now not much more about her little journey was of much note until they swung open the double doors to the longest throne room that Ting could remember ever being in. The room wasn't tall. It didn’t have a nice long red carpet. There weren't scores of guards everywhere, it was just long. It was also lined with dark archways on both sides and above every arch hung a painting.

    Ting quickly bored of squinting at the swordsmen hidden under the archways in the darkness. Whoever she was about to meet sure was paranoid, so she figured she'd spend a little time looking what artwork he liked. Well there sure was something interesting about the first painting...[

    "Hey, that's mine" Ting piped up. The long room had been quieter than she expected. Her voice disturbed the silence that the entire dragging journey had created.

    The guard on the right was startled out of his silence, "What is?"

    "That painting"

    "Sure, ok thief" snorted the guard on the left and gave her an extra hard tug.

    "Wait, I didn't steal anything though"

    The guard on the right smirked, "playing dumb isn't going to get you very far. He knows you took it."

    "Took what?… oh by the way, that's mine too."

    The guard on the left tugged her extra hard along the ground again, "You'll be lucky to just loose one of your pretty little hands if you keep that mouth closed. If you can't he'll have your tongue too."

    The two guards had almost dragged her to the end of the long throne room at the end of which sat a figure sprawled out in a simple but sturdy wooden throne.

    "Been there done that"

    Both guards snorted but were immediately cut off by a commanding voice that seemed to hit them all like a sack of bricks.

    "SILENCE"

    The two guards instantly released Ting's arms so that she flopped noisily on the ground. She blinked a couple times at the figure in the chair.

    "WHERE IS IT?"

    She realized that the throne was shaded in such a way that she couldn't make out any details of the man sitting in it, she could simply determine his shape in the darkness. A window above the throne threw a beam of light right into her eyes which further contributed to the problem of seeing him.

    "… I'm sorry ... where is what?"

    What happened next happened with a blinding speed which Ting had rarely seen people move. The next thing she knew a gauntleted hand had found it's way around her neck and lifted her clean off her feet so that she found herself face to face with a long-haired human man, almost bumping noses with him.

    He was stonefaced as he whispered the next phrase at her, "Don't play me for a fool girl because this time I'll kill you."

    "Oh … it's you ..."


  • It struck her as odd, the way that inn just sat there quietly with the door open much in the way inns don't do. Of course it was early in the morning, but even so something was out of place.

    She didn't even make it all the way to the doorway that sat ajar in the calm of the morning. The birds chirped happily enough and all seemed well with the world except through that doorway … through that doorway something was very wrong.

    She looked down at her feet where the ground was all scuffed up from a group of horses recently. But the horses weren't gone, she could hear one of them snorting and stomping around the side of the inn out of view.

    She had sprinted to the building and around the side out of instinct before she could even think through what she was going to do next. The horses were tied to a rail beside her, five in all. They were good horses too, she wasn't much of a rider herself, but she now had a getaway plan.

    It took her less than a minute to untie four of the horses and push them in the direction of a nearby grassy hill. They could take care of the rest. Then with an expert leap and a mastery of navigating the external walls of rurual architecture she was on a second floor balcony within seconds. The lock on the window only took a minute more to spring and then she was inside. Finally there was noise. From one of the other rooms upstairs there were muffled voices, probably the innkeeper and his family by the pleading yet quiet tone of the voices. Then there was a rough voice that kept silencing them...

    The jewelery box Ting had spotted out of the corner of her eyes under the bed would have to wait...

    She stepped silently from the room she was in, into the dimly lit hallway without a single sound. Two of the horsemen from earlier were at the end of the hallway facing down the stairwell with swords out... apparantly they were waiting for opposition. They looked like grunt soldiers and clearly couldn't hear too well so she just slipped down the hallway towards the voices.

    They were coming from two doors down, and the doorway was open, a quick peek revealed a large man standing over what appeared to be a man a woman and their daughter. Ting didn't normally do hostage rescue, but the size of the coin purse on the soldier standing over them would make it worth this small deviation from her current journey, and she may even get breakfast on the house.

    In her pocket she had the explosive gas canister from a trap she had bought the last week. This would do nicely.

    With a flick of her wrist the top flew off the canister and the contained liquid immediately started reacting to create a thick green smoke. Ting prompty chucked this down towards the guards on the stairwell and hit one of them on the head.

    Those two would be choked up on the gas for a minute or two, which left probably two downstairs and the one in the room. The ones downstairs would have a hard time getting up with all the greenish smoke in the hallway. Down to one guard and a roomfull of hostages she stepped into the room just as he turned to look at the commotion. He looked startled and angry at the same time and started groping for his weapon. Ting, with a merry little smirk, hummed a little tune and after a twirl vanished completely. The guard didn't seem as surprised as she had hoped and he successfully drew out his weapon and started swinging aimlessly.

    He hadn't a hope in the world of hitting her but he was doing a rather good job of smashing up the room. She maneuvered around behind him as he swung around on his way out the door to see what had happened to his comrades. With him outside the room, she swung the door closed and bolted it.

    It was probably rather frightening to that poor inkeepers family to see the furniture rearranging itself to block off the doorway without anyone moving it. Or at least that's what Ting assumed when they didn't immediately go and grab the rope that had materialized and was dangling out of the window.

    "Comon you dolts, move, I'm saving you."

    There were more frightened stares looking around for the disembodied voice, but pounding on the doorway startled them out of it and they hastened to grab the rope and decend.

    Ting pulled out one of her favorite little explosive traps. She spiked the explosive chamber to the far wall and ran a tension trigger over to the handle of the door that was being bashed with considerable force. It wouldn't be long before it had been foced open despite the cabinets in front of it.

    It was a shame there wasn't room to watch this trap work. It had a short time-delay before spraying little needle-sized spikes all over the room with a very small quantity of a poison that'd put a bull to sleep. They were expensive, but that guard's purse felt heavier in Ting's hand than she had expected. The idiot was so busy swinging around he hadn't felt a thing when she relieved him of it.

    Moments before the door gave way she punched the wall and materialized again. It was near impossible to make a nice landing from a second story window when you couldn't see your own feet... she had found this one out the hard way in a near fatal -- BOOM -- The door shattered and the cabinets went tumbling away.

    Oh dear...

    She went soaring out the window with a graceful leap with the yells of the thug soldiers behind her. When she landed and looked around it seemed the innkeeper's family had made themselves scarse ... good.

    Ting darted around the side of the building to her getaway horse, but as she slid around the corner she had a single moment to wish she had thought this through a tad more carefully when a large metal object made contact with her head.

    She stumbled and hit the ground tumbling as she started to see stars and the edges of her vision faded...

    She tried to get up but a spirit-blistering pain in her forhead made her reconsider pretty quickly. A man far larger than the ones inside stepped over her with strangely graceful and powerful movements.

    "No one escapes the lord's gauntlet" were the last words she heard before she gave up on conciousness and everything went black.


  • She was astonished by the skill with which the horsemen rode. They were definitely not some half-trained guard force. They were either career military men or… well some things are better to think about when one is sure they are out of danger. She turned and lept into the ditch on the side of the roadway. The sun had been in their eyes and it was still mostly dark so they might not have seen her. Besides that old patched up gypsy cloak still blended into the ground better than most.

    The horses tore onward down the road past where she was huddled down low, she had been lucky. Then again she had no real reason to believe they were after her. It sort of made her silly to think she'd be important enough to send a group of trained horsemen after at full speed so she crawled back out of the ditch and stood up on the road.

    After watching them dissapear over a hill ahead she tried to remember what it was that had her so absorbed before...

    No it wasn't old dockmaster Franklin's theory that waterdeep was actually led by a group of carefully disguised squirrels working with dopplegangers...

    It probably wasn't the market price of fruity-crunchy things...

    Though thinking of that made her think about the barrels the fruity-crunchy things were stored in. And in turn she thought that there really ought to be a better way than by cart to ship barrels full of miscelaneous commodities across the nars pass-- She wondered what people would think when she got back. This probably was her longest trip away.

    Who would be happy to see her? ... probably only a handful.

    No the more interesting thought was who wouldn't want to see her again. She could see the faces of those people that --she was steadfastly convinced of this--didn't like her.

    Shannon would probably make a sour face in seeing her again. She was still bitter about his comment about her still being alive. Shannon and that girl paladin of his faith. That paladin hadn't liked her either, though she had egged the girl on a tad far. And as far as paladins go -- besides being a bunch of nutcases-- Mariston wouldn't give her the warmest of welcomes but the man had always been a bit dull in her perspective.

    Hmm ... that strange fellow that came to see Deacon once had probably forgotten that he wanted her head on a platter after a year.

    On the other hand maybe not. That'll be an entertaining bit of cat and mouse if he's still around.

    On the note of Deacon, it was hard to tell how the fellow thought of her. He would probably try to get hold of her money now that she had some with still nothing to spend it on other than some random tower idea she had mostly given up on... maybe they'd build it for her in cormyr... she'd just show them her medal and a lot of coins or something on those lines.

    Other notable characters she'd be interested to see? Maybe Nicahh, Ting wondered if that woman had ever found out that Ting hadn't kept that stupid helmet they argued over... or maybe it was a belt. Didn't matter much, Ting had given it to that mage, Arikess maybe? Names weren't that important in the long run, the argument had been for the sake of not being ignored. She hate being ignored, and that time she had stuck it to the rich... or at least it was nice to think she had. Either way, she'd keep her distance from the sisterhood, there was something still wrong with that place.

    Hmm ... maybe she'd see that silly little gnome around ... she forgot to pick him up any exotic spices in the Waterdeep market when she passed through, he would have loved something a little weird like that. A gnome with that much power probably shouldn't be so werid... but she liked him better that way... she had sort of strayed off the topic of people that wouldn't like to see her hadn't she...

    Then she saw a roadside inn.

    Brilliant, a snack...

  • B

    ting is so sick, i miss being a shady person with her 😞


  • … She squinted as the sun started to peek over the mountains towards which she walked. Dawn was here and no one had really persued her so she could really enjoy one of her favorite times of the day. The cold was still biting at her nose from the night before and it would be a while before the sun was fully up and warm.

    That would be another thing she would have to say goodbye to when she got up into the pass. If anything, the place had miserable weather, but the cold was nice sometimes.

    There would be buisness to take care of when she got back. She was still owed money she would have to collect. She would have to check on how things were going in Norwick ... she had left without notice and for ... well it was a whole year by now. She was surprised thinking back on all that she had gotten done in just a year. She had seen a lot of people and been to a lot of places, but only one of her stops was really important.

    Going to see her brother had filled her with dread ever since she was little. She always feared he'd be embarassed of her, or unimpressed with what she had done since they last saw each other. She had always idolized him a little bit though she would never tell him that.

    An empty road at dawn was a good place for a flashback.

    She paid for passage to the island which was her brother's current residence. The boat was rickety and she doubted it'd make the whole trip but the captain and crew of four seemed confident enough. On the bright side, the captain had pointed out, pirates weren't likely to target such a sorry looking ship. He had been right to a point, though a pirate longboat did attempt to ram them for sport. Experiences like this served to simply make Ting dislike over-water journeys even more but she did make it to land unscathed.

    She was to meet her brother in "the local bar." She loved how specific he had been. She found the place easily enough though as it was clearly the most popular place on the docks. Now being a traveler, an elf, and a woman she was accustomed to recieving all manner of unplesant greetings in unfamiliar bars, but this was by far the worst.

    Not only was the place the single most grimy place she had ever seen, but another scarred sailor went "sailing" out the door every couple minutes and the drunks outside were relentless with their cat-calls. It took a bit of winding up to duck though the doorway (which had been lacking a door for probably a few years now) and let her eyes adjust to the drastic change to dimness inside.

    When she could see properly she made her way up to the bar knowing full well that she was probably one of three women in that bar other than the serving wenches that were being harassed over by the tables. Most of the eyes were on her though the arguments and fights didn't skip a beat.

    She leaned on the bar for a good minute or two looking around for her brother who was nowhere to be seen. She figured if this was where she was supposed to meet him the bartender would know the guy.
    "Ey Barkeep"

    The man didn't have to look up from his conversation because he and the man he was talking to were looking straight at this clean stranger that had so boldly just walked into the bar.

    She piped up again, "Barkeep, you gonna stare at me all day or get your fat ass over here?"

    The bear of a man lumbered over to where she was and looked almost straight down at the little elf, "Wut?"

    "You seen another elf 'round here that looks like myself?"

    The bartender considered a moment then pointed to one of the tables with a handful of half-elven sailors clustered around busily cheating each other in a loud game of cards.

    "No no, this one's got skin like mine."

    The bartender frowned a moment, "No ... that fella don't come round here no more."

    "You sure?"

    The bartender nodded.

    "I'll be in a corner then."

    The bartender smiled slightly at this with a, "Guud luck little missy," and then he lumbered back along the corner to get someone else a drink.

    Ting almost immediately realized what the bartender meant as she looked around to the corners of the bar. Three of which were filled with shadier-looking characters than one would find in the sewers of waterdeep and the last corner had a ferret-looking pirate and one of the bar wenches doing something that was considered socially unacceptable behavior in public... at least in most societies.

    Ting made for the back door, she figured she would get changed then go looking for her brother aga-- then she felt it, it was that feeling that years of being an adventuring sneak sets off bells and whistles in your head. An entire corner of the shady looking figures were closing on her. There had to be four, maybe five.

    She spun with a shout and clasped her forearms toghether, activating her ancient bracers and spraying a huge cone of color from her hands.

    When the colors dissapeared she could see she had made one of the figures go down, but mostly she had just stricken a good number of the bar's patron's temporarily blind and they started staggering everywhere.

    The three cloaked figures drew out cutlasses with the realization that Ting wasn't going to be as easy a target as they first thought. She responded by drawing out her enchanted rapier.

    The whole bar erupted with noise when the realization passed around that blades had been drawn. The noise was deafening as cheers and jeers went out from the sailors that hoped they'd get to see some blood spilled as entertainment.

    The three sadowy figures fanned out and started trying to work Ting against a wall, but she was smarter than to let herself get pinned and she lunged at the nearest aggressor. He deflected her blow, but also gave her enough time to slip past and for the door. All three went at her at once at this point, forcing her to turn and try to ward off their blows as best she could. She didn't have much chance outnumbered so and the deafening yells were making it hard to concentrate.

    Then it seemed some god had toyed with the volume of the bar's patrons, a single voice ringing out above them all. Ting had begun to sing out her battle chant and caused the attackers to stop for a moment in surprise.

    She lept to the bar-top to gain an advantage of higher ground.

    And then something happened that no-one expected, a barstool flew with incredible velocity and accuracy and dropped one of the attackers.

    Everyone turned to see where that had come from except for ting who saw her chance and lunged at the second attacker, sending her rapier right through his chest, the cut so quick that he staggered for a few moments after the blade had left him before falling to the ground.

    The last attacker turned and ran for the back door as the bar erupted in cheers again.

    Ting turned the direction of the thrown stool to see a large figure silhouetted in the doorway, it could only be one person...

    A strong voice came from the dorway, "Ye'r always getting yerself inta trouble aincha sis?"

    Ting's recollection of her meeting with her brother was interrupted as she heard horsemen coming down the road behind her.

    She wondered if those pesky guards had caught up with her as she turned to take a look.


  • … Riding in the back of the cart gave her plenty of time to think about the things she was going back to. She was going to see the happy little bunch of friends she kept in narfell assuming they were still alive and kicking. Of course she didn't really worry too much about most of them as the ones that had survived so far probably weren't going to be offed whenever she decided to zip off for a year or so on a little trip.

    She thought for a while about friends. There weren't too many left really, but it was never good to have too many when you lead what the common folk refered to as an adventurers life. She had never liked getting too close to people she knew she was going to see squished to the ground by an ogre's club the next week. Every time she had it had ended in horrible dissapointment. But the best friends always left when she hadn't wanted them to. She knew there were many times which she wished she had a good working partner but they always drifted off or got themselves killed so she had to rely mostly on working solo.

    It was a shame, because she knew there were plenty in narfell that she -could- work with but she never would just because how they were. Or perhaps how she thought they were, Rary had been the first to really throw off how accurate she thought her judgements of people were.

    ...
    Oh look, the crossroads. She shed her pack so as to not weigh her down and she sprung to the front and drew out her rapier with a flash in the light from the single lantern in the front by the cart drivers. She had acted so qietly so as the man holding the reigns didn't even notice her sword until it tickled under his chin and she piped up from behind him in as masculine a tone as she could muster, "We'll be takin' 'er 'ard to port 'ere mates"

    She had expected a little more trouble from the driver's companion but he was fast asleep. It was plesant little surprises like this that made her jobs so much easier.

    The driver studdered out, wide awake as he realized he had a blade under his chin, "w-w-wha's that? Ya wan-n-nna go to the nearest p-p-p-port?"

    "No ye lubbin sod!" She wasn't even sure what that meant but it sounded pretty piratey, "Left ... LEFT!"

    The driver hastily jerked the reigns to make the horses veer left and his friend went tumbling off the right hand side of the cart and let out a startled excamation as he hit the dirt but was still too sleepy to figure out what had just happened to him.

    Ting looked back at the figure in the dirt in the dark behind the cart, "Oops."

    "W-w-wha?"

    "Um ... nevermind that, off ye go!" She put her boot up on the driver's shoulder and shoved him off the other side of the cart, carefully snatching the reigns from him as he tipped over the side.

    She only had about an hour before the guards from the nearby town were put on her trail and they were probably still sour about that pink uniform incident. Thinking back, that was a pretty silly looking bunch in pink breeches. But even so she wasn't in the mood for any variety of high speed chase so she'd just get as far as she could before they caught up with her.

    She figured she should probably write a book of the way her life seemed to dump from one rediculous circumstance to another, but she never was much for writing about herself. She could leave that sort of story for nate windchops, or maybe eowiel. But they'd never write a story about her because she never let people know enough about what she was doing. Jerr'd do it... but it would be in some funky tribal chant... well she might have to take what she can get, so long as he didn't turn around and give her a kid to train. That was one thing she feared, if Jerr ever came back and made her live up to her promise to train one of his kids to live like her. She didn't want to make a kid like her, sure she could teach the kid to do things like she did them, but she never really believed she was very good at it. There was always someone who was better than her. Gildor had shown up out of the blue and left her in the dust when it comes to being good at ... well good at everything Ting tries to be good at. Then there's always the ones that came before Ting and were always more of an idol and a goal like Leti and Linah. She never fancied herself being thought of like they were. Hells even zyphlin could sneak circles around her. Why in the world would Jerr want her to teach a kid. The kid would probably wind up with some horrible inferiority complex.

    She was feeling bad about herself again so she reached into her pocket for the one belonging that comforted her. A silly little medal that was given to her... "Hero of Cormyr" ... well at least she wasn't entirely without accomplishments she thought.

    Maybe one of those old senators will have died off and she could finally use her gold to acquire a position of importance in peltarch. But no, she didn't like being that sort of figurehead, she'd rather be an advisor or someone of a lower profile.

    Woah... she was to the river already, it was crazy how fast time went when her thoughts were on other things.

    She hopped into the back of the cart and retrieved her pack before proceeding to the little watch-post of the ferry-man. She'd wake him up to drag her across the river on his little raft but the guards would have a much harder time getting to her if the raft was on the far side of the river.

    And so she poled herself to the far bank in the pitch black of the moonless night and set off along the road on the far side...