3. The Trials and Tribulations of Mallis Balterus Twi

The Trials and Tribulations of Mallis Balterus Twi


  • "He Isn't That Bad"

    His eyes oozed, his body heaved, and his face was shattered. There was little hope that this shadow of a proud man would survive much after the interrogation, but Mallis did not care. He was not taking any chances again. The prisoner’s arms were chained up on the dungeon wall, this the only thing keeping his body from collapsing outright on the filthy floor. Mallis kneeled close to the prisoner and stared into the man’s face with his cold silver eyes.

    “I have told you everything I know!” the man said. “Just let me go, I will not cause you or them any more problems!”

    Mallis chuckled with callousness. “Listen to the canary sing. Unfortunately for you, Mallis wants to hear a different tune.”

    Mallis wrapped his small Halfling hand around the man’s leg and pressed his thumb deep within an exposed wound. The man squealed in pain but with the man shackled, he could only watch as blood streaked down his thigh. The Halfling got up, and grabbed a tuft of the man’s hair, proceeding to push the man’s head into the stone wall.

    “Tell Mallis where it is!”

    He waited a moment, a pause, and then repeated again when nothing was uttered from the man’s bruised lips.

    “Tell Mallis where it is!”

    Again he waited, and when nothing was said, repeated his actions.

    “Where the bloody hells did you put it, pissant?!”

    The man coughed a bit, spitting out both bits of blood and teeth, but forced himself to mutter and answer the hin. Mallis turned his head to listen. Satisfied with the answer, he dropped the key to the chains on the floor near the man’s legs.

    “It is but pain that will pass, boy. Mallis should know. Your gods’ sake though, it was children.” Mallis turned the bolt to the large oak door that led him back to civilization. An elf was waiting for him on the other side, his arms held across his chest. His face chiseled but warm.

    “I would say a bit tactless,” the elf, Nolir, said.

    “He is not Sam, elf! Besides, tact or no tact, Mallis got him bloody speaking.”

    “And?” the elf asked.

    “Follow. Hopefully, you and Mallis can still reach it in time.”

    The two left the dungeon and by that night’s end, Mallis had removed the children’s ball from the tree.


  • Mallis Dares Not Say

    He knelt on a hill a mile from the Silver Valley. For that moment, there was no one there to disprove his delusions. He could revel into the idea that there, he was the king, overlooking his kingdom’s far-stretching arm. He panned the area with a wide sweep of his hand, calloused from the thousands of fights he fought, and spoke triumphantly in a tongue that was lost to all but the most astute of sages. He paused, waiting for a reply he knew would never come. He then grinned, satisfied in his own self-centered boastings. As if to test his good fortune once more, he braced the edge of the hill’s unsteady setting of rock and stomped upon it with his foot to loosen the already loose ground beneath him.

    “Gods could never find the strength to stop him now,” he mused. His silvery eyes glistened with every deep-rooted chuckle. He needed to get higher, so he put his chiseled muscular body to work and grabbed at the jagged dome of rock of the hill, pulling himself upwards to its tallest point. He leaned forward from his throne and took a great look at the Silver Valley now, pushing his raven hair out of his face every time it would obstruct his view to the town.

    He could barely make out the small blurred dots of his brethren from that distance, but he had a feeling that they were working steadfast to rebuild the town. He admired them, he had to admit.

    “You can share the kingdom,” he offered. But as the first thoughts of warmth and feeling he had felt all day overwhelmed him, a second batch of images flowed through his mind. He felt the long scar on his face and sulked back deep in a thought-filled slumber. Each scar was a memory for Mallis, and this particular one brought back the images of when he had fought the last onslaught of the war machines. His people were still rebuilding from it and it had been months, very long months, since that attack. He shook his head and muttered a curse that would have made Shar herself grin in amusement.

    He traced another scar, this quickly converging into three. That was his remembrance of the great red dragon Rass as the creature had bore into his flesh when he was just a young exile from Rashemen. His blood boiled and he gripped at the stones around him, feeling them crumble to dust in his hands. He loathed that dragon and with her removal from Atol’s leash, he dared say, she had just become stronger. Now, she threatened his beloved town with an unfair compromise, which Mallis knew, she would never fully keep. But his entire town was afraid of the lizard, and the Talltowns refused to get involved.

    “They all turn their backs and put plugs in their ears to block out his home’s pleas!” He yelled. He knew no one else was there to hear it, but he was beginning to wish someone had. He pulled a parchment from his cloak and observed it. It was a map, heavily marked with black circles and dates. He felt a tug, as if someone was watching him from magical means. Scrying it was called, and Mallis knew from experience that the only ones who wanted to secretly watch him were his enemies. He had seen enough and did not want to give any of his enemies a taste of what he was scheming either, so he stuffed it right back into his cloak’s inner pocket and kept his mouth and mind closed until he felt the scrying pass him. It was a large weight to hold such a vital and dangerous paper, he knew, but Mallis also knew that he could not sit back and let his town be bullied.

    “You had tempted the fates way too long for Mallis's liking, beast,” he spoke to himself, clenching his fist close to his chest. “Your day is coming soon.”


  • Another Round for the Halfling

    “Another round,” he said to the barkeep, a finger traced along the rim of his empty bottle. He had been in that spot at the bar counter for…he had forgotten the time, but surely it had already turned dark outside. The barkeep looked to the drunken Halfling with a look of worry. The little man had already sipped more ale than most of his human patrons could, and he was half their size. His constitution was going to catch up with him soon, the barkeep figured.

    “Haven’t ye had enough, lad?” the barkeep dared to ask even as he placed another ale bottle in front of the Halfling.

    The Halfling scoffed. His eyes did not seem to move, but the barkeep felt their gaze upon him. It was so hard to tell if they ever moved. The Halfling had silver eyes, an oddity among most races. Most would figure the Halfling blind, that or that he was a demon spawn. The sure nature of this Halfling and his constant appraisal and dismissal of his surroundings proved otherwise. At least for the first, that is. The second speculation was a little harder to disprove. “As long as Mallis has coin to throw away, no, he has not.” Mallis said as he grabbed at the bottle, knocking the empty bottle over on the counter. The barkeep was still not satisfied with the answer, so Mallis attempted another response. “He is nothing but pixies and daisies. Although he is not too fond of either, so you can take his comment as you would like.”

    Despite the two unsatisfactory answers, the barkeep let it rest and went about his business, wiping the mugs that hung above the counter with a dirty rag, worsening the already present filth of them. He had always known when to let his clients crawl themselves inside a bottle rather than talk. But the barkeep also knew that Mallis was unique, and obviously had some stories worth being told. Where most Halflings were eccentric, robust, and overly cheerful, Mallis had always had the mentality and mannerisms more similar to a dwarf or possibly an ogre. His muscles bulged under his leather armor vestment, his body, specifically his face, was scarred, and his tongue quickly shot out to curse at the gods, the monsters, or whatever had crossed Mallis that day. He was favored by few and criticized often, explaining the circle of empty seats that had surrounded Mallis since he came to the quant bar. When an occasional drunkard did find himself in this circle, the person would quickly dart away as if the most powerful wards were kept all along its edge. Usually Halflings were a pleasant sight for the barkeep, being more of an amusement than a client. Mallis was still a sight for the barkeep, an amusement like the rest of his kin, but for different reasons.

    As well, Mallis survived, even thrived in this nation that forced his kin to be nothing more than sidekicks for the stronger more powerful fighters. The barkeep guessed this was where the hin’s largest power lied. Most humans could expect to survive in the harsh nation of Narfell. They expected it, but Mallis earned it. He had willpower that dwarfed his size, and a temperament that made his name famous and revered at the same time. No doubt about it, Mallis was an interesting man.

    “Barkeep.” Mallis took the barkeep from his day-dreaming. He motioned to his bottle, and the barkeep reluctantly put another down. As he did, the barkeep saw as a half-orc was moving his way through the crowded seats and people to the counter and to Mallis. Hnthrowl was his name. He got the name enthusiastically from his reputation of throwing Halflings through the bar’s walls. The barkeep grimaced and ducked for cover. He could not help to think that it had only been three days since he had last replaced a hole in his walls from Hnthrowl’s previous living projectile. This was not going to end well.

    “You’s in my seat.” Hnthrowl pushed against Mallis’s shoulder, but the Halfling wasn’t moving. Mallis’s lips were near the bottle, but the lines on his face said he was smirking behind it. He placed the bottle down and chuckled. This Halfling was not going to move. The Halfling spoke. “Mallis finds him to be just fine here. Go sit somewhere else, possibly where the women seat their beautiful selves. Mallis is sure they will be pleased to listen to your tales of valor. Like the time you rescued the mucus from your nose. Or better yet, the time you were able to string together what appeared to be a coherent sentence.”

    It took a while for the odd speaking style of Mallis to be understood by the half-orc, who stood for the longest time with a look of absolute dumbfounded ness. The words could just as well been from a dead language! But when it did eventually settle in with the half-orc, his face flushed a dark red. “Small one to dies!”

    Before the half-orc could realize his rage and remove his axe from his back strap, Mallis had already won the fight. Mallis broke the bottle he was drinking, holding the neck as a hilt to his jagged makeshift weapon of glass, and had stuck the crude tool in the monster’s throat. The half-orc gurgled, spitting out both blood and surprised exclamations, as he slumped to the floor. Mallis got up from his chair and with a rage that was unbecoming of his race, he pulled the brute over his head and hurled the bloodied body through the wall, the same wall that had just been fixed three days before; arms flailed and tossed as the half-dead fool rolled and turned through the street on the wall’s other side. It was all over in a matter of seconds. All around Mallis, there was a look of awestruck among the patrons. Mallis smirked, sitting back in his spot. He did not even need to turn to observe their surprised reactions. He knew they were amazed, and knew he would have peace and quiet the rest of the night. He tapped on the counter, letting it reverberate and get the attention of the coward that hid beneath it. A coin was thrown on the counter right as the barkeep’s eyes passed it and saw the Halfling looking down upon him. “Another round,” the Halfling simply said, his finger tracing the rim of the bottle that had become his weapon only seconds before. The barkeep quickly complied.


  • Ten Years Gone: How It Changes a Man

    He crouched low, too low for the men to see. He had gotten pretty good at hiding from them now, getting to just a few meters of the bandits without them ever seeing him. Occasionally, he would toy with them, throwing out a rock or making a birdcall only to have them stir, then upon a time of checking around themselves, they would settle back into their conversations. It amused him. The great bandits of Narfell had truly fallen.

    It was only a decade ago that he remembered the Eastlanders as a ruthless group willing to steal a dying woman’s purse on a whim’s call. Now, they sat in the fields, getting fat and foolish. Things had changed. It was as if he did not come back to the nation where he had spent most of his life, the one he knew, but to an unseen world. Truths had become evident or at least known. That decade ago when he chose to leave, or to be more accurate, when he was forced to leave because of his relation with the daughter of the wrong nobleman, he was forced to run and think, not fight like his Rashemi heritage demanded. He thought much more, and with that found an interest in books his friend and fellow outcast Nolir carried with him. But the answers to his questions could not be found in them he soon found out. His answers lied in himself, in self-reflection. He smirked. He was old, older than most he knew, and yet he knew little about the world. How much would Sam pay to see him like this now?

    Ten years. He thought about it. He had traveled to every corner of Faerun, and killed many of its beasts, and above all else found some calm for his troubled mind. He even studied nature. He never developed an appreciation for it, but more a respect for what it could teach him. Even when he went to as grand of cities as Waterdeep to visit his beautiful daughter and her new husband, he did not stay long. He needed to stay in the wilds. That, and he had developed an army of enemies over the years, and felt wary about staying in such bustling cities with so many possible connections to these fiends. He eventually made his way back to Narfell. He did not know why. He had hated it, and it hated him. But he felt compelled, pulled, back into the magical country of Narfell. He brushed away his thoughts again, but it nagged at him. Why? Why was he back here?

    He stroked his black hair back, pulling a gray from the mix. Despite his age and his obviously defective silver eyes, he was still fairly handsome. He never really lost his boyish charm, and still felt a bit like a boy innocently and curiously pondering the world around him. That is he would still have his boyish charm if he did not feel the need to speak. The man had a serpent’s tongue, and only few could see beyond it to befriend the man. But he said what he said in jest, mostly in jest as least, but he could not help to see now, these bandits in front of him who did little than offer up a truce, get better treatment and quicker friendship than Mallis ever could expect from the humans, because of his serpent’s tongue. He rubbed his eyes, dismissing the thought. Damn the elf’s books. They have their hold on me.

    Creeping from tree to tree, Nolir Eloufin eventually found his way to the side of Mallis. “Nawen said you’d be here,” the elf whispered.

    “Mallis said nothing of the kind,” Mallis said. Nolir, of course, saw through it, and Mallis knew. He made a mental note to try to keep his mouth shut about his hunts when around Nawen. “He’s still going to do it. Boots are getting worn, elf, and the winter is approaching.”

    Nolir took his eyes down toward Mallis’s vestment, a grim reminder of not disregarding the halfling as some idle threat. Nolir had heard some rumors that Mallis had covered up a death of a bandit by making his armor. Like Mallis, Nolir held no respect for the bandits, but Mallis’s human fleshed armor was an unsettling sight, even if the man deserved what he had gotten. Obviously, the idea of getting boots from the bandits ate away at Nolir’s conscience. “Do not. Do not or I will talk to Rando, and you will be a friend to prison, that and that alone.”

    Mallis’s eyes narrowed, and then subsided, the halfling’s face returning to its stoic but cunning form. The vestment Mallis had not been made just for self-preservation, but from the thought of the bandits’ truce being shattered. And because Mallis could not find a good halfling clothing store in the nation. Nolir saw through everything. Mallis sighed a bit and sat himself on the ground, his back facing the bandits. A smile enveloped the elf’s face, the catalyst for the typical growl from his partner.

    “What is that, elf?”

    Nolir sat his back to the bandits like Mallis had. “You don’t need to kill everything, you know. You are still a good warrior and a good friend to many.”

    Mallis muttered a response, but Nolir kept going. “The humans have it easy.” That got Mallis’s attention. “Orcs are dumb, the dwarves are war-hungry, and the gnomes destroy everything they touch.” Nolir made a note of using words that Mallis had used before. “But humans, humans as a whole are clean from this labeling. There is no stereotypical human, because they come from so many creeds, so many nationalities, so many ideals that you cannot just group them into one large bundle.”

    “Mallis can try.” Mallis was quick to retort.

    “Mallis can try, but it will be lost on most.” The elf pushed the little man, mimicked quickly by the halfling with a push back. “Humans do not know how hard it is to live beyond racial expectations.”

    Mallis was getting to figure out what his friend was saying. “So what you expecting from Mallis, because you are not turning him soft. He stays brutal toward his enemy, and amusing to his friend.”

    “That you should.” The elf smiled; the halfling smiled as well. “But they do not need your wrath. Some of them may be indeed changing, and it would be wrong of you to kill them if they are. Winds do not always stay on course. You hold to the past, friend, and whether you want to admit it or not, it is controlling you."

    "Times have changed. Things have changed here. Mallis holds to the past.” Mallis replied. He threw a rock, getting the attention of the bandits for a few seconds before they started up their conversation again, amusing Mallis again.

    “Mallis has changed,” Nolir quickly added. “Nothing is definite in this world.”

    “Mallis has changed then.”

    The elf nodded. They got up, and avoiding the views of the bandits, left the site. Mallis threw one more stone just for fun. The world has changed. Maybe Mallis would be considered a hero yet.


  • Um, yeah I havn't been um…able.....to....um....play my character as....of.....lately...Nudges Andelas...waiting on a Rescue plot to start soon...but...heh, I'll post more in forums other spots 🙂 ...


  • Mallis is back? What about you, Lily???!!! Haven't seen you for ages.


  • I love Mallis. I want to kill him IC constantly 🙂


  • Yeah, Mallis is back!!!!!