Excerpt from the Journal of Green Starfire
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Today was my worst of days here in this strange land. It started off well enough, as I hunted orcs and met some new hunters in the wild.
Arishika is a kindly half-orcan lady who I quite admire. She is well-blooded and capable, and seem unfazed no matter how many enemies are beating upon her. While her demeaner is cruder than most humans, she appeals to me with her simple honesty and undrstanding.
After a fine hunt with Arishika, the kindly Druid, Lady Adriell, and I decided to return to the plains for another go at raising some coin for an elfin helm I have had my eye on. We headed past Sam's Hill, and there was a small group a ways beyond, near the crossing of the roads. It was Rera, her old and creaky Kitty, and another elf who I had not met. It was apparent that they were out to target some of the nefarious criminals who plague there roads.
Adriell stopped to talk to Rera and the other elf, as I stood by watching. The stranger seemed to be giving orders to Rera, and Rera seemed eager to please, as usual. She talked happily of Kitty's great age, and how Kitty did not want to die lying asleep at some cozy fire, but rather in a heated battle, and Rera was looking for a good fight.
There were telltale tracks of some bandits beyond the high ground some yards off, and I offered to scout in and lure them back, where the three could let missles and spells fly into the surprised approaching bandits. I slinked off and up the hill, and sure enough, a pair of roguish women and a Faithful stood plotting in the valley below. I unleased a shaft into one of the rogues, and slipped back easily away from the approaching bandits. There was time aplenty to get back and set up for a long range ambush.
Much to my dismay, the elven fellow had moved the group up to the very base of the hill, eliminating our missle advantage, and giving away the high ground to the enemy. He was busily trying to get poor Rera properly lined up with Adriell. I was rather confused as to his purpose for the move to the inferior position, and somewhat irked at his ordering Adriell around. Who was this forward fellow?
I reached the group and hestitated. There was no time left to reposition Rera and Kitty back away from the hill, the bandits were about to crest it now, and neither Rera nor Adriell were heavily armored. My normal tactics in a group are to rely on moving behind a heavily armored fighter and shoot at distance….but neither option would be possible at this spot with this group. I decided to stand there in line with my comrades.
The bandits appeared, and I opened fire...rather closer than I would have prefered because of the topography...the bandits would reach us before they fell. I braced myself. The elf fellow was hollering at Rera about something....Rera was her usual perky self still crooning about Kitty, when the bandits hit us, or me, to be precise.
I'm afraid we were not the most effecient group of adventurers on this day. The bandits attempted to surround me, and I kept up the fire. It seemed pointless to fall back with a group consisting of 2 large cats and 4 skilled adventurers, so I decided to stand firm. I took a fair amount of damage from flanking before they finally fell.
Then is when things went to hell.
The male elf accosted me about using my bow at close range, (which is where all of my skills lay), and then accused me of stupidity at allowing the rogue to get around me. He then ordered my friend Adriell over to him, as if she were some sort of servant.
I have often mentioned here in my journal of my ineptitude in my dealings with people, and here, sadly, is a solid proof of this. Now angered at having my archery questioned, and by the elfs stupid lack of tactical sense when he postioned us in a foolish spot, I stupidly challenged him for ordering myself and Adriell around.
This, of course, only served to further enraged the fellow...and he tossed various insults in my direction, and we all passed out of that dangerous area, towards the safety of town.
Of course, it would turn out that this was Adriell and Rera's Druid Mentor, though I knew it not at the time. Adriell rushed off to try and soothe the now very angered elf down, Rera ran off in tears with Kitty somewhere to the south, with Adriell hurriedly asking me to look after her.
Alas, stupid, stupid Green. I found Rera sobbing in a little canyon a hundred meters short of the gates of town, Burying her poor, scarred head in her Kitty's fur. As ever, Rera knows in her limited way how trying she can be to others, and had been only attempting to follow orders and be a proper Druid. She was sure the whole fight was the result of her own ineptitude. I spent a long while with her, trying to explain it was not her fault, and that she would someday be a fine member of the circle.
Alas, normally I am alone, and usually it is impossible to take me by surprise, but on this day, with Rera's sobs in my ears, and her head cradled on my shoulder, I did not hear, to my great shame, the approaching horde of bandits.
They crept towards the gates over 20 strong, surrounding our position on three sides quickly and efficently. By the time I saw their scouts on either hill, twas too late. Arrows flew by us, clattering on the rocks around us. Kitty snarled, an old cat who had been a part of many battles.
He lept onto one of the hillside scouts with surprising speed. He was buying us time. Rera threw herself bodily onto the second bandit, with a ferocity I did not think she possessed. She was like some mad, crippled barbarian....She ripped the Scouts head off with a mighty swing, and then she fell to the ground, and rolled down the hill back to me.
I set her on her feet. I screamed for Rera to come. She bellowed for Kitty to return and I grabbed Rera by the shoulders, dragging her towards the gate in the distance. It was not a long way.
It seemed like eternity.
Kitty was loping behind us with a pair of arrows sticking in his back, bleeding badly. 6 or more bandits were a little behind him, slowed by fear of his size. Rera was injured. Another pair were on our left, two roguish women croodling in, and at least 10 were trying to cut us off from the gate to our right at a dead run.
We were a few yards from the gate when Kitty turned around.
Rera's tortured single cry was the worst sound I have ever had to endure. She ripped herself free from me as I opened the gate. Shafts were thukking into the wooden posts that form the gate.The Bandits at our right were up to the walls as well, and moving towards us. Lights were coming on inside, but I knew full well that help would come too late.
Rera, her crutch lost, fell headlong into the dirt, crawling towards the screams of bandits and the cries of her dying pet. I leaped onto Rera now, there simply was no more time.
She was frantic and kicking and scratching, but her strength now seemed wholley gone, departed with her Kitty, and it was more a child that passed with me through gated Norwick than the wild and scarred she-elf that had lept onto the Bandit scout.
We collapsed at last in a sad, exhausted heap within the safety of Norwick.
Of all the folks I have seen felled in battle, none have effected me like the death of this valiant old animal of Reras.
Rera loved "Papa" so, and she would have joined him, I am without doubt, had I not dragged her away. Rera has so very little that brings her joy and comfort, and twas my saddest day, to have been a part of giving her such grief.
The little elf was in deep shock, shaking with sobs. I am a clumsy friend at best, and truly, was at a loss at what to do to help my poor friend. I tried to remind Rera that Kitty's wish was to die in battle, fighting the enemy...that she was aged and death inevitable, that she was now in a better place and no longer old and hurting....but Rera could not comprehend it.
After a great many hours, with the sun peeking through to begin a new day, Rera got up and wandered towards the gate to find her dead Kitty.
I watched her pass by, half blinded by my own tears, as Rera, scarred and ragged, hobbling in that sad way that she does, carried the pitiful remains of her best friend off to a last rest in the forest from whence she came.
There was little else I could do.
I wandered a little myself, finally falling into troubled sleep in the corner of some building. When I awoke, there was Adriell and her Mentor, who having seen the countless bodies of the Bandits that the guards eventually dispatched, had been searching for us worried as to our fate, as the bandits lay where we had parted company. It was hard to retell to them this tale, and harder still to relate it on these pages in my clumsy hand.