Cards Reshuffled

As hard as it can be to imagine it when grief is crushing you, sometimes it will make you stronger, drawing out new qualities that otherwise would have remained dormant. Not that that is much comfort at the particular time.

Excerpt from ‘Ruminations Of A Master Bard’

The large troll raised his head, nostrils widening as he sniffed the air, making loud snorting noises. “Weak grrthunks!” he said in a gravelly voice. “Me smell you! You stupid to come here! TorGal kill you all, make you food for Rocksmash pack!”

The other trolls guffawed at this. “Ha! They all stupid!” one said.

“And they ugly too!”

“We kill them all, stupid grrrthunks!”

“Yeah! We kill them all cause they stupid!”

“And ugly!”

“Yeah! Ugly! Us beat them easy!”

Zaerini exchanged a quick look with Edwin who simply shrugged and quietly mouthed ‘typical trolls’ to her. Then her attention was forced to turn elsewhere as Nalia pushed past her, her face flushed with anger. “We've come to get you out of my home, monster!” she cried out. “You will leave this place or die here!”

The troll’s eyes narrowed. “You live this place? Then thrrgle you die! That was deal, and you die for sure! Rocksmash pack keep deal for Stronger!”

“Stronger?” Rini cut in. “Who is Stronger?”

For a moment it seemed the troll was about to answer, but then the Yuan-Ti mage interrupted. “Silence!” she hissed, her forked tongue flickering with annoyance. “We do not ssspeak of that one, you know that. Now sssstrike them down, asss you did the human lord!”

TorGal roared with pleasure, beating himself on his chest with his massive fists. “WE KILL! KILL NOW!” Then he charged, the other trolls hot on his heels, and the Yuan-Ti started casting a spell. The snake warriors raised their weapons as well, rapidly slithering towards the party.

Uh Oh. This is not good, there are too many of them. If only we could split them up somehow, or maybe… Then the half-elf suddenly had an idea, and as she raised her voice it was in the hissing voice of the Yuan-Ti. “Sssstupid ugly trollsss! Sssstronger should kill you too for your incompetence! We are the true rulerssss here, you lot are no more than arrow-fodder!”

“What?” TorGal growled at the Yuan-Ti. “What you say, puny one?”

The mage broke off in her casting, taking a step back. “It wasssn’t me! It wasss her…” Then she screamed as an enormous fist landed on her head, cracking her skull open with a sickening crunch. “Nobody call TorGal stupid!” Torgal pronounced with a triumphant grin. “Me very smart, grrradn…Stronger give lots gold and stuff!”

Enraged by their matriarch’s death, the remaining Yuan-Ti attacked the trolls head on, doing their best to cut them to pieces. One of them threw a few sticks on the ground, sticks that immediately transformed into wriggling serpents, and the others struck with sword and fang.

It was then, in the middle of the confusion, that the adventurers attacked. Jaheira raised her arms, chanting a spell, her voice taking on a low and hypnotic quality that almost matched the voices of the Yuan-Ti. The snakes turned towards her, mesmerized, and then they fell upon their former masters, lunging and biting. The Yuan-Ti didn’t seem much affected by the poison, but it still hurt and impeded them. The druid immediately followed up with another spell, and at her command thick and strangling vines shot up from the cracks between the ancient dungeon flagstones, grasping for troll ankles, seeking Yuan-Ti necks.

“Die, Snakes of Evil!” Minsc challenged, entering the fray. “Minsc and Boo will prove to you the Terrible Fury of Small Rodents, and as Boo dances you will wish he was a mongoose.” With that, he proceeded to sever limbs and heads with his normal gusto, but still careful to keep as close by Zaerini as possible so he could protect his witch. Jaheira had joined the melee as well, though her staff was doing less damage than the ranger’s sword. Her skin had turned an eerie dull gray, her body protected by a ‘skin’ of magical iron, and it had spared her a couple of blows but would not last forever. Anomen, too, had used his powers to protect himself, drawing upon his God’s favor to temporarily enhance his strength, and the newly reassembled Flail of Ages was being kept very busy. Sometimes, the blows he landed would severely affect the victim, magically slowing them to a near crawl that made them easier to hit again. He was already wounded himself though, and his own movements weren’t exactly lightning quick either.

Meanwhile, the spellcasters were doing their best to hurt those Yuan-Ti still stuck in Jaheria’s vines, as well as to be prepared to dispose of any trolls that were hurt seriously enough to be permanently killed. Rini was clear out of useful spells, and had reverted to her bow, though it wasn’t doing as much damage as she would have wished. Suddenly she felt something yanking hard at her leg, and almost fell. It was a severed troll arm, and it was still alive and wriggling. As she furiously tried to scrape it off, one of the snakes attacked the arm, engaging it in a violent wrestling match, and once it was distracted Jan was able to finish it off with an Acid Arrow.

The battle went on, and Zaerini kept firing her arrows, unaware of anything else but the targets. Her skin felt on fire, the heat of the fight was upon her and she wanted to laugh and scream at the same time. Control…must keep…in control… It had only lasted for a few minutes, but already the screams and moans of dying Yuan-Ti were filling the air, and thick green troll blood was coating the floor, making it dangerously slippery. Jaheira was down on one leg, a terrible blow from TorGal having knocked the wind out of her, and Minsc was standing over the druid, trying to keep her safe. The troll leader towered above them, and opened his mouth in a triumphant laugh as he prepared to strike again. And then a look of extreme surprise spread across his face, as a brightly burning arrow sped across the room, striking him clear in his open maw, ramming itself down his throat. He clawed at himself, mad with pain, and as he did so he left himself wide open. The Flail of Ages came up heavily, taking half his face apart, and the acid from it hissed as it ate into the open wounds. TorGal gave a single whimper, and then he died, with an exhausted Anomen standing over him, striking again and again to make certain he wouldn’t rise again.

Thank the gods, Rini thought as she fought to slow her breathing. It was over, finally over, with all the enemies dead. And we are all still alive. If just barely. Then her breath suddenly caught in her throat as she realized that she had been mistaken. Not everybody was alive, not everybody who mattered. There was a body lying on the other side of the room, beneath the sheltering arms of a large statue of a winged entity, some kind of deva perhaps. The statue’s face was sad as it looked down upon the corpse, a middle aged man who seemed to have been strong and good looking. Now though, his eyes stared at the silent guardian above him without seeing, and they would never see anything else ever again. Not even the anguished face of his only child and heir as she ran to his side. Nor would he hear her cries of his name, nor feel her hot tears as they fell upon his cold skin. For Lord De’Arnise was dead, and nothing Lady Nalia De’Arnise could say or do would bring him back.

Nalia was weeping, clutching her father’s dead body closely to her, her shoulders shaking violently. Rini felt as if her feet had frozen, fusing her to the ground. She felt only partially present, while another part of her was far away in space and time, watching another girl crying over her father’s corpse.

There was the scent of pines and earth in the air, not of damp dungeons. The air was clear and high…it felt so unreal. But the blood was the same, all that blood. It had seeped into the ground, blackening it. So much blood. Once upon a time I didn’t know how much blood there is in a person. So much blood. Oh Gorion…I couldn’t do anything.

She had moved over towards Nalia without really being aware of what she was doing. The human girl raised her tear-streaked face, and it felt almost like looking into a mirror. The face wasn’t her own, but the anguish she knew all too well. Wordlessly she simply went to her knees next to the other woman, holding her arms out, and Nalia collapsed into her embrace, weeping as if her heart was about to burst. “I tried,” she sobbed. “I tried so hard…as hard as I could…but I failed him.”

“You did everything you could,” the half-elf said, trying to keep her voice steady. Gorion…he died because of me. “But sometimes…sometimes we do the best we can, and it…it simply isn’t enough. It’s not your fault.” She looked up, but kept rubbing Nalia’s back, trying to calm the noblewoman. “Anomen…Jaheira…can you…do anything?”

The two healers had been examining Lord De’Arnise’s body, and now their solemn faces told her everything she needed to know. “I am sorry, my lady,” Anomen said. “And you of course, Lady Nalia. Such a miracle is yet beyond me.”

Jaheira’s green eyes were steady, yet sad. “It cannot be done, child,” she said. “For a soul to be brought back, there must still be a small glimmer left, the tiniest connection of spirit to body, and some souls linger longer than others. Here, I can sense nothing remaining. He is gone. I am sorry.”

“I tried,” Nalia cried again. “I tried…but nobody would help me, and the time kept passing, and…and…oh Father…”

“I know how it hurts,” Rini said, feeling a few tears in her own eyes now. “I’m so very sorry, Nalia. Maybe if we had come a little sooner…”

“No,” Nalia said, shaking her head. “It’s not your fault. At least…at least the Keep is free now, and that…that beast TorGal is dead.” Her voice was hot with fury now. “And when I find out who put him up to this, I will have vengeance.”

Zaerini didn’t say anything, but simply tried her best to keep comforting the other woman in her grief. She knew that words wouldn’t do much good right now. Yet another murder, she suddenly thought, remembering her latest Reading. She had been told that she carried murder with her, that it would affect all who came close to her, in one way or another. Minsc and Jaheira. Now Nalia. Please, oh please, don’t let this happen to any of the others. “Maybe you will,” she said. “I hope so. But take care of yourself before you do anything else.”

Nalia swallowed heavily. “You are correct,” she said. “I must…I must compose myself. I must be a good example to the servants…those of them…those of them still alive. They will need me to be strong, to take care of matters. It is what Father would have expected too. And the funeral must be arranged. Would you stay here a little while, as guests? I…could do with some company right now.”

Rini hesitated a moment. “We need to rest before moving on,” she finally said. “But I have a rescue of my own to deal with, so we can’t take too long. Still, a day or so before we get back on the road is exactly what we need right now, I think. Will you be all right then, though?”

“I…think so. Auntie Delcia will help.” Nalia bit her lip briefly. “Though there is a man who…but no. I cannot speak of it at the moment. It will have to wait. Everything else…will simply have to wait.” She looked at her father’s body, and sobbed again.

“Come,” Jaheira said, helping the distraught young woman to her feet. “We will lay him out properly, and you will have time to say your farewells, as it should be. But for now, you need to get out of here.”

Nalia nodded a little vaguely. “Yes…yes, you’re right I suppose.” She turned to look at the others before Jaheira led her out. “Would you take my father to the crypt? I don’t want to think of him lying in this place.”

“Minsc will help,” Minsc said, picking the dead man up gently, holding him in his enormous arms as if he weighed no more than a child. “Minsc is sorry for little Nalia, and little Boo is crying sad little hamster tears.”

“Aye,” Anomen said, nodding. “’Tis a foul deed that has been done here, Lady Nalia. My deepest condolences for your loss.”

“Concentrate on developing your magic beyond its current pathetic levels,” Edwin advised. “That will not only help you think of other things, but will also better enable you to eventually destroy the person responsible. (At least she had a proper father, not some…buffoon.)”

“That could work,” Jan agreed, “but some of Ma Jansen’s turnip pie wouldn’t be amiss either. I think I might recall the recipe, it’s just the sort of thing to perk you up.”

Nalia managed to smile a little at that. “Thank you, all,” she said, straightening her back. “I will see you later, once I’ve had a chance to rest a little.” As she walked out, she seemed just a little bit taller than before, her steps a little firmer. It seemed that now that she was the Lady of the Keep, she meant to be a good one.