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Part 1 : Introductions


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#1 Weyoun

Posted 27 October 2002 - 05:35 PM

 
Growing Up Part 1 : Introductions

Memnos Roenall quietly made his way through the half-lighted halls of Madame Oriana's house of heavenly delights, a place set up especially for the use of the more... nobler of persons to rendez-vous with their mistresses and such without running the chance of losing face... Or at least this was the pretense. It was a brothel, plain enough for all to see... It only was a very expensive one.

Strolling through this rather lavishly adorned building was only one of Memnos' many, many vices... But then again, he considered only the best was good enough for him. His noble blood give him that privilige. Only Nobles were of importance, the rabble... were nothing at best. Cattle to be hurded off into the slums and rot there for all he cared...

He shot a look at the many girls walking around this house of ill-repute, but these didn't hold his interest today... Madame Oriana had promised him very special today. Apparently, a friend of hers was travelling to Cormyr and was staying with her for a month before continuing her travels to her new home. Normally, Memnos would not have even cared about this, but for two facts of import to him. The first one was, that she was 'comfort-woman' for only the richest of the rich... The second was, that she... was a Drow. And he was very eager indeed to find out if the rumors about the dark elven erotic arts were true, firsthand.

Memnos continued his trek deeper into the building, until he approached an oddly fragrant room, covered with silken drapes on every wall... Memnos heart raced with anticipation as he heard oriental music coming from an enchanted musicbox. Then... he came to the bed, and the sight in front of him made his heart skip a beat...

A gorgeous female Drow was lounging on the silken bed, her prone form dressed like a Calimport bellydancer. Her clothing consisted of a series of silken veils and jewel-encrusted straps, which left very little to the imagination. Her mindriff was bare, while most of her face was covered with a veil. Staring at Memnos, were the deepest eyes of blue he had ever seen. Memnos' stirred lusts were curtailed however, when he noticed a man standing just at the foot of the bed. He was tall and muscular, and besides his large and menacing looking spear, his most prominent feature was a large black mask, making him look much like an executioner...

"Well, hello there..." the Drow on the bed suddenly purred. Then, she noticed Memnos' nervous looks at the man beside her. "Oh, this is just my bodyguard... He is harmless. Unless you try to bring harm to me, of course..." The Drow female's eyes narrowed as she added, "like you did to those streetwalkers..."

"How did I know?" the female stated when she saw the anger flash into Memnos' eyes, "Well, I make it my business to know about someone before he walks into my door. And the Shadowthieves were most forecoming with their information..."

"They were just rabble... Sheep... Nobodies..." Memnos suddenly smiled, "I can do with them what I wish..." Shooting a look at the bodyguard he quickly added, "But I would not dream of harming a lady of your stature, of course..."

"Of course, my Lord," The female Drow spoke, her eyes still narrowed. "Come then... Let us discuss my... fee."

"Are the, ummm, rumors true then?" Memnos asked, with anticipation.

"Oh, yes," The Drow replied. "It is worth every copper... Tenthousand gold pieces and you shall have me for the night, my Lord..."

"In that case, my Lady," Menos continued. "I shall pay your modest fee. Will he..."

"Yes, he will..." the Drow female added while removing her headdress, revealing her long, white hair. "But he will only guard, unless of course you prefer him to partake..."

"Oh, no... This will do fine." Memnos answered with a lustful grin. "Shall we get started?"

"Just a moment," The Drow female spoke, while getting up from the bed,."We have all night... The experience will be all the more pleasing if we get to know each other a little better first."

"Alright... You first then, my Lady," Memnos said as the two lay down on opposing padded benches, "How did a Drow like you end up on the surface..."

"Simple," The Drow replied. "I was born on the surface. My mother was Drow, while my father was a surface Half-Elf. I grew up in a small keep, and when I was younger, I was in fact desperate to become an adventurer."

"Truly?" Memnos snorted. "An adventurer? You actually wanted to be a vagrant, trudging through dungeons and risking your life for some meager gold coins? You had a Keep, and no doubt an inheritance..." For a moment, Memnos thought he heard the Drow in front of him growl in anger for only a moment, but he regarded it as non-important...

"I was a mere child then and it was my wish, but alas," the female said, "the keep was invaded by a rival landowner and both my parents were killed only a few years after I had come of age. I was sold to a Calimshite caravan for a small fortune, and eventually managed to win my freedom by bestowing... favors on the caravan leader. I quickly ended up in the noble circles of Calimport when I realized nobles were willing to pay large coin for a night with a Drow... And so, I'm here..." the Drow concluded. Memnos considered however, that the first part of the Drow's story sounded vaguely familiar.

"But tell me about yourself then?" she asked. "Who are you, that you can afford to bed me?"

"Well, my Lady," Memnos stated proudly, himself being his favorite subject. "I am Memnos Roenall, current Patriarch of the influential Roenall family, though it is not as influential as it used to be, thanks to the current Meisarch." Meisarch... He spat that last word as it is was a curse...

"And, well, a Lady of the World such as yourself must realize our fortune does definately not come from our peasants," Memnos chuckled. "Oh no, sometimes even a nobleman such a myself must conduct myself in shady business-practises. You'll understand if I won't go into that any further..."

"Oh..." The Drow replied with a pouty sound of disappointment in her voice. "It was just getting exciting..."

"Well, if it pleases you, I shall elaborate..." Memnos laughed. "I am at the head of a slave-ring, you see. I personally oversee the shipping of the cattle, which are the captured commoners if you were wondering, to the nation of Calimsham, where slavery is not an abandonned practise as of yet... And I make a fortune in the process!"

"I see..." the Drow purred, but Memnos was surprised her voice no longer had the throaty, lust-inducing sound it had been before.

"Lenny?" she asked the bodyguard. "He smuggles captured people out of the Slums into Calimsham to be sold as slaves, did you hear that?"

"Sure did, Vierna," the bodyguard replied. 'Vierna?' Memnos wondered, 'where have I heard that name before?'

"And he confessed to the murders of the streetwalkers."

"That too..." The bodyguard replied again.

"What is going on here?!" Memnos demanded, but suddenly a powerful kick from the Drow female sent him reeling over the bed.

"Shut up, scumbag!" she shouted and removed her veil, "You have confessed..."

"You cannot prove anything!" Memnos shouted confidently, but still felt that his world was falling apart. "I am Memnos Roenall! Respected landowner. Who will believe a Drow and her bodyguard?!"

"Perhaps the courts won't believe the word of a bodyguard," the man spoke, while removing this hood, "but they will believe the word of a Paladin-Knight in the Order of the Aster."

It was then that the Drow female removed her veil... And only then, to his horror, did Memnos recognize her from both the tales of the bards and renderings of artists. The Drow standing in front of him, was no other than...

"Vierna DeVir..." Memnos stammered. "Hero of Cormyr, The Scourge of the Zentarim, Slayer of Evil, Daughter of..."

"I know who my parents are, thank you very much!" Vierna replied a bit too sharply for her own liking. "And they are very much alive, as are all the others who live in my keep! But you were, of course, not interested in that."

"This doesn't change a thing," Memnos tried. "You still can't prove anything!"

"We have your confession, and we will testify to it," the Paladin replied. "And then there's the fact that our two other companions are at your estate right now, and have probably found your shipping-records. I think the guards will have freed the slaves, found your cronies and have them back at the jail, just in time for your to share a cell with! I normally do not approve of burglary, but in this case it was justified! This whole setup here is courtiously provided by Madame Oriana, who was threatened to be closed down by the Meisarch."

"The council will never...!"

"We were askedto do this by the Meisarch," Vierna stated matter-of-factly. "And she said she only needed the records and the confession. You should have learned your lesson from the fact that your corrupt father Isaea was stripped of his lands and possessions as well! You Roenalls never learn!"

Memnos knew the law had caught up with him, and tried to make a belt for the door. Before he could reach it, however, he heard the cocking of a crossbow. After he came to a stop and took a look over his shoulder, he noticed Vierna had fished a crossbow from under the pillow and aimed it straight at him.

"You would should an unarmed man in the back?" he asked with a hint of fear.

"No," Vierna smiled. "I would never do a thing like that to a man... You, on the other hand are no man in my book... You are a cockroach to be stepped on."

"Vierna..." the paladin warned.

"Relax, Lenny, I'm not going to shoot him after all the trouble we had catching him. But, could you alone take him to the jail? I can't go outside looking like this, and I feel like taking a long bath after dealing with this lizard..." Vierna chuckled.

"Wait!" Memnos shouted and began to cry, "Can't... Can't we make a deal? I'll give you, ermmm, 500 gold if you let me go! Come on! It's lots of money to you commoners..."

The paladin simply ignored him, shot Vierna a smile and dragged the sobbing Roenall to jail. "Come on, pallie... That's what you get for not thinking with your head..."

'Damn,' Vierna thought to herself with a smile, 'I missed the chance to shoot a crossbow-bolt in that bastard's butt! Or at least a minor kick of my boot... My steeltoed boots..'

---

"The Meisarch will see you now," the secretary stated solumny, while he directed the assorted group of adventurers to her office.

"Well, thank you very much, little miss 'ImadrowsoIgivealltheorders'!", a smiling female gnome said while pointing to the Ilmatarian cleric besides her. "Thank you very much for sending me into that Roenall mousehole with miss Sour-and-Dour for only companionship..."

"I am not 'sour-and-dour'," the Ilmatarian cleric replied. "Compared to your excesses, everybody seems 'sour-and-dour'."

"But, you are even more sour-and-dour than the most sour-and-dour'est uncle I had. There's a funny story about that, actually. You see, my Uncle Bertie 'Downtrodden' Jansen was once sitting in the turnip-cellar watching the turnips grow, since he had nothing to live for, you see. But one day, he noticed a smudge on the largest of turnips and carefully whiped it off. Suddenly, a great flash of light exploded from the turnips, and lo-and-behold, there stood the Great Djinni of Assorted Veggies!"

"I doubt that happened, Gerty," the cleric replied sourly.

"Hey, HEY!" Gerty replied. "I swear it's true, or my name isn't Gertude-Fiona-Patricia-Georgia-Kiki-Petunia-Edwina-Lenore-Urtida-Barbarella-Doria-Jidiia-Iota-Nyota-Stevie-Hortense Jansen! There's actually a story about that long name too, but considering your are glaring at me now, I'll save that for another time."

"Anyway," Gerty continued unfettered, "The Djinni told him he could make three wishes and, of course, uncle Bertie jumped to the occasion! 'I want people to actually listen to me!' he shouted, and the Djinni waved his arms and, suddenly, Uncle Bertie was a king! Surrounded with as many turnips as he could eat! But still, he was sullen and downtrodden, no matter how many riches and turnips he had. So he made his second wish... To gain fame as the first gnome to climb Mount Widowmaker. With the help of the Djinni, he climbed to the top and shouted down his name in victory, only to find out no one was interested, because they were al watching a fire-giant swimming in a lava-pool. 'I just don't want to be so sour anymore, I just want to be of use to anyone!' he shouted at the Djinni. The Djinni throught for a moment, waved his arms and Uncle Bertie appeared into a cave with a family of starving griffins. That quick meal saved their lives and... Wait... This is the wrong story for the occasion altogether! Let me tell you another one... You see, my uncle Rottweiler Jansen, a great muscular man was travelling..."

"NO!" the Ilmatarian Cleric shouted, "Did you know, that in my old profession, I had developed a technique to kill a gnome by pressing my index-finger into the soft flesh just where the skull ends and the spinal column begins? It seems the gods have made a design-flaw there..."

"W-w-well," Gerty stammered, realizing that even after travelling with her for over five years, Glyill Nightshadow could still make her shudder with a single menacing stare...

"I delivered the package, Vierna," the Paladin told his leader as he walked into the Council-hall. "He cried for his mother all the way down..."

"Another scumbag off the streets..." Vierna sighed as they walked into the office. "Job well done people!"

Vierna DeVir, Mighty Adventurer (She still snickered when anyone called her that!), Hero of many, Daughter of..., well, we'll get to that later. In her early days, she adventured with the party of Alexa Moonshine, a human woman, who had learned to fight at De'Arnise Keep. During this time, she had learned much about the world, the art of magic, and even about herself. With the experience learned, she went on to walk a path of her own when most other adventurers of Alexa's group retired. However, she soon found out she had to fight two stigmas which would follow her all her life... The first one was, of course, the Drow on the surface-lands stigma, which led to numerous unfair treatments. The second one, which was far more annoying to her, was the 'daughter-of'-stigma, which was often even more inescapable. Vierna was the child of two great and famous adventurers, heroes even. And that fact followed her from the deepest pits of the Underdark to the Cold reaches of Icewind Dale.

Make no mistake, though. Vierna loved her parents and siblings more than anything and still had an active correspondance with her mother and father during her adventuring years and beyond, but still it was annoying that some people compared their great deeds with her, as of yet, less impressive deeds. And it didn't help that she wielded her father's swords Namarra and The Equilizer and wore her mother's Red Dragon Plate.

But as she began to distinguish herself and make a name as a powerful adventurer, both Stigma's slowly began to fade as bards sung her name and the names of her companions, as they gained more fame with every deed. Vierna smiled to herself and shot a look at each of her friends

Leonard Riverstone (Lenny for friends) was a Paladin in the Order of the Aster, devoted to Lathander the Morninglord. Lenny was blessed with two character-traits which set him apart from the majority of paladins that walked the Realms : An open mind and a sense of humor, probably the result of being the son of a fisherman. His choice of weapon was unusual for his profession as well, seeing he preferred spears as his primary weapon. Lenny was the first companion Vierna would meet after she split from Alexa's group... By a stroke of luck, both were staying at the Feldepost Inn at Beregost when the town was attacked by a group of vampires. Both Vierna and Lenny managed to guide the townfolk to the Temple of Lathander and succesfully defended the place from the invading horde with the help of the priests of the Morninglord. After this ordeal Lenny, impressed with Vierna's abilities and pureness of heart, agreed to travel with her to her next destination. They would meet the half-elven female Glyill Nightshadow in Athkatla a few months later.

Glyill Nightshadow was a former assassin for the Shadowthieves. She was apparently a very talented one, since her clever techniques and schemes were the stuff of legend. Glyill was ruthless, merciless, and deadly. Then, she died, slain by a knight of the Most Noble Order of the Radiant Heart... Apparently, she was deemed valuable enough to the Shadowthieves to be resurrected, and it took them a full week to locate and raise her body... Glyill came back a changed woman, however. Obviously, she did not like what she saw in the afterlife that was meant for her, and had lost her taste for ruthless murder. Everyday, she collapsed in front of the temple of Ilmater begging for forgiveness, until the shadowthieves were no longer able to ignore the 'vices' of their former star assassin. She was deemed an embarrassment to the shadowthieves and her death was ordered, until she ran into Vierna and Lenny, who were staying at the Copper Coronet at the time... The two adventurers protected her from the shadowthieves, and this time, Vierna's reputation of the being the 'daughter-of' was actually helpful, since the head of the Shadowcouncil, Aran Linvail, was not about to risk a conflict with both Karis, Viconia and their friends. Thus, the order was cancelled, much to the current shadowmaster's dismay... Glyill was offered to join the group to do good deeds and to gain redemption and only two days later, Glyill was ordained as an Ilmatarian cleric and left Athkatla with her new friends. But till his very day, she has never told anyone what she saw during her brief period of death...

And then there was Gerty... Well, she was a Jansen...

The four of them had been travelling in and around the swordcoast, until the lure of exotic locates became to strong to ignore. Together, they had travelled to the four corners of Fearun. From Icewind Dale, to the great desert of Araunoch. From Cormyr to Waterdeep. From Silveymoon to the Moonshae Isles. And still their travels were far from over... There were still many more places to visit and many more dark evils to fight.

"The Meisarch will see you now," the secretary said again, interupting Vierna's musings. The group stepped into the large office, where a distinguished and aged female mage was sitting behind an oaken desk. The woman looked up from her writings and gave the group a warm smile.

"Hi, aunty Nalia," Vierna greeted. "One scumbag delivered to jail. Two testimonies and one shipping record to go..."

"Well, done Vierna," Nalia smiled warmly. "This is just what I needed. Now I can order the confiscation of the Roenall lands and possessions, the removal of his military title and perhaps even his noble title, if I came make that stick..."

"You can do all that?" Lenny asked.

"It was one of the many reforms myself and Vierna's father have made over the years..." Nalia began, leaving Vierna to wonder once more how her aunty Nalia had been able to talk her father into taking a position on the council of six. Granted it was only for less than a year, but still...

"You parents must happy to see you come home for a while," Nalia said, "since you haven't been home for about a year!"

"They don't know I'm in Amn yet," Vierna snickered. "And I'm going to surprise them..."

"Vierna," Gerty suddenly smirked. "Need I remind you that the last time you decided to surprise your parents, you found them in a very exotic, ahum, situation... Perhaps you should let them know ahead that you are coming to disturb them."

"Don't remind me," Vierna blushed. "I'll bet my sister will be beating me over the head with that one, when I come home... Still, it'll be good to be home again... Even if it only is for a short while. I miss momma and daddy all the time."

"Well, do not let me keep you then," Nalia smiled warmly.

---

"Are you leaving then, 'Na?" Valas asked his sister as the adventurers gathered their belongings from their rooms at the Five Flagons Inn and prepared for the trip to De'Arnise keep.

"Yep," Vierna smiled and hugged her brother, "don't let those people throw tomato's at you, dear brother.

Valas, distinguished actor, writer, director, and owner of the Five Flagon's Playhouse smiled warmly as he return his sister's hug. "Never a tomato, dear sister... But there was someone who threw a turnip at me last night. Almost knocked my glasses off..." he said while smirking at Gerty.

"Hey!" Gerty said with a smile. "I didn't like that remark about horses and I still haven't gotten my turnip back!"

"Nor will you ever, Lady Jansen," Valas smiled while rubbing his belly.

"You ate Drufus?!" Gerty shrieked. "That turnip was the bestest friend I ever had!"

"Well, it was the best meal, Iever had..." Valas grinned in return.

"Hey, this guy's alright!" Gerty told her friends.

One last hug, and the group was off.

---

"Excuse me, ma'am?" Vierna hear a little boy ask her when the group where about to mount their horses outside of the citygates.

Vierna smiled warmly and bent to one knee, "What's your name, little boy?"

"Nathan, ma'am... Nathan from Nashkell..."

"Well, Nathan from Nashkell. I am Vierna DeVir. How can we help you?"

"Are you heroes, ma'am? I think I've heard your name before," the boy asked with a very hopefull expression on his face.

"Some people call us that, yes..." Vierna replied with gentleness.

"Ma'am... There a mean old monster in Nashkell and we need help..."

Vierna smiled to the boy. It seemed they would have to make a little sidetrip to Nashkell. It seemed the work of an adventurer was never done...
 




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