Chapter I Part 6: Champion
My apologies for this late post. Exam week and all.
Time is a very peculiar thing, thought Alioth Ras’Elased as he watched the flask of alchemist’s fire fly towards its target. Sometimes, years can go by in a flash .Other times, it seems the gods themselves had stretched seconds to eternity. For him, this was one of those times. As the small flask of liquid flew towards the ammunition room that was stained with the stench of sulfur and gunpowder, Alioth could clearly see all the slightest movements and splashes of the orange liquid inside. It was only halfway to the door when the cork that held the contents of the flask inside flew out and fell to the ground. The liquid ignited as it came into contact with the air around it and the drops that fell looked like raindrops ablaze. Alioth had hoped that the liquid would run out before it reached the door and the flask would only shatter harmlessly on the red granite of Red Spires Garrison. Alas, a hope is just a hope, just a thought that all would go in one’s favor, something life never lets happen.
It only took one drop of alchemist’s fire to cause an explosion so full of force that even Kreshnak, the leader of the forces that had seemingly single-handedly captured the garrison, almost fell off the short wall where he was cornered. Alioth heard his comrades scream in pain as the huge flames engulfed the fortress before withdrawing to the skies.
Lesa, the first to recover from the shock of the explosion, lunged forward and swung her thinblade, aiming for Kreshnak’s neck. Kreshnak, seeing the danger, moved backward and dodged the small rapier-like elven weapon. Alioth saw an opening and, with all the strength he had left, jumped up as high as his armor would allow, holding his greatsword high above his head. Remembering what had he had done before, he shouted “Evil, I smite thee!” and brought his sword down as hard as he could. Kreshnak tried to dodge again, but this time he wasn’t so lucky. The slash that was to cut his head in two had instead sliced into his shoulder and almost cut his left arm off. A horrifying sound somewhere between a scream and a howl escaped from Kreshnak’s mouth as the steel tore into his flesh. Alioth pulled back his sword, now covered in hobgoblin blood, and went back into position.
From the corner of his eye, Alioth could see Kieran, the rogue of the party. She was the only person who did not seem to get hurt in the explosion. “Let’s wear him down!” she called from halfway across the inferno. “In a few years he might die! And of natural causes, too!” She seemed to have cheered up a new hope seemed to have stirred within her, for she was no longer complaining about “all you brave people.”
But Alioth heard none of this. He was thinking again…
Strange. Why didn’t it work? He thought, examining the sword he was holding. He remembered vividly what happened last time he tried to smite an opponent. He could clearly remember how his sword glowed as if engulfed by a white flame and he saw, at the corner of his eye, a solar angel standing close to him. After the swing that sliced the gnoll in half, he thought he saw brilliant white feathers falling to the ground from where his sword had been and where the solar was standing.
He was so immersed in his thoughts that it seemed he had awoken from a dream when he shook off his thoughts and came back to his senses.
Lesa had already stabbed Kreshnak with her kukri and went back into position when Alioth remembered he was in the middle of a battle inside a raging inferno.
Snap out of it, Alioth!, he thought, scolding himself, remembering that he had just put himself in grave danger. You can think about what went wrong if and when you survive this!
“Auviza, verdua, vaikat,” whispered a barely audible voice from somewhere behind him. It was Acantha, the cleric of the party. She was the shy one of the party. She rarely talked and whenever she did, she would always speak very softly. Now she was healing Lesa’s wounds, which had been inflicted on her some time ago. Alioth watched the deep gashes close up and leaving no sign that there had been a wound at all.
It was Milica’s turn to strike now. With a spin and a flourish of her rapier, she slashed Kreshnak’s arm. The new wound drew enough blood to stain the armor he was wearing.
“You will pay for that, little fleshling!” cried Kreshnak as he raised his flaming sword above his head, ready to slash.
“Fleshling? Wow, you’re running out of insults, Kreshnak!” said Alioth with a laugh as he remembered the insults Kreshnak would throw every time he would attack.
“You look like you’re getting tired. Why don’t you give up you… non-orc?” came a voice from behind Alioth. It was Azareth, the group’s wizard. He still seemed to have a hard time distinguishing the difference between orcs and most other creatures. But he was getting there. It would just take a little longer before he could.
“Enough with the interruptions!” bellowed Kreshnak, obviously frustrated that he had no chance of winning. “That’s the last mistake you’ll ever make, elf!”
“Then this will make you give up!” shouted Azareth. “Ti-en Shangang Si-a!” With a fleeting gesture and a snap of his fingers, Azareth launched a brief spark of blue-white at Kreshnak, who just laughed at the seemingly weak spell. The sparks hit him in the chest and the laughter immediately stopped. He stumbled for a while and fell, unconscious and slowly bleeding to death.
“Yes! I killed the non-orc!” shouted Azareth with glee.
“He’s not dead. He’s just unconscious,” said Lesa, kneeling down to look over Kreshnak’s corpse. “There doesn’t seem to be anything of value on the other two bodies. Kreshnak’s armor looks like it’s been made well, and he has this magical sword. Now, who gets what?”
“I can carry the sword,” said Alioth.
“But you already have a sword,” replied Lesa
“Then I can use the magical one.”
“No. It might be cursed. We’ll have to wait until we can examine it before anyone uses it. Just to be safe.”
“Okay then. Now who wants the chain shirt?”
“Ugh! It reeks of non-orc!” said Milica, somewhat disgusted by the fact that some of them actually wanted to take any kind of armor soaked in hobgoblin blood.
“Kreshnak’s bleeding a lot,” Azareth pointed out. “What do we do with him?”
“Do you want me to tie him up?” said Lesa, pulling out a bundle of rope to tie Kreshnak up with. “I’m pretty good at it.”
“Why didn’t you say this last time?” asked Milica.
“You never asked,” she replied, evidently in an attempt to annoy the one in charge.
While Lesa tied up and stopped Kreshnak’s bleeding, Alioth tried scan the area for evil auras once more. It was harder to concentrate with the noise and heat of the dying fires around him, and he thought he heard Milica taunting Kreshnak’s unconscious body. “Not so tough now are you?” she said. Soon there was less noise and he was able to concentrate.
All went black except for four red hazy shapes that looked around the size of an ordinary human. He could feel the evil auras, and he slightly felt the anger and the hate within them as he watched the auras. He could feel one that was stronger than the others.
A voice brought him back to reality.
“So, how many did you see?” asked Azareth, wondering how many more they had to fight.
“Four,” he replied. “One is stronger than the others. It had a moderate aura.”
“But didn’t we just defeat the one with the stronger aura?”
“Apparently Kreshnak only has a faint aura.”
“Why didn’t you say that before? I wouldn’t have wasted so many of my spells.”
“Because I only found out now.”
“Great. Now we’ll have to fight another strong non-orc.”
“Not necessarily. That one could be a cleric.”
“Oh well. We’ll just have to be ready then.”
“I think I’ll stay here,” said Lesa, putting Kreshnak’s body up to the stone wall. “We need someone to guard him. Just in case he wakes up early. You guys can go ahead. Nealla, follow them and come back to me if they run into trouble.” Her last sentence was directed to her cooshie, who had saved them from a fireball spell that would have definitely killed some of them.
So they marched around the inferno, with Alioth leading them. When they got around the flames, they saw four charred bodies. They must’ve died in the explosion. Alioth thought to himself. There was nothing worth taking from the bodies for all they had had been burned to a crisp, none of which can possibly be useful anymore. Seeing that, they decided to keep on going.
They stopped at a wooden door that was only a little damaged by the explosion. There were no holes so they could not tell if there was anything waiting behind it. Without a word Milica took out the map of the garrison and unfolded the large piece of paper.
“It shows here that this door leads to a long room that in turn, leads to the barracks.” She said, refolding the paper and putting it in her pocket.
Alioth concentrated again, trying to see where the evil creatures were. He didn’t see anything directly in front of him, so he assumed there was nothing behind the door. He was about to open his eyes again when a voice rang from behind him.
“Are you detecting evil?” It was Milica. She sounded confused. “Didn’t you just do that?”
“Yes,” he replied, completely calm.
“So why did you do it again?”
“To see if there was anything behind this door. There’s nothing evil in the next room. There are three, however, in the room next to it.”
Convinced that there was no danger on the other side of the door, they entered it. The door opened to a long room well lit by four torches on either side, on the side to the left of Alioth, the walls were bare. There was a plain wooden door in the middle of the wall on the other side. In between two tapestries that seemed to have supposed to show the Symbol of Cormyr, the purple dragon. The tapestries however, had large holes burnt into them where the symbol should have been.
“Is everyone ready?” Alioth asked, his hand on the knob of the door to the barracks.
“Yes,” came a resounding reply from the rest of the party.
Alioth opened the door and saw a large room well lit by torchlight. On either side were four beds, where most of the Cormyrian soldiers must’ve slept before Kreshnak and his troops captured Red Spires. It was the three figures on the other side that caught his attention. There were three archers and a cleric. All four were hobgoblins and they all looked ready to fight. The archers had their bows ready and the cleric was wearing a hematite medallion around his neck. It was carved into the shape of a fist, and a green gem was set into the middle of the fist. The symbol of Bane.
Strange, don’t hobgoblins usually worship Maglubiyet? He was awoken from his thoughts by an all-too-familiar twang and a zip. Time is a very peculiar thing, thought Alioth Ras’Elased as he watched three arrows fly in slow motion towards him.
A very peculiar thing indeed.
by Aldrich and Aslan.
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