The orc had bluish skin, black hair that trailed to its shoulders and a hideous face. It was stout, but muscular, and swung with mighty strength. No mind, I though, as I crushed the orc's head in with one blow.
"Aughh! The Orc Imperial shall wreak revenge upon the Elves of the Wood!" The thing cried out as it hit the forest floor with a dull thuimp.
Searching it's pockets, I found spare coins and grabbed his mace from his loosely clenched fist. Turning him over to face the sky, and crossing his arms across his chest while straightening his legs, I hummed a tune Father had sang to me long ago, before he left for the Plane of Knowledge.
Once done, I did as Momma had instructed me, and chanted the traditional death and offering song to Tunare, Mother of All. When I had finished chanting, I spread Poischa grass over it's body and left.
Poischa was a type of grass that grew in dark green patches and was known for making a spicy tea, and soemtimes used in rabbit stew, but I never ate that, because Momma had said it was wrong to put the meat of a brutally murdered animal to my lips.
Sitting on the lift after hailing Guard Brookrock, I glided up to the platform connected to the tree by a ring of metal. Running from the lift, I reached our little hut, and slammed the door shut behind me. "Momma! I killed an orc! And I did it exactly as you said I should!"
"Good, sweetie, can you do me a favor and go get the bucket of water that sits outside?" Momma ambled into the room carrying a pot of something that looked like stew, I guessed. I nodded, putting down the things I had looted from the monstrosity I had slain and went to do as Momma bid me.
As I put my hand on the bucket's copper handle, the bucket was kicked, and fell over, spilling it's contents onto the wooden platform, and running through the cracks onto the moist earth below. Harsh laughing filled my ears, and I turned to see a blonde haired, brown eyed boy, pointing at me.
"Tassman! Why did you do that?! My mother asked me to take that to her, now you'll have to run and get her some more!" I exclaimed, stubbornly. Tassman continued laughing and ran off into the hut three platforms away. Growling and grunting, I picked up the bucket and took it to the lift, from there going to the stream that ran behind what the elves call Druid Ring. Never totally knowing what it meant, I steered clear of it.
Letting the bucket drop into the water, still holding it's handle, the flowing water filled it slowly. Feeling the braid that ran down the center of my back with my free hand, I tugged on the end of it annoyingly, taking it down, spreading my dark brown hair across my shoulders.
Once the bucket was filled, I tucked the sinew string into the pocket of my cloth pants. I heaved the bucket back to the lift, and to the hut, where I ran again into Tassman.
I put the bucket down and charged at him, pushing him down with the thrust of my open palm. He fell on his but, a scared look upon his face. I laughed and turn to pick up my bucket when I felt him leap onto my back, I let myself relax and fall backwards. My weight was too much for him, and he fell with a peculiar sound.
Satisfied, I got up, and grabbed the bucket carefully, and took it inside the hut, where Momma was stirring the stew over the firepit. She looked up and saw my hair tousled and messy. She stood and took the bucket and poured a bit of spring water into the stew. "What took so long?" She asked nonchalantly.
A look of fear passed my face, but was quickly changed into a forced smile. "Oh, nothing, Tassman was being rude is all. I had to go to Rain Stream and get another bucketful. Sorry."
"No need to be sorry, love, just wondering." She said, smiling back at me. She took the pot away from the fire with cloth gloves wrapped around her delicate fingers and set it on the wooden table that sat near the door way. Three wooden chairs sat at the table, one never sat in.
I looked towardsthe roof, and the rod that alwys stuck on our wall with a few oak poles stood out, beckoning me to it. I reached out to touch a leaf that stuck out in mmy direction, and my mother's voice interrupted my thoughts of serenity.
"Your grandfather's. Mine now, but I can no longer use it. When you become of age to learn about it, I shall entrust it to you. But not until then." She said sternly, narrowing her eyes at me.
"Why is it so ... powerful feeling?" I asked, not knowing how to describe the odd staff. Looking at my feet, toying with a rock that was wedged in between two boards with the tip of my leather boot.
Laughing, Momma watched me, fanning the stew to cool. "Well, now, you'll have to wait and see." Nodding, I left to sit outside on the stump I had found when wandering outside of the Kelethin boundaries, unaware of the danger lurking in teh shadows. Once I heard someone in the bushes behind me, and I grabbed the stump and ran ... it was just my size, and I had been able to carry it easily.
I took it home, and carved it straight with my small bone knife Father had given me while I ws young, and Momma didn't know about it.
Sitting on the stump now, I could barely fit it. A girl growing into a woman sprouted fast, and I was exactly that. Sitting on the edge of the platform beside the stump on the backside of our meager hut, I dangled my feet some hundred-odd number of feet in the air. I had always been afraid of heights, right now, all that fear had diminished.
Looking down into the blackness of the forest floor, lush with trees and shrubbery, I spotted a metallic, shiny looking thing lying in the grass, the scarce moonlight making it glint when the branches parted with the wind.
I pulled myself up, almost losing my balance, and fingered the pouch I was given by a kind halfling that had been running through Kelethin one afternoon and saw me sitting afar from the guards, chatting with a wolf ... I never thought it strange that I did this, but did wonder why others thought it strange, and why they couldn't talk to animals if I could.
Gidgyt, she spoke her name in another tongue I did not understand, but could make out the name. She had made signs in the air which I did not understand, with her fingers spread wide, wiggling, light seeping through, as if she were a sorceress. Impossible. I had done my research and nowhere had I seen was it possible to be a sorceress...of any race.
She talked like a madwoman, and I just smiled and nodded, because I had no clue who she was, and she seemed to think she knew me.
She had left me with the pouch, and ever since I had kept my bone knife in it, carefully guarded from prying eyes, for it was the only link I had to my father, since he had gone.
Walking across the grass once I was down on the ground, I judged to where our hut was, and I treaded caefully to it, chanting a melody that was said to make you disappear. I was not completely sureit worked, since it was pitch dark anyway, but who was I to challenge Tunare?
Scnning the dark, I sa the glint once more, and it faded. Remembering where I had seen it, I trodded to it, and bent, feeling the grass blindly, still chanting the words.
I felt soemthing cold and hard against my fingertips, and my fingers slipped around to grasp it. It was too dark to see in the near blackness, but I held it to my face to see. It seemed to be a clear purple that was like a quartz, but not the right color. It was heavy, so I pu it in my pouch with my bone knife, and headed back toward the firelit lift.
Brookrock smiled at me, waved, and cheerfully said, "Should ye not be in bed, little one?" I grinned and went to the hut thatwas my home.
Standing outside, I watched the sky. A star that was abnoramlly big I had named my star, gleamed with a yellow-ish light. I put my palm open on the door, and pushed gently, hoping mother wouldn't ask where I had been. Soon as she spoke, I cursed myself under my breath.
"I heard you run across the platform, where'd you go so late?" She asked warily, adding a spice to the stew, and putting it back on the fire.
"I went to talk to Mr. Brookrock, is all. He was expecting me to come keep him company while he was at watch tonight." I repled, trying to sound confident in my make believe story.
Finished with the stew, letting it simme under the het of the dying fire, she turned to me, and looked me in the yes, said something in a foreign language, and sighed and gasped in the same breath, if that was possible. "I knew you would find one someday."
I was silent, trying to look puzzled. What did she do, and how could she see through my well-woven lie? "I-I don't under-"
"Oh, yes you do," diverting her eyes to the staff, "You deserve to know. Ishall tell you. You are of teh sixteenth season, I suppose it is time enough."
"Tell me what, Momma?" I asked cautiously, suddenly getting the feeling I was going to be in the hut, on the floor for a while. The floor had always been my most comfortable spot while I was thinking.
"That staff you like so much ..it has powers. I see you look at it with the look of the one that it belongs to, and I can't help but hold my breath, and hope you'd never find out. But, that's not meant to be, I see." Her eyes moved to the flames under the pot, as if seeing something none other than her could see.
"There are so many things to tell you, I do not know where to begin." Her voice seemed choked, but I imagined it was my imagination.
"At the beginning, perhaps?" I suggested, half sarcastically, half serious.
"Very well. The beginning ..." She told me about my love for the staff as I grew, how she taught me the spells of a long line of well known spellcasters, and how I was one of them. And how I need to speak to a woman called L'sendra Linkmil. She explained nearly everything except the stone that was in my pouch.
"Momma ... what about this?" I opened the poch, risking the bone knife being seen. "Is it quartz?
Her smile of calmness faded, "Oh my goodness, child, where di you get that?" Her eyes open wide.
"I found it. Someone dropped it below our platform. Why, Momma? What is it?" I repeated.
"That -- No ... it's not -- no ..." She stuttered uncontrollably, biting her bottom lip in frustration.
I stood, looking her in the eye, "I'm not supposed to have this am I? What is it?" Thrice asked, I was not replied, but my tongue formed a word I had never uttered, nor heard before....not before Momma had said it. "L'offsith."
I suddenly saw a bright light, and saw the stone, and were hearing words that had no voice. "It is undroppable. You have picked it up, you said someone dropped it, yet that is not possible. It is a stone...very important..." The voie faded, and I was left clueless.
"What is it?!" I yelled at my mother. Suddenly, I felt tears hot on my cheeks, and I brushed them away. "I'm sorry Momma. What did I just say, where did I hear that? Who am I, and why am I?"
She smiled again, though I'm not sure how at these grave circumstances, "You heard. You have the gift. You know." She got up, grabbed her cloak and slipped it about her shoulders, nw beginning to sag with age. "I'm going, finish watching the stew, and serve it. It is a special occasion tonight, get the fish ale out, and pour this much in each cup." She motioned with her fingers spread about an inch apart. She turned and was gone.
Thoughts swirled in my mind. Why was I just now learning this? What powers do the staff have? What mission was it my father was called upon? Was it one related to any of the current events? Where is this L'sendra, and what do I say to her?
Distracting myself, I put put pot on the table, and doused the cooking fire. Reaching into an intricately carved cabinet, I pulled out two bowls and two cups, and served them according.
Hearing many people talking outside, I peeked out the window. Three or four strange-looking people, two short, one a walking lizard, and a dark elf. All dressed in heavy chain and plate armor, except for the short, bald one. He was the shortest and wore a bright yellow robe.
Not my business, I thought aloud, and gulped for air when a loud knocking resounded through the hut. Standing, silent, I listened for noises as Father had taught me. Hearing a slight jinkle of a metal instrument being placed in a lock, I grabbed my pouch, and the staff that hung on the wall, and climbed out the window from my room, leading to the back of the house.
Using the wall as protection, I stood flat against it as I listened carefully. Footsteps. Four in unison, searching the house, scattering every room, looking in cabinets, under blankets, on the ceiling.
"Nice technique, Nic, you'll have to teach it to me soemtime." A gruff, muffled voice exclaimed so near the window it made my heart pound. I was sure the beating in my chest would give my position away.
"Col nect liv fer?" A strange voice came to my ears. It was deep, with an elven accent, but not of the language I spoke. Yet, why ws the one man speaking in Elvish?
Another small, squeakier voice spoke up, onviously saying the man was short, "Because we are in the land of the elvish, Nicvela Nightomen. Do you wish to get us killed?"
A grunt from the one called Nicvela, and a head with flaring, white hair stared straight at her, the black eyes piercing her with an intesity unknown to her. He scanned the area, and moved his head back.
Letting a breath out that I hadn't realized I had been holding, a tear ran down my cheek. The fear that I had felt when he had seemingly watched me, made me want to scream, to run, to die even.
"She's not here! What of Rhyana?" Yet another voice came. This more...scaly, on edge, and raspy, than the others. "Quit pulling on my tail, Gadjett! I'll swat you with it if you don't!"
A high-pitched giggle, and following that, footsteps distantly leaving earshot.
They were going to kidnap me! And Momma! I'm so glad she had gone! Who were they? And what was the language the one called Nicvela had spoken? Howhad they passed the guards, and was their only reason for being in Kelethin only to kidnap her and mother?
My thoughts were abruptly ut off when a hand grabbed my arm roughly. I let out a yelp, and turned to see a bald short person, with a blonde beard and blue eyes. His features were chunky, but muscley, and he was very stout, but looked like he could kill an orc in one hit.
"Come with me, woman. We have been looking for you." He had an accent, and not one I recognized. I struggled against his deathly grip around my arm that forced my fingers to go numb. Fighting with my feet, I planted them on the ground, and pushed so hard it felt like a knife was ripping the muscles from my arm.
I heard a harsh laughing, and felt myself slowly being propelled away from the man that had suddenly let go of me. I felt myself falling backwards, and I let out a cry that must have ben heard at the Spires. I hit the ground and slowly, everything began fading. Going black. Going white. My last thought was, I'm dying.
Still working on the third chapter, will post when i am finished 8)