"The elves began to splinter into their own peoples in the middle years of the reign of Queen Alin'at'acto. Years before her death the First King of the Deep Elves rose to power in the Herf Mountains in the ancient capital of Nartasar(Nargabar). The king, King Narhuil, laid claim to land from Clethorp to Keheath, by conquest and by clever political maneuvering before and after the death of the queen. Piece by piece the empire of Queen Alin'at'acto was torn apart by her governors and outside powers, sending the world into the first scramble for succession in history." -Excerpt of Kieva's Mythological History
"I apologize for my behavior the night we met." The dragonborn smiled slyly, a hint of satisfaction behind it, though if I was being honest his expression was exceptionally hard to read nearly all the time.
"You attacked us." Kurdu said, his horse just behind Ossunnam's and they seemed to purposely trade places in line during their conversation.
"Ah, not so. You hit me, I just delivered your food." The dragonborn bore a smile that was wide and steady, yet I sensed a tone of malice just underneath.
"You think I could just watch you insult my honor like that? Nartaka, I should tear you apart now." Kurdu bared his teeth as he snarled the insult, showing that he was not kidding, at least. The scaled man eyed him for a moment before responding, his gaze taking in the whole situation.
I was not committed to his side at least, my friend would always be the person I sided with, though from what I knew, he was right to be mad. "But I was wrong in the way I came to you all. Especially you, Semsì. You did not deserve what I tried to do to you." Ossunnam looked my way.
"How do you know my name?" I asked.
"I know the Natararacti." He said.
"The Natararacti?" I inquired about the word, foreign to me despite all of my schooling. It sounded draconic, a language that even I did not study much despite all the years I studied in Rency.
"I know you are the first born of the Sevata. Anyone with any sense does. The Republic would be nothing without the weapons your family provides." There was a hint of a smile that was rather taunting but I could not tell whether I was seeing things.
"My family had not claimed me until the death of my father, why should I care about anything that they built?"
He chuckled and looked to the sky.
"Find somewhere that the reach of your family has not tainted, Sevata. Find a place that has not been touched and corrupted by your stench." He glared at me.
"Do you think I do not know what my family has built?"
"Did they really build it or did they use the rest of us like a ladder to advance themselves?"
"I do not fear my history, vi'ana," I said sideways with venom dripping from my tongue. "I know my history, if anything. That's why my father threw me out, because I wouldn't perpetuate his cycle. It's a damn good thing for him that he had my impressionable younger brother to carry on his company at least."
"I think I misjudged you, Semsì." The dragonborn nodded and turned away, looking down the trail.
I mumbled to myself, discovering exactly what the dwarf meant when he had described the man as "stubborn as myself" and even then that may have been an understatement. The rest of the day's journey seemed rather lonely, until during sunset, the runes began to burn and she walked from the tree line.
Our tents, a rather large one for Mire and Va'tu and two smaller ones for Ossunnam and Kurdu had already been set up, though last night I pretended they did not sleep together when they awoke because of what they had said that morning.
I should think twice about what I say aloud for sure. I chuckled to myself as dinner was cooked, a stew of leek and pork that Kurdu had hunted during the day. The kill would feed us for several more days, provided we cooked and stored it all correctly. The last thing I wanted was to wake up to a bear or even worse an owlbear trying to steal our food in the middle of the night. We all ate our dinner in a stiff silence with only some small talk initiated by Mire or Jiva, and I then packed the freshly cooked meat away in the endless bag and stuffed that within a backpack filled with other items. The moons above shown, Er's full and bright with its muddy red color and the smaller and the generally further Wal'a'lan waxing freshly from a new moon, behind it.
They both lit the paths of the forests which teamed with life and movement under the cover of darkness. Predators hunted, some winged and small, hunting bugs and some preying on small mice. Others took flight on wings the span of buildings like dragons, though surely they were much too far to bother us here. Some predators ran along all fours like the wolf or mountain cat, but others still hunted in the rivers, streams, and lakes, including the great Dragoneels and Dragon Turtles. Each one held its own place of importance, from the ant and beetle to the lion and Sapphire Dragon.
"What do you think of the dragonborn?" I whispered, among the bedrolls, as Kurdu sat out near the fire and poked at the embers before tossing another small log to keep it alight.
"Ossunnam? He seems to have some unfinished business with our dwarf friend."
"I told you that. Other than that? What if something happens? Do you think he can hold his own as well as when we were in the inn and he was mad at Kurdu?"
"Do you think he has some other reason for being here?" Her voice while quiet held a tone that wanted me to stop and think again.
"No. The only reason they are fighting now is because Kurdu never returned after leaving, which is just like him if i'm honest." I chuckled. I turned to face Jiva again, her gray eyes taking in my own gaze and returning it.
"He is a fine fighter and you know that. Now why he is here, I do not know. I do not know if he truly wants to join us or just try to get Kurdu to return with him to The Tower. Not that I think Kurdu would ever do that." She laughed into the pillow and then looked toward me. "If he helps you get to me, then he is a friend of mine. If he stalls your progress in any way maliciously, I will destroy him personally."
"Gods that's sexy." I gasped and kissed her roughly on the lips, which were firm against my own. We embraced and our tongues intertwined while under the covers of the bedroll her hands grasped and held my chest and sides, her nails digging into my bare skin under the warm covers.
"You think that me ripping someone to pieces is sexy?" she pulled back after a moment with a slight smile across her face, something that hid many different emotions.
"Oh absolutely. If I got to see it, I think I would perform kit'ni vartin right there. You, tearing into them like," I said, gnawing on her neck playfully with my teeth as she laughed away, to show what I meant.
"Okay, okay," she laughed and rolled atop me with her entire body still laying on mine. She propped herself up with an arm behind my head and kissed me slowly, once. Twice. Three times.
Her left ear and my right ear twitched simultaneously, and she looked up towards the entrance of the tent, which was slightly open in the corner, just so we could see out. Kurdu stood in front of all of the tents, facing toward the campfire and the forest beyond. Jiva could see shapes in the shadows moving towards the camp, several small ones just visible in the firelight.
"Goblin raiders." Jiva gasped and rolled over to her left grabbing her robe and throwing it over her shoulders, draping it over her figure before she grasped the bow at the head of the bedroll and sprinting out. In the meantime, I had hardly rolled over and begun to put on a tunic, armor would take far too long to put on now. I staggered up, grasping the rapier with an unsteady grip in my left and hooked it to my belt as I began to step out of the tent.
"For Darsun!" I could hear Kurdu yell as the battle began, which felt like long before I got out of the tent. Ten small gray goblins, each wearing a distinct war paint across their face and torso, dashed out of the treeline towards the camp. Kurdu was the first target that they saw, and lucky for him, he was on watch and wearing his set of armor, as the first goblin to get near him was quicker than he and got a glancing blow of their spear off of Kurdu's helmet. Kurdu returned the favor with a deft strike back, a thrust that caught the goblin off guard and the blade pierced into a chunk of thigh and the goblin cried out and retreated behind his comrades. An arrow from Jiva flew past Kurdu and implaled itself in the hip of the goblin who retreated, and he cursed as he fell to the ground.
Another goblin took a torch and tossed it on the tent to my right, the smaller tent that Ossu was crawling from.The torch hit the dragonborn on the back and he collapsed in a heap of sparks and flame.
"Oh shit." I muttered, drawing my blade and tossing a bright light into the air in a single motion. It lit the clearing we camped in and revealed that this was just a small raiding party of goblins, something that was only meant to hit and run, taking whatever valuables they could find in the process.
The lead goblin, the one that Kurdu and Jiva had already hit was lightly armed and armored, limped behind his allies, and another one like them had slipped in on the left side, behind Jiva and I. I turned and brought my rapier back taking a quick leap to the left and stuck out just as the goblin rushed towards Jiva. The point of my blade made contact with the handle of the dagger the goblin held and the blade pierced through the goblins right hand. I pinned the blade to the ground and with all my might, kicked the marauder in the face, dust and spit flying by as I picked the rapier out of the ground and began to move on.
I heard a roar behind me and a streak of lightning shot past me, causing me to be thrown to the ground from the sheer force despite not being its target. The lightning was aimed at the goblin who now was the first in the marauding group who tossed a spear at Kurdu again, the lightning hitting him and taking him in the chest, sending the short creature flying back. Ossunnam was rather imposing when he wanted to be, I realized as I stood up.
"Sorry, Semsì," He shouted as he wielded his massive sword in front of him and charged into the fray past me. Jiva released another arrow towards the crowd of goblins that was encroaching closer and closer, throwing javelins as they closed the short distance. This one caught a goblin in the chest and it spun to the ground and slid to a stop.
I parried a blow from a green skinned goblin as he shouted at me to die or give him all of my gold, a rather unfortunate set of options if I was honest with him.
"No," I parried again, "you will be the one who dies you weak minded simpleton. Who would have thought that this is what you were meant to do." I growled and the goblin faltered a moment, giving me an opening to strike towards him, giving him another hole in the head and chest before he fell face first to the ground. From the corner of my eye, I saw Va'tu with only his sword on the far right edge, his shield lying somewhere in his tent, I assumed. He took a single swing of the sword and caught one of the goblins who rushed in on the side and the thing skittered away grasping its side as another swung its own sword and was parried by Va'tu.
While Kurdu had charged in and treated himself as a wonderful distraction for the rest of us, taking the attention of the majority of the goblin band, save for the few that were already on the flanks, Mire finally stood from the tent she had been hiding behind, pulling something from the pouch at her waist.
"Sjeelt du Tal," she whispered, taking her fist up to her face and opening it, palm up. In her hand was a mound of very fine white sand, which she began to blow across the battlefield in an array of colorful sparkles. Caught in her spell, several of the goblins stopped and looked around, seemingly confused from what they found themselves trapped in. Out of the eight that remained from the initial raiding party, four of the eight fell to the ground on their backs, rather exaggeratedly and began snoring deeply. The other four, one of whom still clutched at their side with a bleed gash retreated back into the treeline and into the night.
"We could chase them." Va'tu panted, his sword red with blood and his eyes scanning the treeline..
"No," Jiva cut in. "do not bother. We should simply take their friends into the woods, and let them return to their camp on their own. Leave them to wake up in a few minutes. We can keep watch a bit longer to make sure they leave."
"You've got a point, elf." Ossunnam said, still rather confused about Jiva and her whole role here. He had yet to ask me about the magic and I had no plan to tell him outright. "Search them and see if they have anything useful at least. Maybe they are going to leave us some gold for spoils. I'll take this one and his friend and 'dispose' of them." He said and he slung two of the four corpses onto his shoulders.
"By the gods." I heard Kurdu whisper at the sight. After a slight side eye, I began to drag one of the goblins that was asleep away from the camp. The snoring man, small and green, was heavier than I expected and must have been one of the older goblins in the band as he had a necklace of teeth on his neck and carried a long club to support a leg that was injured in the past. He wore a tunic of black fabric over some leather armor and atop the goblins head was a leather hat, something at least.
As I reached a point in the trees that I thought was far enough away that he would think twice about attacking again, I laid him against a tree and set off back to the camp, listening to his snores as I walked away. The next goblin went about the same, though I made sure to separate them so they would have to at least regroup when they came around.
After I arrived back at the camp, I saw Ossunnam counting a handful of change that he gathered from the corpses of the goblins and smiling to himself with a new backpack around his shoulder.
"Semsì, here," he said, handing me the backpack, which was rather nice for something he found on the corpse of a goblin. "See what the leader of that little troop had on him, his soldiers weren't able to get his body back. We made some money too." He continued to count the coins.
The pack was rather light for its size, though it wasn't the biggest pack we would have now. I untied the pack and sat near the fire, warming up in the night air. The air was chilly but nothing like where Jiva was from, so depending on the time of year, they could be nearly in two different seasons. The first thing I pulled from the bag was some sort of doll, which filled me with a surge of energy as my hand wrapped around it. Apparently the rest of the group noticed whatever happened because the gaze of the five rested on me suddenly.
"I only touched one thing," I protested, putting the doll in the air. It was made of some sort of wood and dressed in a tunic and pants. It had a rather intricately carved face, and a layer of paint gave it the same tone as a golden skinned High Elf.
"I found each of us nine gold and seven copper from the bodies," Ossunnam said, nervously.
"Well put it down until we know what it is." Mire said, ignoring the dragonborn and speaking to me. "What else is in there?"
The question was still valid because I had no idea. I reached in again and pulled out several items stained with dry blood; a letter with a rather official looking crest on the front of a shipping company of Hahyrst, a cloth that seemed to be from an old wound and a bag with a pair of six sided dice. Other than that, there was a little bit of gold, a patch of rabbit fur smaller than my hand, and a metal cube that was hidden deep within the folds of the bag. Etched into the sides were the faces of several of the ancient gods, known as the Prime Beings. These six sides seemed to be representations of Pest'r the Wanderer, Uu'sna the Keeper, Ferphas the Mage, Jutun the Fighter, He'evnar the Merchant, and the last face usually represents Yornus, the powerful being that was sacrificed for us to exist. This cube specifically had the last face defaced by a knife, scraping any resemblance away. If I hadn't already seen several of them before during my schooling I might not know what it was but most people used it to worship the Prime Beings in some way.
"Why is Yornus scratched off?" Mire asked as she examined the cube once I was done with it.
"I have no clue." I answered, thinking that the cube was odd for the goblins to have. Most goblins did not worship any of the Prime Beings as far as I knew, though there could certainly be things I don't understand going on.
"If you don't mind I would like to keep it and look at it. If anything, we could sell it if I don't find anything." Mire asked. I motioned for her to keep it and sat near my tent, looking over to the burning, smoldering heap that was now Ossunnam's tent.
"Oss, you okay?" I called out as he stood over the tattered and charred rags.
"Oh yeah, that torch didn't even hurt," he laughed, patting the back of his head. "I got my revenge anyway on them."
"Your tent I mean, you have a few hours until the morning."
"You mustn't worry, I will stay up for the next few hours and then we'll worry about my lodging tomorrow. Tonight was active enough."
"Very well. Good night, Ossunnam." I nodded and crawled into my tent.
"I agree with him. This was a lot of activity for one night. Let's go to sleep." Jiva opened her arms in the bedrolls and embraced me warmly after clipping out the cold outside air.