Elessar's Story - Chapter 2, The "Maria Daria" Options

[Elidor]

Chapter 1
~CHAPTER 2~
In this new chapter im aiming to give a little more insight to Elessar plus introducing more fully Arien, among other things...Its short though, more like a prologue to the second chapter infact. Incase you couldnt work it out I have very little time on my hands for a while.


I woke up feeling a peculiar feeling, one I didn’t however want to go away. Slowly it became known to me: contentedness, happiness and confidence mixed into one. In short all the things I had missed in my childhood. Or at least I had a little of until a quite unfortunate (in the weakest of terms) day.

The day so far back I am more or less fuzzy of in recollection and I don’t mind that one bit. It was when my days as a happy brother and son came to an end.
All for the arrogance of pride, a blade happy band of brigands; high elf knights they called themselves.
Killed all my two sisters, brother and parents because of imagined and quite non-existent insults.

Pretty much all I remember is running and running till I couldn’t breathe and fell in a ditch side along the road to the Imperial City. I’ll never forget the screams though.
Now those knights are everything I’m not or at least as little as I can possibly hope to change.

A shift in the blankets and a soft yawn told me that Arien was awake, bringing me out of my mid-morning reverie.

“Morning.” I said giving a slight stretch myself.
“How did you sleep?” she replied, giving a tired little smirk.
“Better than usual.” I couldn’t help but grin. Arien got up and I followed her out of the room and up to the counter for breakfast.

As we tucked in I thought again about her proposition, my suspicion arose again.
“Why did you choose me of all people to accompany you, surely you’d have the widest pick of companions.” I said suddenly over a bite of skrib jelly.

“For reasons in short, you are most appealing as a ‘partner’, do you doubt my sincerity perchance?” she replied smartly, she had obviously expected my question.
“A little.” I said smiling wryly.

“To me you are obviously capable as most thieves if not more, I need a thief and it doesn’t hurt if that thief is cute too.” She said adding on the end.
‘Oh what a charmer’ I thought but nevertheless it worked quite well on me.
“Smooth” I said almost to myself. She quite unabashedly grinned then promptly gulped down the rest of her drink.

“Ill do it!” I said suddenly, the thought of high adventure on the mainland, with this fine woman was very appealing. Not to mention it would keep it difficult for the mysterious assassins who had attacked me before. Looking at her I couldn’t help but laugh, if she was grinning before, she was positively beaming now.

This post has been edited by Elidor: Apr 11 2006, 02:32 AM

[Elidor]

I finally have some free time

The trip to Gnaar Mok itself was not very eventful, Arien could take the swaying so the caravaner’s bucket stood empty inside the great hulking fleas compartment.

A melancholy wave of light white clouds drifted past and the golden afternoon sun shone down on the great beasts carapace. I lay half out of the opening watching the ground glide past and relaxing next to Arien who seemed to be in some sort of reverie, gazing past the clouds into the clear blue sky.

A sudden scream sounded out, faint but piercing. The caravaner must have jumped a metre out of his skin and proceeded to climb onto the silt striders big nose to get a better view.

He came down looking anxious and worried. I just rolled over and watched the sky a bit.
"Ther's a fightin' down at the town, I thinks it bes best you two get off here, the strider cant really take much fightin without going a bit crazy if ya get my meanin'?"
That got my attention.

"Then lets get the hell off!" I said unravelling the rope ladder in the corner ad fastening it to the proper place on the shell.

Arien silently followed looking excited and worried at the same time. Once we were on the ground it was a short ways to get to Gnaar Mok so we sprinted off, the sounds of magick explosions and screams of fighting and fear becoming louder as we progressed.

Then all of a sudden it was all around, huge burly guards beset by numerous brigands in black sailing gear and with scarves wrapped around their faces. More than a few were female too.

Suddenly a guard came charging at Arien, sword raised and screaming. Arien let out a kind of shocked yelp and seemed frozen to the spot, but it took all of three seconds for me to pull out my wakizashi and send it flying into the guards exposed neck.
He fell with a horrible gurgle, slumping onto Arien, dead before he hit the ground.

That seemed to snap her out of it and she swiftly pulled out the blade and toss it to me. Then proceed to let out a rip-roaring fireball at the nearest guard, which took him around the middle and sent him crashing into a rotting stump, smouldering and quite dead.

"Your a mage?" I asked quite surprised.
"A Nightblade actually" She replied around creating a large green ball which she let go with a scream as it howled off into another guard who went rigid when it hit him and then he promptly fell flat on his face, glowing with an eerie light.

The bandit who had been fighting him looked confusedly from the guard to Arien till she yelled out.
"Paralysed!" and that seemed to explain it because the guard came out of his green light cocoon but not before the Bandit swiftly dispatched him and came sprinting over to where Arien and I were crouching.

"Come to help eh?" the black clad man said.
"Are you with the maria daria?" Came Arien.
"Yeah that’s us, just doing a raid before leaving for the mainland, fancy coming with us I suppose? Well once we’ve finished up here..." He replied and then took off after the other bandits who were now looting for their life’s worth.

It seemed all the guards were dead so we ventured out.. Another mistake. Three guards were still alive but they angled around us as they ran yelling and began attacking someone we hadn’t noticed earlier.

The man was clad in fearsome black armour and wielded a blade expertly. The most intriguing thing was the blade however and as the three wayward guards came within reach it sliced through one, then the other then the last leaving in its wake three scorched red skeletons instead of dead bodies.
'Most interesting and powerful blade, he must be the captain' I thought to myself as we approached him.

"Are you after a quick death?" Asked the captain eyeing me and Arien off and clenching his fearsome weapon.
"No no no.. no aha no we are simply wondering if you would take us with you to the mainland! For a fee if you like." I said hastily, watching his weapon.

"Tha' can be arranged, come with me, were almost ready to set off, the skipper has our long boat over there, and about the fee? That'll be one hundred fer each o' yer." I handed him his due and we came to his boat, jumping aboard with the rest of the grinning and laughing pirates, who jostled about and examined the stolen gear.

The trip to the ship wasn’t very long and before a short while we were boarding and the captain was showing us to the cramped cabin that was both our quarters for the journey. It was cosy but not too big, with one double size bed and a cabinet and a few rates and a chest. We settled in immediately.

After the next day things were cooling down a bit and I had plenty of time to watch the waves, endless waves... Imagining Fargoth with fins swimming after the boat screeching about his lost ring. I shuddered.

This post has been edited by Elidor: Apr 11 2006, 08:46 AM