Rashemen Book 2

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"Heyy...where's Jex? ... Must have gotten called back again ... He's just got rotten luck with dying, don't he? ... Pretty blue sky..." Delphinae trails off and begins humming a bizzare tune, punctuated by the occasional delirious chuckle.

 

Nakia ran up to where Atten and the others where. Staring at Sepp, "What happened to you?" Looking around at the others, "Looks like you had a little fun of your own. The dark brothers are bringing Del. She thinks she is dead."

She goes over to Sepp and checks him over (visually). "Are you all right? Where's your armor?"

 

Sepp pointed to his pile of clothes which was lying a few yards away from where he was sitting. "It's over there, in my clothes. I'm not sure what happened to me. Somehow I turned into a rabbit, and a bunch of other rabbits and I bit the wicked people who were attacking us. Alexi killed three of them, then we all killed the last one. Then I turned back into me, and my back wasn't broken anymore. It's the weirdest thing that has happened to me in my life. I still can't understand how it happened."

 

The drow brothers approached the now-reassembled group carrying the blissfully humming Delphinae. Suddenly, she tried to bolt upright and only succeeded in sending all three of them tumbling to the ground. Scrambling unsteadily to her feet she half-ran, half-stumbled toward the sound her unbelieving ears had picked up. As she neared the group, her worst fears were realized; the voice she had heard was in fact Sepp's!

For a moment Del simply stared in shock, but that quickly gave way to great, wracking sobs as her legs gave out and she collapsed to the ground. Hugging Sepp to her chest, she whispered repeatedly, "I'm sorry; I'm so sorry I failed you."

As anger replaced grief, she let go of the little form and stood firmly. Raising her fist to the heavens, she swore both loud and long, with the occasional "You promised!" or "You lied to me!!!" as the only thing to break up the stream of profanity. The rest of the group simply stood (or sat) and watched the shocking performance, with the occasional wince as someone recognized a particularly vile epithet. But eventually, with her wind and energy both gone, Delphinae fell once more to the ground and lapsed into a light slumber, leaving the stunned group to wonder at her outburst.

 

"Nice to see you're all still breathing. Time is running short for us to return the Heart to the Earth. I plan to leave as soon as possible."

 

"We're ready to go anytime Atten."

 

"Well, does anybody know the way?"

 

"Yes," Sepp said. "We just head north from here. Eventually we'll run into a wall of ice, which we'll have to somehow get on top of, then we should be able to see the smoke plume from the volcano in the ice field, and we can follow it to the volcano. It shouldn't be too hard."

Sepp washed the blood off of him with a wet cloth, then put all his clothes and armor back on.

"Ready to go," he said.

 

Delphinae awoke with a splitting headache and a sore throat. "Death isn't supposed to hurt this much," she grumbled. Looking around at the assembled group, she seemed to be about to relapse into hysterics, but Nakia had had enough. Stalking up to Del, she slapped her across the face.

"You are not dead! None of us are!"

"We're not?" asked Del with a confused expression.

"No. Jex saved you, the drow brothers carried you here, and I used one of my traps to collapse the fortress. We won."

Though Del's dark skin made it impossible to see, her blush could be clearly heard in her fumbling words. "We did? Oh, dear. I ... um ... I ... oh dammit. Now what am I supposed to do? I didn't think we'd finish them in one stroke. And after all that planning, I'm not even the one who finishes them!"

Embarassment turned to rage as Delphinae regarded the halfling who had destroyed the home of her enemies, though it quickly cooled as rational thought set in. "I go through all that trouble and you just walk in and blow the place up!? How dare you . . . save my life. I'm sorry; I've made a complete ass of myself, haven't I? I am SO not used to working in a group. Until I find another quest, I'd be more than happy to accompany you all on yours. I assume we'll be dealing with that first." Del pointed at the Earth's Heart.

 

With blood still on his face and hands, and few minor scrapes and bruises, Jex had been standing quietly against a nearby tree. Stepping forwards into the group he finally spoke.

"Well now that, thats settled, might I suggest we begin our trek. Standing outside of the fortress we just invaded with the very item that we just stole from the fortress seems like a bad idea. We might want to get some ground between us and the remnants of the Fellowship of the Serpent. Sepp, if you would be so kind as to lead the way. We should get a few hours in before we stop to rest"

 

"Jex be right. We should get away from here. Del, we destroyed the fortress as a team. Sepp, don't be worrying about climbing the ice wall. While in Icewind Dale and the Spine I learned a bit about that."

 

They are moving.

They seem to be going north. They have two ways to go. The Ice Pass, or through the wyvern's cave.

The Ice Pass it is then. Oh, will they be surprised.

I will have to dispose of those others as well.

My assassins can do the job, and when they are done, I'll come and finish them.

Of course, if anything goes wrong, I will have to come earlier.

I am ever closer.

 

"Okay then, let's go. Maron, please fly ahead and scout a bit. Nakia, Del, Kelvados and I will be in the lead. Jex, Alexi, and Delinos will stay with Atten to keep the Earth's Heart safe." Sepp got up and started walking. He could get used to this acting like a chief thing. If only Gesed could see him now. Sepp was sure that Gesed would be laughing at him, acting like he was important or something.

 

"Delinos, tell me a little of Menzo, my father told me stories of the city, and I saw it from a distance, but I've never actually experienced it." Jex said to the drow brother as they walked near Atten.

 

The earth shuddered again under their feet.

"I wouldn't be so proud of your efforts at destroying the fortress if I was you. Can't you feel how weak the earth is becoming? You were actually probably lucky to have gotten out of there before it collapsed on you anyway."

 

"Well, honestly, it was a terrible place for anyone who abided by the laws of the surface. When Kelvados and myself lived there, it was normal life, but now as we look back, we see that it was horrible. Our family's house was destroyed by the Do'Urdens, whom you may have heard of, and our family was wiped out, " he winced, "it was horrible in that day. Dos and I were only but young men but we still remember it." He paused.

"But enough about my family. Menzoberranzan. It is huge.. there are numerous houses, too many in fact. Uh, well, do you know anyhting of the rules and laws of Menzoberranzan? Well, anyway I don't quite know if your family was noble or not, but, there are 10 families that are in Lloth's most devoted favor. Each noble family fights to get to a lower place on the ten. Also, a *higher numbered* family can also enter the ten, whether they are 11 or 24, it matters not. To became a lower number, a family must destroy one of the other families. They must do this silently and treachorously, and Lloth judges them on the way they do it."

"Also, there is a time keeping device in Menzoberranzan called the Narbondel. Now the archamage, he keeps it, which means he is the one person who can change the *time* displayed on the Narbondel. There are three schools in Menzo; Melee-Magthere, the school for fighters and warriors, Sorcere, the school for wizards and sorcery, and of course Arach-Tinilith, the priestess' and cleric's of Lloth school. I trained at Sorcere, and Kelvados trained at Melee-Magthere. Although," he paused once again, "We taught each other a few things later on, as you saw in the cavern."

"We never learned all of Menzo, but I'm sure some day, I will learn the rest. N' so will you."

"And.. I have quite a bad memory, so more may come to me later. " He smiled at the half-drow, then looked ahead.

 

The group had been walking for a few hours. They were all getting tired and sore. Muscles were seizing and dissent was riseing. Everybody needed to rest but no one wanted to stop, especially whith the Heart of the Earth in their possesion.

As Jex walked he pondered over what had happened over the past week or so. He remembered sitting in the inn, nice and warm. Since then he had fought against Yaunti, Derro, and Mycoids as well as Zombies and the occaisional human. He had died, and been ressurected and now they had found an item of great power, and were going to return it to the earth. Not bad for a weeks work.

As he was deep in thought, he failed to notice the shadows deepening and the sky darken. He just continued to focus on the forest around them, in their condition the last thing they needed was to run into a battle.

 

Kelvados was thinking of his home and how familiar the night was. he glanced around, his eyes adjusting now to the darkness. He sighed and looked at his feet. Unlike his brother, he did not want these people to be his friends. Delinos wanted to be normal and have people like and accept him. Kelvados knew that Delinos was proud of his heritage, but in a different way than he did. Kelvados believed that Drow were supreme, while Delinos now thought that they were equal.

Kelvados looked up at a few bats flying overhead. He sighed once again.

 

Posting as Rashemenians

Blueface lead his war party on through the night. His anger still boiled inside him. How dare those Wolfclanners!? He had been so excited to be one of the seven young warriors to be bethrothed to the Elk Clan maidens that had been given as tribute to Chief Dragonkiller. The gall of the Wolfclanners to sneak into the camp and violate all of the maidens on the eve of the group ceremony. The only thing that ameliorated the pain of loss for Blueface was that he was chosen to lead the warparty of the seven disgruntled bridegrooms. He would tear them apart. The honor of the Bearclan would be avenged.

He came out of a dense copse of woods and saw some figures in the night. Two drow, and a very small person. Definitely not Wolfclanners, but if they were here in Bearclan territory, they definitely must be working with the Wolfclanners to shame the Bearclan.

"Ursus Major atta-tun!" He yelled his clan's war cry and felt his rage coming on. His six companions answered with their own cries, and they all ran raging with swinging battle axes at the intruders.

 

Delinos calmly turned to examine where the sound had originated. He tapped Jex and jumped into the land that wasn't exposed by moonlight. He counjured a web on the ground the barbarians were entering.