“Why do you ask me this when I have already said good night?”
“I don’t know.”
“I will tell you after you are under your covers.”
...
“I am ready.”
...
“First, there is Faerun, the Lands and Seas, which thinking people of all races share with the beasts and plants of the forest, and where the warmth of the sun gives life to all things.
“The four closest neighbors to the Lands and Seas — like the hills on the horizon surrounding our home — are the Heavens, the Feywild, the Underdark, and the Hells. They are mirror images and shadows of the Lands and Seas, its brothers and sisters”
“Like me and István?”
“Yes, like you and your brother. And not like you. For they do not think or ask for stories. They simply are.”
“And the Elements…?”
“Surrounding the brothers and sisters and infusing them with their essence are the elements: Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. They are in constant motion, and also, quite still. Though they are within the great Yin-Yang, they are emotionless and do not exist in the sphere of good and evil. And no, they do not meet. Usually.
“Is there anything outside of the Elements?”
“The Sea of Stars, where live the true forms of the Gods and all magical energy is drawn, a realm of unending possibility. And then, the Yin-Yang. Positive and negative. Good and evil, plus and minus, all the dichotomies we can perceive.
“And beyond that?”
“You ask too many questions, my child. Beyond Yin-Yang lies only Fate, which controls all things. Now. It is past your bedtime.”
“I have one more question.”
“Last. Do not make me fetch my switch.”
“Why ‘usually’? You said ‘usually’ outside of good and evil and ‘usually’ they never meet. The elements.”
“So you are listening. Usually, because, across the Ages, there have been times, frightening times, when thinking persons have used their power, desire and will, to move the elements. To bring them together, to serve their selfish cause. This unbalances Yin-Yang. Evil then grows.”
“Is that bad?”
“Those were hard times, child. Many good people died. But don’t be scared. It was long, long ago. And now, it is long, long past your bedtime. Close your eyes. Sleep.”
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DM for Deathworld: Lost Mine of Phandelver// Story Guide for COYOTE and CROW: Cahokia Forever//Dev Horndin Curious Critters//Co-creator: Princes of the Apocalypse - A DnD Story
DM for Deathworld: Lost Mine of Phandelver// Story Guide for COYOTE and CROW: Cahokia Forever//Dev Horndin Curious Critters//Co-creator: Princes of the Apocalypse - A DnD Story
Harold Goldweaver, a human merchant with questionable morals. Standing just over 6ft tall and wearing a well trimmed bearded, Harold enjoys fine clothes and even finer meals. he depends on his wit and cunning to stay out of trouble.
Rastrin Barrows, a red dragonborn male who earns a living by creating art made of glass. On the shorter side for dragonborn, he stands at just over six feet tall, and despite his best efforts, both his clothing and his blood-red scales are singed and smeared with black ash.
Yenword Ventris - A relaxed and carefree half elf, whose appearance is rather scrawny for a half elf. Wearing baggy and muted multicolored clothes, he usually is seen with a smile, a glass of wine, and an instrument in his hands. He stands about 5’9, with shoulder length Raven hair that is tied into a thin ponytail.
To earth I don’t wish to return / I would prefer in fire to burn.
To blaze, and vanish into air – / Air rarefied and thin.
This thought wells up and floods my mind, / While I in water swim.
–Denys E. W. Jones
Chapter 1 - Omens and Augurs
7 Mirtul, 1491 DR, the Year of the Scarlet Witch
In the Dessarin Valley, spring blossomed with greater force with each passing day. This was not good news for some. The river flooded its banks, and many were swept away by the unstoppable rising waters. Funeral processions wended solemnly down the streets, and there was a marker of remembrance in the town plaza for those missing or known to be deceased. Flowers were heaped there, but at sundown on recent days, a sudden blustery wind had picked up, scattering the remembrances and sending Yartarin home to find their shutters banging in the breeze.
DM for Deathworld: Lost Mine of Phandelver// Story Guide for COYOTE and CROW: Cahokia Forever//Dev Horndin Curious Critters//Co-creator: Princes of the Apocalypse - A DnD Story
Harold Goldweaver wakes up in his bed alone under silken sheets... just as he has every day for the past ten years. With a few grumbled words under his breath, he curses the daylight before getting dressed. Although Harold always wore fine clothing, he was never without his studded leather armor. Custom ordered, the armor was fashionable enough that he could wear it over his clothes without making him look less important. Once dressed he inspected his appearance in the mirror. his long fingers slide up his neck and stroke a scar that runs across his throat. His well trimmed beard does a good job of hiding the grisly reminder of his past.
After making himself a hardy breakfast, he opens his shop. The Dirty Dog was a simple general store where Harold bought and sold anything that could make him a profit. Hs also offers other services such as lockpicking and the preparation of documents for those with the coin. Business has been busier than normal lately. Lots of folks needing supplies to help rebuild after losing their homes in the recent floods. Today is no different, as a steady stream of customers visit his shop throughout the day. Occasionally he has to close up the shop for an hour or so to take care of "appointments" made by customers wanting to make deals in private.
Towards the end of the day as business begins to slow down and the sun hangs low in the sky, Harold pours himself a glass of wine from an ornate jug that he keeps under the counter in his shop. shortly after locking and securing the front door of his shop, a knock on the door prompts him to turn around. He places a hand on a dagger tucked inside his shirt as he carefully unlocks the door. With his hand ready to strike, Harold cautiously opens the door....
Marcos stands on the deck of Waukeen’s Hand as it approaches Yartar. The lambent evening light flickered off the soft waves that he knew so well. He spent several years privateering in his youth. It is hard not to feel somewhat wistful. Apart from a large amount of driftwood repatriated from the riverbanks, the voyage had been uneventful. The overflowing Dessarin river in the spring was a blessing and a curse. The balinger would never run aground during these conditions. The river was deep in all seasons. The occasional dangerous sandbars were of no consequences in these conditions. However, the springtime current slowed the upstream journey.
He turns towards the captain of the Hand, Nendak. ‘The day grows thin. Would you bring me to the river baron first thing? I assume your first is capable of supervising the cargo? ‘ His captain nods assent. A strong wind buffets the vessel, slightly delaying the docking process.
Marcos gathers his large bag and greatsword. The streets are bustling. Caravans with mostly humans, elves and dwarves fill the streets. Marcos usually attracts attention. When wearing his chain shirt, his large arms are bare and covered in scars. On this windy evening, the citizenry seem preoccupied. They enter a larger building, only a short walk from the docks. An officious gnome greets them. ‘Hello good sirs – Marcis Varixx - a pleasure to make your acquaintance! You are the new river master from Waterdeep! Welcome! Unfortunately, his excellency is out this afternoon and wasn’t expecting you. Do you use sending spells? So helpful if I may say so. May I see your documentation? It all seems in order. Let me bring you to your quarters…’
As Marcos unpacks, he fingers the note in his breast pocket. It seems strange that the town of Yartar would need to hire a warrior cleric of Tempus. Panros knows better than to send him on a mission without any action. Blade slung over his shoulder, he steps out into the early evening, looking for a tavern for supper, a drink and maybe a fight.
Shay Quill looks up from her prepared notes scattered across her desk to the sudden sound of Kara's comfortingly familiar voice as it came from her sending stone perched near the corner, the designated spot Shay left it while busy with one task or another. Even though the two had last spoken only a few days previously, Shay stills her pen mid motion all the same and leans forward in gleeful anticipation.
'Good morning Feather, or midday now I suppose. I wanted to wish you luck on your Enclave business with the River Baron this evening. Word travels much slower than I'd like, but I heard that a new River Master is being introduced as well. What happened there? Tell me the illness didn't take him too. Best wishes regardless. Kara.'
As she goes to pick up the stone, Shay thinks over her day and the best way to condense things for her friends' sake. She goes over her uneventful morning that was mostly spent deciding between her best formal wear and deciding on what hair style to present, ending in the cold realization while re-reading it, that her speech was in need of editing. Eventually, Shay gives a brief highlight of her morning and thanks Kara for remembering to check in on her, not that Shay had a reason to doubt her. 'The former River Master did fall victim to the illness. I hope the new River Master is a worthy successor, stay safe yourself, please. Why do you bother signing your messages when your voice gives you away again?'
Laughing quietly, Shay goes on to edit and revise her notes with much less nervousness acting as her guide, reaching as close to a satisfactory point in her work as she can achieve and finally allows herself a break to meet her friend Nash for a late lunch. Shay habitually runs a hand through her hair and watches as the dark strands weave through each finger while heading outside, still worried for the coming evening, but even more prepared for her chance to represent the Emerald Enclave, which she decides to count as a small win.
The earliest morning rays began to creep into the home of House Ventris as Yenword silently slips through his bedroom window. He smiles for a moment, brushing off some dirt from his shoulder as he says to himself, “Nice try, El. Let’s see you explain this to mother and father…” He turns, breaking into a sprint through the early morning hours to try and make it to his destination without notice.
Just as the sun and beasts begin to show signs of being awake, Yenword heads deep into the forests on the outskirts of town. He lets out a sigh of relief as he slips through a particular section of patchy and thick bramble, finding his way into a small manmade clearing. He takes a moment to sigh, sitting cross legged on the ground as he begins to breathe deeply. The light of the sun causes his skin to glisten with sweat, the colorful tattoos covering his arms and neck looking as if they were alive in some way. He sits in this position for nearly a whole hour, listening for something.
After the hour passes, he opens his eyes and relaxes, leaning back and looking up at the sky. He reaches into his bag and pulls out a set of two wineskins, opening one to sip at it. Just as he does, a cry of an eagle echoes through the clearing. Yenword sighs heavily as he sat up, staring towards the top of the trees. “Can I not get some alone time at all?” He cries out towards the eagle, as it glided to the forest floor below.
The bird gracefully lands a few feet away from Yenword, shimmering as its form began to shift. In its place stood a young and beautiful woman, whose appearance would remind someone of the spring. Eliavora, or El as Yenword preferred to say, shook her head in disapproval. “Why must you be such a pain, brother? Mother and Father are angry again, and I’m now wasting my time by dealing with you instead of studying what I need to be.” Yenword smirks, sipping from his wine. He then sang, “Come come, you say, come come today, for much there is to do. Yet the sun will rise, and the sun will set, so why should we chase the moon?” El gave a frustrated look at Yenword, throwing her hands up. “Fine. You stay here and get yourself drunk eaten by a bear. I have other matters to worry about,” she says as she turns and disappears into the clearing.
Yenword gives a sad smile as she departs, taking another sip. “Why does it matter what I do anyway? You’re the prodigy of this family?” he says somewhat bitterly, as the rest of the day slipped by between his wine, his music, and simply enjoying the day before him. He continues there until the sun would begin to set, drunkenly making his way back into town and back home with the widest and dumbest grin on his face.
Fire. Heat. Warmth. These words are what shaped Rastrin Barrows' life. While others saw fire as a tool to be harnessed or a scourge that destroys, Rastrin saw fire as something incredible, something almost divine in nature. He saw fire as the force that change that drove the world forward. There was something beautiful about the way fire transforms all it came in contact with: wood became ash, flesh became charred, and sand became glass. That last item mentioned was of particular interest to Rastrin. In fact, Rastrin found himself shaping a blob of molten sand into a work of art as he thought about the nature of fire.
Around him, the shop was filled with the sounds of men and women cleaning their work stations in preparation to go home for the day, but Rastrin continued to shape and work his drop of liquid sand. He had an order of small glass chips destined to become part of a mosaic window due tomorrow morning, so he had spent all day toiling at the crucible to meet demand. He had spent the majority of the week crafting the small, colorful shards, and this particular order he was working on was much more specific and detail-orientated than the projects he usually worked on. Each shard of glass needed to be certain hue and transparency, and it had taken him a few days of experimentation before he finally found the specific shades of glass that he wanted. As much as Rastrin loved being a glassworker, it was often a painstakingly long and tedious work.
Focusing on the orb of molten glass on the metal table before him, he set about shaping it into the glass fragments it needed to become. It was a long process, creating each individual shard, but he enjoyed working with the molten sand. There was something cathartic about working with fire, using heat to transform something into something completely different. Where the other glassworkers often needed to stick their glass back into the kiln to reheat it to keep the glass hot enough to work with, all Rastrin needed to do when his glass grew too cold was breath on the glass. Being a red dragonborn, Rastrin had an affinity for fire. An internal fire blazed within him, granting him a resistance to extreme heat and the ability to breath fire, although doing so reduced his internal inferno slightly.
However, unlike other red dragonborn, Rastrin's fire was more... Well, for lack of a better word, his fire was intense than other's. Others had told him that his scales were as hot as a stone that had sat out in the sun all day, though Rastrin had never noticed his apparent heat. While most red dragonborn had bright crimson scales, Rastrin's own scales were that of a deep scarlet, reminiscent to the color of blood. Other than his deep shade of scales, he looked like a rather average dragonborn male: tall and athletic build, dark patterns on his scales that almost resembled stripes, orange eyes, and a two distinct horns that sprouted from his head. For some reason, Rastrin always found himself coated with ash and soot, though he had no idea where it came from.
His concentration is broken by a woman's voice. "Earth to Rastrin. Hello? Anybody home?"
Blinking in surprise, Rastrin looks up from his growing collection of shards towards the woman that spoke. He found Darva standing a short distance away from him, her burly arms folded in front of her in a stern posture. Darva was a short and stout dwarven women with jet black hair who was one of the shop's blacksmiths. Spending day after day hammering away at metal had granted her quite the muscular physique. She claimed she had once caught a boulder thrown by a giant and then hurled it back at the unfortunate giant that threw it, and Rastrin had no doubt that Darva could have actually done that. She was definitely tough enough.
Looking slightly chagrined, Rastrin apologizes in his rough, gravely voice as he wipes his sooty hands on an even sootier apron. "Er, sorry about that. Were you talking to me?" He had be told that his low, rumbling voice reminded people of blazing furnace, but Rastrin didn't really notice what he did or didn't sound like.
A hint of a smile touched Darva's usually stern face as she responds, "I asked you how much longer you were planning on staying, but you seemed to be a little bit too focused on your glass to hear me."
"Oh, sorry about that," Rastrin says back. Gesturing to his unfinished product cooling on the table beside him, he says, "You know how I get when I'm working." He had a tendency to block out the world as he worked, often missing out on conversations around him.
"I know," says the grinning Darva. "I wish I could be half as focused as you are when you're working. Anyways, how much longer are you planning on being here?"
Rastrin looks back down at his glass, thinking of how much more work he had to do. "Um," he begins. "Probably about an hour, maybe two. I can close the shop when I'm done if that's what you're going to ask about."
Darva nods, and then she starts heading towards the door that lead from the workshop to the storefront. "Thanks!" she barks before she leaves the room. "Make sure the all the doors and windows are locked before you leave. I don't want them left open again."
"Of course! See you tommorow!" Rastrin replies.
With a grunt of acknowledgement, Darva strides through the heavy wooden door and closes it behind her, leaving Rastrin alone in the workshop. Rastrin welcomed the silence of the empty workshop; it was easier to work when he didn't have to focus so much on ignoring everyone around him. Of course, the workshop wasn't completely silent. It was filled with the sound of kilns and forges creaking and groaning as they cooled down for the day, and Rastrin could hear the muffled sounds of people bustling around outside. He knew that the amount of forges and kilns in the room would make the air feel boiling hot to others, but he barely noticed the heat. In fact, the stuffy room felt quite pleasant to him.
Sighing in contentment, he turns back to his glass. It had cooled too much during his brief conversation with Darva, its opaque mass now glowing a dull cherry red instead of the bright and fervent orange it needed to be. As he watched, it was fading from the faint red into a clear mass of glass. He needed to reheat it before it cooled any further. He leaned down over the table and positioned his head near the glass. He could feel the comfortable heat radiating away from the opaque lump, and he's almost tempted to just bask in its heat for a while before getting back to work, but if he were to do that, it would only delay him longer.
With that thought in mind, he opened his draconic, toothy maw and exhales on the glass. Waves of withering heat radiate out from his mouth, creating heat ripples in the air that begin to reheat the glass. Others told him that whenever he opened his mouth to speak or reheat glass, they always saw that the back of his throat glowed and mouth with fervent heat reminiscent to the glow of a forge. They found it unnerving, but Rastrin didn't mind. He was a creature of fire, and there was no point in being ashamed of what you were.
When the glass reached the temperature it needed to be to work with, Rastrin dived eagerly back into the task of creating more colored glass shards. He quickly fell back into his working rhythm as he tuned out all other distractions. When he "got into the zone" so to speak, hours of work seemed to pass in mere moments as he expertly toiled away at the glass. He often found himself humming the same tune every time he worked, though he had no idea what song it was. It was less of a song and more like collection of tones and pure notes that melded together to create a powerful harmony. Sometimes when we was working with fire and other heated materials, he could swear that could hear, no feel, the same melody reverberating within the flames. It was difficult to explain to those that couldn't feel it, but he couldn't help but feel that fire had its own song of sorts.
Two and a half hours later, he looks down at the pile of glass fragments cooling on the table before him, a feeling of professional pride burning in his chest. While he never liked boasting of his skill, he did recognize that his work today was some of the best he had performed in a long while now. Looking satisfied, he closes his eyes as he continues to hum the tune he felt. The distant, yet familiar notes seemed to resonate with something deep inside of him, his soul vibrating in synch with the majestic tones. It was easy to lose oneself in the rhythm; the tones were ever complex, so there was much one could focus on. Eyes still closed, he could feel the hunk of glass he wore on a chain around his neck pulse and vibrate to the same tune he felt. The glass he wore, an orangish blob roughly the same shape of a small crystal, was the first thing he had ever made from glass all those many years ago. Recently, it had begun to act strangely. Sometimes, like right now, it seemed to vibrate and produce crystalline tones that replicated the tune he often felt, but he was the only one that could hear it. Other times, he had found it glowing and radiating and intense heat that often burned whatever clothing that was touching it. He already had to replace several shirts due to the shard's odd heat. He smiles as both he and the stone hum along to the melody: deep tones that shook his soul, pure notes that rang clearly in the air, crackling and sizzling that filled the air with the scent of smoke.
Wait, that wasn't part of the song! Snapping his eyes open, he looks around in the room in bewilderment. All the forges and kilns within the small workshop were alight, blazing with white-hot infernos despite there being no fuel in them. The stones of his own kiln were glowing red with the heat of the fire within, cracking and shifting from the immense heat they contained. Several small fires ignited upon wooden instruments and tables nearest the furnaces as immense heat washed over them. Even Rastrin himself almost seemed to be glowing with a heat of his own, waves of heat rippling away from his scales as his clothing began to char and burn.
By Bahumat's own claws, it's happening again! he mentally exclaims. He hadn't had one of his episodes for several years now. When he was younger, fires often erupted into existence around him, burning both people and building. He had learned how to control himself and put an end to his fiery episodes, or so he thought. Knowing that he needed to stop whatever he was doing before he caused too much damage, he focusses on ending the moving rhythms pounding through his body and soul. The song wanted to be released. It wanted to be free to burn, to ignite, to change everything it touched. Gritting his teeth, he focusses on putting the song out of his mind, but the tone almost seemed to fight back. As he struggled to end the burning song, a table near him burst into flames, fire eagerly consuming the combustible wood. The glass shards closest to him began to crack and bubble as they started to melt. The cobblestone floor at his feet began to smoke and blacken as the dust on them began to burn away as the Fire with Rastrin struggled against its mortal prison.
With a heave of mental exertion, Rastrin casts the song out of his mind. Suddenly, feeling weak and empty, he stumbles, but manages to catch himself on his table before he falls to the ground. Throughout the room, the fires began to smolder and die out as the lost their connection to the elemental song of fire. Feeling exhausted, Rastrin pushes his smoldering body up to a standing position with a groan. Looking down at himself, he saw that the majority of his clothing were nothing more than faint wisps of smoking rags. What in Bahumat's Tenth Name just happened? I thought I figured out how to stop myself from doing that again.
Looking around the charred room, he realizes with dismay how much damage he had caused. Many of the wooden tools workplaces were singed at best and heavily charred at worst. Even several of the kilns were cracked and scorched. Luckily, early on in his life, he had learned a nifty magical trick that repaired objects he touched. It was pretty handy magic since every he touched as a child often erupted into flames. Sighing, he begins running his hands over a nearby table, whispering words in a language he didn't know as he channeled magic out of his body and into the charred wood. Like usual, he didn't really know how or what he was doing as he used magic. He just did what felt natural and instinctive to him. His hands glowed with warmth as the wood began to repair itself at his touch.
A few hours later, he locked the door to the shop as he stepped outside. He had repaired as much as he could, and there were only a few items he wasn't able to repair completely. He would have to go buy replacements before he came in to work tomorrow. He also wore a spar set of clothes he had left in the side room. He had starting bringing an extra set to the workshop recently just in case his strange glass shard decided to burn his clothes.
With the sun about to set in a few hours, Rastrin begins walking through the streets to the place of his residence. Maybe he would go get a drink and some grub before he went home. He felt exhausted, both physically and mentally, and a little bit of food would go a long way in helping him feel better. Or maybe he would just wander through town for a bit to clear his mind. He was still perplexed and a little bit worried about what happened just a few hours ago. What had caused him to act up again? How could he stop it from happening again? Shaking his head, he sets his jaw and strides down the bustling streets.
It is Bajnok at the door, one of the Hand. Young, a mere apprentice, his face most often bears a look of astonishment, although Harold has seen him angered, when his features compress into a wrinkled fist. He looks both ways when the door opens, his eyes touching on everything, before slinking quickly inside.
“Mr. Goldweaver, I have a message from Father,” he says in a breathy tone which is clear enough to Harold but diffuse enough too that anyone more than an arm-length away would struggle to hear it. In the Cant, of course, so few would fathom his words even if they could latch on. Father, of course, is Gerzson, the Chair of the Hand of Yartar.
“Tonight. At the citadel, at eight bells. There is a meeting of the River Baron’s Council. They welcome a new River Master. You are to attend, as a representative of the Guildsmen – that’s how he says to tell it, – the Guildsmen. He says, ‘keep an open eye and take opportunity if it comes.’ I asked him to explain, but he would not. Tha’s it.”
The teen’s tongue darts out, licks his taut lip quickly, no doubt thirsty for coin before slinking back out into the darkening city streets.
DM for Deathworld: Lost Mine of Phandelver// Story Guide for COYOTE and CROW: Cahokia Forever//Dev Horndin Curious Critters//Co-creator: Princes of the Apocalypse - A DnD Story
Harold loosens his grip on the concealed dagger, realizing that it's only Bajnok. While the young thief was not his favorite apprentice... he was a quick learner and Harold had learned to trust the youth over the last couple years. At the mention of Father, he allows the young apprentice to come inside before quickly closing the door behind him. With a loud click, He locks the door before moving to pick up his glass of wine. Now that they were both inside the quiet confines of The Dirty Dog, Harold speaks freely. Dropping the thieves cant and taking a sip of wine, Harold studies Bajnok. "What does Gerzson need of me? I am... of course... always willing to serve the Hand." He asks with a nod before raising his glass towards the petty thief.
Harold listens intently to the instructions... leaning back against shop counter before quickly downing the last of his drink. Clearing his throat, he sits the glass down on the counter. The merchant moves his tongue through his mouth, running along the front of his teeth behind his pursed lips. It's an expression that Bojnok has seen many times whenever the merchant is contemplating a course of action. "Alright. I'll be at the citadel tonight at eight bells... as a representative of the guildsmen." He says with a nod before continuing. "I'll come prepared as always... for whatever the evening may bring."
Harold then moves to unlock the door and pulls a gold coin from his pocket. As he moves to place the coin in Bajnok's hand, he leans in close... Grabbing the apprentice by the hand and locking eyes with him. "Next time... you knock on the door the way I told you. You know how I feel about folks showing up unannounced after business hours." He growls before placing the gold coin in the thieves hand. He then releases the young apprentice from his vice-like grip. "it could be the difference between a coin in the hand or a dagger in the gut." Harold adds as he allows the young man to leave.
Károly Restaurant is more an open-air cafe than a fine dining establishment, but due to its location across Reika Tunde Street from the citadel, draws a daily lunch crowd of city government officials, temple numeraries, monks in twos and threes, foundry workers, and even, sometimes, nobility.
The afternoon is brisk but sunny, and after a cold winter, many Yartari are out running errands – or taking a rest from errands, while several pods of diners from the citadel hurriedly eat and enjoy the day's warmest hour out-of-doors before returning to their work.
In this convivial – though also, somber – ambiance, Shay sits at a table with her friend Nash, finishing a late lunch. Shay is tempted to think that Nash has something on his mind. For although he is not one to hold back thoughts when they occur – he is not shy about sharing his opinions, which are always astute, if not always modest or even courteous; in other words, Nash speaks his mind boldly and without fear of being wrong, whether he is or isn’t wrong – Shay deducts, or intuits, or simply knows, that her friend’s mind is elsewhere.
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DM for Deathworld: Lost Mine of Phandelver// Story Guide for COYOTE and CROW: Cahokia Forever//Dev Horndin Curious Critters//Co-creator: Princes of the Apocalypse - A DnD Story
Marcos knows a waterside tavern in Yartar, whose unsavory but memorable business sign hangs from a small mast and depicts a dog humping same – Mastiff, the place is called. He finds a seat at the bar and while enjoying a helping of hearty beef stew and dark ale, learns that tempers are running high in Yartar. For many have lost loved ones, or income, or both, due to the flood, while others – a very few others – have profited in the aftermath of the disaster, incensing the rest.
And so it is that when Marten voices his displeasure at a man, tall as he is wide, and as wide as he is inebriated, who suggests that Marcus “get the flock off my bar stool,” Marcus perhaps hands his sheathed great sword to the bartender — who, in a frantic patticake gesture tries to delay the inevitable with diplomatic enunciations of “now, now, now hang on ye, now just wait a minute,” ineffectually. A brawl ensues.
This begins only a minute or two before an ensign from the Waukeen’s Hand enters, looking this way and that, and as bottles fly about, finds Marcus across the room and attempts to gain his attention. The ensign is a woman of thirty summers, strong and capable, called Miss Samitha, from Waterdeep.
“Er, Mister Varixx?,” Marcus hears above the melee. Above the melee, for the ensign’s voice is as sturdy as she, and is pitched to cut through maritime winds.
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DM for Deathworld: Lost Mine of Phandelver// Story Guide for COYOTE and CROW: Cahokia Forever//Dev Horndin Curious Critters//Co-creator: Princes of the Apocalypse - A DnD Story
As Rastrin meandered along the bustling streets of Yartar, he once again found himself lost in thought, a bad habit of his. He was barely aware of the others walking and shuffling around him as he walked along the memorized path towards his home. His earlier episode had left him unnerved, and he was baffled to as what caused him to flare up after so many years of quiet control. Maybe it had something to do with the unrest in the natural world recently. Frequent and devastating floods, the nightly gale that tore through the town, rumors of earthquakes in distant towns. He often heard people talking in hushed tones about the tumultuous world around them. It almost seemed as if nature itself was angry, venting its fury upon the people that tried their best to carve sections away from it to form civilizations. Rastrin shook the thought out of his head as he rounded a corner. Such thoughts were foolishness. Sometimes natural disasters just happened. There didn't have to be some sort of mythical force throwing the world out of sync. While he did admit that there certainly did seem to be a slightly higher amount of unrest in the world at the moment, he guessed natural disasters could strike at the same time. Perhaps-
His musings cut off suddenly as he slams into someone, not noticing them as he was lost in thought. He lets out a grunt of surprise as he stumbles back a few feet, wincing as he hears the sound of glass shattering against the ground. Mentally, he curses himself for not paying attention. He really needed to pay more attention to his surroundings instead of focusing on his thoughts.
"So sorry!" he cries out to the stranger he collided with. He looks down at the shattered bottle on the ground, a patch of liquid that looked like a pool of blood spreading out and seeping into the ground. He was going to have repay the stranger somehow. "Are you ok?" he asks the fellow who dropped his bottle.
Yenword gave a thumbs up from where he fell, not seeming to care too much about the bottle as he laid on his back. "Aaall good! Just need a minute or so to catch myself..." He hummed a bit of a tune as he drunkenly tried to stand up, falling back down. "I'm good....Just need a...umm..." He paused in his speech, looking around for a moment as if he had lost something. "Xcuse me...but do you know where my flute went?" Yenword asked, as he started patting himself down. He sighed for a moment as he closed his eyes and he threw his arms out to the sides, a rush of air suddenly coming from underneath him that launched him to his feet. He then looked to Rastrin and smiled. "There we go! Much better."
Marcos sits down at one the stools at the bar. He brushes an unfinished drink away and hails the bartender. Placing a few silver on the counter he shouts, 'The special. And mead if you have it. If not then ale.' He has visited in Yartar on several occasions for one reason or another. The Mastiff was his favorite haunt. He felt more at home in a dirty bar than just about anywhere else in Faerun. Not much has changed in the years since his last visit. Perhaps there are a few more people. No music tonight. Was the atmosphere always this tense? '
'That's my seat! Flock off!'
Marcos turns around. A large man looms over him. Close to Marcos size, with the bearing of a local ruffian. A cliche of a man with a beard and the standard number of tattoos. Obviously drunk and frustrated with his position in life.
‘'I didn't know this was your seat. But I feel like I have really nested here by now. I don't think I am going to move.'
And so the dance begins. Beginning with the teleological and philosophical arguments about the logistics of bar room seating. The rapid progression to insults. Moving to an inevitable violent resolution. It's a dance that Marcos knows well. He smiles.
……
......
'Mister Varixx!'
Marcos looks up. He is standing over his unconscious opponent. He looks at the blood painted on his knuckles. He feels the blood dribbling from his nose, early swelling around his right eye. His adversary fought with little skill, but with a ferocity that Marcos' respected. He landed a good shot. He waited until Marcos was ready. He observed the honor of the contest. Marcos needed that. Maybe they both did.
'Mister Varixx!!!'
Marcos grabs his sword from the bar and finishes his ale. He casts a healing spell on the man on the floor as he steps over him. ‘The stool is all yours!’
He makes his way to Samitha. He is almost sure that is her name. She looks expectant, trying to contain her frustration.
Prelude
“Where do land, air, water and flames meet?”
“Why do you ask me this when I have already said good night?”
“I don’t know.”
“I will tell you after you are under your covers.”
...
“I am ready.”
...
“First, there is Faerun, the Lands and Seas, which thinking people of all races share with the beasts and plants of the forest, and where the warmth of the sun gives life to all things.
“The four closest neighbors to the Lands and Seas — like the hills on the horizon surrounding our home — are the Heavens, the Feywild, the Underdark, and the Hells. They are mirror images and shadows of the Lands and Seas, its brothers and sisters”
“Like me and István?”
“Yes, like you and your brother. And not like you. For they do not think or ask for stories. They simply are.”
“And the Elements…?”
“Surrounding the brothers and sisters and infusing them with their essence are the elements: Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. They are in constant motion, and also, quite still. Though they are within the great Yin-Yang, they are emotionless and do not exist in the sphere of good and evil. And no, they do not meet. Usually.
“Is there anything outside of the Elements?”
“The Sea of Stars, where live the true forms of the Gods and all magical energy is drawn, a realm of unending possibility. And then, the Yin-Yang. Positive and negative. Good and evil, plus and minus, all the dichotomies we can perceive.
“And beyond that?”
“You ask too many questions, my child. Beyond Yin-Yang lies only Fate, which controls all things. Now. It is past your bedtime.”
“I have one more question.”
“Last. Do not make me fetch my switch.”
“Why ‘usually’? You said ‘usually’ outside of good and evil and ‘usually’ they never meet. The elements.”
“So you are listening. Usually, because, across the Ages, there have been times, frightening times, when thinking persons have used their power, desire and will, to move the elements. To bring them together, to serve their selfish cause. This unbalances Yin-Yang. Evil then grows.”
“Is that bad?”
“Those were hard times, child. Many good people died. But don’t be scared. It was long, long ago. And now, it is long, long past your bedtime. Close your eyes. Sleep.”
DM for Deathworld: Lost Mine of Phandelver // Story Guide for COYOTE and CROW: Cahokia Forever // Dev Hornd in Curious Critters // Co-creator: Princes of the Apocalypse - A DnD Story
Princes of the Apocalypse
STARRING...
DM for Deathworld: Lost Mine of Phandelver // Story Guide for COYOTE and CROW: Cahokia Forever // Dev Hornd in Curious Critters // Co-creator: Princes of the Apocalypse - A DnD Story
Shay Quill, a half elf druid. She stands at a medium stature of 5’8 wearing common clothing, reflecting her preference for lighter colors.
Marcos Varixx: Human warrior. Tall, muscular, mouth held in a wry smile, flecks of grey in his dark hair.
Harold Goldweaver, a human merchant with questionable morals. Standing just over 6ft tall and wearing a well trimmed bearded, Harold enjoys fine clothes and even finer meals. he depends on his wit and cunning to stay out of trouble.
Rastrin Barrows, a red dragonborn male who earns a living by creating art made of glass. On the shorter side for dragonborn, he stands at just over six feet tall, and despite his best efforts, both his clothing and his blood-red scales are singed and smeared with black ash.
Yenword Ventris - A relaxed and carefree half elf, whose appearance is rather scrawny for a half elf. Wearing baggy and muted multicolored clothes, he usually is seen with a smile, a glass of wine, and an instrument in his hands. He stands about 5’9, with shoulder length Raven hair that is tied into a thin ponytail.
To earth I don’t wish to return / I would prefer in fire to burn.
To blaze, and vanish into air – / Air rarefied and thin.
This thought wells up and floods my mind, / While I in water swim.
–Denys E. W. Jones
Chapter 1 - Omens and Augurs
7 Mirtul, 1491 DR, the Year of the Scarlet Witch
In the Dessarin Valley, spring blossomed with greater force with each passing day. This was not good news for some. The river flooded its banks, and many were swept away by the unstoppable rising waters. Funeral processions wended solemnly down the streets, and there was a marker of remembrance in the town plaza for those missing or known to be deceased. Flowers were heaped there, but at sundown on recent days, a sudden blustery wind had picked up, scattering the remembrances and sending Yartarin home to find their shutters banging in the breeze.
DM for Deathworld: Lost Mine of Phandelver // Story Guide for COYOTE and CROW: Cahokia Forever // Dev Hornd in Curious Critters // Co-creator: Princes of the Apocalypse - A DnD Story
Harold
Harold Goldweaver wakes up in his bed alone under silken sheets... just as he has every day for the past ten years. With a few grumbled words under his breath, he curses the daylight before getting dressed. Although Harold always wore fine clothing, he was never without his studded leather armor. Custom ordered, the armor was fashionable enough that he could wear it over his clothes without making him look less important. Once dressed he inspected his appearance in the mirror. his long fingers slide up his neck and stroke a scar that runs across his throat. His well trimmed beard does a good job of hiding the grisly reminder of his past.
After making himself a hardy breakfast, he opens his shop. The Dirty Dog was a simple general store where Harold bought and sold anything that could make him a profit. Hs also offers other services such as lockpicking and the preparation of documents for those with the coin. Business has been busier than normal lately. Lots of folks needing supplies to help rebuild after losing their homes in the recent floods. Today is no different, as a steady stream of customers visit his shop throughout the day. Occasionally he has to close up the shop for an hour or so to take care of "appointments" made by customers wanting to make deals in private.
Towards the end of the day as business begins to slow down and the sun hangs low in the sky, Harold pours himself a glass of wine from an ornate jug that he keeps under the counter in his shop. shortly after locking and securing the front door of his shop, a knock on the door prompts him to turn around. He places a hand on a dagger tucked inside his shirt as he carefully unlocks the door. With his hand ready to strike, Harold cautiously opens the door....
MARCOS
Marcos stands on the deck of Waukeen’s Hand as it approaches Yartar. The lambent evening light flickered off the soft waves that he knew so well. He spent several years privateering in his youth. It is hard not to feel somewhat wistful. Apart from a large amount of driftwood repatriated from the riverbanks, the voyage had been uneventful. The overflowing Dessarin river in the spring was a blessing and a curse. The balinger would never run aground during these conditions. The river was deep in all seasons. The occasional dangerous sandbars were of no consequences in these conditions. However, the springtime current slowed the upstream journey.
He turns towards the captain of the Hand, Nendak. ‘The day grows thin. Would you bring me to the river baron first thing? I assume your first is capable of supervising the cargo? ‘ His captain nods assent. A strong wind buffets the vessel, slightly delaying the docking process.
Marcos gathers his large bag and greatsword. The streets are bustling. Caravans with mostly humans, elves and dwarves fill the streets. Marcos usually attracts attention. When wearing his chain shirt, his large arms are bare and covered in scars. On this windy evening, the citizenry seem preoccupied. They enter a larger building, only a short walk from the docks. An officious gnome greets them. ‘Hello good sirs – Marcis Varixx - a pleasure to make your acquaintance! You are the new river master from Waterdeep! Welcome! Unfortunately, his excellency is out this afternoon and wasn’t expecting you. Do you use sending spells? So helpful if I may say so. May I see your documentation? It all seems in order. Let me bring you to your quarters…’
As Marcos unpacks, he fingers the note in his breast pocket. It seems strange that the town of Yartar would need to hire a warrior cleric of Tempus. Panros knows better than to send him on a mission without any action. Blade slung over his shoulder, he steps out into the early evening, looking for a tavern for supper, a drink and maybe a fight.
Shay
Shay Quill looks up from her prepared notes scattered across her desk to the sudden sound of Kara's comfortingly familiar voice as it came from her sending stone perched near the corner, the designated spot Shay left it while busy with one task or another. Even though the two had last spoken only a few days previously, Shay stills her pen mid motion all the same and leans forward in gleeful anticipation.
'Good morning Feather, or midday now I suppose. I wanted to wish you luck on your Enclave business with the River Baron this evening. Word travels much slower than I'd like, but I heard that a new River Master is being introduced as well. What happened there? Tell me the illness didn't take him too. Best wishes regardless. Kara.'
As she goes to pick up the stone, Shay thinks over her day and the best way to condense things for her friends' sake. She goes over her uneventful morning that was mostly spent deciding between her best formal wear and deciding on what hair style to present, ending in the cold realization while re-reading it, that her speech was in need of editing. Eventually, Shay gives a brief highlight of her morning and thanks Kara for remembering to check in on her, not that Shay had a reason to doubt her. 'The former River Master did fall victim to the illness. I hope the new River Master is a worthy successor, stay safe yourself, please. Why do you bother signing your messages when your voice gives you away again?'
Laughing quietly, Shay goes on to edit and revise her notes with much less nervousness acting as her guide, reaching as close to a satisfactory point in her work as she can achieve and finally allows herself a break to meet her friend Nash for a late lunch. Shay habitually runs a hand through her hair and watches as the dark strands weave through each finger while heading outside, still worried for the coming evening, but even more prepared for her chance to represent the Emerald Enclave, which she decides to count as a small win.
Yenword:
The earliest morning rays began to creep into the home of House Ventris as Yenword silently slips through his bedroom window. He smiles for a moment, brushing off some dirt from his shoulder as he says to himself, “Nice try, El. Let’s see you explain this to mother and father…” He turns, breaking into a sprint through the early morning hours to try and make it to his destination without notice.
Just as the sun and beasts begin to show signs of being awake, Yenword heads deep into the forests on the outskirts of town. He lets out a sigh of relief as he slips through a particular section of patchy and thick bramble, finding his way into a small manmade clearing. He takes a moment to sigh, sitting cross legged on the ground as he begins to breathe deeply. The light of the sun causes his skin to glisten with sweat, the colorful tattoos covering his arms and neck looking as if they were alive in some way. He sits in this position for nearly a whole hour, listening for something.
After the hour passes, he opens his eyes and relaxes, leaning back and looking up at the sky. He reaches into his bag and pulls out a set of two wineskins, opening one to sip at it. Just as he does, a cry of an eagle echoes through the clearing. Yenword sighs heavily as he sat up, staring towards the top of the trees. “Can I not get some alone time at all?” He cries out towards the eagle, as it glided to the forest floor below.
The bird gracefully lands a few feet away from Yenword, shimmering as its form began to shift. In its place stood a young and beautiful woman, whose appearance would remind someone of the spring. Eliavora, or El as Yenword preferred to say, shook her head in disapproval. “Why must you be such a pain, brother? Mother and Father are angry again, and I’m now wasting my time by dealing with you instead of studying what I need to be.” Yenword smirks, sipping from his wine. He then sang, “Come come, you say, come come today, for much there is to do. Yet the sun will rise, and the sun will set, so why should we chase the moon?” El gave a frustrated look at Yenword, throwing her hands up. “Fine. You stay here and get yourself drunk eaten by a bear. I have other matters to worry about,” she says as she turns and disappears into the clearing.
Yenword gives a sad smile as she departs, taking another sip. “Why does it matter what I do anyway? You’re the prodigy of this family?” he says somewhat bitterly, as the rest of the day slipped by between his wine, his music, and simply enjoying the day before him. He continues there until the sun would begin to set, drunkenly making his way back into town and back home with the widest and dumbest grin on his face.
RASTRIN
Fire. Heat. Warmth. These words are what shaped Rastrin Barrows' life. While others saw fire as a tool to be harnessed or a scourge that destroys, Rastrin saw fire as something incredible, something almost divine in nature. He saw fire as the force that change that drove the world forward. There was something beautiful about the way fire transforms all it came in contact with: wood became ash, flesh became charred, and sand became glass. That last item mentioned was of particular interest to Rastrin. In fact, Rastrin found himself shaping a blob of molten sand into a work of art as he thought about the nature of fire.
Around him, the shop was filled with the sounds of men and women cleaning their work stations in preparation to go home for the day, but Rastrin continued to shape and work his drop of liquid sand. He had an order of small glass chips destined to become part of a mosaic window due tomorrow morning, so he had spent all day toiling at the crucible to meet demand. He had spent the majority of the week crafting the small, colorful shards, and this particular order he was working on was much more specific and detail-orientated than the projects he usually worked on. Each shard of glass needed to be certain hue and transparency, and it had taken him a few days of experimentation before he finally found the specific shades of glass that he wanted. As much as Rastrin loved being a glassworker, it was often a painstakingly long and tedious work.
Focusing on the orb of molten glass on the metal table before him, he set about shaping it into the glass fragments it needed to become. It was a long process, creating each individual shard, but he enjoyed working with the molten sand. There was something cathartic about working with fire, using heat to transform something into something completely different. Where the other glassworkers often needed to stick their glass back into the kiln to reheat it to keep the glass hot enough to work with, all Rastrin needed to do when his glass grew too cold was breath on the glass. Being a red dragonborn, Rastrin had an affinity for fire. An internal fire blazed within him, granting him a resistance to extreme heat and the ability to breath fire, although doing so reduced his internal inferno slightly.
However, unlike other red dragonborn, Rastrin's fire was more... Well, for lack of a better word, his fire was intense than other's. Others had told him that his scales were as hot as a stone that had sat out in the sun all day, though Rastrin had never noticed his apparent heat. While most red dragonborn had bright crimson scales, Rastrin's own scales were that of a deep scarlet, reminiscent to the color of blood. Other than his deep shade of scales, he looked like a rather average dragonborn male: tall and athletic build, dark patterns on his scales that almost resembled stripes, orange eyes, and a two distinct horns that sprouted from his head. For some reason, Rastrin always found himself coated with ash and soot, though he had no idea where it came from.
His concentration is broken by a woman's voice. "Earth to Rastrin. Hello? Anybody home?"
Blinking in surprise, Rastrin looks up from his growing collection of shards towards the woman that spoke. He found Darva standing a short distance away from him, her burly arms folded in front of her in a stern posture. Darva was a short and stout dwarven women with jet black hair who was one of the shop's blacksmiths. Spending day after day hammering away at metal had granted her quite the muscular physique. She claimed she had once caught a boulder thrown by a giant and then hurled it back at the unfortunate giant that threw it, and Rastrin had no doubt that Darva could have actually done that. She was definitely tough enough.
Looking slightly chagrined, Rastrin apologizes in his rough, gravely voice as he wipes his sooty hands on an even sootier apron. "Er, sorry about that. Were you talking to me?" He had be told that his low, rumbling voice reminded people of blazing furnace, but Rastrin didn't really notice what he did or didn't sound like.
A hint of a smile touched Darva's usually stern face as she responds, "I asked you how much longer you were planning on staying, but you seemed to be a little bit too focused on your glass to hear me."
"Oh, sorry about that," Rastrin says back. Gesturing to his unfinished product cooling on the table beside him, he says, "You know how I get when I'm working." He had a tendency to block out the world as he worked, often missing out on conversations around him.
"I know," says the grinning Darva. "I wish I could be half as focused as you are when you're working. Anyways, how much longer are you planning on being here?"
Rastrin looks back down at his glass, thinking of how much more work he had to do. "Um," he begins. "Probably about an hour, maybe two. I can close the shop when I'm done if that's what you're going to ask about."
Darva nods, and then she starts heading towards the door that lead from the workshop to the storefront. "Thanks!" she barks before she leaves the room. "Make sure the all the doors and windows are locked before you leave. I don't want them left open again."
"Of course! See you tommorow!" Rastrin replies.
With a grunt of acknowledgement, Darva strides through the heavy wooden door and closes it behind her, leaving Rastrin alone in the workshop. Rastrin welcomed the silence of the empty workshop; it was easier to work when he didn't have to focus so much on ignoring everyone around him. Of course, the workshop wasn't completely silent. It was filled with the sound of kilns and forges creaking and groaning as they cooled down for the day, and Rastrin could hear the muffled sounds of people bustling around outside. He knew that the amount of forges and kilns in the room would make the air feel boiling hot to others, but he barely noticed the heat. In fact, the stuffy room felt quite pleasant to him.
Sighing in contentment, he turns back to his glass. It had cooled too much during his brief conversation with Darva, its opaque mass now glowing a dull cherry red instead of the bright and fervent orange it needed to be. As he watched, it was fading from the faint red into a clear mass of glass. He needed to reheat it before it cooled any further. He leaned down over the table and positioned his head near the glass. He could feel the comfortable heat radiating away from the opaque lump, and he's almost tempted to just bask in its heat for a while before getting back to work, but if he were to do that, it would only delay him longer.
With that thought in mind, he opened his draconic, toothy maw and exhales on the glass. Waves of withering heat radiate out from his mouth, creating heat ripples in the air that begin to reheat the glass. Others told him that whenever he opened his mouth to speak or reheat glass, they always saw that the back of his throat glowed and mouth with fervent heat reminiscent to the glow of a forge. They found it unnerving, but Rastrin didn't mind. He was a creature of fire, and there was no point in being ashamed of what you were.
When the glass reached the temperature it needed to be to work with, Rastrin dived eagerly back into the task of creating more colored glass shards. He quickly fell back into his working rhythm as he tuned out all other distractions. When he "got into the zone" so to speak, hours of work seemed to pass in mere moments as he expertly toiled away at the glass. He often found himself humming the same tune every time he worked, though he had no idea what song it was. It was less of a song and more like collection of tones and pure notes that melded together to create a powerful harmony. Sometimes when we was working with fire and other heated materials, he could swear that could hear, no feel, the same melody reverberating within the flames. It was difficult to explain to those that couldn't feel it, but he couldn't help but feel that fire had its own song of sorts.
Two and a half hours later, he looks down at the pile of glass fragments cooling on the table before him, a feeling of professional pride burning in his chest. While he never liked boasting of his skill, he did recognize that his work today was some of the best he had performed in a long while now. Looking satisfied, he closes his eyes as he continues to hum the tune he felt. The distant, yet familiar notes seemed to resonate with something deep inside of him, his soul vibrating in synch with the majestic tones. It was easy to lose oneself in the rhythm; the tones were ever complex, so there was much one could focus on. Eyes still closed, he could feel the hunk of glass he wore on a chain around his neck pulse and vibrate to the same tune he felt. The glass he wore, an orangish blob roughly the same shape of a small crystal, was the first thing he had ever made from glass all those many years ago. Recently, it had begun to act strangely. Sometimes, like right now, it seemed to vibrate and produce crystalline tones that replicated the tune he often felt, but he was the only one that could hear it. Other times, he had found it glowing and radiating and intense heat that often burned whatever clothing that was touching it. He already had to replace several shirts due to the shard's odd heat. He smiles as both he and the stone hum along to the melody: deep tones that shook his soul, pure notes that rang clearly in the air, crackling and sizzling that filled the air with the scent of smoke.
Wait, that wasn't part of the song! Snapping his eyes open, he looks around in the room in bewilderment. All the forges and kilns within the small workshop were alight, blazing with white-hot infernos despite there being no fuel in them. The stones of his own kiln were glowing red with the heat of the fire within, cracking and shifting from the immense heat they contained. Several small fires ignited upon wooden instruments and tables nearest the furnaces as immense heat washed over them. Even Rastrin himself almost seemed to be glowing with a heat of his own, waves of heat rippling away from his scales as his clothing began to char and burn.
By Bahumat's own claws, it's happening again! he mentally exclaims. He hadn't had one of his episodes for several years now. When he was younger, fires often erupted into existence around him, burning both people and building. He had learned how to control himself and put an end to his fiery episodes, or so he thought. Knowing that he needed to stop whatever he was doing before he caused too much damage, he focusses on ending the moving rhythms pounding through his body and soul. The song wanted to be released. It wanted to be free to burn, to ignite, to change everything it touched. Gritting his teeth, he focusses on putting the song out of his mind, but the tone almost seemed to fight back. As he struggled to end the burning song, a table near him burst into flames, fire eagerly consuming the combustible wood. The glass shards closest to him began to crack and bubble as they started to melt. The cobblestone floor at his feet began to smoke and blacken as the dust on them began to burn away as the Fire with Rastrin struggled against its mortal prison.
With a heave of mental exertion, Rastrin casts the song out of his mind. Suddenly, feeling weak and empty, he stumbles, but manages to catch himself on his table before he falls to the ground. Throughout the room, the fires began to smolder and die out as the lost their connection to the elemental song of fire. Feeling exhausted, Rastrin pushes his smoldering body up to a standing position with a groan. Looking down at himself, he saw that the majority of his clothing were nothing more than faint wisps of smoking rags. What in Bahumat's Tenth Name just happened? I thought I figured out how to stop myself from doing that again.
Looking around the charred room, he realizes with dismay how much damage he had caused. Many of the wooden tools workplaces were singed at best and heavily charred at worst. Even several of the kilns were cracked and scorched. Luckily, early on in his life, he had learned a nifty magical trick that repaired objects he touched. It was pretty handy magic since every he touched as a child often erupted into flames. Sighing, he begins running his hands over a nearby table, whispering words in a language he didn't know as he channeled magic out of his body and into the charred wood. Like usual, he didn't really know how or what he was doing as he used magic. He just did what felt natural and instinctive to him. His hands glowed with warmth as the wood began to repair itself at his touch.
A few hours later, he locked the door to the shop as he stepped outside. He had repaired as much as he could, and there were only a few items he wasn't able to repair completely. He would have to go buy replacements before he came in to work tomorrow. He also wore a spar set of clothes he had left in the side room. He had starting bringing an extra set to the workshop recently just in case his strange glass shard decided to burn his clothes.
With the sun about to set in a few hours, Rastrin begins walking through the streets to the place of his residence. Maybe he would go get a drink and some grub before he went home. He felt exhausted, both physically and mentally, and a little bit of food would go a long way in helping him feel better. Or maybe he would just wander through town for a bit to clear his mind. He was still perplexed and a little bit worried about what happened just a few hours ago. What had caused him to act up again? How could he stop it from happening again? Shaking his head, he sets his jaw and strides down the bustling streets.
HAROLD
It is Bajnok at the door, one of the Hand. Young, a mere apprentice, his face most often bears a look of astonishment, although Harold has seen him angered, when his features compress into a wrinkled fist. He looks both ways when the door opens, his eyes touching on everything, before slinking quickly inside.
“Mr. Goldweaver, I have a message from Father,” he says in a breathy tone which is clear enough to Harold but diffuse enough too that anyone more than an arm-length away would struggle to hear it. In the Cant, of course, so few would fathom his words even if they could latch on. Father, of course, is Gerzson, the Chair of the Hand of Yartar.
“Tonight. At the citadel, at eight bells. There is a meeting of the River Baron’s Council. They welcome a new River Master. You are to attend, as a representative of the Guildsmen – that’s how he says to tell it, – the Guildsmen. He says, ‘keep an open eye and take opportunity if it comes.’ I asked him to explain, but he would not. Tha’s it.”
The teen’s tongue darts out, licks his taut lip quickly, no doubt thirsty for coin before slinking back out into the darkening city streets.
DM for Deathworld: Lost Mine of Phandelver // Story Guide for COYOTE and CROW: Cahokia Forever // Dev Hornd in Curious Critters // Co-creator: Princes of the Apocalypse - A DnD Story
Harold
Harold loosens his grip on the concealed dagger, realizing that it's only Bajnok. While the young thief was not his favorite apprentice... he was a quick learner and Harold had learned to trust the youth over the last couple years. At the mention of Father, he allows the young apprentice to come inside before quickly closing the door behind him. With a loud click, He locks the door before moving to pick up his glass of wine. Now that they were both inside the quiet confines of The Dirty Dog, Harold speaks freely. Dropping the thieves cant and taking a sip of wine, Harold studies Bajnok. "What does Gerzson need of me? I am... of course... always willing to serve the Hand." He asks with a nod before raising his glass towards the petty thief.
Harold listens intently to the instructions... leaning back against shop counter before quickly downing the last of his drink. Clearing his throat, he sits the glass down on the counter. The merchant moves his tongue through his mouth, running along the front of his teeth behind his pursed lips. It's an expression that Bojnok has seen many times whenever the merchant is contemplating a course of action. "Alright. I'll be at the citadel tonight at eight bells... as a representative of the guildsmen." He says with a nod before continuing. "I'll come prepared as always... for whatever the evening may bring."
Harold then moves to unlock the door and pulls a gold coin from his pocket. As he moves to place the coin in Bajnok's hand, he leans in close... Grabbing the apprentice by the hand and locking eyes with him. "Next time... you knock on the door the way I told you. You know how I feel about folks showing up unannounced after business hours." He growls before placing the gold coin in the thieves hand. He then releases the young apprentice from his vice-like grip. "it could be the difference between a coin in the hand or a dagger in the gut." Harold adds as he allows the young man to leave.
SHAY
Károly Restaurant is more an open-air cafe than a fine dining establishment, but due to its location across Reika Tunde Street from the citadel, draws a daily lunch crowd of city government officials, temple numeraries, monks in twos and threes, foundry workers, and even, sometimes, nobility.
The afternoon is brisk but sunny, and after a cold winter, many Yartari are out running errands – or taking a rest from errands, while several pods of diners from the citadel hurriedly eat and enjoy the day's warmest hour out-of-doors before returning to their work.
In this convivial – though also, somber – ambiance, Shay sits at a table with her friend Nash, finishing a late lunch. Shay is tempted to think that Nash has something on his mind. For although he is not one to hold back thoughts when they occur – he is not shy about sharing his opinions, which are always astute, if not always modest or even courteous; in other words, Nash speaks his mind boldly and without fear of being wrong, whether he is or isn’t wrong – Shay deducts, or intuits, or simply knows, that her friend’s mind is elsewhere.
DM for Deathworld: Lost Mine of Phandelver // Story Guide for COYOTE and CROW: Cahokia Forever // Dev Hornd in Curious Critters // Co-creator: Princes of the Apocalypse - A DnD Story
MARCOS
Marcos knows a waterside tavern in Yartar, whose unsavory but memorable business sign hangs from a small mast and depicts a dog humping same – Mastiff, the place is called. He finds a seat at the bar and while enjoying a helping of hearty beef stew and dark ale, learns that tempers are running high in Yartar. For many have lost loved ones, or income, or both, due to the flood, while others – a very few others – have profited in the aftermath of the disaster, incensing the rest.
And so it is that when Marten voices his displeasure at a man, tall as he is wide, and as wide as he is inebriated, who suggests that Marcus “get the flock off my bar stool,” Marcus perhaps hands his sheathed great sword to the bartender — who, in a frantic patticake gesture tries to delay the inevitable with diplomatic enunciations of “now, now, now hang on ye, now just wait a minute,” ineffectually. A brawl ensues.
This begins only a minute or two before an ensign from the Waukeen’s Hand enters, looking this way and that, and as bottles fly about, finds Marcus across the room and attempts to gain his attention. The ensign is a woman of thirty summers, strong and capable, called Miss Samitha, from Waterdeep.
“Er, Mister Varixx?,” Marcus hears above the melee. Above the melee, for the ensign’s voice is as sturdy as she, and is pitched to cut through maritime winds.
DM for Deathworld: Lost Mine of Phandelver // Story Guide for COYOTE and CROW: Cahokia Forever // Dev Hornd in Curious Critters // Co-creator: Princes of the Apocalypse - A DnD Story
RASTRIN
As Rastrin meandered along the bustling streets of Yartar, he once again found himself lost in thought, a bad habit of his. He was barely aware of the others walking and shuffling around him as he walked along the memorized path towards his home. His earlier episode had left him unnerved, and he was baffled to as what caused him to flare up after so many years of quiet control. Maybe it had something to do with the unrest in the natural world recently. Frequent and devastating floods, the nightly gale that tore through the town, rumors of earthquakes in distant towns. He often heard people talking in hushed tones about the tumultuous world around them. It almost seemed as if nature itself was angry, venting its fury upon the people that tried their best to carve sections away from it to form civilizations. Rastrin shook the thought out of his head as he rounded a corner. Such thoughts were foolishness. Sometimes natural disasters just happened. There didn't have to be some sort of mythical force throwing the world out of sync. While he did admit that there certainly did seem to be a slightly higher amount of unrest in the world at the moment, he guessed natural disasters could strike at the same time. Perhaps-
His musings cut off suddenly as he slams into someone, not noticing them as he was lost in thought. He lets out a grunt of surprise as he stumbles back a few feet, wincing as he hears the sound of glass shattering against the ground. Mentally, he curses himself for not paying attention. He really needed to pay more attention to his surroundings instead of focusing on his thoughts.
"So sorry!" he cries out to the stranger he collided with. He looks down at the shattered bottle on the ground, a patch of liquid that looked like a pool of blood spreading out and seeping into the ground. He was going to have repay the stranger somehow. "Are you ok?" he asks the fellow who dropped his bottle.
Yenword gave a thumbs up from where he fell, not seeming to care too much about the bottle as he laid on his back. "Aaall good! Just need a minute or so to catch myself..." He hummed a bit of a tune as he drunkenly tried to stand up, falling back down. "I'm good....Just need a...umm..." He paused in his speech, looking around for a moment as if he had lost something. "Xcuse me...but do you know where my flute went?" Yenword asked, as he started patting himself down. He sighed for a moment as he closed his eyes and he threw his arms out to the sides, a rush of air suddenly coming from underneath him that launched him to his feet. He then looked to Rastrin and smiled. "There we go! Much better."
MARCOS
Marcos sits down at one the stools at the bar. He brushes an unfinished drink away and hails the bartender. Placing a few silver on the counter he shouts, 'The special. And mead if you have it. If not then ale.' He has visited in Yartar on several occasions for one reason or another. The Mastiff was his favorite haunt. He felt more at home in a dirty bar than just about anywhere else in Faerun. Not much has changed in the years since his last visit. Perhaps there are a few more people. No music tonight. Was the atmosphere always this tense? '
'That's my seat! Flock off!'
Marcos turns around. A large man looms over him. Close to Marcos size, with the bearing of a local ruffian. A cliche of a man with a beard and the standard number of tattoos. Obviously drunk and frustrated with his position in life.
‘'I didn't know this was your seat. But I feel like I have really nested here by now. I don't think I am going to move.'
And so the dance begins. Beginning with the teleological and philosophical arguments about the logistics of bar room seating. The rapid progression to insults. Moving to an inevitable violent resolution. It's a dance that Marcos knows well. He smiles.
……
......
'Mister Varixx!'
Marcos looks up. He is standing over his unconscious opponent. He looks at the blood painted on his knuckles. He feels the blood dribbling from his nose, early swelling around his right eye. His adversary fought with little skill, but with a ferocity that Marcos' respected. He landed a good shot. He waited until Marcos was ready. He observed the honor of the contest. Marcos needed that. Maybe they both did.
'Mister Varixx!!!'
Marcos grabs his sword from the bar and finishes his ale. He casts a healing spell on the man on the floor as he steps over him.
‘The stool is all yours!’
He makes his way to Samitha. He is almost sure that is her name. She looks expectant, trying to contain her frustration.