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A Bard's Last

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Day 15 of Rosedawn
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The War is over.

It seems like it was only yesterday that I last fought the greenskins on the field of battle, shouting out the words of the dragon's song to keep up the spirits of the troops under my command. It seems only yesterday, because it was only yesterday. The memories of my comrades falling beside me in battle will never fade from my mind. They shall be heard in my song in honour of their valour that grasped victory beyond death in the bloody red of the dawn.

I admit that I remember less of what followed after the retreat of the greenskins, their armies thinned to only a tenth of their former might. I know that there was a feast held in joyous celebration and that I was amongst those honoured by it, but little more. I presume that all too soon I grabbed for the ale that offered me a moment to forget about the blood and gore.

It was likewise all too soon that I was needed again for my services…

This morning I was present at the best breakfast I've had in a while, seated close to the Colonel. I was filling up my stomach when suddenly a loud crash resounded throughout the city and a cloud of smoke and dirt rose up from the Elven District, the ghetto of the city that I luckily managed to crawl out of due to my mainly human heritage. Sensing the danger, I immediately stood up and grabbed a hold of the warlock lady who sat next to me, telling her to come along and investigate. She didn't want to come along however, stating so once verbally and once with a blast to my face that singed my moustache and would have blackened my face were it not already so.

When I arrived at the Elven District I discovered that there was a giant hole in the ground, as if the entire District had collapsed in on itself after someone dug a large open area below it. I was soon joined by several others who had been present at the Colonel's breakfast, among them the warlock lady, the Mistress of Spies and her associate, as well as - to my horror - the berserker Aukan, whom I've seen raging across the battlefield before, causing much of the blood and gore that I've seen during the war. I must note here that Aukan is very short-sighted, which may have caused him in the past to attack his own allies. In this particular case, it allowed him to charge straight into the hole, falling down a distance I estimated at over a hundred feet. Needless to say, the basterd survived.

As we stood surveying the collapsed District, I lit up a good ol' deuergan cigar and thought about what could have caused it. Conversing with the Mistress of Spies, we decided to travel down into the hole by rope. I went down first, followed by the Mistress and her raven-faced associate, a member of the Psychic Conservatorium, a spirit knight and the warlock lady. The others from the breakfast who might've come this way had either gone elsewhere or not arrived yet. We would do. Apparently the others had received orders from the Colonel to investigate. Well duh, motherlover, what do you think I'm doing here?!

We get down arrive at the bottom of the hole (getting down would require music and this was not an appropriate time for getting down). Aukan is there, live and kickin'. We stick together in case anything bad shows up; for all we know it's the greenskins, but they are likely not smart enough and they would have been found out much sooner if they had been digging under the city.

The houses are completely wrecked down here. In one of the houses we found a child, not even a century old, crying over his mother's body. I took him away from her and managed to calm him with a soft lullaby. (I need to make sure to visit the Bard's College again later and thank maestro Gerardo for his teachings in the magicks of song.) I could barely get any useful information out of him, he just didn't know anything. At that point one of the walls was broken down and a pair of elves appear, horribly disfigured and armour practically a part of their bodies. With primal roars they leap upon us, but before I can even react my new companions have already neutralized them.

I praise and curse the gods silently, as we see Aukan falling unconscious after he chases down one of our own. No reason why either, but I'm sure we could've used him. The Mistress of Spies tells me she'll have her subordinates take care of him, so we continue our investigation without him.



Day 16 of Rosedawn
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The days are becoming quite eventful indeed! After we left Aukan behind we wandered around more in our search, but as the Elven District continued to collapse we had to make a run for it and get to safer ground. The Mistress of Spies has told me she has sent out subordinates of hers to locations that might be important to investigate. Curious, since I only ever see her with her raven-faced associate.

We've found an underground base in the middle of the Elven District that we have little doubts of being related to these recent events. We've found elves in pods inside a room where they were injected with mutagen. I managed to free one of them and wake him up, but once I attempted the save the others, one of the more mutated elves died in my arms, causing me to cease in my attempts. Soon after, red lights began to flash and the other pods were filled with armor on the elves and weapon racks came down the sides of the room. I later learned this was because the Mistress and the psychic had moved an object in the adjacent room and had levitated it out of there. I grabbed hold of as many weapons as I could and stuck them in my clothing so I had my hands free to pick up the elf and run out of there. The psychic blocked the room with something called 'ectoplasm', slowing the advance of the mutated, feral elves.

In a larger room we found we had only one way out, but to get through there we had to negotiate with a disembodied voice who claimed to be "the AI of Facility seven-eight". Now I don't know what that means other than that there might be 77 more of these, but I simply ordered him help us, calling him 'Eddie', as names are handy for things like orders. Thanks to Eddie we managed to set up an ambush and mercifully end the life of one of the elves chasing us, two others falling victim to the warlock's power that controlled their minds.

Eddie told us that the Colonel wanted to meet up with us elsewhere in the base, which we proceeded to do, finding him unconscious next to a kobold. I discovered that he had been poisoned, but luckily for the Colonel I have dabbled in magic prior to the War, so I managed to save him. He told us that the kobold was an ally of his, an engineer of this facility, even after we had begun to presume it must have been the work of gnomish terrorists! I am unsure if I can continue to trust the Colonel after this. I know elves are third-rank citizens in this country, but they're still people.

Weakened, the Colonel told us to continue through the base to find those who had attacked it. Eddie told me he notices signs of life in a distant room. We move fast and I charge into the room, just in time to find a pair of gnomes calling forth a horned devil from the depths of Hell, two other devils already being present. While I burst out the power of the songs of bards and dragons alike my companions quickly strike down one of the devils, after which they turn to the other. I make up a plan of my own, as the horned devil is the most dangerous of our foes. I hide in the shadows and make my way around the battle, striking out with all my might when the horned devil passes by to strike down my allies, fire bursting from its clawed hands.

I miss.

The devil turns towards me and focuses his aggression on me instead. My companions, wet with the sweaty smell of fear, attempt to flee, but the entrance is airlocked. Eddie chimes in and announced he can close one of the doors in 15 seconds and then open the other to allow them out. I am caught between both devils as my allies are clawing at the door to get out.

I know I can flee.

I don't.

Unleashing blow after blow upon the devil, he merely laughs it off, his wounds healing rapidly before my eyes. Then, with a blow of its tail that nearly smacks my 'fro off my head, I am smacked straight into the embrace of Death Herself.

I see my cigar tumbling through the air in slow motion as if time has come down to a crawl. Knowing what I've got on me, I whisper my last whisper. "Eddie, close the doors."

I die with a thud (I think, I couldn't hear it) on the floor just as my cigar falls alongside me, right into the shattered remains of the pots of oil I carry on me for the lamps we used during our treks across the land during the War. Worse yet, I've got explosives on me and a load of other alchemical items. Wouldn't want that to come back and bite me in the ass, sending my companions straight after me, eh?

I don't know what happened after I died, but I'm sure my allies are better off now than they were in that room with those two devils. They'll do fine.

And dayyyum, these Elysian quills write real good! Shame they don't have cigars here though. I could go for a smoke.
Whelp, maybe my new character will survive longer.
© 2011 - 2024 Morpholomewy
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