Sworded Tales

Gerard put his small feet one in front of the other and pushed himself to physical limits, shapeless terrain blurring by him, blotting out the grim images which were trying to scar his psyche.  His Ranger training was the only tool which served him now, and it provided enough insight to allow him to survive the next few restless days and nights.  His instincts kept him moving in a straight line away from the carnage he had witnessed and toward a safe haven of the Rangers some leagues north of the accursed lands.  There he would perhaps be able to rest, to allow his mind and body to ingest some of what had been seen, and to perchance begin the healing process.  There had been no indication that the Shredder had been giving pursuit, and he at least took some small degree of solace in the fact that his Halfling companion was able to nearly destroy that which had brought about her demise.  Until he was safe though, his faculties were bent only on survival.

The Rangers were created not as a means to deal with the unusual and unexplainable events which surrounded the dead zone, but primarily as an entity to police its borders and to keep those who did not know better from wandering into dangerous areas.  Continue reading

High amidst the peaks of the Lost Emerald mountain range, the sight of winged beasts circling the cloud striations is a common one indeed.  Plentiful enough are the common birds of prey, the black-beaked eagle, the shrieking falcon, and the much prized war shrikes of the renowned Thurillion Air Guard which trains in a nearby principality, but unquestionably the chief among these aerial lords is the Silverglint Wyvern.  So named for the near reflective quality of their abdominal scales, these poisonous predators soar through the frigid skies with almost complete invisibility from below, picking and choosing their prey with calculating ease.

Atop the mountain cluster known as the Skyreach Palisades, a single culture of people, simply referred to as the Martor by their subterranean Dwarven neighbors, exist in unison with the cliffs and aeries of the ancient geography.  A hearty and versatile stock, they are the sole hunters of the mighty Silverglint Wyverns and regale in the challenge provided by felling one of the mighty menaces. Continue reading

A fifty foot climb awaited them before they would achieve the top of the cliff face, and although each individual had reservations about making the climb, all objections went unspoken when placed in contrast to descending toward the day’s previous noises.  The group began their ascent with minor encouragements offered at opportune moments.

As the last of the party crested the top of the clogged ridge, a Shredder burst forth from a nearby thicket, taking each of the travelers by surprise.  The engrained reflexes of the Ranger were all that postponed the female Halfling’s grisly fate.  As it was, the Shredder catapulted into the small clearing, arms, limbs, saws and gears flailing, and with a wicked sweep of its arced momentum, the Human was no more.  More precisely, the top half of the poor man went plummeting back over the precipice, cleanly severed about mid torso.  The rest of the freshly sectioned corpse collapsed in a wet heap, with slow disjointed movements and splashes of crimson ichor to mark the soul’s passing. Continue reading

“I cannot die,” Gilgallon said to him, her words tinged with pleading.  One of the girl’s delicate hands slid up the unyielding stone nearby, her chill grip seeking to ground her belief by latching on to something familiar.  For a few desolate moments, nothingness was all she encountered.  Then their bony fingers met, hands joining comfortably as their thumbs wrapped around each other in an affectionate embrace.

“I know, my dear,” the man known as Valentine whispered delicately into her mind.  The skeletal mask which gazed down upon the recumbent heroine conveyed no sympathy, no love, only the eternal rictus which was etched into its flesh from millennia past.  How anyone could find solace in the grim spectacle was truly a mystery, but Valentine’s presence seemed to put Gilgallon at ease, if only for the moment.

“Why must I sleep here?” she asked, each word puffing from her lips in a dense plume of fog.  The heat had long been sucked from the surrounding area, and the corresponding energy swirled violently in the cobalt blue of Gilgallon’s eyes.  Eyes that momentarily glistened with a thin sheen of moisture.  In an instant, those pools glazed over into frozen lenses. Continue reading

Upon reaching the logging station, Gerard found himself confronted with a Human, a Dwarf and one of the most beautiful Halflings he had ever had the curse of laying eyes upon.  A band of adventurers by claim, the trio needed to make haste across the north ridge of the sallow wastes toward the Goblin kingdoms to the east.  Important business awaited them amidst the green skins, and Gerard was none too concerned with what those affairs were.  He was a simple lad, and clear cut in his ways and means to achieving the soul satisfaction which allowed him his freeborn beliefs.

The journey began as harmless as any would.  Several steps onto a well worn path, followed by several more along a less traveled way until they found themselves deep within the unforgiving thickets of the bayberry brush barrens.  The two Halflings had passed the time in their native tongue, Gerard relishing the opportunity to again hear the buoyant cadence of his birth people.  They discussed matters of no real import, content in the simple shared heritage and bloodline that bound them closer than either would openly admit to.  She professed some talents with the arcane arts and although never really having been exposed to any of the finer conjurations of magic, Gerard was enthralled enough to ask a few poignant questions and to make some relative observations with regards to his own understanding of things magical or mundane.  The first several days of their journey passed with blinding ferocity, and Gerard was beginning to dread the remorse he would experience when they’re time together would come to an end. Continue reading

Brin Stolsom was born to a seafaring family along the western coast of the Sea of Fallen Stars in the year DR 1750.  Raised in a salty, transient household with little paternal influence, Brin looked to her two older brothers as the strong father figures needed to develop a healthy identity. Brin’s father, Caleb Stolsom, spent a great deal of his time at sea, and her mother, Alina, had her hands amply full caring for the six Stolsom children during Caleb’s absences.

Brin’s older brothers, Caleb and Ethen, were influenced away from the mariner’s life by their mother, but managed to assuage their seafaring genes by working for a merchant shipping business that ran regular transports across the sea.  In time, they were beckoned by the lucrative call of the adventurer’s life found in Raven’s Bluff.  It was only a few short months after their first wayward adventurers that the brothers disappeared while questing near the Dragon Falls.

The entire Stolsom family shattered.  Continue reading

A message had been delivered to Gerard by one of the more nimble forest folk in the area.  He often smiled as Chitter Tick bounded erratically from side to side, waiting for him to finish the brief note and offer a response.  On more than one occasion, the small chigger had scolded the Ranger for dallying over a missive that was clearly marked as urgent, perhaps even life threatening.  Nothing that was issued by the Forest Warden’s Guild was ever that critical, and if it were, there was a great certainty that it would be sent along its journey by some means of aviation, not the bounding skittering of a Chitter Tick.  Still, Gerard took his work seriously, and upon receiving the message to rendezvous at a logging station a half day’s travel to the southwest, he sent his affirmation along with the Tick and began gathering his supplies in preparation for the journey. Continue reading

Empires rise and fall.  Histories are recorded and forgotten.  Even the gods themselves wax and wane with the passing of the Ages.  What does one do when faced with the realization that the time of their species has come and gone?  That they are in fact only seeking footholds upon the slippery slope of extinction which looms all too near?  One simple precept had been engrained into a rather nondescript young Dragonborn hatchling which would unwittingly serve to mold the entire path of his destiny.

All living things perish.  What matters most is how. Continue reading

Long minutes dragged on in silence before Kevlin realized that since he had been staring at the petite woman before him, he had not felt any kind of emotion al all, not from him and not from her.  His eyes widened in wonder as an empty serenity flowed through him.  Never before had he felt so clear headed.  His thoughts were more focused and rational than he could ever remember.

In the mere span of heartbeats that this newfound data raced through Kevlin’s mind, the woman raised one delicate fist and held it out toward him.  Kevlin’s attention focused on her outstretched hand, but the young boy did not take what meaning she intended.  Then her fist suddenly opened, palm facing upward and slender fingers straining down toward the floor.  A flood of emotions hit the padawan with such force that Kevlin was utterly blinded for a moment. Continue reading

I killed 5.8 billion people.  No small feat to be sure, and the guilt plays hell on your psyche.  Then I was given the opportunity to save them, and I took it.  I was from the future, until I made the choice to travel back in time.  My name is, was, Levi Deveron, but most folks now simply know me as Slipstream.  This is my story. Continue reading