New Eberron story (Part 2)

The girl nervously said that she couldn’t stay and excused herself. She was halfway to the door when four men with cloaks and wide brimmed hats came into the bar. She saw them and almost collapsed with fright. They called her a witch said she needed to come with them. Kaelan really should have stayed in his seat this time…..

He was at her shoulder in a moment, asking what was going on. The man repeated that she was a witch and was required to come with them to stand trial. The elf took exception to this and, once again, politely suggested the party threatening this girl leave. The humans took it no better than the hill giant and drew swords that immediately sprang into a silvery flame. His blade was in his hand too when the minotaur got there. The man told the minotaur that she was required to come with them and the minotaur had the nerve to AGREE. Kaelan once again politely but firmly said that wasn’t going to happen. The minotaur took a step toward her and found the reverse edge of the scimitar at his thick neck.

Rork sighed. Here came that headache….

The elf looked very evenly at the minotaur. “No…HERE is what is going to happen. We’re going to leave and go out into the street to fight this out like civilized people…and the kid goes with ME. Do we have a problem with that”

The wild grin on the elf’s face spoke of apparent mental issues.

The minotaur bellowed “Fine. BOTH of you get the hell out of here! AND DON’T COME BACK!!”

Ouch. This was the only place to get halfway reliable information in Stormreach. This was going to be expensive….

Kaelan looked apologetically at Rork as he came up. The dwarf sighed again and looked up at the elf. “Lad….ya think you might want to put the damned blade down yet?”

The elf looked back at his blade, still at the minotaur’s throat. “Oh yeah. Heh. Sorry…”

Not wanting to kill the witch hunters in the street, Rork went up to negotiate with them. He exhaled and a green cloud enveloped them. Tianna looked at Kaelan. “What the hell was that?”

Kaelan grabbed the girl’s wrist and looked at Tianna. “We’re gonna want to move now. I’d hold your breath too.”

She looked at him quizzically “Why would we……OH GODS!”. She clutched at her nose and ran.

We needed somewhere to run they would follow us, and the jungle at night wasn’t an option. Kaelan calmed himself and tried to remember….and, as always, the answer came to him with a weird tingle and familiar feeling, even though he’d never been there. There was one place to run to their pursuers would NEVER think they’d be stupid enough to go to….the giant graveyard in the center of town.

Stormreach was built on top of giant ruins, and there was a graveyard there. People didn’t go into it. Too many stories came out of there. So the elf wisely decided not to tell the girls where he was headed until they got there.

Two minutes later, after a shove and much complaining from Tianna about how giant wraiths were going to drain their souls (Kaelan assured her giant wriaths were never seen in groups of more than two), we hunkered down behind a grave. The witch hunters came to the gates and turned away down another street.

We were just figuring out how to regroup with Onyx and Draven (who had decided to check in with the local Host temple) and decided to send Tianna to get them. The girl, named Harmony, mentioned that most people from organized churches considered her a heretic at best, a witch at worst. Tianna mentioned there may be difficulty with Draven, should he find out, but the dwarf waved her away. “That boy is the single last person that is going to judge her. He’d be throwing a very large rock at a VERY large glass house.” Even Tianna was forced to agree with that.

She had just teleported away when a shadowy figure very suddenly appeared before Kaelan and a skeletal hand picked him up. A cold came over him that he barely fought off as it attempted to energy drain him. The dwarf came to his aid, breathing fire onto the wraith and it dropped the elf. Kaelan was just commenting about how ironic it was it showed up JUST AS TIANNA LEFT when another ragged black cloaked figure moved off to their right as another giant wraith appeared. Kaelan shoulded “OH COME ON….I WAS –KIDDING-!!” as the three of them ran for the gates.

The human and elf easily outdistanced the short legged dwarf and he was breathing fire left and right to keep the wraiths from him. The elf knew when he reached the gates that Rork didn’t have a chance. He shoved the girl through the gate and chanted a quick protection spell and dove at the dwarf, driving the wraiths back. They began to circle the boundaries of the spell, hissing at them in rage. The dwarf looked up at Kaelan. “Well NOW what do we do?”

That’s when they heard the girl scream and saw four slivers of silvery flame in front of her.

The elf said “Get ready” and intoned another spell, teleporting the dwarf and himself behind the four hunters, who had knocked the girl back and were getting ready to strike. The girl closed her eyes and armor formed around her, making her grow a good two feet in height. She gestured and the lead hunter flew backwards as a blast of wind hit him. The dwarf breathed flame at the feet of the other three and they howled as they tried to put themselves out. The elf began to walk towards the lead hunter, once again unsheathing his sword.

“Know what? I’m going to be more forgiving than usual today. Go. Away. Or I’m going to kill you.”

The human stood up and raised his flaming sword. “I think not….”

“You want to die? Fine. Let me introduce you to how –I-- do fire.” Kaelan charged and an explosion of fire rocked the hunter back again.

“So…you’re a witch too. Then die with her!”

“No witch. I’m just a LOT better than you are….”

The comment wasn’t entirely true. The knight got a few wicked hits on him, but his abilities were very potent these days and fire ringed his sword with every hit. After a heavy cut to the hunter that sent him reeling he stopped again.

“You’re not doing so well and neither are your men. Go away and leave her alone. NOW.”

The hunter gasped and glared at him. “This isn’t over” he spat.

“Friend, the next time we meet….one of us isn’t walking away from it."

The hunter’s sword raised toward him. “COUNT on that.” And he staggered away.

Before Kaelan could react, Harmony’s armor had retracted and she threw her arms around him. “Um. You’re welcome?”

She blushed and said “Sorry. It’s just…nobody has ever…helped me before.”

“Yeah well…I REALLY hate bullies.”

Tianna found Draven praying at the altar with Onyx patiently watching him, and told them there was trouble.

“Did the elf cause it?”

“Yes.”

“At a tavern.”

“Well…yes.”

“A girl?”

“Isn’t it always?”

Draven finished his prayer and stood.“ Then we’d better go quickly.

As they left, they could see four figures coming up the hill towards the religious quarter. Tianna hissed that those were the four causing the trouble and filled them in quickly on who they were. Draven tensed up immediately. If a silver flame witch hunter ever found out what he was….

Tianna teleported to avoid them and Draven pulled up his hood and walked very slowly past them with Onyx at his side. He was past them when he heard it. “Hey…you!”

He sighed as he tensed again and turned back. The lead hunter was looking back at him. “Be careful. There are dangerous types about down there tonight.”

“Thank you for the warning brother.”

A few minutes later, Draven healed the elf and we were heading behind an alley, where Kaelan made an extradimensional room for everybody to sleep securely in that night. There were some stressful words between Draven and Harmony upon his finding out what she was, but mainly it was directed towards Kaelan as he rolled his eyes and said “You and your choice of mates…”, to which both Harmony and Kaelan stammered there was nothing like that going on. The dwarf signaled Kaelan to head outside to talk.

“You know we’re gonna have to keep her with us.”

“What? NO we won’t. I’ve been thinking about how they’re always finding her and all we need is to give her an amulet of nondetection.”

“Lad…she’s not gonna survive that long. Where does she have to go? They’ll be watching the ships, she can’t afford a teleport….the only way out is the jungle. She either comes with us or goes into it alone.”

At the elf’s uncomfortable look, he wagged a finger at him and continued. “Listen. YOU made the choice to get involved here, for better or worse, and YOU are gonna have to live with the responsibilities of your decisions!”

“I… I know that. But….you KNOW I don’t always have options in this type of stuff…”

“Then by the gods you are going to follow through with your choice!”

“…fine. I get it. She comes with us.”

Harmony was just cleaning up the dinner she had cooked for them as they came back in. Kaelan told her she was going to have to stick with them a bit longer, and once they got back to Sharn he would get her an item he believed would make it harder for them to find her. It wouldn’t be perfect but it’d give her a fighting chance if it worked. She smiled broadly and thanked them both, and everyone got some shuteye. They’d have to be up early the next day. They had a bar owner to bribe. HEAVILY. They had information to get, a ship to charter, sahaugin to pay off and a map to find. It was going to be a busy day….