From The Fall of Blood Hold

Tarma crept with utmost care along the cave’s perimeter, staying tucked into the shadows like a silver coin in a sock.  Her favorite dagger in her right hand, she picked her way through nearly total darkness, sliding gracefully between loose boulders.  Tarma knew the Baruuk weren’t far behind; she could just hear them grunting and calling out to each other softly in their primitive tongue.  The rocks all around were slick with cold, seeping water and puddles dotted the floor.  Her situation was most precarious.

      Not long ago, there had been four of them.  The Baruuk had appeared out of nowhere, pouring out of the darkness.  Her party’s flickering torches had lit their tusked faces and crude, dark steel weapons as they fell upon the heroes in wave after bloody wave.  Franklin, stout Dwarven warrior of Everhold, had fallen first, his iron chest plate split evenly down the middle.  Only seconds later, the elven brothers Beoryn and Neylsh were overwhelmed, their prayers inadequate to meet the tide of ferocity that crashed upon them. 

      Only her familiarity with desperation had saved Tarma.  Though young, lithe and beautiful, life had never been easy on the rogue.  Her parents had been killed when she was only seven: she knew not why.  What she did know, even then, was that life in the care of lecherous priests or slavers was no life at all, and so she had taken to the streets with only a torn dress and sharp wit.  When she saw the elves fall, Tarma pushed the loss of her lovers down deep within and found a way to survive.  Falling, as though slipping in the blood of her fallen foemen and friends, she reached into her belt pouch and scooped a potion towards her mouth with almost supernatural quickness.  As she hit the ground her teeth bit the cork in half, in the very nick of time.  Just as the bitter but always welcome brew passed her lips, two heavy spearheads found their way deep into her back.

      The Baruuk ripped their weapons from her flesh and raised them over their heads, loosing a triumphant roar.  They did not see the wounds close just as they did not see their kill vanish as she slipped a ring onto her left small finger.

      She slid quietly away from the pile of fallen, stopping only to seize a key from Beoryn’s pouch.  By the time the Baruuk noticed her gone, she was hundreds of yards away, still unseen, creeping quickly but quietly onwards.

      Though exhausted and on the verge of tears, Tarma knew she had to press on.  She and the others, known to the Heroes’ Guild as The Children of Norrin’s Dream, had been given a heavy deed, some months ago at the guild complex in Ravennia.  They were to travel north to the Iceclaw Range, delve deep into the Underworld and locate a secret Baruuk enclave.  What they found there chilled their very souls, for they knew it meant a true horror was soon to be visited upon the free peoples of Ravenna.  There in a dank, filthy cave, they came upon a pool of blood, bubbling forth hot from the very earth.  And as they watched, a dozen Baruuk, adorned not in the usual leather armor, but instead in hooded robes of black entered into the cavern and began a terrible ritual. 

      But as the heroes moved to stop the dark magic, a man-like thing, with skin of ebon black and eyes red as the pool from which it emerged, stepped forth.  The Children of Norrin’s Dream knew not what they saw, but it was evident that it saw them.   It roared its rage at them as they fled, and the heroes felt it’s presence close on their heels as they tried for weeks to escape.  The Baruuk, however, always found them.  The party had no rest, no peace at all as stone orcs fell upon them in packs, always seeming to know where to find their prey. 

      There had been no time to prepare a report.

      And now it was left to poor, shaking little Tarma, all fiery hair and breath, but no real knowledge.  She could only barely read, much less write.  But she knew if she could somehow get onto parchment the story of her beloveds’ death, there would be vengeance.  She knew, also, that if she could not, the consequences would be dire indeed.

      Her ring only worked it’s magic for an hour each day, so she had conserved it, using it only when she saw no other way.  With its aid, her noteworthy skill and no little amount of sheer luck, Tarma had managed to gain distance from what she and her friends had come to call Blood Hold.  For eleven days she had fled alone, and she knew she was coming to the end of her strength.

      But she carried on, moving with as much stealth as her wearied and beaten frame could manage.  She could hear now that the voices of her hunters were fading; she was pulling ahead yet again.  This time she had to make it count.

      Three hours later, she finally stopped.  Activating her ring, Tarma gathered dried moss from the cave walls and pulled two sheets of parchment, ink and a bent quill from her pack.  She ate some dried fruit as well, chewing slowly to savor the rich flavor, and washing it down with fresh, cool water.  Then, Tarma cried.  She wept quietly, shaking a little by her unlit fire, knees drawn up against her chest.  Her tears flowed until her head felt ready to burst.  Just as the magic of her ring dampened away, she drew a deep, heaving breath and steadied herself. 

      Tarma lit the fire quickly as she could, and laid a pair of broken arrows against it to char.  She smoothed the parchment out against the cavern’s rough floor and began laboriously to draw.  On the front of the first page, she scrawled her company’s symbol, a sword jutting downwards through a golden crown.  Her red hair fell in vexing curls around her eyes, and sweat dripped always from her pale face as she worked.  On the back, she wrote the names and birth dates of her companions, then the day of their deaths. Drops of sweat upon the page were joined by tears.  The second page was a crude map, showing as well as she was able the location of Blood Hold.  Upon the back of that leaf, she drew a picture of the chanting, dancing Baruuk, and the demon, or whatever it was, that rose from the pool as best as she was able. 

      She thought it a feeble effort indeed, but as she was considering another option, she heard them.  The Baruuk were coming fast around a bend not nearly far enough off,  straight toward her little fire. 

      In a speed born more of duty than terror, Tarma dug into her pouch and produced the key.  Turning it in the air as she knelt and saying quietly “Shindahl”, a chest appeared around it, emerging out of the very air.  She quickly pulled the lid open, threw her pages in atop the already present contents and slammed it shut again.  She turned the key back and repeated the word of power.