Chronicles of Faerun: Prelude to the Prelude

Chapter One: How I met Franka and Hans, or – “Why I was running for my life and who it was who saved me.”

It was an absolutely gorgeous day – the 1st of Mirtul (May for those of you not from Toril) just last year – 1371 Dalereckoning, the Year of the Unstrung Harp. At least it WOULD have been gorgeous if I hadn’t been running for my life through the Cormanthyr Forest near to Myth Drannor, AND been lost! I’d taken so many turns and dodges that even my super-genius intellect couldn’t keep track of exactly where my pretty little butt was right then – not until I could stop and collect my wits (I’m a good survivalist, in addition to being a genius Sorceress AND a hot babe AND pretty famous in these parts!). WHAT!!!! You’ve really never heard of me?!?!?

AHEM.

So I guess I better make a prelude to this prelude to the prelude.

I was born 15 years ago (my birthday was actually 12 days before this incident! So where’s my present?) in Shadowdale, as I said above, to my father Richard and mother Ecanthra. He’s a rich merchant in the town, she’s a typical housewife and “Lady about town” (not in that sense, you creeps!). I discovered early I had a LOT of raw magical power (believe it or not, I learned to speak Draconic all on my own by age 7, and – let’s just call it “another, special” language – I learned intuitively by age 10! (For Mike – this is Truespeak I’m talking about)). I really wanted to attend the Lady’s College in Silverymoon (I so admire the Seven Sisters and Mystra’s Chosen!), but my parents (overly protective of me, the supposedly “weak” sister unlike Luna, my older one, bleah!) forbade it and it was only through begging and pleading (and, admittedly, causing some problems, hehe) that I got to attend an actual Magical College instead of being taught by our local Hedge Wizard. At age 11, I packed up and moved to Suzail, the capitol of Cormyr! I attended the Arcane Color Academy (I think dad chose it because it was less expensive than the Royal College for Battle Wizards – I’d call him a cheapskate, but he rubbed off on me, so that’d be the pot calling the kettle black!). I was the youngest student ever there, and graduated in record time (only TWO years!!!) at the TOP of my class. I made a friend there – Naga the Serpent was what she called herself, and we traveled together for about a year before parting ways. And let me tell you, I started my rep then, and I’ve improved on it ever since!

You see, Naga and I needed cash quick. So what we decided to do (both of us being Sorcerers of great power – mine, of course, better than hers), was attack a bandit gang after they’d made a successful raid. Then we’d liberate their loot and use it for the numerous expenses two beautiful (though I’m the better looking of us!) young ladies (she was 17) have. You know – nice clothes, good food, combs, brushes, jewelry, magic items, entertainment – all that stuff. Well, it worked – so good we made it a full-time job, and built up a reputation. In the Dalelands they named me “Lina Inverse the Bandit Slayer,” because of the 35 or 40 gangs (I lost track after my 20th – they all start to blend together, even in a genius’ memory) either she and I, or, I (after she left) destroyed. It’s to the point now I have to go incognito (NOT my style) or else the gangs clear out when they hear “Lina Inverse has been spotted in the area.” <SIGH>

You see, the reason I’m so damn good is that I have MUCH more power than a sorceress of my experience and age. I suspect why, but I don’t know you well enough to talk about that yet (I’m also a scholar and historian of immense knowledge). I can cast spells even people with MORE experience than me can’t pull off, so it’s easy to wipe out a bandit gang by myself or deal with goblins, orcs, even a few trolls aren’t a problem for me.

Huh? What was that you asked? OH! “Why was I running for my life then?” Glad you asked – history and background over – back to my tale!

As I said, I was running for my life. I was running from Drow – five male drow warriors to be precise. I was leaving my exploration of Myth Drannor and on my way out when just plain bad luck hit, and I stumbled right into a Drow war party. Cormanthyr Forest simply crawls with the damn things, and it was night!

Now normally this small band (the whole raiding party would have been trouble, honestly) wouldn’t have worried me. I’d have led them away and fried them in private (yeah, hehe, even that renowned drow spell resistance doesn’t stop 90% of mine!), BUT, unfortunately it was shortly after midnight when I met them. Why does that matter, you ask?

WELL…

My amazing extra power DOES have a price. When I’m on my… No, hmmm…, when I’m – nooo!! Urgh! How to say this? When it’s “that time of the month” I lose my sorcerer abilities. There, I said it – cat’s out of the bag and all that. (Don’t tell anyone or I’ll roast you!) Mine are regular as one of those gnomish clocks – midnight on the first of every month through midnight on the tenth of every month (don’t the rest of you girls envy me?). I was heading OUT of Myth Drannor because I knew it was coming, but had taken a nap in the gorgeous sun and weather the day before and lost track of the time! (Okay, maybe I also ate 5 days worth of rations for lunch – but it was a great picnic!).

So anyway, there I was running with these drow after me, hell-bent on carving me up with those super-sharp swords of theirs, when what the heck happens – I trip over a root! Not only that, I tripped and went falling head over heels down a fairly steep slope, rolling and tumbling (good thing my backpack’s well-made or it would have torn off!) all the way to the bottom, where this path existed. I came to an abrupt halt with a loud “oomph!!!” (HEY! YOU try rolling a hundred feet or so down a virtual cliff and see how you turn out!).

There was a campfire on this path, and two men (around 20 or so, both identical hotties! – oh! Blonde hair, muscles on muscles, perfect teeth, tanned… I could go on and on <sigh>) sitting around roasting squirrels and having a conversation along the lines of “I think that rock would be a good weight to do our workout tonight.” They had a weird accent – like they were barbarians or something, but usually barbarians are like bandits – unwashed and smelly! These two were clean and looked very respectable. Amazingly, neither one of them seemed to even notice that a gorgeous babe had just practically landed at their feet! I could hear the soft patter of drow feet coming down the cliff behind me (MAN, don’t they EVER give up!), so I decided it was time to play the damsel in distress – I’m pretty good at bluffing when I need to!

“Oh thank goodness,” I said, running up to the guy with the sword, “I’m so glad I stumbled upon you! Can you help me, please? There’s a bunch of drow after me!”

Both of them looked at me, and paused.

Come on you two, what’s the deal?

The guy with the sword looked me up and down. Smitten by my looks, no doubt, and speechless!

“By Tempus! A starving little girl! Look at how thin she is! We must feed her, my brother Hans!” He stood up, took me by the arm and basically forced me to sit at the fire, while he and Hans shoved food into my mouth! Umm, HELLO!!!! Did you not hear what I said?

Don’t get me wrong – it was probably the best squirrel I’ve tasted, but now was NOT the time to be eating or enjoying the finer arts of the culinary profession. It was time to be drawing swords and getting ready for a showdown with disgusting, nasty, smelly dark elves (yeah, I HATE drow, maybe it’s because some people say I’m part drow since I have Amber/Red eyes and am so short and thin, and I resent it! Got a problem with that? At least my hair screams “not drow” – beautiful chestnut, down to my waist! And my complexion is a gorgeous naturally fair color, along with gorgeous round eyes a man could easily lose himself in! Uh hm, back to the story). And… Did he just say “little girl?”

“Electric Jolt!” and I hit him with the spell – a minor one, no major damage, ya know. Just enough to hopefully knock him into reality. Did I mention I don’t need components for spells (another one of my superior talents!)? And I know I didn’t mention that while I lose my sorceress powers, I retain those of an Evoker (my other profession), though my Evoker powers are pretty pitiful (Magic Missile is the best I can manage).

“Must be this dry weather – too much static electricity. Sorry if I jolted you, little girl.”

What the *@%^? Is this guy for REAL? How clueless can you get? I swallowed my rising anger (not an easy thing for me to do, since the drow were now only about 30 seconds from bursting out of the brush and attacking us), and tried again.

“Please good sirs,” I said, putting on my best and most winning smile, with a tear at the corner of each eye (okay, so I can be a ham when I want to, so what?), “There are evil dark elves chasing me! You must help me and save me from them! Please!”

It was as if the word “evil” threw a switch somewhere in the gruel this guy obviously had where his brain should have been. He looked at me and his eyes got all bright and excited (I would have figured just LOOKING at me would have done that, but… wait a minute – is this guy gay?).

“Evil! Where? Come Hans! Let us fight for righteousness and truth!” The other guy (who had a big mace, by the way), seemed just as excited.

“Yes, my brother Franka! By Tempus we shall destroy the evil!” And that was when all hell broke loose, in a manner of speaking. The drow came rushing out, swords and those nasty little crossbows all ready to go.

Now before I describe the battle, I want to say I was flabbergasted by these two brothers. Why, you ask? Simple – Tempus is a Chaotic god of battle and berserkers (and barbarians), NOT someone a Paladin (and that, judging from his response to “evil,” is what Franka was) would normally hold as a patron deity. I wasn’t even sure if Tempus would ACCEPT a paladin into his ranks (a chaotic and neutral god, with a lawful and good worshipper?), but who knows? My patron is Mystra (in her third incarnation), who is neutral and good, but allows anyone to hold her as patron, so maybe Tempus would do so as well (I have another “patron” so to speak, but we’ll get to that later). Now on to the action!

Well, my first action was pretty simple – get the heck behind the two meat shields I’d just picked up! I know, I know, sounds mean, but I’m not that great with a blade or a staff, and the idea of being chopped up and diced by darkies just isn’t my thing. I jumped back, while the brothers dim leapt forward (what an idiot cleric! He could have cast a bless or something first!), and began casting my first spell – “Shield” – one of the best when it comes to deflecting nasty pointy little bolts covered in sleep venom. Five to three odds, or, actually more like five to two and a half (since I wasn’t fully here, so to speak). I figured we’d manage if either of these two could actually fight as well as they were built.

Franka got the first kill right after my shield went up. One drow thought he’d be cute and try to flank him, but stepped a wee bit close and CHOP!! Off came an arm to the sword, which swept back up to face the other drow in front of Franka. Hans had two for himself, and the last drow was still after little ol’ me (must have been smitten by my looks and wanted to carry me back to the underdark – hehehe!). I was soon far too busy defending myself to pay much attention to the rest of the fighting, since this one darkie was just fast.

His first shot was with his crossbow, so I moved the shield directly toward him and kept it there. The little bolt with the greenish paste on the tip glanced off. I was glad there weren’t more drow, since shield only protects 180 degrees at a time. My turn was next, and I fired my “big” spell, “Magic Missile!” The pink bolt shot through the air and hit him square in the chest (yes, my color is pink – laugh at your peril!). It did the typical thing I expected – started to fizzle, then slammed into him (I’m pretty good at getting past spell resistance, though not as good with my Evoker stuff, I’d honestly figured it would fizzle out!). He staggered but looked alive and now, well, really pissed off. He charged me. I did the best thing I could think of – moved backwards as far as I could and drew my sword – though from the way he held his rapier I knew I wasn’t going to have much luck fighting him that way. It did at least keep some distance between us, though my meat shields were a fair distance away now.

We squared off for a couple of passes. I barely managed to avoid getting impaled, even took a minor cut on my leg, but I was alive. I hadn’t even scratched him. Then I had an idea. The problem was I’d already used all but one of my Evoker spells, other than cantrips. Since I didn’t figure the darkie wanted me to discuss ancient history or religion or something with him, Ancient Knowledge wasn’t going to do me a heck of a lot of good. That left a few minor little things and one of them was – now if I can just pull this off without becoming a Lina-kabob!

“Caltrops!!” I was ready for his attack, so he didn’t get a freebie – all that concentration training sure comes in handy for us Art practitioners! A bunch of caltrops appeared right under his feet. He nimbly stepped through them and stabbed, hitting me again – a minor flesh wound again, but they add up over time, and I HATE pain!

Now it was time for my coup-de-grace. I dropped down on one leg, stuck my other one out wide, and spun, aiming for the drow’s legs. Of course I’m not trained to do this so I felt an agonizing pain as his rapier pierced my back, but I felt satisfied when I heard a “thump” and a scream from him! He stood up a second later with an agonized look on his face (I was still on the ground, wondering what the heck I’d do if this didn’t work), turned and then fell face first. I could see the caltrops sticking out of his back – MISSION ACCOMPLISHED. I kicked him hard in the head as I passed (and of course looted some coins and a few potions from his body first) and ran back to find out how tweedledee and tweedledum were doing. I’d kinda gotten them into this mess, so I figured I needed to make sure they lived – they had been nice to me, after all.

They were wandering around on the far side of the little clearing, calling “Little Girl! Little Girl! It’s safe to come out now! We beat them! Come out, Little Girl!”

FIRST of all, “Little Girl” is NOT a name I like to be called. SECOND, how DUMB can you be, not to have even been aware of which direction your friend ran off in. UGH! I could feel a headache and stomach ache coming on with these two!

“I’m over here! I got the last one!” I smiled brightly at them, reminding myself to be nice – they HAD saved my life, basically. They walked over.

“Ah! Hans, she is injured!” Franka took me in his arms.

“HEY!! PUT ME DOWN!!!”

He ignored me and then laid me down by the fire. Hans started casting a healing spell.

“Really, I’m fine, I’ve got a potion of my own in my pack. We should get out of here now, in case more drow are following me.” My pleading was in vain, and I felt the pleasant sensation of the spell heal up all the wounds – nothing left but the bloodstains and a few tears in my outfit. At least he could heal.

Well, the brothers dim and I, after urging them to take the squirrel meat with them and move as far away as possible, looted the bodies and headed off down the road. We marched all night and into the day.

I’d told them my name, but they didn’t recognize it, so I decided to keep my sorceress abilities hidden for now. Man these guys must have been from far away! We continued South (they wanted to go North, and fight the Zhents! What kind of idiots are they?), at my insistence, and hit the Moonsea Ride, then Southwest for Ashabenaford. Why there? Glad you asked.

Ya see, last time I’d been in Shadowdale, I’d heard about this new group of bandits robbing travelers on the Ride. Just last year Naga and I’d cleaned up the area, but then she went off West and I went home for a bit, so I guess the unwashed decided it was safe to come back – boy were they going to be surprised! Unfortunately we made it to Ashabenaford unmolested (or maybe fortunately, since now I could wait for my powers to return, hehehe).

The three of us had pretty much become friends in the tenday or so we were together. I found out a lot about them, they found out I was a sorceress – the innkeep, Holfast, at the White Hart, recognized me! I’m kinda hard to miss in my outfit, but then that’s why I wear it. I had to explain like ten times why I didn’t fry the darkies (they’d never heard of “that time of the month”), but at least when they found out I defeated evil bandit gangs, I think I shot up greatly in their estimation. Though they did have to stop calling me “Little Girl!” <FINALLY!!!> I still got tired of them forcing me to carry rocks in my hands and swing my arms up and down while we marched – ack!!! My hands will get all rough and I might chip a nail! I solved that problem easily. Explaining to them I couldn’t use a sword very well (though I didn’t tell them I intend to learn how! Possibly free lessons from Franka – he IS nice and VERY good looking, though also very dim, hmmm – ya can’t have everything, right?), I bought a finely crafted, iron-and-brass shod quarterstaff with my share of the loot from the drow. Heavy, yes, but not rough like a rock (and I actually CAN use it in a fight!).

Altogether we stayed at the White Hart until the 12th of Mirtul. Then we heard that a group of masked bandits had just robbed a caravan coming in from the East. They named themselves the “Ladykillers.” How pretentious! The Riders were planning on looking for them, but since they knew me, I persuaded them to give me a tenday to hunt them down on my own. I outfitted my new group with the finest fake and rich looking trappings I cared to spend money on, and the three of us set out on the afternoon of the 12th, to find and destroy the “Ladykillers” bandit gang!