Shanice’s Chapter I: Three Types of Strength
I’ve decided to keep this book as a diary journal of sorts. It can help me calm down and gather my thoughts like it did earlier today. Maybe it would be helpful to have some kind of record of what I see out here in the world as well. It may be useful to be able to look back.
3 Mirtul, 1368 DR
When I returned to the group, Imoen was quick to welcome me. Her hand found itself on my cheek, probably before she even realised she was doing so. It was a gesture I responded to by pulling her into an embrace. This girl in her pink clothes, she has no idea how much she has meant to me up to this point, and perhaps even more so how much she means to me now. She’s the only part of Candlekeep I get to keep with me, but even just putting that into words makes me feel ungrateful. She’s so much more than just a piece of an old castle, even if it is our childhood home.
Xzar seemed busy running his hands all over body as part of some story he was telling Montaron, but his demeanor changed once he saw me. His hands stopped moving, pressed down along his sides. It looked like he was forcing himself to stay his body language in my presence.
“I’m so sorry!” he shouted in a tone much higher than I had heard him speak before, mere moments away from my face. “When I saw those jaws on you, I knew I should have done something sooner!”
I instinctively put my hand on my throat, feeling the skin roughened after the wounds. The potion may have closed my skin, but scars remained. With my fingers still following the hurt skin, I asked him what he could have done. His hands started moving, as if broken free from an invisible restraint and celebrating the moment.
“I know a bit of magic, I do!” he said with a tone of highest pride. His voice would drop down to the Nine before he continued. “Still in training. But I can take the life-force of others and steal it for myself.”
Wizardry then. If Gorion had still been here, he would have had much to teach this Xzar. Gorion could repair things I broke with a touch, and open doors whose keys were locked inside with a word. He also made this sourdough bread with just a little bit too much salt in it. Every time I complained, he would tell me that the salt was good for me. Like he was, himself.
With a sudden rush of energy, Xzar’s voice rose high in strength and pitch.
“It’s an old arcana left behind by Larloch! One of the few who survived the Great Fall! And his other-”
“That be enough, ye.” Montaron cut him off. “Magic’s impressive, but I ken we need get moving. If yer mouth must run then let them when yer legs do their part.”
Imoen smiled at the two and took quick steps forward, throwing a fist forward to inspire us all to walk. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought it was she who was used to travelling outside.
We kept walking, me and Imoen trying to not fall into conversations about the life we had just been left behind.
Hours later, just as I was starting to wonder why we were not running into any others, there was a man in red robes and an exaggeratedly pointy hat, like the one wizards wear in the tales. He was wondering where we were headed, and when I told him about us going to meet my father’s friends at the Friendly Arm, he acknowledged this as a fine idea. The man then set off toward Candlekeep, but when I thought to gather the courage to turn around and beg him to let me and Imoen follow him inside, he was nowhere to be seen…? Very fast for such old legs.
I doubt we would have been welcome either way, as grim as that sounds. Not to mention, there was that one man in the room by the stables. The man with the sad eyes. It feels wrong to admit, but I felt soothed knowing I made him bleed out on that floor. This must be what safety feels like after it has been robbed from you.
There was another encounter later on the road. There was a little child, all alone on the road. He would run from us when we approached, screaming something about bandits having toppled his parents’ carriage. I feel bad that we never managed to find this boy again. Imoen wanted to know what had happened to the boy’s family, and I agreed. Thus we started looking for their wagon.
What we found was an entire toppled caravan not far off the road. Food and gems which must have been meant for trading laid strewn across the area. Montaron said we should head back to the road, but me and Imoen wanted to get closer.
That’s when we saw it. A gigantic brute of a man, so big a single leg of his was not that much smaller than my entire frame! His jaw protruded out of his hairless head, and it was clear that he had noticed us already by the point I saw him. He held an oversized morning star, which looked too small for somebody of his stature, but it was a beast of a weapon I could not have held in two hands if I tried. That hammer of his must have broken the chairs on these wagons and felled them on their side. The glistening of sugary water running down his face in the sunlight told us we had interrupted him in the middle of a feast. An interruption he now charged at us to put a stop to.
His feet were not just huge, they were not just fast and loud, they were heavy enough that I could feel his approach from several yards away.
“This time there will be no waiting.” Xzar’s deep voice spoke confidently as he raised his quarterstaff in front of him. “I am become death, destroyer of worlds!”
As if the air itself was reacting to his shout and flicking wandering stick, a blue shine formed in front of him for a moment before being shot out against the giant.
“We ain’t outrunning ogres, friends!” Montaron yelled, with words sounding so carefully chosen it seemed he was continuing Xzar’s spell. He placed an arrow to his bow as he drew the weapon and sent a quick projectile into the creature’s shoulder.
With a burst of speed, Imoen already had an arrow nocked, sending it just after Montaron’s. It flew as if guided by the wind, lodging itself in the ogre’s eye socket. I drew my bloodied sword and felt a rush within me. Even a giant like this, we could take down anything if we tried. I approached it with quick steps, but its one eye seemed focused on the one who took out its other.
The thundering steps pulled the ogre forward, and my strike did not manage to find an opening in its leathery armour. And with the strength which could topple a caravan, it landed the spiky side of its weapon right over my childhood friend’s chest. All air left her lungs at once and she fell to the ground a few yards away from the creature after a hurl I don’t ever want her to go through again.
“Don’t let it catch ya!” Montaron cried. “If it reaches ye’ll be glad if ye see sundown!”
All the confidence I had felt moments before seeped out of my body like honey being crushed out of a comb. In less than a second, Imoen may have just died in front of me, and I learnt I could not approach the beast again. But with no skill with ranged weapons, nor any possession of one, that meant I was dead weight. When I had walked up to the ogre before, it could have taken my head in its hand and cracked my skull with the monstrous strength held within, and I did not even notice. Instead, Imoen was now on her back, coughing up blood.
“Vita, Mortis, careo.” Xzar spoke. Once more there was a shine born of nothing in front of him, and it charged deep into the ogre’s side. The screams that followed were inhuman, its lungs large enough to shake what we breathe. “That’s all I have. You will have to do the rest.”
The mage sounded defeated already. But I could not let Imoen die here. Against my better judgement, I leapt to the ogre and struck a blow across its back I did not put my weight behind. I didn’t attempt to hurt it, I wanted it to turn its attention to me as I continued to spin and started running away from it. With my back turned, I only hoped it would pursue me instead. There was no plan, not at that moment, just a desire to save my friend if I could.
Montaron loosed another arrow the ogre’s way as its steps screamed loud right behind me. It was on my tail, and in just another moment it may just grab my head, or possibly plant that giant hammer into my back the way it had done to Imoen. I thought of Montaron and how I wished I was small like him. His small, nimble body would have been much more difficult to hit than mine.
