Help Us (All) Hope - Sheryl, the Fae-Touched - 3.12.2019

---

A horn, strong and clear, calls out from beyond the ruined city of Nrav'Garat. Everyone falls still – goblins, giants, ogres, and adventurers alike. A melodious voice is cut short by its call.

A call to stop fighting and return home.

The energy of the battlefield is still at soaring heights however. Sheryl sees the goblin leader looking at her and then at the large half-orc, Gegrun, his magical shield protecting him with the words, BE KIND, rotating around him. The small toothy Shunned grips his pathetic little sword and swallows nervously.

“Leave,” she says, grabbing his attention, her voice dripping with power.

He doesn’t have to be told twice. Taking the cue from their leader they flee not looking back. Gregun looks at Sheryl questioningly, but she shakes her head.

Sheryl exhales and lets the Fey magics flow out of her. To look at her the others – Mathew and Arkadius in particular – might notice she still has a soft summer glow about her. She turns to her friends to see if they are alright. Arkadius is helping Mathew to stand. She looks at the weasel draped across her shoulders and Arkadius’ familiar Ida pokes her little head out from her hair. Sheryl smiles softly and gives the cute little beast a scratch under her chin and it squeaks appreciatively.

She turns back to where the fire giant lays. Taz is going over to look at its smouldering armour and her mouth turns down in a frown. If only the horn had blown sooner. Another person’s blood soaking into the ground of this windblown country. Another pointless death.

Her fingers caress one of the strings on her new harp, feeling the celestial power of the unicorn that gave it’s hair to become part of this magical instrument. Plucking it she casts a message across the distance, sending her words directly into the mind of the one she wishes to speak to.

Sunday! It’s Sheryl. I’m alive and safe. Hardly a scratch on me. We heard a horn here. I think that means it’s over… Are you alright?

There is a pause and she gets the impression of relief in the mental connection they are briefly sharing.

Sheryl… It’s good to hear you are safe. Yes, I am alive, currently in Za’Suul. The giants are leaving… I hope-

The connection is broken suddenly and a feeling of unease trickles down Sheryl’s spine between her wings. Her fingers start tingling as the harp in her hands starts to hum a silent chord. She looks at it and notices the body of it has a glow it didn’t have before.

What’s going on? Why would- she starts to wonder, but that is when it happens.

Orange lines shoot up from the ground, lighting up the carnage of the ruined city with an infernal light. Sheryl looks at her bandmates and Arkadius shouts, “It’s not me!” looking just as frantic and shocked as the rest of them. She sees the blood from the slain ogres, fire giant, goblins and her still wounded companions being drawn to these burning orange lines, sizzling into a red vapour as they come in contact with them.

Oh no...

Then they hear it, clear and foreboding in its vastness, speaking to them all, everyone who is still alive in Nrav'Garat and probably across all of K’ul Goran. A dropping sensation hits her stomach as the words are burned into her mind.


THE GROUND IS SATED.


There’s one final arcane surge of power that Sheryl feels all the way from the base of her feet to the tips of her ears, and then it ends. The stillness across the ruined city echoes in the emptiness left behind and her friends - Mace, Taz, Gegrun, Wil, Arkadius and Mathew - look at each other, uncertainty mingled with a slow, creeping dread. Sheryl clutches her harp closer to her and her brow furrows in worry.

Oh great Queen of the Fae... what are we going to do?