Run Like Hell 1/2/23 Sorrel Darkfire

(Author’s note. In gathering the many and various accounts of the career of Sorrel Darkfire I have discovered a number of overlapping and – in some cases – contradictory retellings of the same events.

The encounters discussed below include many such overlaps. To spare the reader the harrowing, tedious and in some cases downright dangerous task of perusing all such stories I have included a series of magical portals that will transport you – should you have the courage and inclination – to the versions I find the most convincing.

I should warn you that there is very little that will enlighten or enrich you in these tales. Many people die. Happiness is fleeting. Sorrow abounds. As does lust. All in all, the best advice I can give is to look away. Sorrel Darkfire’s story will only get nastier. You have been warned. Read no further. (^1))

(^1 In some cases I have added footnotes to this document to expand on tedious matters of detail that may be useful or may not. They don’t appear elsewhere for obvious reasons. Read them if you must. I find them depressing.)

Sorrel had been followed for two days by someone who was making no secret of it.

She recognised the House tactics – an average passive static covert surveillance team would consist of somewhere around 14 operatives. They’d spend days establishing your routine from a distance until they knew where you’d be before you did. You wouldn’t see anything.

But she knew she was being watched.

Which meant she was supposed to know.

Eventually she was shoulder checked on a street in Daring Heights and found a note with an address slipped into hear weapon belt.

“The Silver Serpent Inn, Graveside, Tuesday night. Bring the envelope.”

The envelope Callimar had given her just before the Gith came. The envelope she still hadn’t opened.

So, they were coming for her. Why? Revenge? Unlikely. The House didn’t make appointments to kill you. The first you knew of it was when you were dead.

So this was something more then. But not a job. She’d turned Callimar down – only the Master was Callimar’s senior. Only the Master would attempt to override a refusal. But that was impossible. Unless there was more at work here than… surely not…

Either way, walking into that Inn alone would be like spreading your money out on a street corner and hoping it would still be there when you returned. Because the problem with troubleshooting is that trouble usually shoots back.

She thought hard about who she would want at her back, then sat on the Temple steps to write four carefully phrased letters and summoned four fey ravens to deliver them for her.

Then she prayed.

---

The letters duly arrived, were read and responded to with frankly astonishing speed. The cream of Daring Heights society prepared to abandon their tasks, senses and possibly lives… who can understand loyalty?



Derthaad, I hope you don’t mind me writing to you. We’ve been comrades in arms almost since I got to Kantas and we’ve seen some insane things together, you and I.

Remember the corpse flowers in the forest? Kitting out for the Gith in the Runaway Library? The strange adventure of Kavel’s Island?

So, I have a favour to ask you. I have an old employer – just the sort of people an honest investigator like you would hate. They specialise in violence, espionage and protection for a price. They are very good. They are very expensive. They are coming for me.

I thought I’d left, but they have a job for me. It’s more complicated and much more dangerous than that but it’ll do for now.

I don’t want to compromise your moral position, but I would love to have you at my back if it turns nasty.

I cannot stress enough how dangerous this will be. The only thing that gives me any encouragement is that if they wanted to kill me I would already be dead.

I can’t say any more in writing – although they will have already read this by now and guessed any strategy we might employ.

If you will stand by me for old time’s sake, please meet me at the Cannonfodder Cafe in Graveside. We will head for the Silver Serpent Inn nearby.

Make any preparations you need.

Feel free to turn me down. I will not think any less of you. It is an insane request I make.

Your comrade

Sorrel Darkfire


---


Kavel. My brother. They are coming. I need you. Come to Silvia's. S.


---


Zola – dancer, warrior, lover and mystic I am sorry that I have not been more help to you in your time of trouble. I am not good, sometimes, at expressing myself and I have not asked about your wounds or your heartbreak.

In part, this is because they are too close to my own pain. And now my pain returns. A darkness from my past reaches out to claim me.

Once, a million years ago, I ran up to you in a square and asked for your help and your soul was torn apart so I do not expect you to say yes twice.

All the same, you are the finest at swordplay of any warrior I have met – and I may be facing the second best today. It is dangerous, it has consequences I cannot predict and… well, just like last time. But no fiends. I’m almost certain.

If you will come, I will be at the Cannonfodder Cafe.

I have no right to hope to see you there

Sorrel


---

Dear Itzal,

I feel I owe you an explanation after our journey with Zola. You had on your person a bracelet with the symbol of an organisation that owns my parent’s debt of honour and so, in a way, owns me.

I was shocked to see the Hand of the House here in Kantas. I did not think its fingers reached this far.

Now they beckon me, and I stand alone. I have asked some good friends to help. I hope this is not too forward of me – Kavel speaks very highly of you, and I feel you may learn enough to assuage both your curiosity and frustration.

I must warn you that it could be very dangerous. This organisation deals only in death.

If you would learn more, please meet me at the Cannonfodder Cafe in Graveside.

Yours in haste

S Darkfire


Flashback

Thirty six years ago.

A distant ocean, an island, a small boat big enough for two people and a lot of stolen property pulled up on the white sand.

Two people arguing.

Leonas, the slender mischief maker… half elf, half drunk, halfway out of his mind.

Elsa, the sinews of a sailor, hands made hard by salt and sand and wood and war. The kind of woman who could board your boat and make you feel grateful you only lost everything you owned.

They are scared. Really scared. Angry scared, can’t think straight scared, just letting words pour out of their mouths. The love is in their eyes but its draining away.

Finally, they agree. They will do the deal. They have no choice.

And so, it is done.

The Cannon Fodder café. Present day.

According to the guidebooks “there are few places more charming in Daring Heights than a small table at Cannonfodder Cafe on a glorious day. Sitting on the rooftop terrace, bordered by low fencing painted white and covered in ivy and other climbing plants, customers can look out over the peaceful, though sad, fields of Daring Cemetery, down the hillside and other houses and buildings that make up lower Graveside and on to the vast stretches of canopy off into the horizon of Feythorn Forest..."

Perhaps.

Kavel and Sorrel walked there in silence, close together, in each other’s safety zone, scanning all the time.

Hurt one, hurt both.

Flee from one, flee from both.

When they slid carefully through the door, Itzal, Derthad and Zola were waiting. Sorrel nodded at each, and they nodded back. Words were not the tools these warriors traded in.

They ordered and after the food arrived Sorrel spoke.

“When I was 16 my parents sold me to an organisation called the House. I think it had a longer name in the years of its founding, but over time it proved unnecessary. When an organisation performs at a certain level it secures a monopoly. The Master* of the House has always recruited the young to train them to fall in love with the House.”

“Sorrel, this sounds like a cult,” Derthad cut in.

“I mean… I don’t think it’s a classic cult, more like a deadly assassin sex family,” Sorrel replied. She considered her words. “Yeah, maybe a little bit culty.”

“What does this have to do with now?” Kavel leaned paused in the middle of his enormous meal.

“I sort of left. It was after I went rogue,” Sorrel explained. “I had no parents, I lost my team, my lover had been murdered and I… let’s just say I sought a revenge that was so extreme that the House wasn’t sure it wanted me back.”

(Author’s note. There are so many accounts of the wars Sorrel fought in that brevity and sanity counsel against including them)

“What could be so extreme that the House was uncomfortable?” Kavel rumbled.

“The House is responsible for ensuring or preventing deaths specifically stated in the contract,” Sorrel gave a wry smile. “I went above and beyond the terms of the contract.” She thought for a moment. “By quite some way…”

The others shifted uncomfortably.

“So, what’s the plan?” Zola politely changed the subject and Sorrel flashed a grateful smile.

“I was thinking we spread out and surround the Inn, taking different routes to cover the exits,” Sorrel began.

“I know the place,” Itzal’s voice was cool and firm. “We don’t pull any fancy stuff, don’t cause a ruckus, just walk in like normal people. Zero drama. Zero.”

A moment’s silence. Five chairs scraped back. The café door slammed shut. Silence returned.

Size isn’t everything

As they crossed Graveside Kavel kept checking rooftops to see if they might be being watched. Derthaad checked the kids playing in the streets. His practised eye noted the spotters for at least five gangs and knew that he was definitely being watched.

The Inn was studiously normal, as if it had been painted into place. Only three things suggested any peril – every single customer was clearly keenly aware that Derthaad was worth keeping an eye on, every single eye was turned away from them and the barman was a goliath so tall he made Kavel look like a halfling on a school trip.

Actually. four things. The goliath’s eyes were jet black orbs of darkness without iris or pupil – just the infinite pitch of eternal night.

“Hello fellow goliath!” Kavel boomed as he strode cheerfully to the bar. “You are so tall, perhaps you are Iron Strong too?”

The silence was so deafening it might crush unwary ears and the pause was so pregnant octuplets were on the way.

Sorrel knew what was coming. She threw back her shoulders, ordered a shot of raw Chult spirit and felt it sear her throat, shivered and dropped her invitation on the bar.

“In the back room,” the goliath intoned, and his face flickered with what might have been fear. “Sooner you than me.”

The Shadow of the Past

Sorrel’s first lesson at the House had been her ABC. Assume nothing. Believe nothing. Check everything.

The Tiefling was beautiful in the way a predator is as they glide towards their prey – no movement wasted, no glance without meaning. Pale as death and elegant as a marble tomb she watched them enter, nodding as she noted the order of their arrival and lighting up briefly as her eyes passed across Kavel.

The party took up positions, spread far enough apart to avoid explosives and with enough spacing that flanking would be simple.

“The drinks are on the house,” her voice drifted lazily from her perfect lips. “I recommend the ale.”

Sorrel bowed. The drinks arrived,

In silence they nursed their tankards, each waiting for the other to make the first move.

Sorrel took the time to check their host, opening her senses – the look, the smell, the vestigia of her. And there, in the ripples of uncertain energy that still clung to her, was the essence of the Dark Basement. It was as good as a personal letter of introduction. This was an operative. They knew Callimar. And they knew other, dark things.

The Tiefling watched them carefully until it was almost too uncomfortable not to speak.

“Callimar is hurt,” she let the words fall from her mouth like tombstones, her voice cold as the grave. “I am offended on his behalf. But I wanted to see for myself why so many people trembled or clenched their fists when little Sorrel Darkfire’s name came up.”

“I have nothing but respect for the dean of the Dark College,” Sorrel began.

“He is in contention to be Master,” the Tiefling drawled. Sorrel’s eyes briefly flickered before she gathered control of her features and the Tiefling glowed with pleasure. “You did not know?”

Sorrel had lost this hand, they both knew it, so she dropped her bluff.

“You have the advantage,” she nodded.

“Then you will be unaware that you are in consideration to take Callimar’s position. And your mother is dead. She left you this.”

A large scroll of paper in her clawed hand.

Sorrel kept a tight hold of every muscle in her body, using the waiting techniques of the midnight rooftop to prevent a tremor or a blink. She was immobile, her face unmoved.

“Your mother made a deal,” the Tiefling was relentless in her assault on Sorrel’s defences. “She paid for the deal with your labour, Sorrel Darkfire. Imagine that. Two jobs for you to carry out in payment – and payment to be made right now. It’s so funny, wouldn’t you agree? Your parents sell you and then, with your mothers’ dying breath, she makes a second deal with the House, couldn’t make good on the payment for a second time. And so you are ours again.”

“Who are you?” Zola leaned forward, choosing their angle carefully so that Castor and Pollux flashed in the candlelight.

“I am Specialist Yhsa Al'astor,” the Tiefling preened briefly.

“You are new to the House?” Sorrel frowned.

“I have been there almost as long as you,” Yhsa Al'astor gave a small smile and turned to Zola. “The only difference between Sorrel and me is that my loyalty is clear.”

“Then I am impressed,” Sorrel let her guard fall with good reason. “I trained under Callimar for… a long time… and I did not hear of you.”

“And yet I know all about you – the difference between subtlety and rage. Do you still have your little issue with children?” Al'astor rested her head on one side as if in concerned enquiry. “Little Sorrel Darkfire was famous for her squeamishness where the young were concerned.”

“I will not kill children if that is the job,” Sorrel’s jaw clenched.

“Relax, my little mother hen, it’s quite the other way,” Al'astor drawled. “The target is Lasai Edan. He is a mage of some kind. He’s working on a spell or something – aren’t they all? Such nerds. And he’s kidnapping children off the street to conduct experiments on them,” Al'astor sounded bored. “He is yet to learn the true equation between fear and power. And if you do your job right he never will. Seems right up your little do-gooder alleyway, no?”

“Where?”

“Kundar. He’s very. very dangerous. You could easily be killed. Just like the good old days. Here’s the sending stone. One use. Report when the job’s done.”

Sorrel turned to her friends. “I can’t ask you to come with me,” she began.

“Shut up Sorrel,” Zola snorted. “Of course we will.”

“We are not leaving you,” Derthaad added.

Sorrel felt her muscles shaking and her heart thundering. Facing down the Tiefling had been easy. Her poker face even survived her mother’s death. But the kindness of her friends… she turned away so that her tears would not be seen in the flickering candlelight.

Kavel must have noticed his sister’s discomfort. He asked questions about the deal, Sorrel’s contract and other administrative matters. The Tiefling’s attention was undivided. She was clearly fascinated – for better or worse – by the goliath.

Sorrel hurried them out of the Inn towards Portal Plaza.

The Perfect Heist

It was a wealthy house in an expensive part of the city. The architect had designed everything very carefully to look just as if it were a simple, elegant town villa. Only expert eyes could see the defensive structures and reinforcements that made this a small fortress. The party had expert eyes.

“We need reconnaissance,” Sorrel whispered, weaving fey magic around herself, Itzal and Kavel – the ones without metal armour – and they ranged around the edge of the target. They saw a man resting on a sofa, not matching Edan’s description. Large parts of the house were hidden from view, making numbers hard to judge – and Sorrel could see few signs of children. She wondered about infiltration. Perhaps a combination of disguise and invisibility would allow…

The crash of Itzal kicking open the front door disturbed her planning. She nocked an arrow to her bow and muttered an ancient enchantment reaching out to the powers of the storm.

Itzal had engaged a guard, a lithe warrior with a blazing katana style sword who was taking damage from their spiritual guardians but had managed to set the young monk ablaze. Sorrel sent the storm cursed arrow deep into his chest, following up rapidly with two more shafts in shoulder and gut. The look on his face was almost comical until Derthaad’s magic summoned a golem which bludgeoned the hapless sentry into pulp.

So far so good.

Then Sorrel heard Zola whisper a spell, calling up her spirit allies.

Sorrel held her breath.

Since the battle at the river of fire, Zola’s magic had summoned Ophanim, her fiendish lover. Sorrel wasn’t sure if this was a manifestation of the fiend or an echo of Zola’s love.

Either way, it wasn’t good. Zola seemed to have misunderstood what ghosting your ex actually meant.

But this time, the spirits were three young female warriors. Zola’s blessing must have worked. Sorrel prayed this was permanent. And then they went in.

House Rulebook 

There are strict House rules for entering urban environments and clearing a house of hostiles. Secure the corridor, hall or street entrance. Deploy a hard knock spell to blow open the door then send a mage or eldritch knight to toss a fireball or two into the room. Two melee experts enter at speed after the moment of detonation, taking positions either side of the door, allowing a wide field of fire from the door for archers and targeted ranged spells to pick off or injure any visible opponents. Melee troops engage. Team leader calls ‘clear’ and the unit moves on.

The unit moves in tight formation, at high speed. Each room is cleared before the next is assaulted. Rules of engagement remain consistent with standard operating procedures. Ammunition, spell and casualty checks after each ingress.

Kantas rules were different. Essentially someone kicks the door open, and everyone steams in, smashes up and burns down… Kavel was off up a flight of stairs to find not much, Itzal soloed a door and was poisoned by a trap, Zola used misty step to power ahead of the unit, Derthaad used dimension door to pass through an unscouted wall and Sorrel heard the unmistakeable crackle of ferocious magical combat from behind the wall.

It was chaos.

Somehow the rolling maul swamped the defending forces. Zola’s battle fury took her past the primary defensive line, whist Kavel’s powerful leap took him over the primary defensive line.

Itazal engaged the forward guard, hands moving faster than the eye could see, but the flames of the two sentries blazing katanas doing some serious damage.

Sorrel took up a tight sniping position, took out one sentry, took a low run forward and sent an arrow into the throat of the second.

The Endgame

Lasai Edan had all but given up. Derthaad was hurt, but barely, and as Sorrel stepped through the door she saw Castor and Pollux blaze into Edan’s staggering form.

His bodyguard fled – springing traps behind him as bolts of force thudded into the party, but lasting just seconds as Itzal finished him off almost casually.

Hostiles neutralised. Just two problems. No kids, and the house was burning down. Those katanas just kept blazing.

Eventually Sorrel and Zola found a door to a room covered in ritual runes where the bones of the young were scattered like the table waste of a devil. Sorrel’s gaze drifted across the fractured bones and burst ribcages. She had seen magic like this once before and she knew the unspeakable pain these children had felt as they passed.

She gagged briefly, held Zola’s arm and between them they gathered every trace of the foul necromancer’s victims, Sorrel singing the Song of Welcome from Selûne’s midnight rituals.

Derthaad taook the carefully wrapped remains and promised to secure a proper burial at Kundar’s temples.

With such booty as they could find from the wizards corpse, the party made it out of the house before the roof caved in. Sorrel sent her message to Yhsa Al'astor, who sounded impressed at the team’s speed.

“Maybe you are Sorrel Darkfire after all,” Al'astor drawled.

Fortunately, it was a one use only stone. Sorrel’s fury at the corpses of the children needed an outlet and her reply was only bitten off by the limitations of the magic.

“Further instruction can be found at your house,” Al'astor finished up. “We will be in touch.”

Aftermath

Sorrel wasn’t prepared for the feelings that bubbled up inside her as she stood in Portal Plaza.

Her mother was dead. She was not supposed to die so soon. Sorrel had sworn never to speak to her again but assumed that one day she would. If she were hanged on the highest hill, would her mother have cut her down? If she were drowned in the deepest sea, would her mother’s tears come down through the waters to soothe her? If she were damned of body and soul, would her mother pray to make her whole?

She tried to find words for something so lost, for those long childhood afternoons that vanished so completely - and to understand why. She could not say what it all meant, that life that passed without reunion.

“Back then, when nothing happened, I had no idea what life was,” she thought. “Now I am as lonely as a shepherd, overburdened by vast distances, and summoned and stirred from far away to return to a life that was never mine. Mother, look at me. Look at what I have done. And what I want to know is - how do you like your pretty little girl now, Madame Death?”


Appendices and Other Matters Best Ignored 

* Although the title Master is in the masculine, over the life of the house men have been in the minority when it comes to filling the post.

The word Master itself is left over from the House founder Alo-Eddelin who, towards the end of his days, was engaged in Certain Arts and, awkwardly for all concerned, became a lich.

This was not only embarrassing but very bad for business.

In the end, the Council recruited a specialist team of assassins and high-level wizards who slew Alo-Eddelin, froze his crystal phylactery, shattered it into a million tiny pieces and invented an entirely new spell of protection and concealment to disperse and hide the fragments with a novel form of magic specifically designed to survive the destructive force of the average Armageddon.

No paper records were kept and the spell itself was created and committed only to the memory of the wizards involved. On completing this difficult, dangerous and amazingly highly skilled task, the Council held a celebratory dinner where an illithid devoured the wizard’s brains.

At the after party, a team of assassins dismembered the illithid in a sealed room protected by an anti-magic shield, the Council pushed a lever, the floor slid back and 12 young red dragons devoured the assassins and the mind flayers corpse.

Once the dragons had been given time to digest their food, they were slaughtered by clay golems, their corpses dissolved in acid, the resulting goo dried out and burned and then the ashes were scattered at random across a range of planes. The golems, naturally, were dissolved in a wide variety of fast moving rivers across a number of continents.

After that, the council felt relatively sure the Master would not return.

All the same, a symbolic phylactery remains in the council meeting chamber with the words “We Serve in Waiting for Thy Return” written above it in mithril just in case Alo-Eddelin returns. And to remind whoever the current Master may be of the temporary nature of power.


Concerning The House – it is strongly suggested that you avoid reading this…

The House is believed to have had a longer name in the years of its founding, but over time it proved unnecessary. When an organisation performs at a certain level it secures a certain brand monopoly.

The House was founded by the first Master Alo-Eddelin in the back streets of Calimport offering exquisite services to discerning clientele.

So successful was the organisation that it acquired great wealth and envious attention, so Alo-Eddelin moved the House to a beautiful valley between two lofty mountains in [REDACTED]. There he created a garden, with every delicious fruit tree and fragrant shrub that could be procured. Palaces were built around the grounds, ornamented with gold, fine paintings, and furniture of rich silks. By means of small conduits, streams of wine, milk, honey, and pure water flowed in every direction.

Organogram 

The Master (see above)

The Council - consists of representatives from the 12 colleges, as well as the 13th College, whose job it is to prepare convincing arguments that every decision made by the Council is wrong. This follows one meeting where the Council was convinced the Valley was safe from attack 18 hours before dragon riders flew out of the sun. The 13th College is charged especially with opposing consensus.

The Palace of Love - the high steel ramparts and heavily fortified caves containing the barracks and library of the House’s active personnel. There are between 400 and 600 serving professionals at any one time, drawn from four squadrons: the Wise – mages, clerics and sorcerers; the Protectors - eldritch knights, samurai, monks and barbarians; the Investigators – spies, rogues, alchemists, and the Specialists – rangers, bards, vengeance paladins.

The 12 Colleges

The four Senior Colleges overseen by the four Principals

The College of Persuasion – dark magic and torture
The College of Protection – violence
The College of Discovery – deception and science
The College of Wisdom – magic

The two Colleges of Care receive the most funding. No-one complains.

The College of Delight – the sensual arts
The College of Prayer – clerics, healing, genetic modifications

The five Administrative Colleges are largely concerned with House business

The College of Learning – oversees House spy networks in the known planes
The College of Plenty – accounts and debt collection
The College of Communication – propaganda, telekinesis and mind control
The College of Welcome – recruitment and training
The College of Sharing – bribery, hiring of mercenaries and spies

The College of Rest – undead stuff. The House prefers not to discuss this.

The 13th College has occupied a number of different palaces in the valley as its size has grown. Initially staffed by just one especially argumentative and pedantic gnome, it took about three meetings for the principals of the other colleges to realise how powerful and dangerous the role was.

The 13th College now houses a heavily armed bodyguard, an excellent research team and - through convenience - the House legal department which has grown so large that the 13th College occupies more space than any other College. Out of respect for tradition, much of this space is concealed in a demi-plane with a hidden entrance at the back of a disused cupboard in a damp basement guarded by leopards.

There are also the Wild Rooms where horses, hippogriffs, poisonous snakes, minor fiends and the like are housed and trained.

The College is happy to accept collateral against debts whilst regularly recruiting the children of the ruling elites and has thus acquired extensive land and property across the known world, none of which is actually known to belong to the House by anyone sane enough to retain the memory.

The House is thus entirely self-sufficient in food and more than self-sufficient in drink for thirst is a dangerous thing. If it does not own property in a city, it establishes local partnerships so that clients, money, notes, contracts… indeed almost anything can be moved surreptitiously from anywhere to anywhere else almost instantly.

The training garden

The first College is closed off from the rest in the Kinder Garden. Here the most beautiful plants are not the most deadly, the weapons are made of wood and the spells merely cantrips. For three months the recruits train in the basic arts – sword, spell, strength, subtlety, sneaking, striking, supposing and seeing.

Students almost never die here and those that do are generally assumed to have removed themselves from the gene pool for the benefit of future generations. The House believes in and honours all the gods, but also has a firm grasp on the principles of evolution.

Sorrel Will Be Back...

If they’re coming, better come at me directly
Glad I got my friends here to defend me
Fuck those who know me who don't know I’m bad
They bout to find out I'm the best they ever had.
I’m like venom.
I’ll make you wish you were dead.
I’m like venom.