Them's Fightin' Words 03.09.19 Baine
Sept 7, 2019 20:38:55 GMT
Varis/G'Lorth/Sundilar, Sunday, and 3 more like this
Post by Ser Baine Cinderwood 🔥🌼 on Sept 7, 2019 20:38:55 GMT
“Dear Thea.
Sunsets over Daring aren’t half bad either, turns out.”
Baine has dragged himself up to the roof again, his muscles protesting from the past days’ abuse. He dreads to think what he would feel like if he hadn’t tapped out in that first sparring match with Ghesh, Traavor and Bliss. (She was cheating anyway; who shows up to a sparring match and throws spells from a distance, honestly.)
From down in the yard Frankie gives a disgruntled little whine. Baine gives him a look.
“We’ve had this conversation. I love you but I am not carrying you up here. You will fall off and die,” he shouts down from his perch.
“Go bother Varis. He needs cheering up.”
Frankie sniffs and gives him the dirtiest look a dog can manage before trotting off.
The half-orc looks back out over the city.
The sky above is a cascade of colours, bright pink and orange turning into a matte blue where a handful of stars are already twinkling.
“This city isn’t half bad, you know. I thought I was going to stay in Port Ffirst forever, when I first came to Kantas. Just keep my room at the Shank and take the odd adventuring job and do fuck all besides that. And here I find myself calling the Crimson Fist compound ‘home’ and arguing to go on bloody quests I probably shouldn’t go on just to try and keep people, some of who are loads more powerful than me, safe. That’s what you do for family, I guess.
There’s a bit of a shitstorm kicking up around here, Thea. Sunday and Varis make enemies like it’s going out of style and now literal fiends of hell are up in arms and coming for them. Coming for us, I should say. I’m part of it, aren’t I.
We opened the compound to sparring for outsiders yesterday. Ghesh came, he’s been meaning to drop by for ages. Traavor and this girl named Bliss dropped by as well. We barely got through the first round before some girl comes running into the yard, yelling about the Refuge - Varis’s orphanage- being under attack from hellhounds. Yes, actual hellhounds.
We go fight them, easy peasy. Some other dudes show up and we fight them too - Sunday was there and even though one of them was again, a literal fiend from hell who was there for her, she just… destroyed him. One hit, boom. Done. Gods but she’s got juice that one. She wasn't even armed, just skipping around in a little dress and then she grew fucking tree claws from her hands, no big deal.
Anyway. We take the kids from the orphanage back to the compound but when we get there, there’s more hellhounds there. Then the girl who tipped us off about the hounds at the Refuge turned into a fiend out of nowhere, going for Varis. I got her on the ground and boss man took her head off and then she turned to goo, which was gross cos I was sitting in it.
(They do that, these fiend types. They don’t really leave a body behind when you kill them, they turn to sludge. And they don’t die properly either, they just go back to hell and like, grow a new body. Ridiculous.)”
Baine looks up from his letter and out over the city again. Houses are being lit from the inside as their inhabitants settle in for the evening, all those people just trying to go about their lives and not get in the way of fiends and hounds. He wants to protect them.
“Thea, you should know. This is the quest. We’re going after the people coming for Sunday and Varis, the people who’ll come for Taffeta, and Paw, and so many others, if we give them long enough. I’ve gotten enough talks from Sun and the boss man to understand that this is fucking dangerous business. That I might not come back from it. But I’m going anyway cos these people are my family, just like you. Sunday keeps telling me to think for myself just like you, and she braids my hair almost as good as you too. Varis gave me a home. A purpose. I’m gonna fight for them, just like I would fight for you.
We leave for Sigil to find some contacts in a few days.
I’ll write you again when we’re back. If I don’t come back, someone else will write you.
I hope I’ve made you proud.
All my love,
Baine.”
He folds up the letter and sighs to himself, before unfolding it again and adding a quick postscript to the bottom.
“P.S Ghesh and I had a rematch this morning, without Traavs and that Bliss girl. I totally won. He breathed acid on me and everything, it was so dope, but I still beat him. The trick with these angry types is you gotta get as many hits in as you can before then can get their pulse up, after that all your hits just run off them. But I was faster, and I totally beat him. Hah.”
He folds the letter up again and climbs down the ladder into the loft and from there down into the stables. He checks on Gary and says goodnight to Sweet before crossing the yard to the barracks. He finds Frankie taking up nearly half the bed, chewing a stick into tiny, slimy pieces.
“You absolute menace, that’s where I sleep!” he hisses, trying to keep his voice down.
Three beds down at the other end of the room, Kamar is still recovering from getting slashed to bits by the not-goliath. She’s turned to the wall, her broad back rising and falling slowly with each breath. Baine looks long enough to count five breaths, just to make sure she’s still alive in her cocoon of blankets, before turning away. He’s got questions for her. Hopefully she’ll wake up before they head out on this goddamn Quest.
He confiscates Frankie’s stick, swipes his hand over the blankets and sits down. From a pocket he pulls out the second letter he wrote this evening. It’s already folded up and tied off with a piece of string, the words IF I KICK IT written on the front. He ties the string to one of the nails stuck in the wall above his bed.
He stares at it for a second before laughing a little and looking at Frankie.
“Gods that’s fucking dark, innit? Bloody hell. Come one, let’s go bother Varis. He needs cheering up.”
Sunsets over Daring aren’t half bad either, turns out.”
Baine has dragged himself up to the roof again, his muscles protesting from the past days’ abuse. He dreads to think what he would feel like if he hadn’t tapped out in that first sparring match with Ghesh, Traavor and Bliss. (She was cheating anyway; who shows up to a sparring match and throws spells from a distance, honestly.)
From down in the yard Frankie gives a disgruntled little whine. Baine gives him a look.
“We’ve had this conversation. I love you but I am not carrying you up here. You will fall off and die,” he shouts down from his perch.
“Go bother Varis. He needs cheering up.”
Frankie sniffs and gives him the dirtiest look a dog can manage before trotting off.
The half-orc looks back out over the city.
The sky above is a cascade of colours, bright pink and orange turning into a matte blue where a handful of stars are already twinkling.
“This city isn’t half bad, you know. I thought I was going to stay in Port Ffirst forever, when I first came to Kantas. Just keep my room at the Shank and take the odd adventuring job and do fuck all besides that. And here I find myself calling the Crimson Fist compound ‘home’ and arguing to go on bloody quests I probably shouldn’t go on just to try and keep people, some of who are loads more powerful than me, safe. That’s what you do for family, I guess.
There’s a bit of a shitstorm kicking up around here, Thea. Sunday and Varis make enemies like it’s going out of style and now literal fiends of hell are up in arms and coming for them. Coming for us, I should say. I’m part of it, aren’t I.
We opened the compound to sparring for outsiders yesterday. Ghesh came, he’s been meaning to drop by for ages. Traavor and this girl named Bliss dropped by as well. We barely got through the first round before some girl comes running into the yard, yelling about the Refuge - Varis’s orphanage- being under attack from hellhounds. Yes, actual hellhounds.
We go fight them, easy peasy. Some other dudes show up and we fight them too - Sunday was there and even though one of them was again, a literal fiend from hell who was there for her, she just… destroyed him. One hit, boom. Done. Gods but she’s got juice that one. She wasn't even armed, just skipping around in a little dress and then she grew fucking tree claws from her hands, no big deal.
Anyway. We take the kids from the orphanage back to the compound but when we get there, there’s more hellhounds there. Then the girl who tipped us off about the hounds at the Refuge turned into a fiend out of nowhere, going for Varis. I got her on the ground and boss man took her head off and then she turned to goo, which was gross cos I was sitting in it.
(They do that, these fiend types. They don’t really leave a body behind when you kill them, they turn to sludge. And they don’t die properly either, they just go back to hell and like, grow a new body. Ridiculous.)”
Baine looks up from his letter and out over the city again. Houses are being lit from the inside as their inhabitants settle in for the evening, all those people just trying to go about their lives and not get in the way of fiends and hounds. He wants to protect them.
“Thea, you should know. This is the quest. We’re going after the people coming for Sunday and Varis, the people who’ll come for Taffeta, and Paw, and so many others, if we give them long enough. I’ve gotten enough talks from Sun and the boss man to understand that this is fucking dangerous business. That I might not come back from it. But I’m going anyway cos these people are my family, just like you. Sunday keeps telling me to think for myself just like you, and she braids my hair almost as good as you too. Varis gave me a home. A purpose. I’m gonna fight for them, just like I would fight for you.
We leave for Sigil to find some contacts in a few days.
I’ll write you again when we’re back. If I don’t come back, someone else will write you.
I hope I’ve made you proud.
All my love,
Baine.”
He folds up the letter and sighs to himself, before unfolding it again and adding a quick postscript to the bottom.
“P.S Ghesh and I had a rematch this morning, without Traavs and that Bliss girl. I totally won. He breathed acid on me and everything, it was so dope, but I still beat him. The trick with these angry types is you gotta get as many hits in as you can before then can get their pulse up, after that all your hits just run off them. But I was faster, and I totally beat him. Hah.”
He folds the letter up again and climbs down the ladder into the loft and from there down into the stables. He checks on Gary and says goodnight to Sweet before crossing the yard to the barracks. He finds Frankie taking up nearly half the bed, chewing a stick into tiny, slimy pieces.
“You absolute menace, that’s where I sleep!” he hisses, trying to keep his voice down.
Three beds down at the other end of the room, Kamar is still recovering from getting slashed to bits by the not-goliath. She’s turned to the wall, her broad back rising and falling slowly with each breath. Baine looks long enough to count five breaths, just to make sure she’s still alive in her cocoon of blankets, before turning away. He’s got questions for her. Hopefully she’ll wake up before they head out on this goddamn Quest.
He confiscates Frankie’s stick, swipes his hand over the blankets and sits down. From a pocket he pulls out the second letter he wrote this evening. It’s already folded up and tied off with a piece of string, the words IF I KICK IT written on the front. He ties the string to one of the nails stuck in the wall above his bed.
He stares at it for a second before laughing a little and looking at Frankie.
“Gods that’s fucking dark, innit? Bloody hell. Come one, let’s go bother Varis. He needs cheering up.”
