Bolt – Release a Bolt of pure Lightning at your target(s). Cost – 40 Aura. – 22%
Skills
Bow – 39%
Critical Hit – 33%
Blades – 30%
Long Sword – 29%
Short Sword – 28%
Dagger – 26%
Critical Hit – 22%
Two-Handed – 27%
Pole Arms – 14%
Spear – 23%
Armor – 26%
Medium Armor – 28%
Perception – 33%
Environmental – 35%
Identify Enemy – 30%
Identify Person – 28%
Combat Dodge – 21%
Subterfuge – 27%
Stealth – 27%
Find Trap – 9%
Disarm Trap – 4%
Set Trap – 10%
Manipulation – 21%
Persuade – 27%
Barter – 20%
Survival – 23%
Tracking – 24%
Identify Creature (Beasts) – 10%
Skinning – 13%
Field Dress – 12%
Alchemy – 15%
Herbalism – 23%
Potion Craft – 17%
I had not wasted the opportunity presented by the helpless bandit targets and managed to work most of my bow talents into the fight. I only regretted not being able to get in a few strikes with my blades. I should have been happy, considering the fact that I had made so much progress and gained two levels, but the loss of Otney had stolen any sense of joy from my accomplishments.
When I closed the window and looked up, Stel and Khorim had finally cleared the fallen tree from our path. As we resumed our march towards the plague-stricken village, everyone took up their former positions. The only difference was that Stel now walked behind the wagon alone.
We soon reached the side road leading off towards our destination. The village we sought was the second of two small communities that made their home along the small backwoods trail, and after only a few more hours of walking, we began to see signs that we were approaching the first of the two settlements. Planted fields sprung up along the roadside, and a sparse fence line sporadically popped up along the path as we walked by.
Being located so far away from civilization, we were not surprised to see the high walls of a wooden palisade as the village itself finally came into view. A lone sentry stood guard atop the wall, but he appeared inattentive, possibly even asleep. No other villagers were in sight, and I realized we had seen no sign of any of the people during our entire approach to the town. A sudden sense of dread came over me. Were we too late? Had the plague already destroyed this town as well?
My companions apparently shared my concerns, and we approached the gate cautiously. When the sentry still failed to notice us, Khorim and I crept up to the gate and carefully pushed it open.
Inside the town lay dozens of sick villagers, many simply lying on the ground, too ill to even crawl to shelter. The few healthy citizens that remained rushed about frantically, tending to their neighbors and carrying the sickest among them indoors.
I pushed the gate open wide and Khorim waved the wagon forward. Venna and Letási jumped down almost before it had stopped, each grabbing an armload of vials from the chest before rushing off to aid the stricken villagers. I followed Venna as she tended to her first patient.
“What can I do?” I asked, wanting to do my best to assist her.
“There are far more sick people here than we anticipated,” she said without turning, never tearing her attention away from the stricken man she was tending. “Tell Stel to come to me, have Broda and Khorim aid Letási.”
“You,” she commanded me, “need to make more of the antidote. I fear that we will be needing much more than we have before this is over.”
We spent the rest of the day and long into the night tending to the villagers. Once all the sick had been treated, Venna insisted that even the unaffected be given a dose of the antidote. This illness, whatever it was, was far too virulent to allow any chance for it to spread.
Even after they had administered the final dose to the last villager, I continued working feverishly to create more of the antidote. Venna and Letási had used the finished vials far more quickly that I had been able to create new ones. Although we still had a few vials left after completing the treatments here, if this village was any indication of the severity of the illness, things would be much worse when we reached the next one.
Venna climbed up next to me as I continued to make new batches of the antidote in the makeshift lab I had set up in the wagon’s bed. Setting up there allowed me to place my finished vials directly into the chest where they would immediately be exposed to the effects of The Light of Thassa emanating from the idol within.
“Take this,” Venna said, handing me one of the vials. “Now.”
When she’d offered me a vial before, I had refused her, not wanting to deny the medicine to one of the plague victims who needed it so badly. But now that the entire village had been treated, I gladly took the vial from her and downed the potent liquid. Having seen the effects of the sickness, I wasn’t going to refuse the treatment now that all the villagers were safe.
“How bad is it?” I asked.
I hadn’t inquired about the details before. Venna was too busy, and I could see enough from where I worked to know that it certainly wasn’t good, but now that her work was done, I wanted to know what her assessment was.
“From what I can tell, this was not nearly as bad as it could have been,” Venna began before telling me what she’d learned.
She had spoken with the few villagers who were unaffected, and they’d relayed what they could. Apparently, the illness had spread to their town from the other village. The two communities supported each other, and so trade and simple visits between friends were not uncommon. All such visits had ceased once they had learned of the plague, but it had already been too late. The first signs of the illness had shown up here less than two weeks ago.
Initially, the disease started out looking like a mild form of sickness. Slight fever and chills, sometimes a mild swelling or hard lump that could be felt in the neck or armpits would occur. A vague memory told me these were something called ‘lymph nodes,’ and the swelling indicated some sort of infection.
After this, the symptoms would intensify—the fever would rise, and the victim would become lethargic, unable to move. Pain would set in soon after, mostly in the joints. Fortunately, none of the villagers here had progressed beyond this stage. However, from the few reports they had received out of the neighboring town, the illness only got far worse after this.
In its next stage, the stricken individual would begin bleeding uncontrollably. Not from any wounds, but from their mouth, eyes, ears, and every other orifice. Their bodies would begin to liquify from within, and they would die soon after, all while suffering from intense bouts of pain.
We knew that we needed to hurry to reach the next village. The people there had been suffering the effects of the plague far longer than this town had, and there would already be many that were beyond our ability to help, but we were all completely fatigued, and darkness had already fallen. Not only would traveling at night be very dangerous, but we would do no good to the village if we died trying to get there or arrived too exhausted to help. Although it chafed at us to do so, we knew it would be better for us to wait until dawn before proceeding.
For their part, the villagers were grateful for our timely arrival. They put us up for the night in an empty house, the residents having vacated it for our use. They even provided us with an assortment of platters heavily laden with food before leaving us alone to rest peacefully after our long efforts. After the difficult day, the offer of food and the promise of a warm bed was all the enticement I needed. Putting away my instruments, I climbed out of the wagon, and Venna walked me over to the house where we would be resting for the night.
The others were alrea
dy inside. While Stel and the two dwarves were hungrily wolfing down plates of food, Letási merely picked at the few morsels she had before her. Upon seeing the feast, I was immediately struck with sharp pangs of hunger, having neglected to eat for most of the day. Once I sat down at the table, I dove into the piles of food with abandon.
When our appetites had been sated, we sat back and took a few moments to reflect on our day and think about what lay ahead of us tomorrow. It was during that moment that Letási finally stirred from her chair.
The young woman rose and tentatively approached Venna. She surprised me when she knelt down and addressed Venna formally.
“Curate Venna,” Letási spoke hesitantly as her voice cracked with emotion. “I have lost my partner in training today. When we return from this mission, the Abbott will undoubtedly assign me a new partner. I cannot bear the thought of replacing Otney in such a manner. Over the past days, I have come to look to you as a mentor. I humbly ask that you accept me as your pupil and allow me to continue my training under your tutelage.”
Venna seemed as shocked by Letási’s request as the rest of us. She hesitated a moment, pausing to give the matter some thought. As she did so, Letási remained kneeling before her, patiently awaiting Venna’s determination of her fate, and when her answer finally came, it was not what I expected.
“Were it up to me alone, I would gladly have you as my pupil, Letási,” Venna began. “But there is another whose consent you must also have before I can grant you the position you seek. My future is no longer only my own to determine. My fate—the fate of all of us—has become irrevocably entwined with Dreya’s. If you are to be my student, you must not only be willing to accompany me on the dangerous path that lies ahead, but you must also earn Dreya’s approval as well, for it is her you will truly be following.”
The young acolyte was stunned, shocked into silence by Venna’s words. The only person more surprised by Venna’s declaration than Letási was me. Her moment of inaction provided me the time I needed to recover before Letási turned to me, still on her knees, and pled her case.
“Dreya,” she said, even more hesitantly than before. “I do not understand the power you seem to have over Curate Venna, or why she has chosen to link her fate to yours, but I cannot mistake the reverence she has for you. Whatever I must do to earn your trust, you have only to ask it of me.”
I looked around the room, searching the faces of my friends for a clue on how to respond to the woman’s request. But like me, the entire series of events had caught them entirely off guard. Only Venna seemed comfortable with what had happened, but when I turned towards her, she only returned my gaze with a single raised eyebrow, offering me no guidance, only the vague, singular gesture.
To be Venna’s pupil, Letási would have to travel with us once we resumed my search for the remaining tokens. She would not only need to be aware of the perils involved in that task, but also why we were undertaking it. And if it hadn’t been clear enough before, the Dryad’s words had made it plain that my quest was somehow tied to my Sintári nature, a fact I would have to trust the young woman with at some point.
Knowing that, the meaning of Venna’s simple gesture became clear—did I think I could trust the halfling with my secret? The honest answer was that I wasn’t sure. While she seemed to be a good person, we had simply not known each other long enough for me to truly answer the question with any sense of confidence. But regardless of that fact, it was a question I needed to resolve right then.
“Letási,” I began once I had gathered my thoughts. “As Venna has said, the path I walk is very dangerous. You have seen only a small taste of what will be ahead of you if you chose to follow me on that road.”
“Otney,” I said pointedly, “will not be the last one to fall along the way.”
She flinched at the mention of her friend’s name, but to her credit, did not back down.
“There are many ways to lose one’s life in this world,” she replied to me firmly. “And though I miss him, Otney gave his life protecting others, trying to be of service. If that is the path you follow, then I am not afraid to die.”
“Yes,” I said, “but that is not the issue. Your own death will be the easiest. It is the death of your friends, your companions, that will come to try your soul.”
She looked at me with renewed tears in her eyes—I had opened a fresh wound, intentionally. I needed to understand the true depth of her resolve. It wasn’t the nicest thing I could have done at the moment, but I needed to know, I needed to test her.
“You’re right.” Letási replied. Her eyes were still misty, but there was a hint of steel in her voice then. “I will not say it will be easy for me to lose a friend, but if it were, that would say less of me, not more.”
“Good,” I said, genuinely pleased with her answer. She may not have much experience yet, but she had the proper insight, and that was all I could ask of her.
“The next part is a bit trickier for me, Letási,” I continued. “It deals with issues of trust, and the reason Venna has chosen to help me, to join my quest. If you are to join us, I must trust you with a secret, and I simply do not know you well enough to determine whether you are worthy of that trust.”
My honest words affected Letási as if I had struck her. She rocked back and looked at me with a mixture of fear and horror in her eyes. She turned to Venna in desperation, seeking any help she could find.
“Curate, please!” Letási cried. “Tell her I am worthy, don’t let her cast me aside so easily!”
“Acolyte,” Venna addressed her formally, reminding her of her place. “You do not know the nature of the secret Dreya holds. You presume too much by asking me to go against her wishes in the matter.”
Letási slumped down to the floor in defeat before Venna could continue.
“But I will offer this,” Venna said as she turned towards me. “Dreya, there is an oath among my Order. A most serious oath. It is reserved for only matters of the absolute highest regard. The Oath of Light. Letási will understand the importance I place on your secret by the mere mention of this oath.”
“Curate,” Letási whispered. “That oath is only required for matters involving the most important issues for the Order, or where The Lady herself is involved…”
Her voice trailed off at the end as she realized the meaning of her own words.
“Yes, Acolyte,” Venna answered the question Letási had not asked. “I follow Dreya because I know that she is the instrument of our Lady.”
I didn’t much like being referred to as anyone’s ‘instrument,’ but I couldn’t really argue with the fact that my strings were being pulled from time to time either.
Letási sat on the floor in stunned silence. She looked at me, then back to Venna, obviously confused about which of us to address next. She seemed to come to some conclusion before turning to Venna.
“I ask that you administer the Oath, Curate,” she said, as the tone of resolve crept back into her voice once again.
“Acolyte Letási,” Venna began before the halfling could change her mind. “Do you swear by The Light of The Lady, under penalty of Her judgement on your soul, that you will reveal to no one the knowledge Dreya is about to tell you?”
“I do swear it under The Light of The Lady.”
Having given her oath, Letási turned to me, her eyes pleading for me to accept her solemn words. Venna nodded reassuringly, letting me know that I could trust the oath the woman had taken.
“Letási,” I began, staring back into her eyes. “What I am about to tell you may make your reconsider your desire to come with us. I will understand if that is the case, but I will still hold you to your oath.”
“I am one of the Deathless,” I continued as her eyes widened in surprise. “It is important for you to know that, although it is not my biggest secret. I have discovered, with Venna’s help, that I am also Sintári. The quest I am on relates somehow to my Sintári nature, although we do not yet understand exactly how. I fe
el you should also know, and it is time for me to reveal this to everyone else as well, that you should not try to touch me. Direct contact can have very unfortunate consequences for both parties—it is why I always wear my gloves. I apologize to all of you for not saying anything sooner. I had hoped it would not be necessary, but I think that discretion is the wiser course now, so I humbly ask for your forgiveness.”
I looked up from Letási’s shocked face to meet the gaze of each of my friends in turn. I had confessed my last secret to them, and stared into their eyes, searching for any sign of the forgiveness I had asked of them.
Stel smiled back at me when I looked to him, letting me know that he understood, and I couldn’t help but smile back at his simple gesture of reassurance. Broda and Khorim both favored me with a quick nod, and I breathed out a deep sigh of relief. I wasn’t sure what I would have done had my friends not been so understanding, but I found myself once again grateful for their compassion.
“Mistress… My Lady,” Letási fumbled reverently as I returned my gaze to her.
“Letási,” I replied sternly. “I’m going to tell you the proper title to use when addressing a Sintári, at least this Sintári.”
My harsh rebuke seemed to catch not only Letási, but everyone else by surprise as well.
“Don’t.”
“Baaahhhh!!!” Khorim was the first to burst out in laughter, followed by the rest of my friends. Letási seemed confused, so I took pity on the poor halfling and extended my hand to her, lifting her off the floor where she had remained kneeling the whole time.
“I do not think of myself as better than you, Letási,” I offered her compassionately. “I am just someone who has the misfortune of being assigned a task that is far beyond my ability to comprehend.”
“Now that you know as much as the rest of us,” I continued. “If you still wish to be Venna’s pupil, if you choose to follow wherever this Sintári path may lead us, then you have my blessing.”
Letási’s face burst into an unrestrained look of joy. She seemed about to hug me before bringing herself up short. I held up my hands and waved them in front of her, showing off my gloved fingers before stepping forward and welcoming her into an embrace.
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