Private Tales There's more to life than just surviving . . . but . . . sometimes just surviving is all you get

[Malachi]

Somewhere near the Allir Stone Portal...

This is different.

The boy gave his grubby fingers a wiggle, confusion etching its way over his bruised and grimy face. Thick, dark brows gave a quick furrow in a tight, deep vee, his attention turning to pan at his verdant surroundings. Where is the snow and frost that would chill bone, lancing daggers into his flesh until it ran numb? Where is the howl of Nordenfiirs, growling into the everlasting twilight of Eretejva Tundra?

Memory was a thick and impervious fog, the boy unable to recall the path and reason why he found himself in unfamiliar territory. Unknowingly, a victim of Pandamonium, Malachi had been transferred from the isolated fjords of his home to the wilds of the Allirian Reach. An entirely different continent from the snowy, white mountain wilderness he called his home.

A sudden, quick sniff of the air brought in the dampness of earth and greenery to his flaring nostrils. Distaste would riddle an upward curl of cracked lips, and a shake of his head, sending matted locks of ink-black hair to tickle his grimy cheeks and neck. The patchwork clothing of rags and dirty hand and leg wraps used to protect against the cold began to feel overly warm on the boy.

What is this? he would muse, turning a slow circle to take in the dark verdant forest and the ruins that surrounded the Allirian portal.

Lorinna Astarel

​

 

[Lorinna Astarel]

"Boy! What are you doing?" came a call.

On the far side of the clearing was a young woman sat on a small chest. She stood sharply and took two steps towards the boy.

Lorinna didn't draw her longsword, but her hand went to her belt. If the helm - currently on the grass in front of the chest - had been over her head she could have been mistaken for a man.

Full plate covered her to the neck and she stood nearly six feet tall.

Lorinna took another step. She sounded slightly panicked by his presence.

"You won't steal it from me," she insisted. "Do you have more friends in the woods waiting to rush in?"

 

[Malachi]

For once, the boy was so distracted from the confusion and strangeness of his situation and surroundings that his senses managed to miss until the last second that there was another being close by. By then, the boisterous shout followed by the towering presence of the woman in the distance made Malachi jump for cover. Not because her great height cause him great fear - to him she was no different than the freakishly tall Nords - but more due to being startled.

All arms and legs with barely any muscle, he was a comical sight as he attempted to hide behind a rock.

Friends? What friends?! He thought wildly, immediately wondering if perhaps the woman was the one with friends instead. His normally heighten senses were overflowing with information. The temperature, the crack of branches, creatures flying and scampering within the forest.

…and steal what?! Not that he wouldn’t try to steal what would help him live a little longer.

He clung to the stone, gold eyes wide with panic as he would pan his gaze at his surroundings in survival. He had to always plan his next step. It was the only way he managed to remain alive this long.

Seeing a path towards a darker section of the woods, he decided to scram, only to stumble and fall flat on his face in a heap on the ground, tripping over the mass of brush he wasn’t used to navigating around on a frozen tundra.

“Gah!”

 

[Lorinna Astarel]

The boy ran. The boy fell.

She didn't want to frighten him, but she had been taught that desperate peasants could be dangerous.

Lorinna walked fairly calmly towards the youth, but drew her sword as she went. She kept it down by her side. There it was ready to use, but not held in a threatening way.

She watched the trees and stones carefully. She was certain she had heard something large moving around in there.

"Come on, where are the rest of you then?" Lorinna asked, coming to stop a few meters away.

She didn't see the gnoll sneaking across the grass behind her, heading rapidly for the chest she had left behind.

 

[Malachi]

The boy's chest rose and fell with increasing heaves, gangly limbs scurrying him back, bare fingers clawing on the dirt. Sure, the woman's tone of voice may not have conveyed the sort of anger Malachi typically heard edge village guard's voices, but there was a distinct level of command there.

He wasn't the most subtle of beings in his clamor to try and get away - failing as he would slip on a root-knot. Now on his side, he gave a twist of his torso, prompting him to attempt to crawl backward and away from Lorinna.

"Rest of who?!" who else would be with him? He was always by himself. Of course, the Gnoll took that opportunity to close the distance between that sparkly chest, and the crackle of underbrush as he drew closer only served to suggest that Malachi lied.

Which he didn't!

Eyes ever-widening in alarm, he too, caught the movement and immediately went in denial, "Not my friend!" he yelped out, defending himself. Heart thumping in his chest, the sensation of panic would spark a flare of energy through him, ever quickening and reacting to his emotions.

 

[Lorinna Astarel]

"Oh sit still!" She said.

Lorinna didn't point the sword at him, but she was tempted to. It would have made the point.

She wasn't the best judge of people, but she had to admit that he didn't seem to be acting. Whilst she didn't remember seeing a town within a short walk, he could have just walked out here by accident.

"Not your..."

The coin dropped and she turned sharply.

"Oh dear."

Another gnoll rushed out of the trees. She had been trusted to look after the chest and of course this was happening to her.

 

[Malachi]

The trouble with Gnolls is that they rarely come in pairs, more like a horde. They were pesky creatures, quick to attack in a pack of three to five, sometimes even more, depending on the desperation and the type of shiny object that had gathered their fancy.



From the bushes behind Malachi, two more grunty, smelly Gnolls bedecked in their grungy finery came scattering towards the pair. That made four. Four against two. This could be in Lorinna's favor, seeing that she had a sword and height advantage. Yet Gnolls would attempt any dirty trick they could find to become victorious.



Sure, the towering woman told the boy to sit still, but in the wake of being outnumbered, Malachi was keen to instead attempt to save his skin. Not that a boy would seemingly have much to defend himself with. He was all skin and bones, with rages barely covering his bruised covered body.



Yet anyone with any sort of affinity to magic would start to feel a resonating presence emanating from the boy. There was a flash of amber in his yellow eyes, and he scrambled into a half-crutched position. In the next instant, he gave a roaring yell - more comical than menacing - and went running to the nearest Gnoll in an attempt to tackle it.



Meanwhile, the first Gnoll was almost to the treasure chest, while the remaining two shook their short swords and went charging straight at Lorinna.

 

[Lorinna Astarel]

Unfortunately Lorinna had all the magical sensitivity of a lump of lead.

When she saw the boy launch himself at a gnoll, she simply saw a scrawny little boy throw himself at a dangerous creature.

"Bother," Lori muttered, unable to bring herself to swear even in the conditions. She was going to have to make a choice.

This was not her first real combat. It was her third. Before that had come thousands of hours of training with the Knights. Even though she was still a squire, she was ready for this.

The first one came at her with its sword held out to one side. She was in full plate, without her helmet, but she chose to trade blows. Lori closed the gap and dropped her left arm.

The gnoll thought it was in luck as it swung, but its blade struck her bent arm and glanced down into the middle of plate armour. It stung, but the layers of padding cushioned the blow and the plate didn't give at all.

Her own strike was a warning. Low and slow, she clipped the front of its leg. A warning from a longsword still opened up skin and leg it collapsing and bleeding. The other gnoll barked and backed up towards the treasure.

Lorinna looked at the treasure and then over her shoulder.

"Stupid boy!" She called out, rushing back towards him as two of the gnolls rushed to pick up the chest.

 

[Malachi]

Lorinna Astarel

Stupid is as stupid does. Malachi didn't have a lick of sense when it came to trying to defend himself. Survival was his end game. Not that his undeveloped body and magic did anything to assist in the matter.

His kind were dependent on lore. On a specific set of traditions. A wilding like him, so far from home, made it difficult to channel the raw power of his magic truly. So instead of reacting much like he would have back on the Tundra, instead, all that was provided for his efforts was a savage flip by the Gnoll onto his back.

WHOSH... there went the air in his lungs, eyes widening as his mouth went open wide to try and suck air back into his lungs. It was a desperate wheezing sound that carved its way between the boy and the Gnoll, the later bringing his weapon down to try and stab at Malachi while the boy did his best to try to roll out of the way.

While he was lucky enough to ensure it didn't stab him in the heart, his shoulder, however, was a different story.

His scream of pain went roaring through the field, the sound reverberating at the end akin to a feral roar of a beast.

 

[Lorinna Astarel]

Even though he was a complete stranger, Lorinna still felt a twist in her gut at his feral cry. He might have been a thief, he might have been just a peasant boy in the wrong place.

She moved swiftly in full armour, closing the distance between them. The gnoll heard her coming, jumping away before Lorinna could lash out.

At the back of her mind, a small voice warned her that something was not normal about the boy's cried of pain.

The gnoll took one look at her. It's gaze went from her determined, icy stare to the tip of her longsword. To glanced past her to see its companions vanish into the undergrowth with the chest.

It turned and ran.

"Damnit," Lorinna hissed, looking down at the boy to see how badly he had been hurt.

 

[Malachi]

Oh, for sure, the boy was in a world of hurt. The writhing on the ground and the guttural, beastly growl only confirmed that. What made the whole scenario turn into a 'what the hell?' sort of situation was when instead of answering, there was the literal shift of bones underneath the boy's grimy facial features and any visible bit of skinny patches of flesh over his diminutive, underfed stature.

Okay, the boy is not of your standard human stock.

It became clear why the strange boy was clothed in remnants of tattered clothing, as flesh shifted into dark scales, bones cracked to realign, and as he rolled to his right, sharp protrusions burst through flesh to rip his meager cloak into dark, bloody wings.

Razor-sharp teeth and an elongated snot would flare, the pounding of primal magic and his lack of control converting the boy into what one could only surmise by appearances to be a somewhat feral drake.

Somewhat because at least it didn't try to blast the fiery stream of icy blue flames at Lorinna towards the vanishing gnoll.

Nothing like the sudden appearance of a young dragon turning things topsy-turvy.

In summary, no, the boy didn't answer Lorrain's question. Not in this beastly state.

 

[Lorinna Astarel]

Lorinna was imaging all the trouble she was going to be in. Trouble caused by one boy wandering into the wrong field at exactly the wrong time. Even she didn't know what they had recovered, what was inside the chest. She had a sense from the other knights that it was dangerous. They had only entrusted it to her for a few hours as they scouted the gorge ahead for an ambush.

Were the gnolls drawn to some evil or is this just my damned luck? she thought, before her luck got even worse.

She heard the first crack of bone before turning to look at the boy as he rolled away. Lorinna was as sensitive to magic as a lump of lead, but she could see it with her own eyes.

Lorinna backed away, the point of her sword now aimed at the draconic beast. She dropped her weight a little lower, resting the blade on her left forearm and keeping it between her and the creature.

This all had to be the work of dark magic. Shape shifters and gnolls fighting for the prize.

"Boy?" she tried once, hopefully, still backing away slowly.