The Companions of Tartiël

by Jeff Wilcox

  “Lady Solaria!” the blademaster exclaimed in surprise at her outburst, his eyes wide. For a moment, he was not sure what he should do, but then he was hit by sudden insight into the troubled woman’s soul. She had been thrust into a harsh world that never stopped moving. All alone, she had been forced to learn, very quickly, how to act and how to survive. She had received only minimal attention from the party, who was too distressed by her similarity with Astra to get close to her. And so, she had remained alone all this time, like an orphaned child.

  He should have felt awkward, but for some reason, Kaiyr felt the motion of his arm natural as he reached up and touched her cheek, brushing away the tears and drying them with his sleeve. His touch, however, only spurred her to greater distress, and more glittering drops flowed from Solaria’s eyes as she tossed her head, finally crashing into Kaiyr’s chest, weeping.

  Slowly, carefully, Kaiyr wrapped his arms around her back and held her tenderly. “Treasure this life, Lady Solaria,” he said, his voice full of unexpected passion as the thick fabric of his robes muffled her cries, “for it is a great gift. It is not a simple matter for me to tell you to die so another might be reborn. Your life is your life, and you belong to no one. Not myself, nor Lady Astra, nor Lady Luna, nor even any of the gods. Please, Lady Solaria, do not begrudge yourself this life of yours. You do not wrong me by living it.”

  She reached up and grabbed his shoulder, using it to pull herself up so she could look at him, her eyes red and her face wet with tears; there was a similar wet splotch on Kaiyr’s dark blue robes. “But… Kaiyr, you are too sad to bear. You don’t show it to others, but I can see it in you,” Solaria said, sniffling in between her words. “I see it every time you look at me. I can’t explain why, but… I want to see you happy, Kaiyr.”

  The blademaster shook his head, then brushed his hair out of his face. “I… my lady, I grieve the loss of a friend. And, because you look so much like her, I cannot help but be reminded of such a fresh wound, a wound that has not even healed.” When she broke eye contact, he gently put two fingers under her chin and met her heliotrope eyes again. “If you wish to please me, Lady Solaria, then what I ask of you is not your death; no, in fact, it is quite the opposite. Live. Live to the fullest this life which you have received. I will only be aggrieved if you waste it, my lady.”

  His words seemed to calm her even though she put her head down and cried some more. After several minutes, she calmed down and sat up, though she still leaned on his shoulder.

  Wiping a final, straggling tear from her left eye, she gave him a radiant smile. “Thank you, Kaiyr. You… you are far kinder than I had at first thought.” She laughed slightly, and then added, “I had no idea you were this gentle.”

  Kaiyr turned to face her, and he graced her with one of his rare and fleeting smiles. “Part of being a blademaster is loving and respecting life, preserving it in its beauty. It is, perhaps, one of the aspects of our path that is not often stressed and all too frequently overlooked, hidden behind our flashing soulblades. I thank you for your praise, Lady Solaria. I am gladdened to see you smile so freely. Will you do as I ask and live your life rather than throw it away?”

  Chuckling nervously, Solaria nodded. “I will!” she told him with an emphatic nod of her head; then she sobered. “I… I’m also afraid to die. I didn’t really want to do it.”

  Sensing that their conversation was nearing an end, Kaiyr rose and offered his hand to her. “Then that, too, is reason to rejoice. There is no glory in death, only silence. Even those who die protecting others, while their deaths may be noble, are still lives lost. But come; shall we return to the inn? If you so desire, we might find a meal during the journey.”

  She nodded but did not take his hand. “Is something the matter, Lady Solaria?” the blademaster asked.

  Nodding bashfully, Solaria replied in a small voice, “My feet hurt from walking so far in these shoes.” Her fingers twined nervously in her lap.

  Kaiyr, however, found yet another of these strange but increasingly familiar forces tugging the corners of his lips upward. He did not see a reason to remind her that he had been the one to suggest that the shoes she had selected the previous day might not be suitable for extended travel on foot. Instead, he spun around and knelt down so she could clamber onto his back—again. “Then I shall carry you—whoa!” He stumbled forward as she veritably leaped from the bench and onto his back, wrapping her arms around his neck and burying her face in his strong shoulder.

  As his long legs ate up the ground between the park and the inn, Kaiyr shook his head in wonder. Strange forces, indeed.

  XXXIV.

  Dingo spread his hands in a gesture of closing. “That’s that, I guess. Solaria heads to bed pretty much right after the two of you get back. What’s the game plan?”

  I shrugged and looked at the loose-leaf sheet of paper I had been using to record the treasure our party collected. “Well, I’m planning on heading back to the temple in about a week, maybe just five days. But in the meantime, Kaiyr’s in the mood for some better gear, especially since I’ve got, oh, just shy of thirteen thousand gold to spend.”

  Dingo’s eyes bulged. “Thirteen thousand? I can’t believe I gave you guys that much treasure!”

  But I shook my head and looked at the sheet. “It’s really not that much… okay, maybe it is; and each of us is getting that amount of gold, on top of the other, random stuff. Oh, and that’s also after taking out our ‘insurance policies’,” I said with a slight grin, referring to the 5,000-gp diamonds we each had taken from Sayel and which we kept on our persons so that we could be raised if slain in battle.

  Matt chuckled and nodded. “Yeah, I’ve got a bunch of stuff to buy for Wild while he settles into life at that temple.”

  “What’s with that, anyway?” I asked, “Are you going to tell us what’s happening with Wild? Do we even see him?”

  “Not really. Wild’s going to come and go only when you guys are out doing your thing, but the innkeeper will see me, so if you ask about me, he can tell you I’m still kicking.”

  Dingo closed his books and began packing up his dice. “We’re going to end this episode of ‘Kaiyr’s Hot Dates’ here for the night. I trust the three of you aren’t going to buy anything too cheesy, so I’ll pretty much give you free reign to find whatever items you want. Don’t worry about being able to find a particular magic item in Ik’durel, though, because with more than two million inhabitants, you’re bound to find even rare magic items, or at least someone who can make them for you. I’m heading out for now. See you later, guys.”

  We bid him a good night, and for about an hour, the three of us sat largely in silence, poring over the many volumes of D&D books, seeking useful magic items. I was much enamored of my newest addition to my small collection, the Magic Item Compendium, which contains—surprise—an enormous assortment of magic items, from the humble blessed bandage at 10 gp to the majestic vest of the archmagi at 200,000 gp, the thought of which makes every player of a wizard salivate.

  Matt settled on his new gear relatively quickly. He was planning on having Wild take a prestige class

  [37] called the Master Thrower, a class devoted to throwing small weapons with deadly results. As such, he stocked up on magical daggers for throwing. We had also run into a lot of poison and other ability damage-dealing enemies (Luna’s poison darts, poisoned traps, Sayel’s rending blow to Caineye’s heart), and we often found ourselves at a loss to be able to heal such damage. Caineye, being a druid, only had access to the least powerful of spells useful in curing such damage—and he couldn’t be counted on to memorize

  [38] enough such spells every day. So, after consulting me about this problem, I found two useful items in my Magic Item Compendium: a rod of bodily restoration, which would allow us to cure a certain amount of ability damage to our Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution scores each day, as well as a small pendant called a lesser armor crystal of stamina. This handy device we later upgraded to
the “greater” version, but this one, when attached to our magical armor, granted us a +3 bonus on saving throws against disease and poison. Wild and Kaiyr both bought these items; Caineye, who would gain immunity to poison in three levels, decided the investment wasn’t worth the return.

  Xavier did, however, discover that he was finally able to purchase some quality armor. A character’s Dexterity score affects a character’s armor class, and Caineye’s score was not high at all. He had been wearing light armor, with a low armor bonus but which had lots of headroom for a high Dexterity score (heavier armor restricts the bonus one receives from his Dexterity). He had found the armor he wanted much earlier but had not had the funds to purchase it, and even when he did, we were busy dealing with the drama kings and queens aboard the Flaring Nebula.

  Druids are unable to wear metal armor because they worship nature. This restriction obviously excludes most heavy armor, such as plate mail. Further, druids are not proficient in the use of heavy armor, having access only to light and medium. While Xavier could have had Caineye take a feat (and he would only get eight of these over the course of twenty levels) to become proficient in its use, it just wasn’t worth it.

  So, he found something that fit the bill. Called dragoncraft full plate, it was full plate armor crafted not from metal, but from the scales and hide of (in this case) a bronze dragon. The trick to it was that dragoncraft armor is considered one weight category lighter than normal, thus allowing the heavy-type full plate to be considered medium armor, and thus less restrictive. It is this armor which would carry Caineye through the rest of this campaign and for a long time afterward.

  However, the armor alone cost 11,000 gp, leaving him with little to spend on other trinkets. But, after selling some unused gear, he found that he had several thousand more and bought a magic rod that would let him double the duration of low-level spells, as well as a periapt of wisdom +2, which, as long as it was worn around his neck, increased his Wisdom score by 2—and thus his druid spellcasting ability.

  As for myself, I had already found several items that piqued my curiosity, most of them smaller trinkets. In addition to the two items Kaiyr and Wild both purchased, I had my character equip himself with gloves of dexterity +2, which increased my attack bonus, my Reflex saves, and a few key skill modifiers I often used (praise the gods for Tumble checks). I also later worked out a magical enhancement to Kaiyr’s robes with Dingo. In order to reduce clutter and encumbrance weight, many characters invest in bags of holding or Heward’s Handy Haversacks, which are sacks and backpacks that are magically enchanted to be larger on the inside than the outside and which weigh a set amount, no matter how much their contents might weigh. Kaiyr, however, was not the type of character to carry a backpack, and in the tradition of blademaster subtlety, I kept things in his sleeves or tucked into the torso of his robes. So, in keeping with that trend, I had Kaiyr’s sleeves enchanted in a similar manner, though the carrying capacity of these would be much smaller than most other, similar items.

  After a few other odds and ends, as well as another enhancement to my robes that granted Kaiyr a +1 bonus on all saving throws, I found a ring that caught my attention. Weighing in at 4,500 pieces of imaginary gold (which is about equivalent to 90 pounds of imaginary gold), it is known as a ring of vengeance. Being our party’s front-line fighter and general tank, I found myself the victim of many critical hits. For the most part, none of them had brought my hit points to dangerously low levels, but it would have been nice to avoid such mishaps. While this ring did not prevent these devastating blows, it did retaliate with damage of its own, and anyone critting Kaiyr in melee would take 5d6 damage in return.

  Kaiyr never again suffered a critical hit. It was more bang for my buck than I would have ever expected.

  *

  “So,” I said as Dingo entered our dorm room the next week. “We ready to play? We’re just waiting on Matt now.”

  Dingo nodded and set up his folding table, laptop, books, and dice. “Yeah, I’m ready to push this campaign forward with you guys.”

  “I know,” I said, glancing over at Xavier, who, as was his wont, remained silent as he paged through his copy of Complete Warrior. “We haven’t played in, like, a week. What’s with this?” The three of us laughed; D&D groups tend to meet on a weekly or bi-weekly basis, though some only meet once a month or even less frequently. Our group was perhaps a bit unusual because all our players lived less than one round—I mean, two move actions—I mean, six seconds away from the others. We had the privilege of meeting two or even three nights a week, our schedules permitting.

  “So,” I said after a few minutes of waiting, “Where’s Matt? He’s usually right on time.”

  Dingo shrugged. “Not really sure. Maybe he’s making a CUB run. He wasn’t in his room when I went to the bathroom.”

  At this, Xavier looked up. “You went to the bathroom in his room?”

  Astonished, we both stared at him. “Dude,” I said, “That was so my line.”

  “Ah, right,” he said, brushing his long hair out of his face. “My apologies, Master Kaiyr, for speaking out of turn.”

  I snorted and played along. “Indeed, Master Caineye. When we want your input, we will remove your ball gag. Until then, shut up and bend over.”

  Our room bounced and rattled with laughter, but we eventually calmed down and struck up a new conversation.

  “You know,” I said to Dingo, “I still have to say, I’m impressed with the way this game’s going. It feels like we’re actually telling a story.” I glanced away in a purposefully sheepish manner. “I mean, I know we’ve had our rules disputes, and we’ve already torn a lot of holes in some of your house rules, but those haven’t been bad enough to sour the experience.”

  Dingo nodded and accepted the praise graciously. “Thanks, man. To tell you the truth, a lot of this is just off-the-cuff roleplaying. You guys throw so many monkey wrenches in my plans that it’s hard to say exactly how something’s going to turn out. Heck, I didn’t expect the three of you to actually kill Sayel, even.”

  “Hehehe,” I laughed, grabbing an imaginary sword in two hands and making a slicing motion. This was coupled with a sword-hitting-flesh sound whose onomatopoeia would likely take up most of a page.

  “But really,” I said, releasing my invisible soulblade, “it does feel like a story. I dunno, if this campaign ends well—that is, we don’t die or abandon the game—I might have to turn this into a novel or something.”

  His expression brightening, Dingo replied, “Yeah! Dude, that would be amazing!”

  We shot the shit about writing, talking about books we had read and would like to read; and at least for me and Dingo, the books we’d like to write

  “Anyway, if I do write something like that, it probably won’t be for a while. I’m in the middle of some other projects. This one will just have to go on the pile.” I glanced at the clock. A new thought struck me, and I furrowed my eyebrows. “And where in the nine blazing pits of hell is Matt? He should have been here well over a half-hour ago.”

  Shaking his head, Dingo sighed. “I don’t know. It was hard just finding a time when he could meet us. Apparently, he’s doing some rush event this week. Maybe that’s what’s got him tied up.”

  I slapped a palm to my face. “Oh, no. He’s in a frat now?”

  “Joining one,” Dingo confirmed. “I think he said it’s Kap-Sig.”

  I looked at Xavier, and both of us rolled our eyes and groaned. “Ugh,” I said, turning back to Dingo and leaning against my desk. “We’ve lost our fair share of friends to Kappa Sigma. It’s like a kraken made up of frat boys.” I gestured with my arms, emulating the sea creature’s tentacles. “It hovers there and then—schlupp!—down the hatch, and the kraken grows. Ah, hell, I’ll give him a call.” Flipping open my phone, I scrolled down to his number and hit the call button. It rang four times, and I figured I was about to get bounced to Matt’s voicemail when he picked up. I heard lots of people in the backgroun
d.

  “Hey, buddy,” he said. “What’s up?”

  I raised my eyebrow at Xavier, who was close enough to hear Matt’s voice from my loud phone. “Uh, how about D&D is up. You coming tonight?”

  I heard him sigh. “Ah, man, sorry. I’m not gonna make it. It’s the middle of rush, and the guys are keeping me busy as hell. Um, if we’re not in the middle of anything involving my character, go ahead and play. Wild’s just going over ledgers in the temple of Alduros Hol for the rest of the week.”

  “Well, Dingo said we’re picking up at the end of the week, when Kaiyr hits up Arvanos’s temple again,” I said, “which shouldn’t take long.” I gave Dingo a quizzical look. He knew what I was asking, and he shook his head, pursing his lips. “No,” I told Matt. “We’ll just call it off for the night. Anyway, you have a good one, man.”

  “All right,” he said. “See you later. I’ll keep you posted.”

  “Sure thing. Bye.” I snapped my phone closed and looked at Dingo and Xavier, head cocked to the side. “So… this round apparently goes to Kappa Sigma.”

  “Great,” Xavier muttered, leaning back in his chair and lacing his fingers behind his head in his usual position of both relaxation and vexation. “Another friend’s going to disappear into that void.”

  “Tch, this sucks,” Dingo said, and we all deflated in our chairs, slouching and not saying a word for several minutes.

  At length, Dingo slowly began packing up his belongings. “Well, I guess I’ll just do that homework I was going to put off for tomorrow.”

  “Yeah, I have a few things I need to get done, too,” I said. “Although, I was planning on putting them off indefinitely.”