A soft, rhythmic pounding, deceptive in its intent, echoed softly through my head. It was a small, quiet thing that tried to lull me from my lovely slumber. Something I'd only began to truly appreciate a few months before. I pulled myself closer to the warm body next to me, and forced my mind to idly wander, in the hopes that my distracted mind would allow sleep to claim me once more. The act, though strange, was actually quite easy for me. There has been so much on my mind recently. So much, ever since the fall of Betancuria. My consciousness, deciding that was as good a place as any to start idle recollections, began to reply my life. Every scene that left an imprint, or a scar, upon my mind came back to me. I was shocked to see so little of my parents in those early moments. My father had been a king, and I his cherished daughter. I loved the court, growing up. The attention, the gossip, the jealous stares, the plethora of handsome suitors to choose from. Looking back, I can't even picture myself as that woman, naïve and delicate as she was. That changed the night my father's castle burned.
Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.
The pounding came louder this time, but my mind, now unleashed, could only drag me deeper into my memories. Memories of the most horrible night in my life. Somehow it was still preferable to waking up. Around my thoughts, the castle burned. Guards threw themselves at the invaders, and died in my defence. I ran. Ran like the scared, weak little girl I had been.
Then Vico was there.
Then my maidenhood was gone.
And suddenly, my world had turned upright. I was a kitchen worker, at a modest restaurant in the city proper. I stayed at the behest of a strange old man with the look of a merchant, and the aura of a grandfather. Master Nathan. Now, when I think of my father, what he has like, or rather, what I wish he had been like, all I can see is Master Nathan's face, a faint trace of a proud smile tugging at his lips. Back then I resented him. Resented being restrained, resented being reduced, and resented having been rescued by a terrible excuse for a human being.
And so I learned how to steal.
Ah keen, eh ess iehm oo eake eah!
A muffled voice drifted back from reality, but it was no longer enough to break me from my semi-conscious state. I was reliving the absolute thrill of learning how to ply my trade, my true calling, once again. It was, admittedly, a slow process. A picked pocket there, a picked lock there, a night outside stolen. It was bliss, it was freedom…
It was small time.
When he learned of it, of how I'd broken his trust, stolen from his customers and employees, and fooled his locksmith, he simply looked me in the eye, and offered me a job.
I learned how to sneak, distract, mislead, set and disarm traps, bypass locks and guards, and fence my fortunes. Finally, I had freedom, power over others, and a way to get back at the world.
I was absolutely miserable.
As much as I grew to love my new occupation, I had nothing, really. No one. And so, I became spiteful and quick to anger. I began to see murder as an appropriate solution to my problems, helped none at all by the fact that it worked. I killed my old stable hand in an alley, simply because he recognized me. It was my first kill. The first of many. Mostly it was guards, Dhorn-the once allies of my father, and now occupiers of his nation-were more than fair play. It kept them out of the way and it was no great loss for the world. It was easy, then, to hate. So much easier to be spiteful and indifferent than to admit I was lonely, and unloved. Two things changed that. Two chance encounters changed everything.
Eah keen, eh eally uhst ehnehst!
An expedition. One which promised treasure and riches. I was hired for my less than laudable skills, to disable traps and locks in an ancient tomb by two members of a holy order. We sailed out, optimistic, and prepared. Three weeks later, I sailed back, with only a silver band on my finger, adorned with a black pearl, to show for my efforts.
The body beside me began to shift slightly in my arms. Smiling softly, I drew lazy circles across the exposed skin. The form arced into my embrace, then sighed, drifting back to join me once more in slumber.
The second, was supposed to be a test. I was to seduce a bard, have them take me to their room, where one of my comrades in illegality would knock her out and steal some documents from her. As in all things, the plan failed from the start. I could not now be happier that it did. I met the bard, I was immediately confused. She had a soft beauty, a voice that seemed to sing even as it spoke, and she moved with an easy grace and unshakable confidence. I began to feel things, emotions that had deserted me since Vico had taken from me what I once held quite dear.
She took me to her room.
My colleague wasn't there.
We did not make love. I did not love her yet, nor her me. I was deceiving her, even as she did me. Together, we deceived each other. And it was wonderful.
When I found out it had all been a lie-a part of the test, all of it-I was so conflicted. It had been the most incredible night of my life. All at once, I had felt valued, respected, cherished even.
I hated myself for trusting her.
But when she was kidnapped, I leapt to her rescue. Through magical means, we were taken thousands of miles to the north, into hostile country with no way back. It was just us. Together.
We found each other anew there in the frigid northern wastes. A larcenous ex-princess and an astonishingly beautiful bard. The only one who truly cared unconditionally for me since that fateful night so long ago. I changed for her, and that was how I knew I loved her. That I would willingly throw myself in her defence without any thought, or do what was right, over what was easy simply because I feared I would not be enough for her otherwise.
For me, it was as good a reason as any, love, to lessen the pain the world had inflicted upon me, and I, it.
For the first time in years, I was truly happy.
We were back home within the month. A journey that should have taken us almost a year, hasten by time travelled on the back of a grateful dragon. We returned to the city, triumphant. Happy, euphoric even, at the fact we were home, the fact we were alive. The fact we were together.
The Dhorn came and took Master Nathan that day.
And the joy stopped.
I could hear two voices, and more pounding now. They barely even registered through the foggy envelopment of my thoughts. Eind uhmuhn eth eh kee. One said, followed by silence.
Joined by Pia, my love, and Vico, the man I hated more than anyone living or dead, I pursued the men who captured Master Nathan and the rest of our dysfunctional, criminal family's leadership. We traced them to an old castle, built within the waters of a lake. Since I alone of our party could swim, I scouted the castle. Shoddy masonry, not bad luck or the skill of the guards caught me. Even worse, I discovered that Master Nathan had been moved elsewhere.
And then I had another job, one I wasn't even tempted to decline. The nephew, or something, of the emperor of Dhorn and his lecherous bastard of a friend informed me of a fortune sitting there collecting shiny under my father's castle. I snuck them through to it in return for the location of Master Nathan and a cut of the spoils.
The plan was on its head when we-myself and the royal, not lecherous bastard-had to retreat back into the vault. A few ridiculous circumstances and piles of abandoned fortune-on his part, I kept mine-we escaped, and parted ways. I met up with the remainder of my adopted, rogue filled family.
About half of them tried to kill me for the Dhorn ransom.
Just my luck that Vico sided with me. I hated him for that too.
Pia, Vico, and I, now joined by a ranger guide, continued the chase. Midway through, Vico left us, but not before threatening me with torture and a life in slavery to him, to be meted out once he alone rescued Master Nathan. The most disturbing thing to happen to me that night came just afterward. Pia, feeling insecure about our relationship because she felt my royal lineage would forever diminish her in my, and everyone else's eyes.
I told her she was silly.
I told her I bled red just as she did, not a drop of blue in my veins.
I told her I loved her.
I told her that the princess, the one she felt she could never be with, had died some time ago, leaving me in her place. A kleptomaniac thief, who's heart fluttered at her mere sight.
We fell into the underdark the next day. The one after that, we were petrified and sold as slaves.
I was sold as a gladiator, to a family of dark elves whose name I couldn't pronounce.
I met Vico, captured earlier than I, in the ring.
I cut him down there in the underworld, after I had bested him, while he feigned death on the cobblestones at my feet. I still remember by shortsword piercing his skull.
The crowd loved it.
I escaped that night, as the house who championed Vico raided the one who championed me, accompanied only by a disgraced son of the house-the one the "owned" me-matron. Disgraced because I rescued both him and the house matron from their foes. We both would be killed for that. Me as the rescuer and he as a witness. As we escaped the house, he tried to reinforce his dominance, insisting that I was still a slave to him. I left him bleeding on the steps of his family's estate.
Eah keen, eh enhour ouh, eh eahe ouch oh ouh ohay.
I fond Pia, and left her "owner" burning in his own smithy fires. We made our way out of the underdark, and just as the euphoria of living through such a harrowing ordeal left us, we died.
No foe, lock, trap, deception, or hopelessly lost situation could stop us. It, again, was shoddy masonry. A bridge that collapsed at the wrong moment.
We found ourselves in a plane filed with dust and tombstones. I still don't know how long we spent wandering that plane.
I made a deal with the ruler of that plane. Our lives, along with those of Master Nathan and the rest of the family's in return for a heist. Having no other real choice, I agreed.
I was to steal a three foot golden statue from the depths of a castle under siege.
I thought it would be heaven.
I got through the orc camp and siege lines alright. It was in the castle courtyard where I ran into the difficulties. Someone recognized me. Not as a thief, but as the princess she had been. Instead of an anonymous burglar, I was now an honoured guest. Suddenly, I was back, if only for a moment, in my old life. I had a maid waiting on me, servants trying to run errands for me, nobles being courteous and proper. I hated it. My distinctly un-regal-practical and modest-attire and insistence that I do everything myself shocked many in the castle.
They threw a ball for me.
I stole the statue that night. On my was out, I stumbled across a feud. An argument on wether or not to inform the Dhorn about me to receive their military aid had divided the castle. The Earl, and his knights sided with me. Things came to blows, and many in the local nobility were cut down. The Earl noticed the statue, and I told him of my plight.
He looked so defeated, so lost, so angry. I saw a little of my past self in the old man's features. For the first time, I felt a twinge of guilt over a theft.
I promised to return, and I meant it.
That unnerved me.
I returned to the ruler of the dust and grave filled plane with the statue.
And then I woke up.
My father greeted me, maid and nobles swarmed me, doctors attended me. All told me of how I'd overcome a deadly fever that had trapped me in a series of fitful dreams over the course of several months.
I found out I was betrothed to a Dhorn. One who, I had thought, tried to kill me twice before. Both by burning.
I clung to my dreams, my memories. I left the castle that night, and found my 'family' on the opposite shore of the lake surrounding it. I was given a choice. I could marry the Dhorn, solidify his power, and influence his decisions. Or I could live a life on the run from the empire, forever hounded because only I could give legitimacy to the Dhorn occupation of my home. I couldn't make that choice, because I was not just choosing for myself, but for Pia as well. Instead, I insisted on returning to the Earl I had stolen from. The one I promised to return to.
I found Pia again, a few hours journey from the castle.
The night before we threw ourselves against the massive orcish horde we spent toghether.
I showed her what she meant to me, how much I loved her.
She made me feel whole.
The movement from beyond resumes. I can hear a series of clicks, like tumblers turning. Music, to a thief like me.
In the morning, we seven met the remnants of a thousand strong horde, storming the castle from the rear and slaughtering them. We had to climb through the main doors over bleeding corpses.
We rescued the Earl, outnumbered and under attack by the attacking chieftain.
We started rebuilding the keep immediately, rounding up survivors from across the county and clearing the wreckage of war. By the end of the week, the castle and surrounding lands were almost presentable. We all gathered for a small feast in the common hall.
The Earl declared me his heir that day.
Suddenly, I was now a princess turned master thief turned queen. Royalty again, but still a larcenous sneak.
The tumblers click in lovely harmony, and the lock opens. I hear a door creak, and my grip on a hybrid state of awareness and dreamlike stupor slips.
After all, I hate taxing my workers, devoted to me as they are. The nobility, I can't tax either, but if a valuable trinket goes missing, and some new public work is completed in quick succession…
I can learn to enjoy this. Master Nathan is already starting to organize the county's cutpurses, burglars, and smugglers together. They're surprised when I drop by, and doubly so when I put them to shame in their own craft.
And Pia…my fingers idly trace circles around her stomach as her eyes flutter open. I beam at her, and press my lips to her forehead. She sighs contentedly, wrapping her arms around me. I really don't think I could do this, could've come this far without her.
"My Queen, you really must get up now, the merchant's guild from Westport is really quite insistent on meeting you before noon."
I sigh, stretching as the door closes again. Though I spurn most of the few servants the castle has, I can handle myself after all, a private-the soldier who recognized me when I first came to the castle-has devoted himself to assisting me however he can. It's endearing, if annoying at times.
"It sounds like you have an exciting day ahead of you, your highness." Pia giggles next to me.
I frown. "You know you don't have to stay away from me during the day."
She smiles, fixing me with an understanding gaze. "I know, but you know how nobles love to talk." She kisses me softly. Even this gentle gesture makes my head spin.
"That's fine with me, so long as they don't change their locks." I mumble distractedly as she pulls away.
"Someday, my sweet, things will change. For now; however, know that I am willing to endure anything for you."
"The underdark does make this pale in comparison." I sigh, standing to get dressed.
I mentally decide to ask Master Nathan if he's found a priest that is willing to perform a ceremony for the two of us. I smile, sliding the ring that Pia gave me upon our return to Betancuria so long ago on my finger. An intricately engraved gold band adorned with a heart shaped ruby that seemed to shimmer from within as light hit it. So far it's driven my court mad trying to figure out who my suitor is.
I smile as I push through the doors, Pia's loving gaze following me as I go. Not even the prospect of long trade negotiations could put a damper on my mood. I have a good feeling about today.
A/N: I loved this module. A Dance with Rogues parts 1&2 are amazing. For me, as a gamer and a writer, plot is everything. I have never had one that made me cringe, nearly cry-both with joy and sorrow-hate, and generally care as much as this one has. It is dark, deep, and in some cases, yes, sleazy. As an asexual, I had to struggle through some scenes, and others I just yelled at the needless fan service. This module is not for the faint of heart. But it is awesome. The worst part about the module, though I got the super special secret ending, was beating it. As a gamer and a writer, that's the worst part about a story like this one, because when it's beaten, the story ends. I didn't want it to end, and as a writer, I had the ability to make this happen. This is short, I know, but I hope it adds a little more closure, and maybe, just maybe, reminds you of the struggle, trials, and tribulations of one very special thief.
Game on, and remember, the story doesn't really end until you decide it does.