Being the Continuing Memoirs of Charname Farlong
By Deekin Scalesinger (OK, KotOR, BYOB)
Crossroad Keep, the Sword Coast
Greengrass, the Year of the Lost Keep (1379 DR)
It was a dark and stormy knight. Actually it was a paladin, walking the ramparts of the keep, his gleaming armour gleaming in the moonlight. It was Greengrass and the grass was green. Well, to be honest, it would have been a very black shade of green to the casual observer. Or even the astute.
Perhaps walking would not be the right term to describe his locomotion. Nor was he strutting or marching, or indeed running. He was pacing nervously, even as his mind told his heart that orders should be given to his feet to do some running. Of the very serious, very fast and very far away kind.
"Just for once I would like to act out of character," he muttered under his breath.
He also did quite a bit of cursing, but thank Tyr this masterpiece has a teen rating. Actually, Tyr once appeared to me in a dream and thanked me, as it seems this particular paladin was a favourite of his. Tyr does not take kindly to slander of his favourites.
Charname glided up the stairs gracefully, only knocking three guarding Greycloaks to the ground. Some called her a barbarian, but only once to her face. Some very fortunate few actually survived this first round of name-calling. Some forward thinkers called her a sorceress, while the very astute called her an eldritch knight. Her appearance was definitely eldritch.
She had inherited all the good qualities of her father. Like the ability to cleave a man's skull in two with a single sweep of her greataxe, while shouting oaths to Gruumsh. Despite the dexterity of a ruffled cat in a saucepan, she had not quite managed to dodge the ugly stick. Although with her healthy constitution, plummeting intelligence and barely thawed wisdom, she had wisely chosen to simply break it. Over the bridge of her nose.
Behind her hopped, or rather flopped her familiar, Pooky. Pooky had once been a svelte rabbit, but years of inactivity and too many treats had robbed it of all athleticism. Pooky wheezed, its rheumy eyes scanning the immediate area for a convenient place to die. Not finding one, Pooky flopped on stoically. Each flop produced a little squeak, like that of a tiny soul dying. Pooky was protesting loudly, but no one was fluent in bunny.
Charname opened her mouth to speak and time stood still. So did the paladin. Moonlight gleamed mysteriously off the ivory of her short tusks. Halitosis rolled across the night air like a quartet of horsemen. Well maybe not famine, but certainly war and death accompanied plague on that occasion. The paladin gagged, but with heroic effort, and the help of the poison curative he had drunk earlier, managed not to lose his eveningfeast.
"CHARNAME LOVES CASAVIR," she whispered saucily. Her whisper was to a shout what an ogre is to a giant. Kissing cousins, but of the teen rated variety.
The paladin stammered as his mind fought a protracted war with his heart. It lasted all of a moment or two and ended in attrition for both sides. Fortunately common sense outflanked his aura of courage and managed to get a message to his feet. It was short and terse, but it saved a lot of lives that day… night.
"Run! Run for our life!" it read.
His feet, being in general agreement, and cowardly at the best of times, did so. With astounding alacrity and dedication. Unfortunately, due to the lack of mind's forces to stop them, it carried the hapless paladin over the edge of the ramparts. Bards from all across Faerûn would in later years sing the ballad of how a knight had been so enamoured of his beloved that he had thrown himself to certain death rather than face another day without her. They are all wrong.
Charname wailed in anguish.
Pooky finally died of fright.
Between dusty tomes of the keep's library an elf wizard desperately started researching a new spell.
In a wooded glade, a wolf howled, while a rugged ranger knew fear and uttered some immortal words. Sages and lorekeepers still debate the significance, often ascribing it to a warning about the King of Shadows.
Those that were within earshot simply heard, "The Kiss of Charname is coming!"
Glossary of Phrases, Sayings, and Words of the Realms
"Eveningfeast" – common:- the formal term for dinner, also known or pronounced as "eveningfest"