Morgukia and Marfedelom's Deception
Chapter 1
"So where are we going Morgukia?" Asked Aireon, an Elf I met on my way to Bork. I turned to look at the odd company of travelers that decided to follow me. Two rouges, an elf and a Halfling, Aireon and Bodo Fraggins. Three fighters, a human, a dwarf, and a dragonborn; Mythrik Locke, Drakak, and Bhar. And Cruven; a human paladin.
"We're traveling to a small village called Bork. A good friend of mine and my monastery, Torvin, a very brave dwarf paladin, has passed away. I was going to visit his grave and pay my respects." They all nodded with agreement and we continued to the town.
That was until Drakak said," Why does the human have horns?" he was talking about me; blessed dwarf, is probably dumber than the stones he mines for a side job. But for what he lacks in brains, he makes up for in his skill as a fighter.
"He's a Tiefling you idiot," replied the other fighter Mythrik, a human. We all chuckled at the dwarf, and then we reached the front gate where a guard stood doing what guards do best, standing.
"Halt!" he said, looking quite confused at our little party, "What business do you have here?"
I decided to approach him to explain our situation.
"We're here to pay our respects to Torvin, the paladin that protected this village for many years." He nodded and lets us pass though, but something in the back of my mind told me this wasn't going to go as smooth as I thought.
When we enter, we decide to go separate ways for a couple of hours until the funeral.
"Me and Bhar are going to the trading post for a bit and check it out" said Bodo, I looked to Bhar and spoke to him in his native tongue, Dragonic.
"Keep an eye on your friend there; make sure he doesn't get into trouble." He nodded in agreement.
Aireon spoke," I'm just going to look around for a bit," But then Bodo started speaking in a language I was not familiar with; it sounded kind of soft and poetic like. It has to be elvish, I thought to myself, and the two rouges are speaking it too each other and the rest of us don't understand them, great. I hope I can bail them out if they get into trouble. There's good in them, even if they don't see it.
"Well that's interesting Bodo, stealing stuff and all that crime sounds fun for everyone!" Replied the human, Mythrik; what a surprise, it's not uncommon for a human to know elvish, but it's nice to have more bilingual people with us.
Panicked and angry because he actually thought about taking from this poor small town I spoke in Infernal, a language that all Tieflings like me know from birth, to Bodo, "You, master Bodo, will travel with me and anyone else to the ceremony, are we clear?" He submitted, I'm guessing he also knows Infernal too.
So Mythrik, Bodo, Cruven, and I, traveled to wait at the cemetery while Aireon and Drakak explored the town. We told stories about when we were first deciding to choose our professions and how tough our training was for it.
At about four in the afternoon everyone met at the entrance and we went in to his crypt, it wasn't huge but it was tall and wide enough to fit all of us.
I spoke first," Torvin was a dear friend of mine, and an excellent trainer. He will be missed; any of you want to say a few words?"
All of them at once looked up at me with a confused look, like the one you would give your parents when they ground you out of nowhere.
"Um, he was a good dwarf." Was Drakak's words, and everyone else mumbled something I didn't hear. And just as we were leaving his crypt, we heard screaming; well it was more like some creatures we're yelling in the air for no apparent reason.
"Look! Goblins!" shouted Cruven. He was right, there was about seven of them, six lightly unarmored and smaller ones were following the orders of a taller and more armored one. I recognized the taller one, I had helped Torvin kill his leader; he was a goblin blackblade named Guldur.
"Throw a Javelin Cruven, weaken their leader!" said the surprisingly enthusiastic Halfling. Cruven, with all his strength, hurled a javelin right at Guldur. It sored through the air right at his head; the goblin then grabbed it out of the air and broke in half on his knee. Our jaws dropped.
I immediately went into strategy mode, "Whoa, okay everyone come close and make a formation, when they get here we'll have the advantage against them. Bodo and Aireon flank them and try to get the drop on them while we engage them from the front. Cruven, you get in the middle of Mythrik and Bhar. Drakak, get in front of him, I'll be behind him and move when I need to." And then we engaged, and Aireon got spotted and surrounded by three of them.
"Could someone bail me out!" yelled Aireon as he was trying to fight them off, Cruven threw another javelin and picked one of them off and he was able to escape. I decided to go left and engage one of the cutters, the lower goblins, I took the flat of my shortsword and knocked his head clean off. After this we all engaged and took a couple more out, and then I got surrounded by two of them. The one in front of me, hit me in the chest and knocked the wind out of me and then the second one, he was on my left, hit me in the head with his club and knocked me unconscious. The last I remembered was seeing Drakak attacking them, but missing horribly; and then I blacked out.
…...
"Wake up lad, your mother needs some water go fetch some from the well in the town. I'll make you something to eat for when you get back. Now go!" commanded my father.
Obeying his orders I shot up out of my bed and got dressed, while tripping over my tail four times trying to get out the door. Mother had been sick for about two years, and being a twelve year old Tiefling juggling school and caring for a sick mother at the same time is taxing on me. So I bolted to the town well, bucket in hand, to get some water for my mother. As I was pulling the bucket back up I saw a group of Monks from the monastery of Eberron, I've seen them before helping the community, healing the wounded and sick, and feeding the poor or whatever else monks do to help. Some of them even teach at the school or help build and repair the structures around of the town.
And then, it started like it did every day, "Hey demon! Get out of that well, that's for people, not filthy, evil devils like you!" shouted some old man coming out of the tavern next to the well. This didn't really phase me anymore, being a Tiefling people tend to act racist towards me because of our demonic appearance. I have three other Tiefling friends that are the same age as me who experience the same amount of persecution as me.
As I turned around with a full bucket of water I hear,"yeah get the hell outa here!"
All of sudden I was assaulted by an unknown thrown object that broke against by back, probably a bottle, and it threw me to the ground. I closed my eyes before I hit the ground instinctively, but noticed that I hadn't touched the ground yet. When I opened my eyes I felt the top of a foot on my forehead keeping me from touching the ground, and then it lifted me up standing again and I was standing face to face with a monk, human from what I could tell; he was bald with a long brown beard and shiny brown eyes, he had some weird symbol on his forehead and dragon tattoos along his arms, he was wearing red robes, which was odd because the other monks had grey robes.
"Are you all right boy?" he asked. Boy? I thought, that's new.
"Y-Yes I'm good, thank you." I replied, kind of startled by his appearance.
"Here, your bucket, nothing spilled so don't worry about filling it up again. Would you mind if I walk back with you?"
I was still a bit startled from the experience, "Uh, sure I guess, it's for my mother."
So we walked back to my house and I noticed something odd, people greeted the monk with bows and other gestures you give to people in high authority or big religious figures. I was confused, what's so special about this monk? As we walked, we disused my education and how the town was going, he also asked me what I thought about the monks. I told him that they were pretty cool and interest me. When we got to the door, my father greeted us.
"Morgukia- who's this? You know what not important right now; go tend your mother she's dying of thirst." So I hurried to my mothers' room; she's a Tiefling, that's where I get it, she has some illness that the lightly educated doctors couldn't diagnose. So I brought her some water and she woke to see me,
"Morgukia, good morning son; and thank you for the water." She took the bucket from me and chugged about half of it before I slowed her down so she wouldn't drown.
"Thank you my son, why are you not at school?" She asked.
Uh oh, well here it goes. "I stayed here; your sick mother, and you need to be cared for and sometimes father isn't here to help you."
She looked like she wanted to protest, but just didn't have the energy for it. She just closed her eyes again and held my hand for a little, and then she fell into a deep sleep. When I went back to the kitchen, the Monk and my father stopped talking about whatever their conversation was and looked at me.
"Son, we have something important to tell you," my father said, he had this sad look on his face," the monk has a proposition for us, and it's your decision."
I was confused, what is my father doing, or what has he done?
"We can heal your mother, to full health. On one condition," the Monk said, I was excited, like a new hope had entered me. He could heal my mother? To full health? I almost took the offer without knowing everything, but just to make sure I wasn't signing up to become some slave or something, I kept listening,
"After I heal her, you must pack up your things and come with me north to my monastery, and become a Monk of Eberron," I was shocked, I had no clue what to say. So I started thinking, become a monk, isn't that a for life thing? I'm not sure if I want to commit to something like that. But if I don't, my mother won't last the next winter.
"Well lad, what do you think?" I had a pit in my stomach; go, or stay? "Make up your mind boy, I leave tomorrow,"
At that point I decided to make a decision that could alter my life forever.
"Yes," I said," heal her, I'll pack my things while you do that." He smiled, got up and went to heal my mother. Tomorrow is going to be a new day.
…..
"He's waking up!" shouted Bodo.
I opened my eyes and saw my friends standing over me; some of them had goblin blood splattered on them.
"I'm guessing we won?" I asked.
"Yeah you missed one hell of a fight," said Cruven as he was giving me a hand up.
When I finally got on my feet I noticed something, when the fight started there was seven goblins. When I looked at the battlefield I only noticed six bodies, and a blood trail leading into the forest.
"Where is the blackblade? Did he die?" I asked,
"I thought he did, Bodo wounded him and then I planted an arrow in his chest and he fell to the ground. He must have lived and crawled away while we were getting you up. Should we go hunting for him?" replied Aireon,
"No, with his wounds he shouldn't last very long in the forest; hopefully." I said
I felt the part of my head where the goblin struck me, it stung, and when I looked at my hand there was a little bit of blood. I'll live, I thought, just got to be more careful next time. So we turned around to leave and noticed the grave digger, who probably witnessed the entire bloody conflict.
"Well who's gonna help pick up this mess? I dun't git paid enuff to burry people, let alone gublins." He said. Ugh, his grammar is killing me faster than the goblins. I thought. His speech was giving me a head ache.
"We just saved your town from some goblins, show some appreciation!" said Mythrik, annoyed at the unappreciative grave digger.
"Yeah, if we hadn't shown up you could be dead right now. With goblins munching on you." said Bodo, trying to scare the grave digger.
"Well, all right, I guess ya dun't haf to. Thank you fer killin dem," said the grave digger, with a little bit more appreciation for us.
So we all decided to go ahead and take the rest of the day off, half of us went to secure rooms and half of us went to buy some pints. I was looking forward to resting for a bit, my head still hurt and a pint didn't sound so bad. It was dark when we got situated with rooms and got some ale, and then it was time to answer a difficult question. Should we all stay together for another adventure or separate and go back to our regular lives. Aireon turned to me and asked, "So what's next Morgukia?"
I was a little shocked," Um, well I was going to leave in the morning to the next town and see if my skills are needed there. Do any of you wish to join me?"
They all mumbled, to themselves and each other. And they all came to a conclusion," Yes." They all decided to stick together, what a strange world. Six, random strangers, decide to come together and travel for the thrill of adventure. Who knows what we'll encounter; dragons, dungeons, trolls, or maybe evil wizards. All I know is that this would be the group that could change the world; I sense their potential to do so. So we raised our pints in the new bond of friendship that arose from slaying a few goblins, and a new adventure.
When we were fixing to turn in for the night, Drakak and Mythrik got drunk and passed out and the rest of us were finishing up. And then a dwarf, a really old dwarf, approached us.
"Hello I'm Torvins' father, Torvo; I just wanted to thank you all for protecting my son's grave. It's a shame to have your son buried before you are, but at least he died peacefully. Thank you so much for your help." He was really old, probably 450 to 500 years old. I never got to meet Torvo before and I never really knew Torvin had a father, or that he was alive. We just raised our mugs to him in silence and he went back home, so we decided to do the same. Tomorrow is going to be a new day.