Escaping fates:
Disclaimer:I forgot to put this on the first chapter but here it is: the characters the plot and the places are mine, the spell names, creatures and classes and of course d&d rules are not mine.
Chapter 2:
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Like a bad brew awareness seeped right into stephen's soul, it was just dawn and his shoulder still ached with the memory of the previous day, but a new day was upon him and a new beginning.
Stephen got ready to move out he had many miles to ride so he needed an early start, mounting his horse he made sure he forgot nothing and he sped of.
The morning shone with a red light and the sun could barely be seen behind the hills but its light reflected of the vast snow covered peeks of the eastern mountains. Stephen made his way through the western forests of Daranoor.
The forest was thick so pursuit was almost impossible through it, so stephen could relax and take an easy pace.
Though the sun was at its full vigor in side the forest it did not penetrate and the place was dark.
As he rode he thought about what happened to him and what he'll do next, the city of onwera is heavily enforced and sneaking in would be difficult.
And so he rode for an hour filled with nothing but worry when he sensed a great evil in the woods, he heard a scream of a woman coming north from him, he urge shadowmane into a much faster pace though in such a dense forest it could be dangerous. Quickly he reached a clearing, it was full of death.
What was a few minutes ago a full caravan was now ashes a scattered body parts, signs of heavy fires lay all over the clearing and on the bodies, but it happened just a few minutes ago- it had to had been a wizard that attacked them.
Stephen searched the clearing for clues, he found that the caravan was transporting goods for some temple of what god he could not tell, he saw the bodies of a dozen priestesses and was shocked of the brutality the struck them. They reminded him of Dalana who was also murdered in this fashion, an unworthy fashion.
Movement caught stephen's eye, he drew the long sword he took yesterday and slowly approched. It was behind one of the near boulders, a perfect place to hide form the untrained eye.
Stephen stopped near the boulder ready to pounce at whatever it was when he heard a voice coming from behind the boulder.
" Their all dead even the horses are dead… good thing though that I ain't but… my sweet little Bluna! Where did he take her?!" the voice kept on ranting like that for a while when stephen decided it is safe. He put the sword back into place and moved forward.
Behind the big rock was a dark skinned man sitting with his knees up to his chest ranting about various things. The man looked harmless enough and he did not notice stephen, the man was obviously in shock. The man was not very broad but not too skinny he had a leather armor of some fashion and it was possible to see his armed with a short sword.
"Are you done talking to yourself? Cause if your not I can just go and leave you to it!" stephen roused the man from his senseless rabble.
"Wha…wha.. what! Oh, no sir please stay! I did not see you there my good sir! I… I… I was assessing my situation, yeah that is what I was doing!" the man launched of into endless babble that stephen did not understand, for the man's voice was extremely high pitched and he talked really fast.
"Your ranting again…" Stephen stated.
"Sorry man." The man said a took a pause and then continued.
"My name is Domo je'ar. I am a rouge and I was a… friend of one of the priestesses on this caravan. Now that I introduced myself its your turn." Domo said with now a clear voice.
"I am Stephen heartreaver. A travailing paladin of the god Tahoor." Stephen introduced himself in modesty.
"heartreaver… no never heard of you sir!" domo stated looking at the well armed figure, reminding stephen that now he was a wanted man and that he had to be careful.
"Tell me what happened here, if you don't mind." Stephen requested.
"Well the caravan leader was in a hurry to onwera so we cut through the forest, and just here we were attacked by a powerful mage! It was a brutal fight and the mage summoned monsters to do his dirty worked though he seemed to enjoy hurling fireballs at us. Out of reflex I hid myself behind that boulder. When I went back out they were all dead even the horses all dead!! Except Baluna, she was the highest ranking priestess in the caravan, and my woman. Her he took, the wizard took her! He rode a flying steed! It was all black with hooves of flames and eyes all red and… and he just flew away!" domo told the tale at an amazing speed that astonished stephen, though what was more astonishing was that he managed to understand what his new dark skinned friend said!
"A nightmare! The wizard rode a nightmare! Those are horse like monsters from the lower planes!" stephen was amazed at what he heard.
"If that wizard rode one of those he must be a very powerful mage…" stephen continued.
"I will help you find your woman, but you have to do something for me… I need to get into onwera unseen, and you said you're a rouge. Can you help me?" Stephen let out after a long pause.
"Sure! I can do that! I got a lot of friends in onwera! Infact I just thought of a plan to get us both there, it's a good place to find some info about the wizard ain't it oh…" like before, Domo launch into endless rabble of his newly devised plan, talking as fast as eagle flight with his high pitched voice, stephen gave up on listening and trying to figure out what Domo was saying and was just looking to his north… his destination…