"The shard, let me see it." Daeghun instructed, and for the first time ever, Alysanna noticed a very slight gleam of greed in his eyes. She fished it out of her bag and held it out to him, but he didn't touch it. "I wanted to make sure you got the right one. Take this to-"
"Neverwinter, to your brother Duncan. I remember." Alysanna put it back in the bag.
"Good. Now say your farewells and get going, your road is long and the more you dally about here the more trouble you bring."
Aly stared at him for a long moment as all of the events from the past few hours began to sink in. She waited for him to say something, anything, that would indicate a fragment of affection that he was sending her away, presumably for a long time. But he only stared back with that cool, detached stare.
"Oh, another thing." He finally said. Aly brightened up for a cautious moment. "I sent out a false trail about the route you are taking. You will go through High Cliff and take a ship to Neverwinter, it's faster, and with the enemy thinking you're taking the road it will give you a good advantage over them."
There it was. She smiled at him, it was a small thing, but it was exactly the sort of indication of affection she could expect from him. "Thank you." She beamed as she threw her arms around him. His body turned to stone as he rigidly patted her back. "Go now, my daughter."
Aly spoke first to Bevil. While they had been exploring the ruins, the villagers had buried the bodies, starting with Amie's, and they left a little headstone that Bevil now stared at. Aly stood next to him and put her hand on his shoulder.
"We were together, you know." He said, his voice lost and solemn. Aly didn't say anything. "We were always together, sort of. We didn't have to talk about it, we both just sort of knew. And of course, the day we finally break the silence…"
He sighed. "So, you're heading to Neverwinter, then?"
"Yeah, it seems so."
"Well it's better than Luskan." he retorted. Aly chuckled, not having the heart to tell him that she only intended to drop off the shard. She didn't know what magical crap was going on, and she didn't care, and the sooner she got rid of the damn thing, the sooner she could get on with her life of adventure and excitement.
"Yeah, I'm gonna sell some of this stuff to Tarmas I think, get some money for the road."
"You can take my share of the loot." He said. Aly already had all of the loot in her bag, since it was enchanted and didn't weigh anything.
"Thanks." She said, and realized he needed more time alone with Amie. "I'm going to ask around and say my farewells, I'll save you for last."
He only nodded, the scene was making her a little uncomfortable, as though she was invading on an intimate moment, and she headed first to Georg.
"I hear you're heading off to Neverwinter, Oxblood." He beamed. "It'll be good for you, but you better listen to the militia there, they aren't as lenient as me."
She smiled back at him. "Good, they'll be more fun to disobey, then."
"Here, take this." He pulled the shield off of his back and handed it to her. "I'll bet you're going to come across a lot of stuff on the road, and even if you can't quite figure out how to use it or if you just don't like it, maybe it'll bring you some gold."
"Thanks, I really appreciate it." She stuffed it in the bag. Georg gawked at the image- a tiny coinpurse expanding to stretch over the circumference of the metal shield, then closing. Aly supposed she could have just carried it, this bag was going to get her a lot of attention.
"Good luck out there, Oxblood. And make sure to come back and visit every now and then, once you finish up with whatever it is you're doing."
"I will." She promised.
Brother Merring gave her a healing chalice. Rhetta Starling, Bevil's mother, asked her to look into the disappearance of Bevil's older brother, Lorne, who vanished after heading off to Luskan. Before helping her unload all her loot, Tarmas gave her a magical rod of frost. Before handing it over, he smiled at it fondly.
"Even a person with no magical skill can use it, and it has unlimited uses. It was a gift from my teacher, Jaroo, from the Neverwinter Academy, once I completed my training. Please don't sell it. If you find yourself wanting to be rid of it, bring it back and I'll make it worth your while." He had said. She scribbled a note to herself in her journal.
With her pockets full of gold, and no one left to say goodbye to, Alysanna turned to face the road out of West Harbor. Bevil slowly walked over, looking much more composed this time around.
"Hey, do something for me?"
"Sure," Aly said. He turned to face her now.
"If you find that thing that killed Amie, stick a blade through its heart for me."
"Do it yourself." Aly said, not really thinking about her words. Bevil frowned at her. "I mean… come with me. Please? Just to Neverwinter, then you can come back. Georg can't be that…"
But Bevil was shaking his head. "I wish I could, but come on. I'm not like you. I'll freeze up and die out there."
Aly sighed sadly. He was right, and she didn't even know why she bothered to ask. Instead, she reached her arms around Bevil and for the first time that night, pangs of agony and loss rippled through her and she began to cry. For Amie, for Bevil, for her own journey about to unfold before her.
When she saw the sign for the Weeping Willow Inn Alysanna nearly screamed in triumph. Her feet ached from walking and trudging through the swamp, falling off the path. All the while she had only run into a handful and a half of swamp beetles. She learned from Amie a long time ago how to remove their glands, which could be used for crafting. Stopping to gather them was probably wasting a lot of time, but she could use all the gold she could get her hands on.
Aly wasn't really worried about the monsters following her anyway.
Finally, she spotted the small inn in the distance down the path. A warm, yellow light surrounded it like a firefly's glow. The path began to smooth out, she found herself hoping and praying they had ale. Then she hoped the inn was far enough from West Harbor for her to stop and rest without bringing in more trouble. She'd head out early in the morning, just to be safe.
"Now that we're outside, maybe you want to say that again to my face." A rough voice came as she turned towards the establishment.
A bearded dwarf was surrounded by three men, and they looked like they were about to start throwing punches. Her feet ached in complaint when she stopped walking, surprisingly, then she kept going. It wasn't her business and she didn't care.
One of the men blocked her from the door, while the four of them exchanged more fighting words. Alysanna tried to ignore them until the dwarf said something that caught her ear. "Come on and hit me already, even the newcomer here can tell you're all talk."
If the human standing in front of her hadn't swung his fist and attempted to punch her in the face, Aly was content to just leave them to their own brawl, but since that motion got her involved, there was no turning back. One of the men pulled out a short sword and swung it at her. She caught his wrist and squeezed.
Suddenly, in that moment, her exhaustion winked away and everything turned red. Her own screaming filled her ears until everything drowned out and faded back to normal. The dwarf was the only one left standing, and the way he was staring at her was unusual, more as though he was impressed rather than scared of her.
"Well, now…" He began. "That was fun! A shame they had to bring weapons into a good brawl, though."
Aly threw her head back and squeezed her eyes shut, exhausted beyond belief. Though, a small part of her was happy to be near people again.
"I wasn't looking to get dragged into your fight, I'm so tired, I've been traveling for-"
"And the way you handled yourself was pretty impressive, I must say!"
"Thanks." She headed towards the Inn. The dwarf followed her.
"Where ya headed?"
"Neverwinter." She responded without really thinking.
"No kiddin'. Me too! What say you we step into the inn here and let me buy you a pint?"
Aly suddenly didn't feel so exhausted, and the warm personality of the dwarf was encouraging. She slowly nodded. "Yeah, sure. I'd like that."
"The name's Khelgar, of the clan Ironfist." He said, and she held the door for him. He shouted for two pints at the innkeeper then selected a table far from the fireplace. It was just turning to summer, after all, and it was humid outside.
"Alysanna…" She hesitated for some reason to give her last name. All her life she had been Alysanna "Oxblood" Farlong, taking Daeghun's last name as a sort of impromptu courtesy. This was a chance for her to re-create herself. "Blake. Alysanna Blake. No clan for me… barely much of a family, either." She sipped at the cold ale. It wasn't as sweet as the harvest mead, but it was still good, and most importantly, it'd do the trick.
"Well now that's a shame. Say, Alysanna, where did you learn to fight like that? I haven't seen anyone take out so many pesky humans so fast! Barely had time to get my hands on them, myself!"
She beamed. "I come from a small village, we have annual festivals for brawling and you get lots of good practice."
He nodded at her words then waved his hand. "No, no I mean the whole show, y'know. Your eyes were red as the hells and you were screaming like a banshee! Ha! Never seen anything like it!"
"Oh." Her eyes dropped to the table and she felt her face turn red. "That's um… not…" She couldn't think of what to say. "I don't know." She finally admitted.
"Wanna keep your secrets close to the chest, eh? Well. I'm headed to Neverwinter to learn some better fightin' myself!" He sat up straight, downed more ale, then shouted at the innkeeper for more. He glanced at Aly's mug. "You gonna finish that, lass?"
Smirking, she tilted her head back and downed it all in a few gulps. Khelgar nodded, and then yelled at the Innkeeper for another mug just as he began walking towards them, making him spin back around on his heel.
Khelgar told Aly about a slender twig of a man who beat him in a bar fight, wiped the floor with him, and how he went back in to thank them. He found out they were monks, dedicated fist-fighters, and he wanted to become one, so he was heading to Neverwinter to learn from their monestary.
By the time he had finished his tale, Aly and him downed three ales and she had warmed up to him. She liked him, he was excitable and fun to be around and he had lots of good stories.
Screaming suddenly came from upstairs and the inn door burst open.
"The Kalach-Cha. Find it!" a giant bladeling growled as more of them swarmed into the inn.
"Friends of yours?" Khelgar said, excitedly grabbing his axe. He had a rough interpretation of the look on Aly's face: it was clear she had seen them before. That jolted her back to reality and she drew her own axe. As they fought the bladelings, Aly tried to look around. Surely her and Khelgar weren't the only two skilled fighters in the inn?
When finally, the bladelings were all dead, Khelgar beamed up at Aly. He opened his mouth to speak when a woman came running down the stairs screaming. "Help! These monsters are upstairs! They trapped my husband!"
Her terrified gaze fell over Aly and Khelgar. "Please, you have to help! They could be murdering him!"
"Come on." Aly nodded at the stairs to Khelgar and they ran up.
There were even more upstairs, and Aly grinned with bloodthirst at the prospect of finally having a challenge. The gray dwarves were here, too, and these ones were stronger than the ones that attacked the village.
Khelgar groaned with effort as three of them had him cornered. It was looking pretty bleak. "Some help over here!" He shouted through the clash of metal. An arm knocked the wind out of her, and Aly gasped to breathe while trying to fend off the assailants. This is stupid, she thought, I can't die like this. I haven't even started.
A bald dwarf with a jack-o-lantern grin raised his dagger over his head, aiming to stab her in the stomach and though it wasn't as strong as before, the red vision kicked in again. The scream rushed through her, ripping her muscles apart and searing over her skin. Every moved burned, but she was a slave to it, unable to stop herself from hacking at all of them. She was too weak to keep a grip on her axe and it clunked to the ground.
When they all laid dead she spotted Khelgar. He was saying something and looked concerned, and somehow, she managed to re-direct her rage away from him - it was an entity all its own within her, and it wanted life and blood of all it saw. NO! She thought. HE'S GOOD. She tore the focus away from her new friend to the rooms, lured there by the scratching of their thin feet and the little chittering noises of their tongue. While she tore through each room, Khelgar set to find the missing spouse.
"You must be the husband we were sent to find." Khelgar said, ducking his head in one of the rooms that Aly had destroyed. The black blood of the bladelings splattered over his clothes as he huddled in the corner behind a chair, trembling.
"Y-y-y…. M-m-may-maybe." He forced his mouth closed and let in and out a slow, deep breath.
"Come on, let's get you downstairs. My friend's takin' care of the beasts." He helped him out of the room and to the staircase as the sound of splitting wood and the screams of the bladelings and Aly's roars of anger began to die down.
The last room she entered just as the last bladeling had its heart stabbed. Now that the threat was gone, Aly collapsed against the wall, the only thing remaining was a smoldering ache in her bones.
"Sorry," she muttered to the three men in the room. Her head felt as though it erupted into flames. She needed to sleep.
"Are you Daeghun's lass?" A familiar voice asked. Aly slipped her eyes open enough to look and saw it was Galen the merchant.
"Yeah. Gods. I'm sorry, I-"
"Oh don't worry about it." He waved his hands dismissively. "My guards will set you up in a room, we can talk in the morning. Unless you think more of those things will come back."
She couldn't even answer, for formulate one in her head before the sweet blackness of rest washed over her.
Khelgar was on his second ale of the morning before Aly came down the stairs. The sun hadn't even come up yet, but she fell asleep early on account of all the physical exertion from the night before. She waved at Khelgar, who responded by beckoning to her. "Got a message for you!"
Aly looked around the inn, it was considerably empty, and the innkeeper seemed fuming about the events from the night before. He stared daggers at Aly and Khelgar, and she assumed he wanted them gone as soon as possible.
"Were there any more attacks?" Aly asked, worried of what she slept through.
Khelgar shrugged, "not many, nothing I couldn't handle. It was nice to have a few of those bastards to myself after you went all berserk on them last night. Ha! But some merchant said he couldn't wait around for you to get up after it all went down. Said he'll meet you at Fort Locke."
Aly wondered what he had to tell her that was so important.
"Oh, alright." She sighed awkwardly, eyeing his empty mugs of ale. "Well, I better get going. Don't want to bring any more trouble."
"You mean we better get going!" He hopped up to his feet. Aly didn't say anything, she just smiled at him with confusion. "Wel, I figure since we're going in the same direction and we both enjoy a good head-bashin, and the way you attract trouble…"
"Alright, sure. That'll be fun." She nodded, and the two headed out of the Weeping Willow Inn and down the path towards Fort Locke.