There were at least ten of them, including Drunk and Sober from outside. Only the leader had his knife out, but the others looked ready for a good night of fun. Ny stood slowly, a hand on her machetes. Khelgar followed her line of sight, grunted, and pushed back his chair to get up, too.
Where's Webb?
Ah, there he was. Sporting a long cut to the forearm and dripping blood on the wood, he had his hammer in his hand. He joined them at the table, his face a mask of indignation. Their leader—the one with the knife—only laughed at Webb's foolishness. "Guess we couldn't persuade you after all," he said. "Oh well."
The cut on his arm suddenly took new significance. Oh. It looked painful.
"Leave us alone," Ny'ren said softly, sliding out her machetes. "Do you really think that hurt pride is worth one of your lives?" It wasn't something she'd ever thought she'd say—maybe only in daydreams when she was working on the farm—and it gave her a chill to say them out loud and mean them. Esmerelle was always sticky about being polite, even to your enemies.
"What about yours?" Drunk drawled.
Beside her, Khelgar cackled, reaching behind his back for the ax attached there. "They're the ones escalating it, not us. This should be interesting."
Sober glared at the dwarf, and Ny nearly scooted over to the side a bit to get Khelgar out of his line of view, then pulled back; Khelgar wasn't the type to be coddled. No dwarf was, she could guess.
"What are you planning on getting out of this?" she asked curiously. She could feel Webb's wall of anger behind her, but she tried not to let herself catch it. Any weakness, and they would lunge.
The one with the knife smiled. "You're a pretty girl. You probably know a few things…"
The meaning sunk in, and her stomach twisted violently. She felt her lip curl in spite of herself and said through gritted teeth, "Try me."
"You'll have to get through me ax then," Khelgar said sharply.
Webb lifted his hammer threateningly.
Ny could feel it—all the tension in the room, strained to a breaking point. There would be no way to talk herself out of it, which left only one thing to do… attack first. Amie and Bevil would've understood, but Webb and Khelgar… Amie, why'd you have to die? She didn't allow the grief to get her, through, and tried to concentrate on the rusty blade in front of her.
If it stuck her, it'd probably poison some part of her. Great.
She took a step backwards, setting herself into a good stance as she took out her machetes. He didn't give her another chance to move, but neither did Webb. He met the leader head-on with a solid smack to the stomach from the hammer's end. He folded over like a rag doll and fell, unmoving, to the ground.
A beat of silence. "Anybody else?" Webb challenged, his voice laced with boiling anger.
There were a few shocked gasps from the surrounding others, and then they were on them like flies to light.
Ny automatically slipped to the side, pressing her back against Webb's to avoid a double-attack from Drunk and Sober. She'd had enough with their antics, and decided it was finally time to take them out of the fight. Her machetes flashed, and Drunk's knife-hand fell to the ground. Khelgar whacked Sober hard in the ribs with the butt of his ax, and when he didn't fall he did it three more times, each one harder than the other. Sober tripped over his own feet trying to get away, and when his head was within reach Ny kicked him as hard as she could. He lay still. Drunk had stumbled back out of the way, clutching at his injured hand like he couldn't believe it was gone.
She could hear Webb's grunts of effort behind her, and automatically knew something was wrong. His breathing was too shallow, too fast for her liking. His shoulders were beginning to shake slightly under some kind of pressure. Ny and Khelgar were soon joined by more problems, and she could only hope that Webb could last…
He couldn't. From her peripheral vision, she saw his hammer clatter to the ground, but more worrying was his strained breathing. She could literally hear the knife whizzing behind her to reach her target, and she gave her life up to chance to spin around Mossfield and blocked it with her left machete. A rough hand grabbed her right hand and twisted it the wrong way—hard. Something pinched a nerve, and her weapon dropped. "And the other one," a snarling voice said in her ear.
It dropped to the ground with a clatter.
Pain compliance. She hated it.
The action had suddenly stopped, and she saw Khelgar being backed up, ax-less, away from them. "Are you okay, Webb?" she whispered. The hand on her wrist tightened its' hold, and she let out an involuntary hiss of pain.
"My chest," Webb whispered, his tone interlaced with misery. "I'm sorry…"
The hand twisted harder. Ny was up on her toes, trying to keep her cry to herself.
"Check the Captain," one of them muttered. Somebody that currently didn't have a sharp implement for killing placed in their line of sight knelt down at the Captain's body. She could see the white of bone protruding from his chest in a sickly image, and she closed her eyes.
She could've just been six years old again, getting beat up by Webb Mossfield and his brothers just for being an elf.
A low whistle. "That ain't good…"
But just as they seemed surrounded for the last time, a loud cry of pain sounded out and caught everybody's attention. Behind the thieves, one of their own was being held in a hammerlock by none other than the hooded woman. No longer hooded, however, her coal black hair flowed down her neck and seriousness shone in her bright green eyes.
"Get her!" someone yelled. An arm closed around Ny's neck, dragging her to the floor. She watched, wide-eyed, at the action. Four of the thieves turned around and ran towards the woman screaming.
Using her hostage as a human shield, the woman backed up one step and lunged forward kicking him into two of the others and knocking them down. Reacting instantly, she punched the third one straight in the face and slipped her sleeve over the sword of the fourth, yanking it from his hand. The second the sword hit the ground, she slid it backwards and followed it to the stairs.
Once she got there, the four gangsters had already recovered and were just getting ready to charge her again when she tore open the buttons of her cloak in one movement and spun around, throwing it at them. She followed up by dodging to the right and clothes-lining the unarmed fourth one to the ground.
After these events had finished unfolding, Ny'ren watched in awe as the woman, who now sported a dark shirt, vest, leather pants and heeled boots, unsheathed a rapier from her belt. With the precision of a fencing master she bobbed and weaved around the remaining thieves and stabbed their sword arms so they couldn't fight. When the last one fell to the ground in pain, she spun around and glared at the one on top of her.
The arm dug in harder to Ny throat, choking her. She gasped and sputtered, then made her chin drop to open some space. "Who are you?! Tell me why you are here and what interest you have in these out-of-towners!" he yelled at the woman.
Her eyes narrowed as she answered "I am no one and yet I am enough to slice you limb from limb if you refuse to let them go."
All this earned her was a skeptical look "You think I'm going to let any of you go after that?"
"If you're half the men you proclaim yourselves to be, the wounds should heal." The woman spoke softly, cracking her neck "If however you wish to show off your testicular fortitude on my account, I can't be held responsible for your permanent injuries. Death possibly being among them."
His eyes widened and hers squinted with a challenge in them, making the room seem like it was standing still. Ny's heart beat nervously, her eyes darting between them. All it seemed she could do was sit there and choke, waiting for them to work it out themselves.
Finally, he seemed to make a decision. He jumped off of her and ran out the door—the rest followed soon behind. Ny didn't watch—she crawled towards Webb, who had been taken to the ground during the fight. His breathing was still bad. She rolled him on to his back and found his eyes. "What's happening? What can I do?"
"My chest hurts," he said matter-of-factly. "But we're getting… better."
She searched his face for the pains he'd seen earlier. "We need to fix you up."
He shook his head mutely, and lay there panting. His eyes rolled sideways, looking at their rescuer. All the other patrons had fled upstairs during the fight, Ny noted, and were now peeking out the door to check and see if they were all gone. Comprehension dawned on Webb's face. "West Harbor--!"
Ny looked up quickly, her eyes meeting the serious green ones of the female that had rescued them. "Who are you?" she asked, albeit sharper than intended.
The woman stared back with the same stare that seemed as though it was permanently displayed on her face. She hesitated for a few tense seconds before she answered evenly "As I said, I am nobody."
Getting to her feet Ny kept her eyes on the woman's as she spoke. "Do I really look like I'm in the mood for jokes?"
"No, you merely asked a stupid question. One that had already been asked by your former captor. If you want to know something, ask the right questions."
Ny exhaled and crossed her arms. Her jaw set, she realized that the woman was indeed not joking.
She could've had something to do with West Harbor. It isn't a coincidence she's here... following us?
"All right, fine." She said finally. "Be that way. Then answer this one: why were you in West Harbor? Don't even bother to deny it," she added when she opened her mouth, "because I saw you."
The woman's expression softened up a little. "I was looking for the druids who lived nearby," she explained. "They had disappeared, so I went to town to find them."
"Then why did you disappear before the town was attacked?" Ny shot back.
"By the time the Fair was over, I'd given up hope of finding the druids in your swamp village," she explained patiently. When her eyes flicked over to Webb's form on the floor, Ny shifted her legs so his head was out of sight. "On my way out I kept asking my questions, but got no conclusive answers. There was nothing left for me at the village, so I departed."
Even as she talked, though, Ny could tell something was out of place--most specifically in her mannerisms.
Her eyes seemed like they were staring honestly back at Ny, but she'd never paid attention to such a look since Wyl Mossfield offered to teach her how to defend herself and ended up beating the Nine Hells out of her. In the middle of a sentence, the woman would blink only once.
"So you're saying you had no idea that there were these stinking, trespassing githyanki in our swamps?" Ny countered. "Or did you leave because of them?"
Another blink. "I circled back when I saw the smoke, and I saw you enter the lizardmen's ruins with your friend, then come out. You entered a house and didn't leave until morning."
As she continued to listen, Ny noticed something unusual in the woman's voice. It was as though the woman was not using her normal one and had to work to maintain the effort.
This of course came courtesy of Ny's heightened senses, but it all meant nothing without a reason. She may have had Khelgar and Webb fooled, but the elf girl was convinced that the other woman was hiding something.
The woman waited patiently, and when Ny didn't say anything she asked, somewhat impetuously, "Have I answered the rest of your questions?"
Yes. Cryptically and without revealing much. "I guess so. Except your name."
"I can't tell you my name. It's… Complicated. Just call me what you want."
Behind her, Webb was still injured and needed to be attended to. So Ny just picked the thing that occurred to her the quickest when she looked at the woman. "Okay then... Raven. Come down here and give us a hand with Webb's arm."
Once she realized again that Webb was hurt, Raven's expression quickly changed. She undid her sword belt and laid it on a table, before getting on one knee and calmly examining the wound with a small smile tugging at her lips. Almost as if her personality had gone directly from a warrior to a nurse.
"He looks quite savable, but we should get him upstairs to a bed." She said taking him by the hand and slipping his arm around her shoulder.
Webb had already bled quite a bit and taken a beating. So even though he was loath to do so as usual, he had to accept help from others to move. At least this time he didn't bother trying to vocally refuse it. "Right. Come along now, you big scary man," Ny grunted, slipping his other arm around her shoulder and hoisting him up.
Khelgar had seen worse in his time, so he stayed downstairs briefly to "borrow" some ale before the cowering bartender came back from wherever it was he ran. After filling up another tankard, he joined them upstairs.
Working together the two women ascended the stairs and brought Webb back to his room. It wasn't easy, the giant that he was, but they managed to navigate the hall and get the door to his room open. Slowly and carefully, Raven and Ny positioned Webb and lowered him into the bed on his back. Once again, Raven went to work.
The dark-haired woman procured a needle and thread from the hollow handle of her dagger and prepared it.
"I can sew wounds, but even after I have he'll still be in a considerable amount of pain." she explained
"Will he be okay, though?" Ny asked in an uncharacteristic tone, given the circumstances.
"He should heal just fine, like I said. I always keep an emergency potion on hand for situations such as this."
Raven turned around modestly and loosened the strings in her shirt so she could retrieve the vial of green liquid from between her breasts. The cork was attached to the string of her necklace. Ny made a sound somewhere between a snicker and a scoff when she saw this.
"Honestly, a pouch couldn't have sufficed? You had to stash it in your bust?"
Even though Raven struggled to uncork it without spilling it, she couldn't suppress an amused smile. "You must be the third person to tell me that since I made this necklace." POP! The cork came out. "My parents both hated it when I so much as suggested I possessed… Attractive features. Hold his mouth closed."
Raven gestured to Webb and poured the contents of the vial into his mouth. Predictably, it tasted terrible and he gagged on the bitter liquid before swallowing. Ny watched him anxiously, second-guessing her sudden, strange trust of this woman.
Within a few minutes, Webb was relaxed and lying back on his bed. In fact, even though he had just been seriously injured for the second time since West Harbor, Ny dared think that this was the most peaceful she had seen him.
"Let's go, he'll need to rest up and I need to go back to my room," Raven whispered.
Even though she was still quite suspicious of the woman, Ny felt grateful to Raven for using her only potion to help Webb. She knew she had to compensate her in some way, it was only fair.
"How much do those cost to make, what goes in them?" she inquired, pointing to the necklace.
"Oh they're easy to make. I just use a secret ingredient that I keep on me at all times."
"Useful," Ny muttered. She glanced back at Webb worriedly. It was a new emotion for her; for all of her life, the Mossfields had dominated in their way, blocking out sunlight and always bringing a razor sharp of pain with every encounter. Caring for him, fighting beside him...
It felt like it was changing her. And not in a good way.
"Don't worry about him," Raven said in a soothing voice that didn't really help at all.
"If he dies because of me I'll never be able to go back," Ny muttered, surprised that the words had come out of her lips. "Webb's a bully... But give him a bigger enemy than a little elf, and suddenly he's on your side."
"It's a strange world," Raven agreed.
"And there will probably be more attacks on the way to Neverwinter... don't look surprised, you had to have known that's where we were going."
Raven smiled slightly. "Maybe, yes."
They stopped in front of a closed door, presumably leading to her room. Raven pushed the door open almost casually. Ny peered under her arm to see what exactly the lady had brought with her, and noticed a sudden movement to her left. Ny twisted away, back to the wall, just as a wooden mug of beer flew her way and cracked along the wall.
Raven had frozen, though, her eyes suddenly wide. Wet ale dripped down her face, and for the first time Ny noticed a texture there, a bevel she'd never noticed before. Raven was suddenly moving, pulling her cowl above her head and rounding on the barman.
Oh. Ny could see it now--the barman had escaped during the fight and into Raven's room. He must've been adrenaline-high and thrown the cup at them. Even as she processed this new information, Raven hissed, "Get out of my room! Get out!"
The barman scrambled out, making hasty apologies, and Ny took a deep breath to calm her racing heart. "Did he take anything?"
Her eyes fell on a makeup case, smashed and broken near the area the bartender had been hiding, but that was the only damage she could see. It was a terrible loss, but Raven stared at its ruined contents like they'd contained thousands of priceless jewels. The mascara had run into the foundation, destroying it, and the glass bottle storing the liquid concealer had ruptured all over the applicators.
Raven didn't respond to Ny's inquiry, she instead came to her knees above the mirror and looked down at it. With the hood up and her facing away, Ny couldn't tell whether she was trying to somehow fix the smashed makeup case or if she was looking down and crying about her loss.
She stepped further inside the room and suddenly stopped dead in her tracks when Raven's hand came up. "Stop, right there." She said warningly at first before putting her hand down and continuing "Please tell me you have a makeup case."
"Lady, I'm a ranger. The closest thing I have to makeup is dirt." Ny responded. She wondered if this sudden development had anything to do with that difference she had seen in the woman's skin. A scar perhaps? No it couldn't have been, it was just a trick in the light… Right?
Ny decided to act on her earlier feelings and backed up and went out the door. "I'm sure it's just fine." She said in as sympathetic a way as possible "Just wipe off what's left and wash your face. I'm going to my room." She closed the door slowly and purposely shut it on her fingers so that the slit left in the doorway could be used to spy.
Ny faked walking back to her room down the hall and then tip-toed back and put her face up to the door.
Inside the room, Raven was still on her knees and looking down at the crushed case. But something unusual had begun to happen. She was now rubbing her fingers on the wood floor and trying slowly at first to scrounge up something, anything, from the scattered contents.
She started out just rubbing her index finger into the concealer and trying to bring it up. She repeated this a couple times but from the look of things the makeup had long lost its use.
Ny thought she had been discovered when Raven's hood turned towards her a little, but luckily she stopped short. In her hand, Ny could see the remnants of the mirror the bartender had stepped on. The woman's hand tensed dangerously around the shards as though she was about to tighten her hand and fill it with glass at any given moment.
Raven just stayed there and sighed deeply. This was clearly more of an issue than just a smashed makeup case. Ny couldn't decide whether to let it go and let her calm down or investigate further.
WHAM! The mirror hit the wall and shattered into a million pieces. Raven got up and threw off her cloak in frustration. Her face was a mess. Even from across the room Ny noticed clearly where the beer had hit her. Raven reached into one of her cloak's pockets and picked out a handkerchief, wiping off what was left of her ruined cosmetics.
As she did this, the woman's face slowly began to change. She couldn't believe it had been so well concealed earlier, but underneath what used to look like normal human skin Ny could now see strange patches of… Were those scales?
"It's okay. You can come in now. My secret is obviously out." Raven said aloud with a sigh just before she finished wiping the last of it off.
Ny opened the door and stepped inside then shut the door behind her so they would not be disturbed.
"All right, lady. I want some real, conclusive answers this time." Ny demanded while Raven looked down at the floor like a child caught in a lie by her mother.
Raven sat on the bed and Ny took a chair in the corner. Unexpectedly, Ny was told everything in detail. The reason Raven had given them for being in West Harbor was true, but she had left out the reason she was traveling. As a child she had been orphaned and now she was on a quest to discover her identity.
She was told by her village leaders to find a band of druids and seek their council. When the druids were not in the spot she was told, she went to the town to look. However, her reason for wanting to follow Ny was unusual.
"I received a revelation from my goddess to watch but not to intervene in your progress near the Lizard Ruins." Her eyes did not blink when she said this.
"And your goddess is...?"
"Angarradh," Raven answered. "Elven goddess of fertility." She waited patiently for more questions, and when none were forthcoming she continued. "After I left your village, I meditated on what to do. I couldn't think of anything to do--why did I have to follow you? So I awaited your arrival. I thought I recognized your large friend, but I wasn't sure until I saw you interact. I decided to wait you out, try to discern a meaning from my goddess. But when the fight came to a climax, I had to step in."
"It would seem fate," she said, "has given me direction in the form of you. With your permission I would like to travel with you to your destination... to find clues to my identity along the way."
"Well, I don't imagine you could have become any better a liar in the last few minutes," Ny said carefully. "So I suppose I believe you."
"Does this mean you'll permit me travel with you to Neverwinter?"
"Before I make my decision, you have to tell me your name."
The room was silent for a few seconds before she opened her mouth and answered matter-of-factly in her true voice. "Tasha." She hissed with a smile "Tasha Y'leni."
