3.2 – Aftermath

Mialee

'Bend your arm.'

A single bead of sweat dripped down Mialee's brow, her arms shaking as she tried to keep the bow strung. Her hands, still small and childlike, had trouble holding the – for her size – massive weapon. The young wood elf had insisted to try and shoot with this bow, rather than the child-sized one. As expected, it was nearly beyond her abilities. But the brown-haired elf was stubborn. She was going to shoot with this one. She had been struggling to keep herself locked in position, refusing to give up – until one of the older students, Taeral, reached for her arms. His light brown hair fell over his eyes as Taeral readjusted Mialee's grip.

'If you lock your arms, your hold will worsen. Do not worry about being able to shoot perfectly. Nock the arrow, draw as far as you can, then release.'

Mialee did as he instructed, frowning deeply. She drew the arrow back as far as she could manage. Her arms were shaking like leaves. The green-eyed elf exhaled slowly, waiting until the pressure became almost unbearable before finally letting go. The arrow shot forth from her bow, landing a few meters ahead of her in the open field.

'Good,' Taeral nodded. Mialee looked up at him, the frown still on her face.

'But I didn't hit the target.'

'It's a heavy bow; aiming properly with your current abilities will be difficult. But you demonstrated discipline and proper control over your own body. That's more than most rookies can do. You did well.'

As he stepped away, a smirk appeared on his face.
'You should work on your stance, though. You looked like a fawn that's about to fall over.'
The young elf huffed angrily.
'As you said. It's a heavy bow.'
'So it is. Why don't you train with the lighter one for now?'
'I can handle this one.'
'Stubborn like her mother,' Taeral laughed. 'Do as you wish. I look forward to the day that you live up to that bow.'

'I'll be better than you someday, Taeral. Just you watch,' Mialee replied with a determined look in her eyes. Taeral shook his head, laughing.
'I don't know about that, Mialee. My first kill was a bear. Come back when you've killed something bigger than that. Then we'll talk.'

Mialee huffed again, turning away from the older elf. She drew her bow, focusing on the target on the other side of the field. It was a large ring, wooden and painted green with the symbol of clan Lavelan; a single stalk of wheat, going through a straight limb bow. As she aimed the weapon, her arms once again started to shake.

'…ake up.'

With considerable difficulty, Mialee trained the arrow on the target in front of her. As the sun moved in the sky, the target slowly changed colours. The greenish brown turned to a pale shade of emerald, shifting under the morning sun. It was a familiar colour, but the young elf could not recall why. Mialee lowered the bow, confused. What was going on?

'Wake up!'

She blinked. The shifting colour was still there, and the scenery around her was fading rapidly. The trees and bushes around her turned into cold, hard stone. A dusty ceiling filled her vision, together with the realisation that she was lying on something hard. The floor. Why was she lying on the floor?

Mialee blinked again, and the outlines of Telyn's face became visible. The young woman was sitting on her knees, hands pressed against Mialee's chest as she was rapidly healing her wounds. Her emerald eyes looked at Mialee with worry.

'Hey, stay with me now! You're all right, I've got you!'

There was something lying on the ground next to her. Slowly, Mialee turned her head to the right. Golden scales. She blinked. It took the brown-haired elf a few seconds to realise that it was Nala, floored and unconscious.

Oh. Right. They'd charged into a fight with King Groll. Mialee remembered a large wolf and a dark-skinned Drow woman… and the impact of Groll's mace on her body, knocking her down.

Then nothing.

Right. That happened.

As Mialee struggled to become aware of the world around her, something large and white bent over Nala's body. The elf could see fur, drenched in blood, before the form suddenly shifted. The next second the bear had swapped out for Yorda. She was casting the same spell on Nala that Telyin was using on her. The pale glowing half-elf was considerably less white than before. On the contrary; over half of her body was covered in dark red blood.

Telyin's spell had completed. The young bard instantly got up and moved away from Mialee, leaving her field of vision. Slowly, Mialee sat up. She cast a glance around her. Alatar was standing in a corner, where the bed had originally been. There was not much left of the thing. Something had torn the corner to shreds, and the wizard was standing with pieces of what looked like shattered glass in his hands. He threw them to the ground, cursing softly. Angelica stood not too far away from him. She seemed rattled, her hair wild and messy. When the two locked eyes, Angelica gave the wood elf a single nod.

'Welcome back.'

'What happened?'

'We won,' the Tiefling sighed, with a wry smile. 'Just barely. The Drow woman got away, though.'
Right, there had been a third person in the room. The one that had taken out Nala in the beginning.

'She took the map to Wave Echo cave with her,' Angelica scoffed. 'Alatar tried to stop her, but he shattered the bed instead. She teleported outside.'
Yorda's healing spell had completed. The Dragonborn groaned slightly. She sat up, looking around with the same confused expression that Mialee had a few moments ago.
'The bugbear?'

'Dead,' Angelica answered. She pointed to her left; King Groll was lying in a pool of his own blood, his throat seemingly ripped open. Mialee saw the large teeth marks around his jugular and remembered Yorda's blood-covered form. It wasn't hard to do the math.

'Gundrin?' the paladin asked, looking past Yorda to the other side of the room. Telyn had walked over to another form on the ground – the dense, unmoving body of Gundrin Rockseeker. Her hands glowed with arcane energy as she placed her palms over his throat, which was soaked in dwarven blood. A second passed. Then another. Gundrin's body remained still and unmoving. Telyn placed her finger on his neck, seeking a pulse. After a few seconds she pulled her hand back and shook her head.

It was too late. Gundrin was gone.

'Damn it!' Nala yelled out in anger. She rose up, paced for a few seconds, then turned to Mialee with rage shining through her golden eyes.

'This is your doing,' Nala said. Mialee hadn't expected that. She stood up, looking at the Dragonborn in confusion.

'What?'
'Don't "what" me, Mialee! What the hell were you thinking?! You put everyone in danger and almost got both of us killed! And Gundrin is dead!'

'I didn't kill the dwarf!' Mialee replied. 'That was the Drow!'

'We could have talked them down! You were the one that charged in without waiting, and you were the one that insulted the bugbear when we could have tried to bargain with them! Your recklessness cost Gundrin his life!'

'I didn't mean to-'

'I don't care what you meant!' the Dragonborn yelled, a small trace of smoke trailing up from her right nostril. 'Gundrin is dead, and that death is on your hands! I trusted you. I was willing to give you a chance. But this is the second time that you've endangered the lives of everyone in the group! I'm warning you – there will not be a third time!'

Mialee opened her mouth, then closed it again. She didn't know how to respond. Nala's anger threw her off balance, and her words stung. She hadn't meant for anyone to get hurt. She just hadn't… thought about it.

'I… I'm sorry.'

'It's a little too late for that now, isn't it?' the voice of Alatar sounded. He came walking back from the shattered bed, an angry gleam in his brown eyes. 'The dwarf is already dead.'

With a flick of his wrist, he threw the broken pieces of a potion flask on the ground.

'I didn't mean-'

'I don't care what you meant either, elf,' the wizard cut her off. Where Nala had raised her voice in anger, Alatar's tone lowered. He actually spoke softer than usual, but his menacing tone was unmistakable.

'I warned you all about this. You're a liability to the group. Your idiocy could have cost all of us our lives. You will not endanger my life again, do you hear me? Next time, I will kill you.'

He, very visibly, reached for the dagger on his hip. Mialee clenched her fists. She refused to answer, looking away from the wizard instead.

'Did you hear me, elf? I said you need to learn to control yourself. Because that dwarf over there? Gundrin? His blood is on your hands. And not just his. If you don't learn proper control, a lot of people will end up dead because of you.'

It was not completely unwarranted, but the tone and ferocity that Alatar used on her made Mialee turn away from him. She crossed eyes with Nala; the Dragonborn was still staring her down angrily. She would receive no help from there. Mialee liked Nala, and seeing the paladin look at her like that hurt a little. She really hadn't meant for all that to happen. The wood elf just hadn't… thought about it. She should have. Maybe Gundrin wouldn't have died then. Guilt rose up inside of her. Maybe, if she had been a little more cautious, she could have saved him. She'd always been rash. Even back then, when… no, she couldn't think about that now. Mialee quickly walked away from the group, moving towards the sacks on the table to distract herself. The brown-haired elf grabbed the nearest bag. It wasn't more than a crudely made sack. It smelled, too. The bottom was stained a shade darker than the rest of it. Expecting hunting meat or other supplies, Mialee untied the cord and opened it.

And froze. The wood elf could feel all the blood draining from her face as she looked down at the contents of the bag. Her fingers slipped from the edge, falling limp at her sides.

There, lying on the dirty bottom, was an elf head. But it wasn't just any elf. In there was Taeral, her old training companion. His light brown hair was stained with his own blood. His eyes were glassy. A thin trickle of blood had dried up on the side of his mouth.

Mialee could feel the world around her starting to blur. Blood flowed to her head and chest, making her feel like she was choking. Her heart beat in her throat furiously. A single memory, one that she had been suppressing for a long time, once again floated to the surface. Burning houses. A bloodied axe, digging into the back of a young child. Screaming and yelling as elves ran in terror from a legion of orcs, all armed to the teeth and killing indiscriminately. A hobgoblin, slitting the throat of one of her friends. Rage filled her chest, spreading until it filled every inch of her body. The next second, Mialee was back in the dusty war room.

And the elf took off. Mialee bolted through the door, almost trampling Telyn in the process. She roughly shoved the young bard aside as she stormed out. The brown-haired elf coursed straight through the hallways, back to the storage room with the hobgoblin corpses. As she ran, she pulled her swords out of their sheaths. Her foot almost slipped on a pebble on the way there, but Mialee didn't care. She coursed straight for the nearest hobgoblin corpse, raised her blades and started stabbing. Once. Twice. Three times. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Mialee pulled back the blades violently, ripping a vein and making a spray of green goblin blood burst out from the body. It covered her almost from head to toe. She didn´t care. In a frenzied rage, the wood elf kept stabbing.

And stabbing.

And stabbing.

Finally, Mialee noticed someone else being in the room. She turned around, swords still raised, only to lock eyes with Yorda.

'What?!' the wood elf snapped at her. 'Did you come to lecture me, too?'

'No.'
'What, then?' Mialee reacted angrily. The pale half-elf's gaze travelled down to the remains of the hobgoblin. After the stabbing, there wasn't much left. Yorda's presence made Mialee suddenly become very aware of what she was doing. She had let her emotions get the better of her. Again. But she just couldn't help it. The anger inside of her demanded to be let out.

'You mentioned before that you hate them. And orcs, too. Why is that?'

The memory flashed before her eyes again. Mialee couldn't contain it. She turned around, driving her blade deep into the hobgoblin's shoulder. As she stabbed, Mialee could hear herself growling the answer to Yorda's question.

'Because they killed' -stab- 'everyone' –stab- 'I cared about!'

The brown-haired elf slashed widely, hitting the hobgoblin's neck. The blade sunk through the vertebrae, cleanly severing the head from its shoulders. It rolled back with a soft rustling sound. Mialee rose back up, breathing heavily. She turned around to face Yorda. The glowing half-elf was looking at her with a completely neutral expression on her face, not reacting to her outburst of rage in the slightest. The sight of her made Mialee calm down a little bit. It was enough to make her remember Taeral, bloodied and reduced to just a trophy in a stained bag. The last bit of rage left her body. Her shoulders sagged, blades lowering back to her side.

'They took everyone away from me.'

In that moment, Mialee felt alone. Very, very alone. She needed someone to confide in – even if it meant sharing her feelings with that weird half-elf. It would have to do. Half a person was better than none at all. With a hollow voice, Mialee began to talk.

'We had a small village in the woods. Just me and my clan- Lavelan, we were called. We were far from the rest of civilisation. Just my clan, and the woods around us. Maybe that made us a target. A band of orcs and other cutthroats caught wind of our existence. We never had as much as a warning. They killed everyone I knew. Men, women, children. It was horrific. I was the only one who survived… or so I thought.'

'That person in the bag was one of your clanmembers,' Yorda responded, putting one and one together instantly. Mialee nodded.

'His name was Taeral. He used to help me with my training. When I was old enough to learn, he was the one that taught me how to keep a good stance. It has been years - I thought that he had perished along with all the others.'

But he hadn't died. No- he had, but not all those years ago. This death was recent. Very recent, judging from the fresh blood. Recalling the image made Mialee feel nauseous. It also made waves of sadness and anger roll over her simultaneously. He had been alive. She had wandered the wilderness for years, convinced that everyone she knew was gone, her spirit battered and broken, and he had been alive that whole time. Where had he been? Why hadn't he tried to find her? A thousand questions echoed in Mialee's head – questions that would remain forever unanswered, as Taeral was dead. Decapitated by a hobgoblin. On the same day that they might have met. It was the ultimate injustice.

The despair must have been visible on Mialee's face, because Yorda suddenly reached out and touched her hand.

'You have not seen this person since then?'

'No. I had no idea he was even alive. I thought I was alone. I guess I was right - I am alone.'

Her voice broke as she spoke. Yorda lightly tilted her head, touching the back of her hand again. The gesture was somehow comforting.

'I am sorry for your loss, Mia. But I don't think you're alone.'

The pale half-elf gave her a tiny smile.

'I know we only met a week ago, and we just had a… bad moment… but you do have us, for what it's worth. If you want to. The others will calm down soon enough. Plus, even if Taeral passed away- the fact that you found him is still a good thing.'

'Why?' Mialee asked.

'If he was alive, then other members of your clan might have survived as well. There were three sacks on that table. If their heads are not in there, then they might still be alive. And if they are alive… then you can find them, right?'

It took a few seconds for those words to sink in. Then Mialee's heart began to pound as her mind caught up to the rest of her body. Yorda was right. There might still be hope. If anything, this was a lead. And that was more than she'd had in many, many years. She finally had a lead. Mialee reached forward, touching the pale half-elf on the shoulder in a genuine moment of gratitude.

'Thank you, Yorda.'

'I will help you search, if you want,' Yorda replied. 'Nala will too, if you ask her… though maybe not right now. Right now she's a bit angry.'

The brown-haired elf let out a chuckle. That was quite the understatement. She put her swords back in their sheaths, wiping some hobgoblin blood off her face in the process. Perhaps she really had been too hasty. She hadn't had companions in a long time. Thinking before acting. She could do that. It was something to start working on… after she traced that lead back to her clan.

'Come on. I want to check those other bags.'

Yorda gave a single nod. The wood elf exited the room and walked back across the corridor, returning to the war room.

Upon inspecting the other two bags, the group found two more elf heads inside – the head of a woman and a child. Both were unknown to Mialee. She buried the heads outside, with the help of Angelica and Nala. After a quick rest, the group banded together to clear the rest of the castle of goblins. They were successful, completing their mission for Sildar. Upon exiting the castle…

Right when the group was about to leave the war room, there was a knock on the door. Nothing else. Just a simple knock. But after the group had been fighting through goblins and hobgoblins and creepy worms all day, they were still on edge. Everyone looked at the door, unsure of what to do.

Then Yorda called out.

'Who is it?'

A few seconds of silence, before a shrill voice answered:

'Droop here.'

'Wait, seriously?' Angelica thought out loud. A smile appeared on Nala's face. She walked over and opened the door, letting the tiny goblin in.

'How did you know it was safe?' the Dragonborn asked curiously. Droop just shrugged.

'Droop hide. Got quiet after a while. Figured all were dead. Droop right.'

'He actually came back,' Angelica said. She seemed quite surprised. The goblin shrugged again, looking at the wizard from the corner of his eyes.

'Droop nowhere to go.'

The way he said that tugged on Mialee's heartstrings a little. For a moment, she put her dislike for goblins aside and asked:

'Don't you have any family? Relatives?'

'Had relatives. Treated Droop worse than you did.'

He marched over to Yorda, handing her back the claw. That came as a surprise to the group, too. They looked at him with mixed expressions on their faces, even Alatar, while Droop just stood there.

'You're really alone?'

'Droop nowhere to go.'

The brown-haired elf felt a strange sense of kinship with the goblin. She could almost not believe it herself. Nala seemed to have the same thoughts. The Dragonborn lowered herself down on one knee, down to Droop's level.

'You can stay with us, if you want.'

'Droop knows. Is captive.'

'No, no – that's not what I meant. I don't want you in the group as a prisoner. If you stay, you should stay because you want to.'

'Droop not understand.'

On their left, Yorda walked over to Angelica and whispered something in her ear. The Tiefling looked confused for a second, but handed over her dagger. Yorda immediately started carving something into the broad claw. Nala didn't notice this, as she still focused on the goblin in front of her.

'I mean you're free. You can choose for yourself. You can stay with us if you want. But if you want to leave, we won't harm you. You're free to choose your own path from now on. I give you my word.'

The tiny goblin looked at the Dragonborn in front of him for a good long while. Then his gaze travelled over the rest of the group. He spent considerably more time on Alatar than on the others. Eventually, he seemed to come to a decision. Droop looked back at Nala, nodding once.

'Droop stay.'

A broad smile appeared on Nala's face. She rose back up, glancing at the rest of the group.

'Does anyone have a problem with that?'

Angelica, Telyn and Alatar merely shrugged. Mialee did the same, deciding to shelf her opinion about this particular goblin for a while. Yorda however, mimicking Nala's smile, stepped towards the goblin.

'Here. This is yours now.'

She once again handed him the claw. As Mialee took a better look, she noticed the carving in the fur handle piece. It had been crudely drawn, roughly spelling the letters D-R-O-O-P, in a child-like handwriting. Droop glanced at the letters for a moment, before looking back up.

'Droop can't read.'

'It's your name,' Yorda replied. The tiny goblin glanced at the letters again, frowning.

'Claw not my name.'

'No, she carved your name into the claw,' Nala said. Droop looked at the weapon again.

'Carved in that easy? Bad craftsmanship.'

Alatar snickered. The whole situation seemed to amuse him. He went ignored by Nala, who once again knelt down in front of Droop. She put out her hand. Droop hesitated for a moment, before grabbing onto it with his own and shaking. It earned him a single smile.

'Welcome to the party, Droop.'