Well… long-time-no-write, I guess. PLEASE review… I've only got 2 consistent reviewers at the moment; from the stats, I can deduce that at least 30 or so people read this 'fic diligently. Your reviews don't have to be as long as some of Phreno's :P; Borg's reviews are short, sharp and sweet and even just a few words are good enough. I just want to know what people are thinking of my 'fic while they are reading it, you know?
Thanks to all other reviewers, too… anyone who took their time to acknowledge the existence of this 'fic is much appreciated, but please leave a few words behind so I can acknowledge your existence, too.
Right, I've had a lot of time to brood over this chapter, let's hope it's a good one! This is dedicated to The Phrenologikal Cat 'Phreno', who contributed to a lot of inspiration for the new character and her story!
Disclaimer: Why do I bother writing this every time? Oh yeah… legal issues. The Diablo series belong to Blizzard. The Bowslingers story belongs to Ophelion. Now that I think about it, I should have thought up a better name for this. Bah.
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Chapter 12: The New Battalion
I must have fallen asleep on the way into the town of Lut Gholein; the last thing I remembered was gazing at the glowing lights of the town, feeling so grateful for such a sight of humanity. Next thing I knew I was lying in a warm bed, the soft light reached my closed eyes gently.
I opened them; I was lying in bed, inside a small but nice little room, its walls, floor and ceiling all made of uniformed brown wood, washed over by a golden glaze emitted from the steadily-burning lamp on the bedside-table. The dry desert wind gusted through the small window opened to deep-grey nothingness, gliding over my bed, my face. I smelled the subtle sweetness of cactus flowers, but the more dominant scent was a dull stench that reminded me of burning wood that was very dry, and very dead.
I sat up; I was wearing nothing except my under most garment – a plain, tight, dark-brown strapless dress that just reached past my hips – the typical under most garment of a Rogue. The laces at the back were slightly loosened. I checked my wounds, and found them all treated with sweet-scented ointments and carefully bandaged.
I ran my fingers through my hair, and felt that they were stringy with grease, sweat and blood. Grunting in disgust, I threw my blanket off my body, and jumped to my feet as I felt the midnight desert chill hit me. I moaned and shuddered, but I was feeling much better than before.
I opened my door, and stepped into the wooden corridor. I leaned over the wooden fence on the other side of the corridor and looked down into a dimly-lit tavern setting: wooden tables with overturned stools on them, and a bar at one end. A figure in dark clothes was going around to each of the tables, taking the stools off the table and setting them down on the flawlessly-clean floor.
I pulled up the front of my dress a little and tightened the lacings, wincing a little when I strained a wound over my back. Stamping my feet into my boots and throwing my cloak over my shoulders for some extra warmth, I headed down the stairs.
'Oh, you're awake.' The figure spoke up with a voice that once would have been beautiful, but now was worn and roughened by cries and screams. Standing before me was a woman who looked to be in her early-forties, though remnants of youthful beauty still remained on her face, eroded by hard work and hard times. Her deep brown hair was gathered loosely towards the back of her head, the end hidden by a violet cap with golden embroidery. Her thin, petite figure was accentuated by the golden-rimmed, violet overgarment and the long grey tunic beneath. She took down the last stool from the table and walked towards me, smiling a sad smile. 'My name's Atma. This is my public house. Welcome to Lut Gholein.'
'I'm Celadon. Greetings.' My voice came out softer than I had wanted it. I huddled my cloak closer; I've always dressed this way when I was with my fellow Rogues, but now I felt very exposed before this stranger. 'Would you know where my master is?'
'The light-haired Amazon, is that who you're speaking of?' I nodded quickly. 'Fara took her into her house. She seemed to be of ill-health – '
'Yeah,' I cut her off, not wanting to hear more of her opinion of my master's condition. 'Will I be able to see her?'
'I'm afraid not yet; Fara's not out of her house, so I don't suppose she'll let anyone in at the moment.' She brushed a wisp of hair from her forehead, tucking it into the rest of her sleek hair. 'Deckard Cain, Warriv and the Druidess are staying at Elzix's inn. Fara had ordered for me to be in charge of nursing you.'
'What about Warriv? He's wounded, wasn't he?'
'Nothing too bad; he can take care of himself.' Atma's eyes took on a fierceness, which she hid with a look of annoyance. 'I just don't trust Elzix taking in a young girl like you. The Druidess is obviously no problem, with all her wild minions.' She turned her light greyish-brown eyes to me, and smiled a motherly smile. 'So for now, you can stay in my late son's room. I suggest you to go and wash up a little before dawn, when people start fighting for the water. Give me those clothes so I can wash and mend them for you, all right?'
I got around to the back of the public house to find some slackly fenced-off cubicles, each with three buckets. I filled them up from one of the two huge water-jugs outside the cubicles, heated one of the buckets with a small fire, and washed myself as painlessly and quickly as I could manage, taking care not to wet the bandages. Atma had given me a towel to dry myself off, as well as a plain, long tunic with a wide collar, made in a light, cool material of a maize colour, and a wide, dusty-pink sash that went around my waist three times before I could tie it off at the side without the ends touching the ground. She had offered me sandals, but I preferred my boots.
I went out into the streets; dawn was approaching and the sky was coloured a deep but light sort of blue. I looked left and saw the dock leading into the river, and a figure sitting on it.
I walked towards it, and noticed that it was the Druidess. She was clad in a similar outfit to mine; only her tunic and sash were respectively leaf-green and white, and she had tucked away the ends of her sash.
She realised that I was behind her, and she turned her head to the right. Her straight bronze hair, the colour of autumn, was tied in pigtails from the nape of her neck, extending all the way to her waist. A few loose bangs fell over her forehead from the part in the middle, directing my gaze towards her large, childishly-rounded eyes – the exact same shade of azure as the deep-coloured sky, set upon her high cheekbones. There were two parallel, horizontal scars across her right cheek; they curved downwards as she grinned heartily at me. 'Good morning, Rogue.' Her voice rang lightly.
'Uh… good morning.' I looked around and sat down next to her. She wore a long necklace, the rope wound a few times around her neck before dangling at her chest by the weight of her ivory-coloured, fang-shaped pendant, about two inches in length. 'Where are all your minions?'
'They're spiritual minions, Rogue – '
'Celadon.'
'They're natural spirits that feed off my spiritual energy – what commonfolks call "Mana" or "life force" – and in return offer me their service.' She stood up; I noticed that her feet were bare. 'I'll introduce them to you.' She smiled, and closed her eyes in concentration. Overhead, two ravens appeared. 'These are Nimbus and Aether…' then the three wolves appeared; the large black one, then the grey one, and the brown one. 'Soleil, her daughter Dawn and her son Dusk…' Finally, two vines erupted out of the ground, the crimson-tinted at her left and the green-tinted at her right. 'Lava,' she nodded towards her left. 'And Rainbow.'
'You have pretty exotic names for them all, don't you…?' I chuckled in good-humour.
'They're perfectly fitting!' She said, in a way a child does when trying to defend her pets. 'Nimbus and Aether are both sky-dwelling; Soleil has a sun-like mark on her chest, and Dawn and Dusk are named after their colour…'
'And your vines?'
'Lava erupts out of corpses like the spectacle of lava erupting out of volcanoes, don't you agree?' She said; a tone of love for her earthy pets in her voice. 'And if you get attacked by Rainbow, your skin will switch between all the colours of the rainbow! See? They're perfect!'
My smile faltered with the Druidess' twisted humour. She only grinned even more widely as her minions glowed with her golden-orange life force and rejoined her body.
I suddenly realised, 'You haven't told me your name.'
'Oh, I haven't?' She looked at me questioningly, then smiled again and put her hands behind her. 'My name's Falcon and I've lived nineteen years above the earth. Nice to meet you, Celadon.' She cocked her head childishly. 'You're turning seventeen soon, aren't you? You look awfully mature for your age, despite being quite small.'
That startled me; I got to my feet. 'How d'you know that?'
'It's written in your spiritual energy.' Falcon explained matter-of-factly. 'No way could I've told by your looks, though; same goes for your Amazonian master. I bet you wouldn't have guessed that she's only twenty-one.'
'I thought she was in her mid- to late- twenties.' I replied, picturing Oread in my head. 'You wouldn't know how she's doing, would you?'
'The Paladin-healer's got her. From what I know, she'll be all right.' She sat back down, cross-legged. The sky had lightened to a pale blue-grey. 'You're from the west, right? How on earth did two rivalling tribes come together?'
'She came to Westmarch from the south, and helped us cleanse and regain our Rogue Monastery. As for why she did…' I tried to recall, but found nothing. I shrugged. 'I have no idea. What about you?'
'I came from the north. My tribe has been sending out men against the Prime Evils for a while now. My brothers, father and uncles all went and none came back.' She propped her elbows on her knees, and put her face in her hands, staring out into the river. 'But I didn't come for the same purpose as they did; according to my people, I wasn't any good. As a female my body can't sustain shape-shifting and I'm not spiritual enough to summon Spirits.' She said this all without a single hint of resentment in her voice; speaking of all these so very casually. It made me feel somewhat uneasy. 'I came here because the ocean called to me.'
'Sorry?' I cut in. 'What called?'
'The ocean.' She said it, ever so surely. 'Sometimes I think I belong in her, you know… I've never seen the ocean, since we live in the snowy, mountainous regions. Still, I always felt that I'm meant to be part of the ocean. She's been calling to me… something's hurting it, corrupting it.' She looked away from the blue scenery and looked up at me, smiling but looking serious. 'That's how I got here, I guess. This river leads into the vast ocean.'
I began to see that this Druidess was more than what she had seemed, much more than a happy-go-lucky person that I had first thought her to be. I looked around; the sun had fully escaped its prison of the horizon, and the streets and the markets began to crowd with people. 'Come on, Falcon,' I called to her, holding out a hand to lift her to her feet. 'Let's go and visit the town.'
I remembered that Atma mentioned a certain 'Fara', whom was the healer who took Oread in. I asked around and surely enough, tracked her down. Outside her shop, which displayed an assortment of armours and weapons, a little boy aging no more than twelve was working on a damaged piece of leather armour.
'Mother's at home.' Said the boy, studying us with his clear blue-grey eyes before dropping them back to his work. 'She was up all last night. Won't be back in a few days, she said.'
I explained the situation to him, and he directed us to his home: a small single-storey block on the other side of town. I tried to catch my breath at the door while waiting for Falcon to catch up, and then I knocked three times on the wooden door.
A woman opened it; the same blue-grey eyes and heart-shaped face as those of the young boy's at the store greeted us. 'You must be the newcomers.' The gladness manifested itself through her husky, dark voice. She opened the door fully; Fara was a stout, strong woman, clad in a pair of baggy work-pants tucked into her heavy boots, and a buttoned-up white shirt with the top buttons opened up and the sleeves rolled up to above her elbows. Her hair was hidden by a red headscarf; her bare arms were muscular, and she looked intimidating.
'Fara.' She held out her hand, and took mine in a strong, firm hold.
'I'm Celadon, of the Rogues.' Fara smiled at me, and I relaxed. She took Falcon's hand, and Falcon shook back and introduced herself. 'We believe that my master is with you.' I voiced out the thing that must have been on all of our minds.
'Yes. Do come in.'
We entered the small-but-tidy house. Tools of a blacksmith resided in one corner, and a small shelf of potions and books stood in another. A small, round table sat off-centre in the room. Three rooms led from this main room through light, white curtains. One room, the one on the left's curtain was drawn.
'From what Master Cain told me, Oread's injuries were inflicted by the Maiden of Anguish…'
'That's right.' I replied in a soft voice, unable to contain the sick, nervous sourness in my chest.
'Pierced twice with her poisonous stings…' Fara uttered an anxious chuckle. 'I'm surprised that she lived this long after that. Even Akara's healing wouldn't have done it; she was greatly weakened to the point that her body wouldn't be able to recover if left on her own. I would've thought she'd die on the way, but she fought hard.' She led us before the drawn curtain, and stopped, dropping her voice a few notches lower. 'She's regained some consciousness, but she's still very ill and weak, and might seem a bit groggy…' She lifted one side of the curtain and led us in.
The room was brightly-lit from the early sun. It was empty except for a small bedside table, a lamp upon it, a short shelf full of books and loose parchments, and a bed. Upon the bed was Oread, lying on her back under the sheets. Her shoulders and arms were not covered, revealing a heavily bandaged left shoulder and bandaged hands and wrists, which were otherwise bare and naked. I had never seen her muscular arms and shoulders this clearly, and it was rather reassuring.
Her face was slightly turned toward us, and after a few seconds, her eyelids parted.
I had never been so glad to see those green-golden-brown eyes. 'Master Oread! How are you feeling?' I ran up and knelt down on the floor next to her.
Oread smiled at me; there seemed to be anxiety and fear in her eyes when she first opened them, but now they had been hastily dismissed. 'Celadon, you're safe…' Her voice was harsh and croaky. 'I'll live. Thanks to Fara.'
'How did you do it?' From behind me, Falcon asked.
'Paladin's art – auras.' Fara answered proudly. 'They work like no potion or magic. It's divine intervention that saved her.'
I looked behind me and saw that Falcon was smiling satisfactorily. 'Master, this is Falcon from the northern tribe of Druids. She helped us on the way here.'
Oread's smile disappeared. She shot Falcon a look of caution – or the closest she could manage, anyway. 'You came all the way down… from the north?'
Falcon grinned widely, but I could sense her uneasiness. 'The ocean's been calling to me. If we aim for the same goal of ridding the land of evil, we're on the same side. I'll cooperate with you; after all, you have more experience back in Westmarch.'
Oread looked sternly at Falcon, then inquired me with her eyes. I smiled and nodded. She sighed and blinked slowly.
'Your name's… Falcon, huh?' Oread grinned weakly, but pleasantly. She reached up with her right hand. Falcon drew closer to the bed, and Oread patted her right forearm twice. 'Welcome to the battalion.'
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Ophelion's Opinions:
I never knew that Atma could heal in the game… Thank you, Arreat Summit.
I thought I could bring in quite a bit of Falcon in this chapter, since both Oread and Celadon's characters are already well-established.
Please review! I really need (and want, of course :P. No wait… crave) your comments.
