10 Flamerule

One day fishermen; the next absolutely disgusting zombies. How long has it been since I've paid proper attention to basic grooming? My hair—the green dye's growing out, and it needs cutting badly; split ends. Imoen's also returning to that lovely deep red. I might as well start thinking about that sort of thing again. We have solemnly covenanted to trim each other's hair, after we buy ourselves new hand-mirrors and a really decent pair of scissors.

"You promised a really good shopping trip, once," Imoen said, standing over the last zombie; she'd used magic missiles to blast it to the dirt, and then I'd finished it by the sword. "Imoen and Skie, thieving wizard and thieves extraordinaire, let loose on an unsuspecting world—"

I sheathed Varscona. "You need a new tunic; and these breeches I've got are awful; and one of those new-fashioned Waterdhavian-style hairnets, the silver ones, the style would be perfect for your hair—"

"And pretty dresses, if we've got enough gold or chances—pink for me, green for you; and spell components for this brilliant spell that magically opens locks that I found; and—"

"And perfumes, we all need those," I said; Shar-Teel and Faldorn tend to have difficulty with the general concept. "And I'd like a good belt, maybe something in black, and you need new earrings—" Imoen had lost one of her silver studs somewhere in the Cloakwood; I can't believe I didn't notice at the time. Faldorn and Ajantis seemed to be staring oddly at us, but Imoen continued;

"And facepaint. Puffguts used to yell at me for the idea, but I want to see what it's like on me and glamorous wizardesses can wear whatever they want. And sometime let's drag Faldorn along too, no matter what she says—" Imoen laughed, the first I remembered in some time. "That's good, Skie, better than— I can't wait—"

"Thank you for cleaning out those zombies from our farms," the farmer Wenric said, a little blankly, and handed a bag to Shar-Teel.

She rifled through it. "An acceptable payment, male."

"Do you know of any other heroic quests we could undertake, goodman?" Ajantis said, approaching the farmer.

"Come to think of it..." He looked thoughtful. "There's m' cousin, Mistress Therella of Ulgoth's Beard, not far from here. I've heard word that her son's in trouble again, that Dalton—but he's a firebrand if there ever was one, always off chasing adventure with that group of his. Mayhaps ye'll go to find him already in town, but she's been looking for someone to commission a search of late."

Ulgoth's Beard; named after that beacon so long ago. The pirate Ulgoth, with a bristling beard and evil reputation, often attacked Baldur's Gate without any warning. Therefore, the beacon was built on the clifftop; and then Baldur's Gate knew the next time he attacked, and our ships went out to fight him. It was a glorious battle at sea, the stories say, and many pirates perished, including Ulgoth himself, who was killed by bowmen while flying with a magic ring, so that his corpse flew out to sea pierced with as many arrows as a porcupine. Ulgoth's beard was singed by the warning beacon yet on the cliff face. It's a small place; but if we can rescue that boy, if we need to rescue that boy... Ajantis agrees with me. We'll go there, and see what we can do for work.

—

The widow Therella...and an interesting selection of magical goods in the inn, some supposed to be made by that strange wizard Shandalar. I still feel a little ill; maybe it'll go away in a few days more. We didn't earn a lot of coin from the mines, but we've further supplies and arrows; some painfully enchanted crossbow bolts for Shar-Teel. It's a nice inn, only recently constructed; much better than what we've been sleeping in since...well, now I think about it, the last time we slept somewhere proper was when we set out from Beregost to find Shar-Teel, and then so many other things happened... I'm sleeping on a soft bed indoors! And the food is warm and really quite good.

We will rescue Therella's son; and we'll—Allegedly there are many awful monsters to fight and treasure, which satisfies Shar-Teel enough; and Faldorn has said strange things about 'wishing to consecrate the foul artificial dwelling back to nature's power'; and Viconia thinks we are no worse fools than any other surfacers to whom she might choose to lend her services. And I shouldn't be thinking about this, but the tower has a history, and I've read some things in the past, and it would be interesting to... I don't deserve to think such things. Ajantis and I and Imoen, we're going to rescue the boy.

I sparred with Imoen, after we finished with each other's hair; I tried a layered cut for her. Short swords, like we did in Candlekeep a few times.

"You're...lots better than you were." Imoen chanted a spell, conjuring up a blue shield for her free arm. She fended off one of my attacks with it, taking a step back in retreat. "Aww, heck, you weren't that bad before."

I tried to press her like Shar-Teel would have told me to try, changing direction as quickly as I could in the strikes I made. She blocked, and I went back for the riposte. "You were good at everything." It wasn't a fair fight; Imoen had spent a lot of time training hard in spells lately, while I tried with Shar-Teel. But she was as quick and sharp as ever. "Er—watch your right flank?"

"Yeah, you're cheating, ya sinister scum!" Most of the time in Candlekeep, we'd exercised right-handed, orthodox; I attacked her right side, relatively unprotected. She stuck out her tongue and spun away, raising her magical shield to almost hit me with it.

"Cheating only counts when you're not winning!" I quickly stepped forward, avoiding her shield; my wrapped blade hit, lightly, her wrist. "That's three to one!"

"I cast magic missile!" Imoen broke out of her stance and waved her shield hand at me, just before I lunged forward. "Two to three, catching up!"

I feinted down, as if trying to slip under Imoen's shield; she brought it down to tangle the blade, and attacked my right with her sword—exactly what I'd have done. I shifted under the strike, grabbed her sword arm with my free hand and pulled; she stumbled forward, and her shield blinked out with her sudden loss of balance.

"Heh, pretty good, kiddo!" Imoen always recovers quickly; she twisted back to the attack. We moved into it, stepping up the speed to make the practice almost too fast to talk; Imoen sometimes seems to have a never-ending well of energy at her service. But I kept up, scoring more points—she's not nearly so strong as Shar-Teel; and at six to three we stood corps-a-corps, swords crossed over each other. Probably, I could push her blade down and out of the way; we stared at each other, half-smiling in resolve—

"Hey, Skie, does it bother you, about Eldoth and Edwin?" she asked suddenly, watching me; then I spun out of the position and attacked in what a tutor at home would have called quart, pushing a thrust to her right thigh.

"They're safer wherever they are and that's the important thing." It was obvious. I loved Eldoth, and I want to think of them both as alive. Imoen blocked an attack.

"I wouldn't say I hated either of 'em," Imoen said, stepping back from a strike aimed at her ribs, trying to riposte to my right. "But I'm still pretty m... But I don't mind that you're acting more like you used to be. I was friends with the old Skie."

I could keep up easily with the sequence of strikes she was trying; from Shar-Teel I knew good counters for most of them, but for the sake of the exercise kept up with Imoen in the regular forms. "And I miss them but I should want them to be safe. Saving people is better. You'd say that."

Imoen suddenly shifted to press a low attack; I saw the direction her feet had changed to, and moved to block. "Good to see m' wise advice finally sinking in," she said. "Garrick, d' you miss him much?"

"Of course. He was a good friend." And he'd left to do something that was better for him, and told us he was going. I let Imoen push the attack for a while, and practised the defensive forms. "Are you?—I'm sorry, I did think..." He let us stay with him, and travelled with us; I thought Imoen was a lot of the reason why—

She stepped back, moving to a more defensive position; I switched to attack. "A good friend. Really," Imoen said, "I'm not buffleheaded like you—there's so much more to do than goop over some boy—"

"Goop?" I lightly tapped her shoulder with the shortsword; she spun away again.

"Don't question a wizard's vocabulary!" she laughed.

"Goop is not a word for anything found in nature," Faldorn said primly. She had come up behind, watching; "And I am not sure why you choose those unnatural weapons of metal. Strong oak serves us druids well."

"'Cause they work," Imoen said, and looked suddenly a little sad; "It's not that nice to do, and I know I'm not really that good at bladework; but, hey—you should practice with us." Faldorn's quest, she says, is to travel the Sword Coast and prove her devotion to the druids' ideals, and while we behave appropriately she will help us. By her tones, I do not think that we get a say in the matter; —but I would like to like her, and Imoen and I will make her have something in common with normal girls like us eventually.

"I can get my club," Faldorn said.

—