DUNGEONS & DRAGONS: Dawn of Revolution
The Assistant
Four months before the coalition war began...
Fendira squared her shoulders and spread her insectile fairy wings, hovering about five feet off the pawn shop's creaky wooden floor. She beamed and made a little salute. "Okay, Grandpa, I'm off. I might be back this evening. No, tomorrow morning. Actually, tomorrow afternoon! Yeah!"
Fendira's grandfather, Badgerthistle, looked up from his ledger book and beamed. "Have yourself a good time at the school, Fendira. And don't worry yourself about how long you'll be away. We both know your projects take a little more time than expected. It's no trouble."
"Yeah, and this is no ordinary project, either, according to the letter I got," Fendira added, clutching her face with excitement. Her wings beat faster than ever in the musty pawn shop's air. "The Martial Institute's staff must have something really cool on their hands to call on me to help! My old school... I can't wait to see those old hallways again. And say hi to my old professors. And tell the chefs their casserole lunches were always overseasoned."
"You do that, Fendira," Badgerthistle said warmly. He motioned toward the door. "Adventure awaits! Don't let me keep you."
Fendira whirled around and buzzed toward the door. "Love you, Grandpa! See you... sometime! Bye!" She let the enchanted door swing open to let her out, and she was off, her wings buzzing as she soared down one of Ryth Gawaid's quieter streets in the shopping district. Fendira spread her arms wide and squealed with joy as she shot down the street at maximum speed, startling a handful of shoppers as she passed them, including a tabaxi lady who leaped back, clutching her coinpurse, her tail puffing up. Fendira giggled at the sight, then grazed a human man's head, knocking his hat right off.
"Sorry!" Fendira cried over her shoulder, but she was too excited to stop now. What super-duper secret awaited her at the Ryth Gawaid Martial Institute? It was Fae Queendom of Talwydd's #1 magic and combat school! They wouldn't call on esteemed alumni like Fendira unless they had something really good.
Finally, Fendira soared up Ryth Gawaid's sloped main street and to the education district, which was situated atop a large hill, home of the massive Ryth Gawaid Martial Institute. It was a bizarre but cool school, being part castle, part mansion, part armory, part lecture hall, and more. It was actually several buildings mashed together, with no real design plan in mind, but Fendira liked it that way. It had personality, looking like its builders figured it out as they went. Humming to herself, Fendira swooped through the open front doors and through the spacious, torchlit main hall.
Fendira knew exactly where to go. The letter from the dean had instructed Fendira to meet a certain professor Kairon in the magical artifacts department, and funnily enough, Fendira didn't know that name. Professor Kairon? Was that a new hire? Well, that just meant more fun, meeting someone new!
Fendira came to a halt before a polished wooden door and rapped its brass knocker three times. "Come in," a lady's voice called out. The door automatically swung inward (a Martial Institute trademark), and Fendira buzzed right in.
Here she was in the school's main artifact lab, a spacious room filled with shelves, crates, and racks of every magical item the imagination could conjure. A few students were already gathered around a square wooden table, where a treasure chest lay, securely latched closed. The professor, who could only be Kairon, waved hello.
"Good afternoon. I'm professor Kairon," the tiefling lady introduced herself. She had a distinct Ayalakh Khanate accent and a pair of round glasses that made her eyes look kinda big. She also wore a classy professor outfit with a deep violet coat, a dark blue coat with a black belt, and a thin gold necklace around her neck. "You must be Fendira. Pleased to meet you."
"No way! The pleasure's mine," Fendira insisted politely. She made a bow. "So, you teach artifact studies here? Good for you! That department was understaffed when I was a student here."
"Yeah, she's pretty great," a student, a red-haired human boy, piped up.
"Professor Kairon makes learning fun," an air genasi girl added brightly.
"Oh, you flatter me, students," Kairon said brightly. "I just do what I can. You see, Fendira, I had few opportunities to learn in my Khanate homeland, so when my parents managed to move the family here to start over, I vowed to make it all worth it. I may be a professor now, but I stay humble. I still have more to learn, more to experience. And I've made my fair share of mistakes, too."
Fendira nodded. It broke her heart how tieflings faced such harsh living conditions in the massive Ayalakh Khanate to the west. Why, some of her best friends were tieflings, and what a delight they were! She was glad that Talwydd, at least, gave those people a fair chance at a decent life.
"I help my grandfather run a pawn shop in the shopping district," Fendira offered in return. "I've been working there ever since I graduated. Well, there was a two-month period where I toured the Queendom and visited the capital. I've got a friend there! She's an antique dealer, Rangwin's her name, and she goes on more adventures than you'd think. She told me all about it in her letters. We're kinda like pen pals now, and it's so fun to write back to her." Fendira was talking a mile a minute, but she made sure not to let slip Rangwin's exciting secret about owning Loranleth, a Noble Sword. Fendira was so jealous!
Kairon chuckled. "Oh my, you're a lively one, Fendira. I think we'll be the best of friends." She gestured at the closed box with a clawed hand. "And now, the reason you were invited here: to help me study this rare artifact a team of adventurers discovered in an abandoned gemstone mine to the north of here. A truly once-in-a-lifetime find."
Now Fendira and Kairon's students eyed the waiting box with great interest, and Fendira felt her tiny heart racing with anticipation. She had to be careful, of course, but...
"Here goes!" Fendira flew right over to the box, undid the latch, and threw the lid back.
Inside, on a cushion of dark green fabric, lay a silver scepter about two feet long, carved with nature patterns. The scepter's head really was a head, a carving of Doethineb, the Talwyddian god of wisdom and cleverness. And his eyes were tiny, pea-sized rubies that glittered in the light.
Fendira swiped the scepter from the box, waving it around, testing the weight. Hmmmmm, well balanced, and oddly light, too. And what was this feeling? Like everything around her was at once connected, but infinitely far apart, like everything was linked by invisible bridges waiting to be crossed.
"Careful!" Kairon cried, throwing up her hands to shield her face. "We don't know what that scepter does yet."
Fendira, who already felt the magic flowing through her little fairy hands, could sense what exactly this thing could do. She grinned. "Watch this!"
She jabbed the scepter forward, and a glowing violet portal three feet tall appeared on the room's far wall. Then she spun around and made a green portal on the opposite wall.
"Portals!" the red-headed boy cried. "No way!"
"Yes way. Check this out." Fendira swiped a crystal ball from a shelf and threw it into the green portal. At once, the violet portal spat it out, the crystal ball arcing toward the ground and rolling to a stop.
"Of all things...!" Kairon cried. Now she had her hands clapped over her face.
Fendira froze. "What's wrong?"
"Let's say I've had bad experiences with portals before," Kairon' muffled voice groaned. "Put that thing away before something terrible happens!"
"What? But..." Surely this thing was just a handy knick-knack, right? Fendira jabbed the scepter twice more, creating conjoined portals on the floor and ceiling, right over each other. Fendira dropped an etched stone tablet into the floor portal, allowing it to warp in through the ceiling portal, fall into the floor portal again, and keep looping, forever falling without stopping. What a sight!
"Ha! That's hilarious!" a gnome boy cheered.
"Put something else in there!" the air genasi girl added. "Something bigger!"
"How about this?" Surely, one more experiment, couldn't hurt, right? So, Fendira created her biggest portal yet under the table and another in midair out the window, and the students cheered when the table teleported to midair and fell with a crash outside.
Fendira looked down at the scepter in her hands, admiring Doethineb's carved head with his ruby eyes, looking sternly at her with his bearded, firbolg-like face. Fendira couldn't help it; this was so much fun! Like a toy for wizards. Surely no harm could come of this -
The scepter's ruby eyes suddenly glowed with intense light.
"Whoa! What the -?" Fendira yelped. Whirling halos of dark red magic shot every which way, conjuring over a dozen sizeable portals all over the room, leading to all kinds of places. Then, Fendira felt the nearest portal tug her into it, like a bathtub's draining water dragging something down.
"Help!" Fendira cried. It was too late; still clinging to the scepter for dear life, Fendira passed right through the portal and into hot, dry air, right in the middle of a merchant caravan's camp atop a desert dune. The merchants yelped and stumbled back, shouting in alarm. Their camels grunted with surprise.
"S-sorry! Didn't mean to intrude!" Fendira yelped, until the portal yanked her back in, and Fendira briefly saw the other portals whoosh past her before she was drawn into another portal, this time arriving on the deck of a Trassian galleon. The ship was busy navigating fierce coastal storm, rain and salty winds blasting every which way.
"Hey! Where'd that fairy come from?" a sailor cried, hanging onto a rope for dear life as the Trassian ship rocked in the brutal waves.
"Sorry again!" Fendira shouted over the din, until the rogue portals whisked her away and dropped her into a well-decorated meeting room in a foreign city, where a handful of high elf men and women glared at Fendira as she sprawled onto their meeting table.
A dizzy, disoriented, and confused Fendira staggered to her feet. She rubbed her head. "Am I interrupting?"
"What in - " one of the elves started, until yet again, the portal whisked her away, this time atop a plateau overlooking endless scrubland, with a dust storm brewing in the distance and large, strange birds gliding on the thermal winds. Whoa, was this the Ayalakh Khanate? It was so wide open! Totally unlike the forests and mountain ranges of Talwydd -
Again she was whisked away, and this time, it was really hot!
"Nooooooo!" Fendira wailed, thrashing wetly as she landed in a full cooking pot in an orc camp. Seven or eight bewildered orcs stared at her, not expecting this bonus ingredient to their lunch. Then, when Fendira arrived at yet another destination, she realized she was back home in Talwydd, in the enchanted fairy forests her people called home.
With a giant ape for company.
"I'm sorry! Even if you don't understand me!" Fendira shrieked, zooming away at top speed as the hungry ape chased after her, grunting and panting as it went, and it was slowly gaining on her. Oh good, another portal was opening up. Fendira could slip through and make her escape!
Except the portal was big enough to admit the giant ape, too.
Into the Ryth Gawaid Martial Institute's main hall.
"No! Way!" Fendira zoomed around in panicked circles, watching helplessly as the giant ape roared and went berserk in the great hall's confines. Students and staff all shouted in alarm, and the giant ape shrugged off the colorful spells the teachers flung at it to subdue the beast. The ape, clearly annoyed, roared again and swept out its arms, smashing the ceiling apart and leaping onto the school's main structure. The giant ape climbed right up the school's circular central tower, with a mortified Fendira flying all around at a safe distance, trying to piece together a solution. The giant ape made its merry way to the school's top, letting out a gleeful howl for all of Ryth Gawaid to hear this fine afternoon.
"FENDIRA!"
The fairy looked down to find Kairon rocketing up to her position, a levitation spell glowing blue-white on her hands.
"I'm so sorry! The scepter went wild. I can't even let go of it!" Fendira wailed, gesturing with the item in question.
"We've got to stop this ape before it wrecks the entire school!" Kairon hollered over the ape's howls and the roar of the staff members' magic spells attacking it. "You're the one who brought it here, Fendira. Find a way!"
"But..." Fendira looked at the scepter. It was this thing's fault! Since when did these things have a mind of their own? But if she could open another portal...
Fendira jabbed the scepter this way and that, trying to catch the giant ape in one and send it back to the forest. But the ape kept moving, its instincts guiding it. Darn it! If only someone around here was big enough to fight it...
Hey, wait!
"All or nothing! Here goes!" Fendira summoned another portal and leaped through, arriving at the Sneachta mountain range, where certain giants lurked near the mountains' bases.
"Over here, big guy! Come on!" Fendira buzzed around, doing her best to aggravate the first fire giant she met. Taking the bait, the sword-slinging fire giant snarled at her and charged, blundering right into the huge portal Fendira had prepared for him. She followed.
The sheer chaos and destruction doubled when the disoriented, enraged fire giant man stumbled out of the portal, right next to its giant ape neighbor. The ape didn't take kindly to the fire giant blundering into it with hot, pointy armor like that, and the two giants immediately grappled one another, roaring and squirming for supremacy while tearing apart chunks of the Ryth Gawaid Martial Institute.
"The fire giant will chase off or kill the ape!" Fendira explained to Kairon over the racket. "Genius, right?"
Kairon gave the grappling titans an apprehensive look. "And then, how will we get the fire giant out of here?"
"We could ask it nicely to go back home through a portal and not attack the city?"
Kairon didn't look pleased. And then she and Fendira clutched their faces in horror when the fire giant and ape finally broke the tower apart, crashing through the school's weakened ceiling and into a lecture hall underneath.
The fire giant and the giant ape struggled to their feet, covered in plaster and loose bricks, and stared each other down, bracing for another round of mortal combat. Then they each extended a hand and shook hands like gentlemen.
"They're... done?" Fendira asked blankly. Indeed, the fire giant and ape each made an approving huff, then turned and went their separate ways, ignoring the sheer destruction around them. So fire giants did have their noble side! And giant apes were totally receptive to it!
Best of all, the two giants each gladly wandered into the portals Fendira conjured to send them home. Then all the portals closed, each and every one of them, and the scepter's eyes stopped glowing. Fendira relaxed her grip on the item, and she wordlessly offered it to Kairon.
"I just recalled something," Fendira added meekly. "Um... according to more obscure Talwyddian legends, the god of wisdom and cleverness, Doethineb, is also known for punishing troublemakers and warning them about the abuse... of power..." Her voice trailed off out of sheer shame.
Kairon grunted as she accepted the scepter, and she and Fendira touched down on the half-ruined school's floor. "Yes indeed, Fendira. I believe the gods didn't like you treating this divine artifact like a toy."
"I just thought it was harmless fun." Fendira hung her head. "I'm so sorry."
Kairon huffed. "That's enough apologies for one day. I'd say you learned a valuable lesson today, Fendira, even if you're an esteemed alumnus of this school."
"That I did."
Then Fendira gasped in shock, rapidly looking around this way and that. "Oh, no! It'll cost a fortune to fix the Martial Institute! And I couldn't possibly repay the school out of pocket. Neither could Grandpa."
"Not with money, no," Kairon said with a crafty grin. She reached over and gently patted Fendira's head. "You made a hell of a mess, Fendira, but I like you. And since you love your old school so much..." She grinned and put her hands on her hips. "I'll take you on as my official, and unpaid, assistant for the next few semesters to make up for this. How's that sound?"
Fendira gasped again, this time with delight and relief. Such generous terms! "I'll do it! And I'll be the best assistant ever. I'll make it up to you, I promise!"
"And you'll keep your little fairy hands to yourself?" Kairon, no, professor Kairon, added with a stern look.
Fendira felt herself wilt. "Yes, professor."
"Good. You learn fast. Now, let's help clean up this mess. Lots to do." Professor Kairon turned on her heel and stalked off, her long, thin tiefling tail whipping this way and that. So, Kairon was excited about this, too! Too bad her and Fendira's new partnership and friendship had to begin on such a... destructive note.
Fendira got her wings buzzing again and flew after professor Kairon to lend a hand. And this evening, she'd have a lot to explain to her grandfather, and Rangwin, too! She had a heck of a letter to send this time.