Casual Huntering

Posts Tagged ‘Kalende’

It’s Fiction Friday time, that means more Praxton. I haven’t been able to get back to Aoirselvar. I have no idea what the heck he’s doing in the RP world. In game he’s been helping my wife’s DK level up and farming ore here and there, nothing too big. I got figure out a story for him, because he’s fun to write.

As for Praxton, he kind of lets the story take him where ever. The other writers, Moordeth, Etni, and Loreli have been much more interesting than myself.

Anyway, Praxton, Kalende, and Dreth are still in Wintersprings. Kalende had just barely threatened Praxton and was about to take off.

Prax slowly got to his feet; he was sweating now, even with the chilled temperatures. He watched as Kalende left the inn. So many unanswered questions loomed in his mind, none of which would be answered today apparently.

“And just where do you thing you’re going?” Dreth said in low voice. A dead bear lay at his side. Smoke smoldered from the crater left in the bear’s brains. He eyed Kalende, who looked like she was in a hurry to get somewhere. “Do you have any idea what I sacrificed to get you two here safely? I heard what you said girl.” His eyes began to burn with fury. “No friend of the lich king is a friend of a mine.” The air around Dreth filled with violent heat. “Give me one good reason I shouldn’t burn your pathetic frame into a pile of charred ashes CULTIST!”

Prax heard the commotion and hurried to the doorway as confrontation began to unfold.

Kalende hadn’t dropped the shadows swirling around her and eyed Dreth, “And yet, without the Lich King you would be another rotting carcass still buried in the ground. Yet, you embrace you new life. Do you long for a permanent death? I can oblige!”

“If it were not for Arthas I would be with my family now, and not condemned to this forsaken corpse! It is Sylvanas who saved me from my mindless state. Do you think the Lich cares at all for your life? That he would not discard your meaningless being in an instant after he had used you?”

“Would the Banshee Queen have that power, if not for the Lich King?”

“That’s aside the point girl! Listen to what I say now! There is NO reward in his service, NO joy in this path!”

Kalende looked around wildly for an out, “You don’t understand! Leaving the Cult is a guaranteed death sentence!”

“Death is inevitable priestess. Your fate with the cult would be far worse than death I’m afraid. Once you surrender your will to the Lich King, he will command your soul for eternity. Death is only the beginning.” Dreth’s temper simmered. “Leave now Kalende. Leave now and seek your own path. This boy obviously cares for you… enough to risk his life. You can’t tell me you’re not interested why.”

“I… But I… Well…” the shadows fell away and suddenly Kalende was on the ground, screaming and grasping her head.

Prax dashed towards Kalende, kneeling by her side. He looked towards Dreth, “What happened??”

“The cultists… or perhaps the Arthas himself… has likely read her thoughts. Someone is obviously not pleased with her. I’ve heard of some goblin technology that can scramble psionic wavelengths. Praxton, stay by her side! I’ll go find help” In a blink, Dreth disappeared from the Inn and was yelling desperately for an engineer.

Praxton reached out and grabbed the priest’s hand to try to steady her and calm her down.

Kalende grasped Prax’s hand in a death grip, her knuckles white, face contorted in pain.

Prax yelled out, “Dreth, Hurray!!”, he then started whispering, “its going to be okay, its going to be okay, its going to…”

Dreth heard his cry, and frantically scanned the huts. “There!” He ran over to a quirky looking goblin, tinkering away at something. “Goblin! We need your urgent assistance! Come quickly, and bring your tools!”

Xizzer looked up from his junk box. “Tools?! What? I’ll make you something but it will cost ya. What do you need?”

“I fear a young lady’s mind at the Inn is being penetrated by some dark force. We need something to… block the frequency… if possible. Quickly goblin! There is no time to waste!”

Xizzer pulled a drawer out from behind him. “I know it is here somewhere.” He looked up at the undead man and raised his voice. “Grab that tin bar from the shelf behind you and that blue flask there.” He fumbled through his drawer some more. “Ah ha” he grunted. He grabbed some wire and a stone bowl and started to run out the door. “This is the last of my Fused Wiring. This is going to cost you.” Xizzer ran towards the inn with the undead man behind him. He stopped dead when he saw the person on the ground in agonizing pain. “Th th … this is a cultist! Why should I help her?”

“Because I’m paying you, that’s why!” Dreth flipped a gold coin in Xizzer’s direction. “Now get to work!”

Xizzer caught the coin while grumbling under his breath. He put the bowl on the ground. “Put the tin in this bowl.” he grumbled. He eyed the boy holding on to the girl while got his wire out. “This will go faster if one of you could use your fire to heat up this tin. Don’t melt it to liquid. Just heat it up so it is pliable.”

Prax looked up, at the goblin, “How do you know that…” Prax knew he wasn’t good at fine control, he’d likely set them all on fire, he looked towards Dreth for help.

“I can tell this undead friend of yours is a mage so I suspected you could be too. It doesn’t matter… Just someone heat this up, now!”

Dreth stretched a finger toward the tin and watched as it began to slowly lose its shape. “Say when…”

“That’s good.” It wasn’t hot enough to burn yet. Xizzer took the blue flask and dumped its content on the tin. He then took his Fused Wiring and formed a head band shape. He then pushed the pliable tin all around the Fused Wiring. “Normally this needs to cool to be solid, but it should do the trick.” He handed the headband over to the boy holding the cultist. “It will block anything going into her head.”

Prax nodded his head, his hand ached under priestess’s tight grip, but he didn’t care. Praxton suddenly realized that the goblin was handing it to him. “Oh”. He softly slipped the headband onto the girl’s forehead. “I I I hope this w- works.” Prax whispered to himself.

Immediately there appeared to be an improvement. Kalende’s body relaxed and she lay in the snow trying to catch her breath.

Prax took a deep breath, sighing in relief. “You’re okay, wh- what hap happened b- back there?”

“I…how…how did you stop it?” Kalende asked, dragging herself into a sitting position. She had a headache but it was nothing compared to what she’d just experienced.

Dreth reached into the pouch strung around his waist and dropped a few more coins on the table near Xizzer. “Will that cover it?”

Xizzer smiled. “Yes that will do nicely. We stopped it with something us engineers call The Tin Hat. It will work as long as you wear it. The name is Xizzer. You guys pay nice. Feel free to call on me if you need any other gadgets made.” Xizzer took up his gold and walked out.

Its time for Friday Fiction again!! If you remember last week, Praxton was in a little bit of a bind, what with accidentally killing one of the Stormwind city guards and all. Last we left off, one of the other guards was about to take Prax out. Things were looking good, and all for some girl that Praxton had dreamed about.

Suddenly, a wall of fire flew up from the cracks of the stone directly in front of guard. With a burst of purple light, Dreth was standing behind Praxton. “Getting into trouble already are we?” Dreth laughed.

“Come, we don’t have much time” Dreth summoned a portal behind Praxton. “To safety boy! Grab your girly friend and begone! I’ll be right behind you.”

Prax blinked. ‘Um, what just happend?’, he thought. It took him a moment to gather his wits about him. Then he remember the girl, he ran and grabbed her hand, then turned to run towards the portal.

Guards began to come at them from all directions. “Now or never!” yelled Dreth. He raised his hands high in the air and the wall burned a circle around where they stood. The walls reached high into the air, and connected to form a barrier above their heads as well. An arrow whizzed by Dreth’s face, bursting into flames as it passed through the shield of fire. “NOW!” he yelled more commandingly. A second arrow came through the shield and shot clean through Dreth’s rib bones and out the other end, hitting another guard. He couldn’t help but chuckle. Am I not a member of the Horde after all?

The captive blinked in surprise, but it didn’t take her long to recover. She shook off the other guard and followed Prax through the portal.

Prax began to increase his speed, and then he tripped and fell head first through the portal.

The girl tried to jump over Prax as he fell, but missed and they tumbled through the portal together.

Dreth stepped through the portal into the open air. The sun looked white, but wasn’t bright. The sky was enveloped in veil of purple fog. He looked at Praxton and the girl he was trying to save. “I apologize for the cold. I knew you would be safe here though.”

Embarrassed as always, Prax started to attempt to get up, “I’m s- s- s- sorrry ab- about that.”

A goblin standing nearby lifted an eyebrow but said nothing.

He attempted to help the girl up as well.

“This is Everlook, run by the Steamwheedle Cartel and Thorium Brotherhood. Not many travelers frequent this area as often as they used to. It’s not much, but it’s better than flaming arrows.” Dreth handed a staff to Praxton. “You left this at the mage tower. I went looking for you at the tailoring shop. Until I saw all the commotion… now here we are. I hope she was worth it.” Dreth looked at the young woman and tilted his head inquisitively. “And you are?”

The girl accepted Prax’s hand, replying as he pulled her to her feet, “No apology necessary. I’ve always been a little clumsy.” The girl eyed Dreth and her chin rose a little, “I’m Kalende. I’m a priestess.”

Seeing this girl up close stunned Prax. There was no mistake; this was the girl from his dream without a shadow of doubt.

“I um, er, um, …” Prax couldn’t get his mouth to work at all, didn’t matter, he didn’t know what to say.

“A pleasure” Dreth bowed his head. A maggot fell from his hair onto the ground. “Blast! I was saving that for later. The name’s Dreth, high mage of the Forsaken, and enemy of the scourge. So, Praxton,” Dreth smirked, “what about this young lady compelled you to act so foolishly?”

Prax began to shiver for the cold, he finally started to look around, when he hear Dreth’s comment, where was he again? Prax looked back at Dreth with his hands in his pocket for warmth. “I d- d- dunno, I um, she was um, er..” He felt so foolish, realizing what he had done for a girl he had a dream about, but there was such a familiarity. He couldn’t put his finger on it. It went even deeper than just his dream, this was not a chance encounter. “I d- d- dunno wh- wh- came over mmmme.” Prax said. He loathed how his voice did this when he was nervous. It began to snow, everything was so bright, it hurt Praxton’s eyes, and his feet were going numb.

Kalende eyed Dreth, “Can’t you see he’s freezing? And for that matter, so am I. Perhaps we should go somewhere more hospitable.”

Dreth looked at the frost accumulating on Praxton’s nose. “Right you are. Let’s go warm up. Ho there! Guard!” Dreth yelled at a nearby goblin. “Where’s your Innkeeper?” The goblin grunted as he pointed to a building off to the west. “Come on, let’s go.” As they walked toward the inn Dreth couldn’t help but wonder why these two weren’t more talkative. Were they not just rescued from certain imprisonment and death? Were they not now free to speak open of their love to one another? Maybe they were not the young romantic couple he had supposed them to be.

Prax knew of goblins, but had never seen one before, he was a little startled, helped get his mind off his freezing toes. And freezing toes helped keep Prax’s mind off on the topic at hand. ‘What the hell am I doing???’ he thought to himself. The three of them entered the goblin town. Prax could hear the pounding of metal on metal in the background.

Kalende eyed her rescuers. The boy’s familiarness was uncanny, almost like looking in a mirror. While she was grateful to be saved, their motives worried her. And what was a human and a Forsaken doing traveling together anyway? They weren’t Cult of the Damned. She lifted the skirt of her robe and trudge across the snow into the inn, kicking the powdery accumulation off her shoes before entering.

The finally entered the inn, Prax rushed to the fire, he started warming his hands, they stung as they thawed out.

Sensing some awkwardness, Dreth decided to give the two some privacy. “These bones of mine don’t take quite as long to warm up as your fleshy frames. There are some bears in the area and I make some MEAN charred bear kabobs. I’ll return shortly”. Dreth bowed, raised one hand in the air, and in a purple flash… was gone.

Prax began to regain feeling of his toes; he wasn’t exactly dressed for winter weather. He kind of wished he was still cold. It kept his mind off of the current events, he rather enjoyed not thinking about anything. He sat down at a near by table, rubbing his hands together, wondering what he might say to this girl. Prax stood up and started to pace back and forth, he felt like he needed to do something.

Kalende watched him, quietly wondering why he seemed so damned familiar. The only people she’d ever known were the cultist who raised her. The priestess found a chair and sat in arranging her robes, “So, to whom do I owe the pleasure of my freedom?”

Praxton turned towards the girl, “p- p- praxton seamsmith.”, he sat down and looked at the fire. He turned back to the girl, “Are you ok-k-kay? Did they um, er eh hhhurt you?” Prax felt strangely comfortable around the priestess, but he didn’t know who she was or what she was about.

“I’m fine, thank you, Praxton.” she glanced to where Dreth had exited. “You two aren’t cultists, are you?”

“Cultists? I don’t um think so.”, Prax was confused, ‘what on earth was a cultist?’ he inquired himself… without much reply. “Wh- where are eh, you from?”, Praxton asked.

(Dreth wandered aimlessly through the snow. “At least… I think there are bears in Winterspring,” he mumbled to himself.)

Kalende was suddenly wary. “If you’re not cultists, who are you…?”

Praxton sensed a change in Kalende’s, “I’m P- P- Praxton Sssseamsmith.” Prax started pacing again. “I was k- k- k- kind of hoping you could ex- explain hm, why, I I saw you in m- my dream.”

Kalende blinked, taken aback, “Your dream? Who do you work for? The Ebon Blade? You don’t look like a Death Knight. The Argent Crusade?”

Prax stopped dead, looked up, blank face. “What?” He thought he had heard of some of these groups, vaguely anyways. “I’m j- just a t- t- tailor. I w- w- was surprise to ssssee you this afternoon. I’m really j- just a nobody.” Prax sat back down, he was in over his head, but he had been this whole week.

Kalende looked incredulous, “Just a tailor? You rescued me because of a dream…?” She got up, lamenting the loss of her staff. It had been left back in Stormwind, ” Well, Praxton, I thank you for your assistance. But it seems this where we part ways.”

“Wait… wh- who are you? My d- do you look so fam- familiar? Wh- why were you in my dr- dream?” Prax felt a pit in his stomach.

Kalende drew herself up and eyed him. The space around here darkened and hissed and she was enfulged in swirling shadows. “I don’t know why we seem so familiar to each other. But I am a member of the Cult of the Damned and you are an Alliance sympathizer. Because you saved my life, I will spare yours. But beware of the Cult of the Damned. We are not all so forgiving.”

Prax took a few steps backwards, not looking he stumbled over a chair, all while keeping his eyes on Kalende.

Kalende stepped over Prax and out the door into the snow.

I realize that it gets choppy at times, that mostly because we have three different writers, sometimes four all writing from their own characters’ perspective. I hope you’re able to follow it. And I hope someone out there enjoys these, there a lot of fun to create.

Friday Fiction is back (yes I found my flash drive). And this is a good one too!

Before we get to that I gotta jabber about what I’m doing in game. My wife and I finally got our “Elder” title, took us long enough. We’d been having difficulties getting guildies together to run the 5 mans. It seems whenever we were able to get on they were raiding (we aren’t geared enough to be on the progressive raids at this point). I guess we could have puged it, but we really didn’t want to wait through the queues; it takes a while for us dpsers.

So, why we were waiting for our gear to get done with 25 man ICC we worked on leveling my wife’s death knight. She’s almost to level 64. We’d really like to catch her up to my brother and sister-in-law if we could help it (they’re both level 68 I believe).

Sadly, I still don’t have the “elder” title on my death knight. Our guildie tank specifically said that he didn’t want to swap people out. A little annoying if you ask me, but it took a lot bending arms backwards just to get that done. Us beggers should be choosy I guess. So, I get to pester guildies next week. They’ll find out just how annoying I can be (evil laugh).

I’ll be very happy to have this holiday done so I can get back to work. It’s so funny that I look forward to holidays to mix things up then look forward to finishing them so I can get back to the same old same old. I’ve been neglecting all of my many alts who are all sitting on full rest xp in random inns all over the place.

Anyway, its Friday, so lets get on with the Friday fiction.

Remember Prax’s dream about that strange girl? Well, read on, things start to get interesting (as usual, I only wrote Praxton’s part, Loreli wrote the mystery girl, and Moordeth wrote Voljub).

There was something going on in the Trade District. A crowd was forming and unfriendly shouts could be heard.

Prax heard all of this commotion. He followed the commotion, partly out of morbid curiosity.

There was a slight break in the crowd. Just enough for Prax to see through. Four city guards were escorting a hissing, spitting angry woman. She was fighting them, trying to break free. She was dressed in dark ritual robes and the crowd was shouting obscenities at her. One good look at her face revealed the girl from Prax’s dream.

Prax’s jaw dropped. He instantly recognized the woman that was flaying about at the arms of the Stormwind guard. He attempted to navigate through the crowd to get a closer look. He boots managed to find some loose cobblestone and he fell to the ground. Praxton managed to get himself up enough not to get stepped on with the growing crowd. He tried again to weave his way through to the front.

Praxton finally got to the front of the crowd to see the scene unfold.

The girl thrashed wildly, her sable locks whipping around her face. She managed to break the guards grip and whirled, hitting him with a blast of shadowy energy. Murmurs of Cult of the Damned made its way through the crowd. The captive turned to flee, but found herself blocked by a few of the braver souls in the on-looking crowd. The guards took hold of her again and someone managed a binding or silencing spell on her. They dragged her through the Trade District, obviously headed for the stockades.

Praxton was filled with strange emotions. He should have felt disgust for this woman, obviously a member of the cult of the damned. It had to be a coincidence that she had been in his dreams, but it looked just like her with his father’s eyes. Praxton followed the crowds, with growing interest and concern. He needed to help her somehow. “Pst, Voljub, what do you make of that?” Prax whispered.

Voljub spoke softly “Voljub has seen people of this kind before in Northrend with Master Volrac. Some of them are beaten prisoners and some beat the prisoners. Master Volrec wore clothes like this one often.”

Prax should have left this alone, but he kept following (forgetting why he was there to begin with). What did this woman do? The crowd dissipated as the guards got closer to the stockades, but a sizable group continued to follow out of curiosity. Prax whispered to Voljub, “I saw this woman last night…” He began to trail off, “..in my dream.”

Voljubs response was quiet and curious. “What happened in your dream master?”

They went around another corner, still trailing the guards, “Its, er, um, all kind of fuzzy.” Prax kept his eye on the girl. “There was this girl, she um, n- needed me. That’s all I can remember.”

The captive girl seemed to have sobered up slightly. She was now hissing threats at the guards, but she wasn’t fighting them.

Praxton wanted to try to get a little closer, they were going over a bridge now, a few bystanders still looked on towards the girl.

“This girl needs Master eh…mmm We follow her yes?”It was hard to stay balanced on his Masters shoulders with all the people bumping about.

Prax watched with the last bit of the crowd as they took the girl into the Stockades. Prax whispered, “I um don’t know what er to do?” Prax wasn’t thinking rationally. “Voljub, could you… um, maybe distract the guards?” He said, towards his shoulder. ‘What am I doing???’, the rational part of Prax head scream, but he pushed it aside. He couldn’t explain why he felt he had to help her, but the emotions were so strong; he continued to set aside rational thoughts.

Voljub whispered sinisterly “With pleasure my Master.” He leaped off of Praxton’s shoulders. Still invisible he hopped over to the Stockade. The guards were talking among each other. As one began to leave he saluted and said ‘For the Alliance’. Voljub spoke up mockingly with his raspy voice “For the Alliance”. Their heads began to turn in all directions. Voljub moved a closer. “For the Alliance, For the Alliance.”

“Who goes there? Show yourself!” barked a guard.

“TeeHeehee For the Alliance, For the Alliance” Voljub began running circles around a guard and slowly let himself become visible all the while chanting mockingly “For the Alliance.” When the guards noticed him he ran off down the street. Before he left the guards though he lit an Alliance flag up in flames. All three guards chased Voljub down the street as he continued to mock them. As he passed Praxton he smiled and did a little flip.

‘Now what?’ Praxton thought to himself. Then he saw that face again, that familiar face from his dreams. There were still a couple of guards; most of the onlookers were gone at this point. ‘It’s now or never’, he thought. Prax tried to act nonchalant, gave a poor attempt at whistling. He walked closer to the guards and the girl. He didn’t want to kill anybody, just get the girl away. He focused on the inner heat. Maybe he could just set the guards shoes on fire. His attempt at getting closer to the stockades did not go unnoticed by the guards whose attention were heightened.  Prax felt for the heat, he was the heat.

He heard the guard say, “Move along.” He could hardly notice, the heat was overcoming him. Prax tried to act like he was just walking by, he attempted to send the focused heat to the feet of the guard on the left of the girl. ‘Oh no’ Prax thought as he saw a stream of flames start to engulf the guard, the plate metal started to melt. Praxton was mortified; he didn’t yet have a good feel over the heat. He must have drawn too much.

The man started to scream in pain. The other guard let go of the girl and rushed towards Praxton while pulling out his sword. Prax just stood there in shock, “What have I done?” he whispered to himself.

Next Friday I’ll put up some more on this story. We’ll see what happens to Praxton and this mystery girl.