A sorceress in need

I had spent the better part of a year at home, hardly ever taking jobs of any kind, or even going on journeys at sea simply for the hell of it. I hardly ate, I hardly slept even though most of that time I was either in my bedroom or in the living area of my house, I felt pathetic and unwanted for long periods of time, until a knock came at my door. And there in the doorway stood a gnome. She had on a hooded cloak and was turned away from me, then in a puff of purple smoke, I heard a voice, "Good afternoon dear sir! I am Krivi Crystalfist! And I require one more final adventur- AHH! Oh my goodness...y-you ok?" I looked around sarcastically, "Oh, I'm sorry were you talking to me? Sorry seeing as you were obviously putting on a show for a whole audience I figured you must have seen some functional person I wasn't aware of."

She rolled her eyes and took off her hood. She was really pretty for a gnome. She had long black hair tied into two small buns, her eyes were a deep shade of purple, and she wore intricate and rather beautiful black and purple clothing. "Listen, old man, would you mind getting the better-looking, 20-something adventurer who lives here? It's kind of important." "first of all, I'm 23, secondly I've been feeling a little down lately which is why I look like someone's father, and thirdly, what is so important that you need me?" her eyes widened, "jeez who hurt you? You know what don't answer that. I have a mission for you." I sighed, "What is this supposed mission? Revenge on a noble?" "No." "your sibling was killed or captured and you wanna get them back?" "No." "a band of mercenaries has marked you for death and you need protection?" "Nope." "Well, then what the hell do you need me for?" "We are getting my old spellbook back."

I couldn't tell if I was so tired I was annoyed or so annoyed I became more tired, "A spellbook? You? A sorceress, someone born with magical abilities, needs a spellbook?" She looked at me confused, "well yeah I mean, just because I was born with magical abilities doesn't mean that I know all the spells." I sighed, "fine, I need to get out of the house anyway, where did you last leave it?" she inhaled sharply, "See that's why I needed an adventuring party." "Why?" "Well...A long time ago, my mother took me to the lone tree to learn magic and such, but a demonstration of wild magic scared me and I ran off with my spellbook to a far-off cave, cause well, I thought I was going to die and all." "Go on." "well when I got in the cave I went deep in there, and I mean DEEP. So deep I believe I found someone's old dungeon or something like that. It was just a big room with old stuff that either fell apart when touched or way too corroded and rusted to function properly."

I looked at her confused, "And?" "and, I realized that I had been gone for a few hours and ran back to see if my mom was ok, leaving behind my spellbook and forgetting about it for years until just now when I needed to learn the "wish" spell, and none of my other books have it. Plus it is a rather high-level spell, plus, I could make any wish come true, so long it makes some semblance of sense. For example, I can't grant you the wish to rule the world or something like that, however, I could grant you the wish of having a chest full of gold….you would still have to unlock it though." I sighed deeply, "well I already agreed to it. I'll meet you by the gate in an hour, I gotta go and shave off this scruff." I said pointing out my rather bushy beard. "Gotcha," Krivi said with a wink.

After a shave and decently long walk, I met up with Krivi and a few folks I believe she must have asked to join her. The first was a tiefling. He had bright red skin, long black hair he kept in a half-up ponytail, bright yellow eyes, and carrying a large sword. He also seemed to be wearing heavy plate armor, "good day chap." he said extending a hand, I extended mine to shake it, "The name is Romero Hornraven. I am a wandering paladin. I travel from various towns and villages to help those in need, and occasionally I join in adventuring parties such as these." "pleasure to meet you, Romero."

Standing against the cart was a creature known as a firbolg, and this one seemed to reading a book. "Oh, hello. My name is Adrie." she was two heads taller than me and wore simple clothing, nothing too fancy. She also had a staff strapped to her back. "Pleasure, I don't see many of your kind here, why is that?" "Oh, well my people usually tend to stay within the woodland areas of the world, and some like me, we go out into the world and we learn magic or find trade jobs, we even open shops and other such things." "that's rather nice, I'll keep that in mind if I should see another of your kin around." she smiled and nodded as she went back to reading.

The final person I had met for this new trek was a female dragonborn, she had silver scales, bright blue eyes, and was clad in shining armor, with a sword and a hammer at her side. "Good afternoon. My name is Kadana. I see you're the only human among us, what skills do you bring?" "um...Well, first of all, my name is Shane Crowfeather it's nice to meet you, secondly, I'm a rogue, I can pick a lock, stab a few people from behind I can-" "What was that last part?" "Stab people from behind? I mean I'm generalizing but-" "URGH! Where is the glory of attacking someone from behind? Don't you wanna die with honor?" "I...well...yes but that's not the point I-" "Well nothing! I don't see you fighting, I'll bash your face in! Did you get that?" I nodded and moved away slowly, desperately trying to find Krivi.

I managed to find her magically loading the cart, "So Krivi, you, don't expect all of us to fight do you?" She took a moment to think, "hm….no not exactly. I mean I don't doubt that there might be a few bandits, but most of these folks are fine to just intimidate them." I shrugged, "Oh well, as long as I won't need to fight it's fine with me." After our conversation, Krivi gathered us all together. "Alright ladies and gentlemen, this won't be too long of a journey and I won't expect too much trouble, however, you are all strong and capable people who will help me reach my goal, plus you get a free trip to the lone tree. Isn't this exciting?" Before anyone could answer she shouted, "alrighty let's get it going!" We all collectively shrugged and got onto the cart.

Heading to the lone tree was a rather short trip from Ulvenguard, it only takes a day or so to reach it. However, during that one day, Krivi and I would always find ourselves talking, whether it'd be about Ulvenguard, her being a sorceress, or even just about the trip in general, we would talk about it. Then when we finally made camp and the others were asleep, she asked me about why I've been looking like my soul had been ripped out. "Well...the woman I loved and I...separated. She left and sent me a letter saying she doesn't want to be with me anymore, the letter said that she didn't want to constantly worry if I would come back home or not. Which is understandable, but I wish we could have spent more time together."

For a moment Krivi looked upset. "Oh, I guess I shouldn't have...said all that stuff when I met you huh? You were just going through a hard time and I just appeared out of nowhere to call you an old man." "Yeah, I mean I can't blame you for trying to find the supposed "handsome 20-something man" who lived all by his lonesome self." I saw her blush slightly, "Oh! You...you remember that bit." "I do. It sort of gave me a bit of a confidence boost. Been feeling a bit down lately, hardly sleeping, hardly eating, I should probably thank you for getting my mind off of this whole situation got me thinking on my feet again." She smiled, "Oh stop, All I did was give you a little nudge." I smiled as I stoked the fire, "Say...you wouldn't happen to know a sleep spell would you?" she smiled as she asked me to bend down closer to her. She then grabbed my face and placed a single kiss on my forehead and instantly my vision went pitch black.

I awoke inside the cart gasping for air as if I had been drowning, "Ah, you're finally awake. Just in time too, we have just arrived at the lone tree." Taking deep breaths and moving up to see where we are, in front of me was a breathtaking sight. Surrounded by a wall of mountains, the greenest grass, and an array of colorful flowers, there stood the enormous tree. As we all stared in amazement at the tree itself, Krivi said, "there it is." "There what is?" I asked her, "Oh, the cave. Right over there in that far-right there." We all looked to where she was pointing, within the surrounding mountains there seemed to be a massive entryway into a cave, the same cave likely to hold Krivi's missing spellbook. "Huh...thought it'd be smaller."

We parked the cart a few feet away from the cave as we all stood there right in front of it, "Now Krivi," I said, "Mhm?" "you sure there wasn't any sort of severe danger in here the first time you went in?" "Nope. now come on, I wanna get this done by tomorrow." I sighed as I followed the others into the cave. "Oh boy," I said entering the dark and dank cave. The journey through the cave lasted a rather long time mainly because there were more than a few tunnels to go down that led to a plethora of dead ends and we had to go back and take several more, Krivi then stopped and asked Adrie what time it as. She yawned and said, "Oh...it's...around eight o'clock? Yes...yes, it's eight o'clock." "Ah. Let's find a place to take a rest then." we spent another hour finding an area we could all lie down and rest.

We rested for about three hours when all of a sudden Krivi quietly shouted, "I found it! I found the tunnel I went down!" "gee thanks...now let us sleep." I said refusing to open my eyes, "Come on we're already here, might as well get the job done right?" The rest of us looked at each other and reluctantly got up, "let's get it over with." Kadana said. We all followed Krivi down the tunnel she had mentioned and came to a large opening, however, what we did not expect was the 12 or so bandits all trying to look for something within this open area. Adrie, Krivi, Romero, and I all knelt out of sight to think of a plan.

"Alright, there are 12 of them and five of us, I say we dwindle the number quietly, there's plenty of spaces for me to maybe take out a few of them, two or three at the least, once the shit hits the fan we spring out, make sure the heavy hitters are up in front take as many out as possible so the magic users won't have to do too much. Got it?" They all nodded, "Kadana did you get- Where did she go?" out of nowhere she sprang forth into action taking her hammer and slamming it down onto an unsuspecting bandit crushing his skull against the stone floor. I rolled my eyes and jumped down with the others, weapons at the ready.

Yet, we weren't met with a "GET 'EM BOYS!" or anything like that. Instead, we were met with terrified screaming "OH MY GODS PHIL!" "um...aren't you going to attack us?" I asked, "NO! W-We were just here trying to find valuable stuff to sell at the pawnshop, you crazy bastard! We're unarmed!" "Oh…." I slowly turned to look at Kadana, she looked over at whatever was left of what might have been Phil, "oops...sorry...I mean you can't blame me, you look like bandits." "Gods I mean...yeah we do, but it was to scare people off I didn't think people would come here to...Oh, gods."

We all put away our weapons and explained the situation, "You mean this spellbook?" One of the men said pulling a book out of his pouch, Krivi gasped in excitement and nodded, "Yes yes yes! that's the one!" "Here just take it." he said handing the book over to her sheepishly, "Alright. Well then...I guess we'll leave you alone now." I watched the others leave, I stayed behind for a moment, "here, for all the trouble we caused." I said handing them 40 platinum. "Oh my...I...we…" "Don't say a word, just uh...make sure it's a closed casket for poor Phil here." They all nodded and I made my way over to the others and catch up with them.

When I got back to them we all headed back out of the cave, "well...that was rather anticlimactic." Kadana said, "I'm just gonna head back home, I need to uh...think about my actions." She then started walking away, "I believe I will join her, though we did not need to fight she will likely need assistance on the road." Romero stated as he began following her. Adrie smiled at us and said she'd talk to the other wizards and sorcerers to see if she could stay and learn magic, which left just me and Krivi all by ourselves and a semi-empty cart.

Making our way back to Ulvenguard we once again made camp for the night, "Say, Mr.Crowfeather?" "Yeah?" "Thanks. I know it wasn't much of a grand adventure like you're likely to have but I appreciate you helping me get my old book back." "Don't mention it. I should be thanking you. The other day when I told you about my whole deal I mentioned that you finally got me out of my funk. I haven't had to think about how I was gonna execute a plan in such a long time. I thank you for that." She smiled, "Well...we could still help each other in a way." "How so?" "you see...I've always wanted to do a little bit of roleplay…" "Oh?...Oh…"

Though I would have liked to describe the events of that night, I should leave it to the imagination, but it should be said that her ideas for this were...dark. After all that happened, she dropped me off at the gate and went on her way. "Let's hope I won't have to deal with her in that way again," I said to myself.