Valthor: a moment of quiet

The hold was comfortably warm, warmer with Kiela pressed against him. A single candle-lamp lit the space, and the half-full bottle of brandy was safely tucked between the bedroll and the wall. Valthor liked being with her, even if the hammocks in the crew quarters didn't allow them to sleep together. As a representative of the Admiral, Valthor could have asked for better accommodations, but he very definitely didn't want that kind of attention -- and whatever this was, he didn't want to draw attention to it and apparently Kiela didn't either. Very likely the crew knew, or at least some of them, but it wasn't something that either of them was talking openly about. 

They'd sparred on deck, of course, she with her cutlass and he with his rapier; but then, Valthor sparred with anyone willing, and on a ship full of pirates there were plenty who wanted practice. Rapier, cutlass, saber, belaying pin, even a loose section of rope; he'd practiced against all of it. 

No, this was a delicate shelter, private moments stolen away from shipboard duties, fragile and probably temporary. They both knew it; perhaps that was part of the reason they treasured it. 

She stirred against him, and he said softly: "If we keep this up..."

She rolled over so that she was facing him, a small but unwelcome separation. "There's a tincture to prevent children," she said. "I haven't been taking it. Do you want me to?"

"Do you want to?" he asked. "I could be gone at any moment."

She shook her head. "I don't think you will, though. And I might like to have your child, if the gods see fit."

He nodded slowly. He had never considered being a parent himself; it was enough difficulty to deal with his own parents. "I might like that," he admitted. 

"Our child, should one come," she said slowly, "would not be the first born at sea, nor among pirates."

Valthor considered that; considered the secrets he was holding, and the things he had and hadn't said.

"When we first met," he offered cautiously, "I told you I wasn't a vampire. That was true, but not complete. My father was a vampire, long ago human, and my mother was an elf."

"What?" She didn't pull back, but the shock on her face struck him like a blow.

He nodded. "Were we to have a child, I suspect it would be only human, with a touch of Elven ancestry. But if we're considering this, well... it's something you should know."

"But how is that even possible?"

"Vampires can be fertile, under certain circumstances. It's most common among the newly-turned, but there are rituals for the elders, a temporary lessening of power in exchange for the chance to bear children -- or father them." 

She considered that, but didn't draw away. "I knew there was something strange about you. You have fangs?"

"I can," he admitted. "Even full vampires don't always have them -- not visibly, not all the time. But that's why I don't really need to breathe, and why I can walk on walls."

Kiela hesitated a moment longer, then rolled him over, stroked him, mounted him. "Come on," she said, quietly fierce. "Put a baby in me." 

Valthor: A Pirate With A Vision

Valthor hadn't honestly expected to like the admiral, but then he'd been surprised before and at least this one was pleasant. Borith Cove was practically designed to be a pirate city, with a narrow, defensible channel leading into a sheltered cove and plenty of ships and crews to defend it. It had plenty of docks, plus its own shipyards -- and, it turned out, a whole set of farm plots run by widows whose husbands had been lost at sea. It wasn't quite enough to make island self-sufficient, but it looked to be well on its way. 

They'd found the admiral in the inn on one of the pair of islands at the center of the cove, and almost accidentally had confirmed that Captain Razin of the Gloamshine -- the boat they were currently traveling on -- counted himself among the pirates. As far as Valthor was concerned, that was fine; as freebooters went, they didn't seem to be especially evil or destructive. They'd certainly worked hard enough in trying to get the elves and orcs to their negotiations.

So now the four of them -- he, Rrhorask, and Tizrin of the Adventurer's Guild, along with a priest named Sy -- were exploring the town at the admiral's instruction. In person, she had turned out to be a drow elf -- which might have been awkward at sea, but worked well enough since her particular admiralty was over the town of Borith itself. Or, possibly, the whole island, but Valthor didn't think so.

So far, they'd met the captain of the Widows' Farms -- a rather friendly halfling -- and the captain of NewTown, which ironically was no longer especially new. She was a Tortle, already older than anything Valthor expected to live to see, and apparently the center of a network of information-gathering. Now they were on their way to where the admiral was having the old fort atop the hill rebuilt. He was looking forward to seeing it.

 

Valthor: Battles, then Cuddles

"I saw you fighting down there," said Kiela. "It was... well, it was really impressive. All those orcs..."

Valthor shrugged, slightly embarrassed. "I mean, I wasn't the only one fighting them."

"No, but... I mean, you and your friends fight well together, but you all have different styles. Tizrin seemed to be having a bad day -- I'm sure he fights better than that normally, and Rrhorask is deadly with those knives when he has room to throw them, but as long you have have someone to fight beside you're... I'm not sure how to describe it. I could see you positioning yourself, lining up your shot."

Valthor chuckled. "Well, I was raised to believe that precision counts for more than strength -- most of the time, anyway. That one time my cousin Lothos lifted me off the floor by neck, it sure didn't feel that way."

"Your cousin picked you up by your neck?" Kiela asked, sounding slightly aghast. "How old were you?"

"...Seventeen, I think," Valthor told her. "He wasn't trying to strangle me or anything, he just wanted to make sure we understood each other. Pretty typical cousin stuff."

"Um," said Kiela, still studying his face. "Valthor, that's not typical. It's actually kind of insane."

"Is it?" asked Valthor. "I don't know, it seemed pretty normal at the time."

"Trust me," Kiela told him. "It wasn't." She swallowed. "Anyway, you want to come down to the cargo hold with me and have a drink? We set up a nice, discreet spot behind some of the boxes."

"Sure," said Valthor, and followed her down the stairs. 

He was restless after the fight, and horny, but it wasn't until they reached the corner hideaway that he realized what she had in mind. "No chairs," Kiela told him, looking innocent. "We'll have to sit on the bedroll."

Valthor swallowed. "I can manage that," he said.  

Valthor: Family Horrors

Valthor leaned on the railing and looked out over the ocean, trying to remember the dream. Sy, the cleric of the Harvest Maiden who had attached himself to their group, had suggested that the strange dreams he had in the darkness of the underground prison were likely to be significant, but...

His sister had come to him, he remembered that much. Darkness and mist... She'd spoken of the blade he'd taken from her corpse. Not his mother's work, as he'd initially suspected, but far older... it was a family blade, older than the Starfall, born of deceit, betrayal, broken oaths, and murder. To fully unlock its power would require him to follow in that family tradition... How had she put it? 

It will grow in power as you deceive, betray, and especially kill those to whom you are bound: benefactors, liege lords and loyal servants, friends, allies -- and of course, your kith and kin. 

If he was being completely honest with himself, Valthor didn't like the taste of that. He wouldn't mind killing some of his kin, and he certainly wasn't above a certain amount of artful embellishment when it came to certain kinds of facts, but if there was one thing he'd learned as part of a mercenary company, it was that he was strongest with trusting and trustworthy friends working together. Betrayal and Oathbreaking held no appeal for him... 

Well, mostly. As a jackalwere, his brother Vildern had always been stronger than he was, and his attentions were damnably hard to avoid.  He could see a scenario where he pledged his loyalty to Vildern with the intent of betraying and murdering him when the opportunity presented. So yes, he could probably work with this. 

More than that, though, could he change it? If it was a family blade and had taken its character from his family, could he afflict it with his own trust in well-chosen loyalties?

He'd have to see.

"Valthor?" 

He turned, blinking, to find Kiela standing beside him -- wiry, nimble Kiela who was frequently manning the crow's nest when she wasn't up in the rigging, inspecting the sails. "Oh. Hello." 

"Are you well?" she asked. "You looked pretty lost in in there..." She reached up and tapped the side of his head with a fingertip. 

"I was," he said. "I'm back now, though."

"Should I ask?"

"Probably best if you don't," he said. "I... A lot of my life is very difficult to explain."

"Oh." She hesitated, running a hand nervously through her short red hair. "Listen, a few of us were going to play cards down in the hold, and some of us would love to know how you and your friends managed a jailbreak out of that place. Would you--?" 

"I'd love to," he told her. 

Valthor: The Ancient Book

"Oh, the last third of the book has spells, and we've been using those to build a lexicon so we can translate the rest of it. It's disturbing stuff: necromancy, and conjuration related to necromancy . What really interests me, though," continued the scholar, "is the first section. The title of it is something like, 'story' with markers for both truth and obscurity, followed by 'ground' or 'world', and then 'primacy'. Taken together, it's something like 'The Secret History of the First World'."

Sy, who wasn't a bad fellow for being a human and a priest of the Harvest Maiden, stiffened. Valthor managed not to glance at him, because he had a pretty good idea of why the cleric looked stung. 

Among the peoples of the daylight world and servants of the gods, it was generally taught that this was first and only world. To claim otherwise was generally considered heresy, though the degree varied somewhat from place to place. And there was a very specific belief, not uncommon in the court where he'd grown up, that the Harvest Maiden herself was the last survivor of the gods of the previous world.

Here, and particularly among the clergy of the Harvest Maiden, such a belief was not just heresy but blasphemy. In the court of his former home, the belief had been something else: it had been taught as a warning. 

No, he was definitely not going to bring that up with Sy. Not unless, for some unimaginable reason, it actually became important to know.

The scholar had finished reassuring the priest that he meant no insult, and that perhaps they should expect that a book of evil magics might also include a heresy or three. Sy had settled back, though he still looked disgruntled. 

Valthor couldn't blame him. Ominous didn't even begin to cover this. 

Valthor: The Truth of the Blade

"Thank you," said Valthor, as Tizrin handed the rapier back to him. "What's the verdict?"

The little rabbit-man artificer looked up at him. "Well," he said in his soft, almost furry voice, "it isn't cursed. It's just... bound to you, somehow. And it's a pretty basic magic weapon, enchanted to make it more likely to hit and to do a bit more damage... except, it has some hidden magics sealed away. Abilities that haven't been activated yet."

"Oh?" asked Valthor. He'd grown up around dark magics and even less savory practices, but he wasn't a spellcaster himself. 

Tizrin nodded. "Oh yes, and what's very weird is that its bond to you is connected to the seal. You'll still need to attune to it, and after that maybe you can figure out how to unlock more of it."

"Thank you," Valthor said again. "I will."

It was later, alone in his room, when Valthor would draw the blade again and study it. It felt good in his hand, light and ready. He made a few passes with it, then sheathed it again. 

Well, she was definitely my sister, then. What were you up to, Mother? He could make no guess on that front; he simply didn't know his mother well enough. She had taught him magical theory, shown him the bladesinging style she used with her sword, asked him questions designed to to make him think about his other siblings: what they wanted, how they went about getting it. She had never never discussed her own feelings about the rest of the court or her interactions with them, though.  

What were you up to? 

Valthor: A Sister Unrecognized

I should have known, he thought. It wasn't just that the elvish wizard had abandoned her plans for escape to go after him instead, it was way she'd done it: slipping into the same style of Bladesinging that his mother had practiced. Likely the woman hadn't even been a half-sister, but rather a full sister that he hadn't known about. One which either his mother or his father had been holding in reserve. My mother, most likely, he decided. 

It would have been nice to have her as an ally, but clearly that hadn't been in the cards. And her blade... the scimitar was cursed, as Sy had made clear. The rapier, though... 

He pulled on his gloves, then took a handful of his cloak in his hand for good measure. Careful not to touch the weapon itself, he slid it back into its sheath and picked the whole thing up. He needed a box, to lock it away until someone could take a look and tell him whether or not the thing was safe to add to his own arsenal. For the moment, he could likely tuck it away in his locker.

The blades were another indication that this sister was one of their mother's tools. Their father hadn't sent his children out with anything more than minimal equipment, but these blades could easily be their mother's work. If she had held his sister back, trained her, equipped her... 

Oh, she's going to be furious if she ever finds out about this... 

Valthor: Aboard The Galleon

I was down in the bath when someone reached in and shook me. I shot up, putting my head above water, and heard someone squeak as I wiped the water away from my eyes.

"Harvest Mother!" shouted a woman's voice. "How long have your been down there? I thought you were drownt!"

I leaned back in the still-warm water. "I don't drown," I said. I opened my eyes again and found myself staring at a petite redhead with her hair cut short, wrapped in a towel and still gaping at me. "So I find it relaxing to sit under the water."

"So you're... you're not dead?" she asked. 

I laid my head back against the edge of the bath and sighed. "No, I'm not dead." Then I gathered myself, because of course she had a point. "But I appreciate your concern. I'd appreciate it even more if you didn't mention this to anyone."

"So... you're a sea elf? Like the Captain?"

I weighed that for the barest moment, because it would have given me an easy out. "No," I told her after a moment. "I'm something else."

"But alive, right? Not some vampire we accidentally invited on board?"

I chuckled, and it wasn't a pleasant sound. "Yes, I'm still alive, so no, I'm not a vampire." I lifted a damp hand, held it out. "Valthor."

She hesitated for a moment, then clasped it. "Kiela," she told me. "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to disturb your bath."

I shook my head. "Perfectly natural reaction," I told her. "No reason you would know."

She shrugged apologetically, then grasped at her towel as it started to slip. "Well, now I do," she said. "It won't happen again." 

Valthor: Job Prospects

I spent my first three days in Merilos living off what money my father had sent with me and what additional funding I could win at cards. I did fairly well at that, but only when I cheated -- and that was risky, too risky to rely on as a long-term strategy. 

It was my third night, and I was taking a stroll through the warehouse district behind the docks -- just to clear my head, you understand. I certainly wasn't casing the buildings or considering how my fortunes might fare if I turned to a life of crime. And, of course, I was keeping myself in shape with an idle bit of night climbing, which was better practiced here than in more populated areas. It was in this perfectly innocent fashion that I happened to be near the edge of a rooftop when I heard the sounds of someone running: rapid footsteps coming closer, exhausted wheezing mixed with barely-gasped curses. 

Several thoughts went through my head: that this might be some poor innocent, out for a nighttime stroll like myself, and now pursued by the city's criminal element. Or it might be some nefarious rogue, of the sort that I would never consider becoming, on the run from the guards after a job turned sour. From the sounds of shouting behind him, I rather thought the latter. 

So, in recognition of my civic duty, I swung over the side of the building, dropped down, rolled, and came to my feet in front of him. He screamed, tried to stop or perhaps dodge around me, and managed -- entirely of his own accord -- to slam himself face-first into the wall of the alley we were currently occupying. It was, to be fair, a fairly clean and wide alley -- the trash carts came through the warehouse district regularly enough -- and he certainly had no reason to think that an upstanding citizen such as myself might spring up out of nowhere to inquire after his safety. 

I was crouched down and checking him over -- purely to assure myself of his health -- when his pursuers slid the covers of their lanterns up, bathing us both in uncomfortably bright light. One of them, the nearer one, growled, "Where did you come from?"

"Me? I was out for a stroll, as anyone might be," I told them. My eyes were starting to adjust, and I thought they both looked dubious; and even after three days I knew that the rest of Sorilan didn't keep even remotely the sort of hours that I'd been raised to. "I heard someone running, and stopped to see if he needed help. Unfortunately, I startled him, and... well... I was just checking to see if he was okay. He doesn't seem to be carrying a purse, but he was carrying this."

I held up the item the man had obviously stolen. It looked to be some sort of brazier, made of some silvery metal. It looked expensive, but also distinctive -- the sort of thing that might net me a lot of money, but also might get me into a very great deal of trouble. 

"You checked his purse?" asked the nearer of his pursuers -- a half-orc, I thought, or maybe even a full orc. 

"Only to see if he had anything that might identify him," I said, radiating so much innocence that the half-orc actually hesitated before laughing softly. I forebore observing that he must have somehow dropped his purse while being pursued -- along with a rather nice dagger that I was already becoming quite fond of, actually. "Do you know the gentleman?"

"That's Calder Carefree," said the maybe-orc, and the man behind him nodded. "We captured the rest of his team, but he caught wise and almost escaped. You should come with us -- the boss will want to meet you." 

I hesitated, but he added: "There's a bounty on him, and the boss'll also want to make sure you get your share."

"Oh?" I asked. "Is there money to be made, capturing criminals?" 

"That's not the only sort of work we do, but yes." The probably-half-orc came forward, lowering the cover on his lantern. 

"Damn it, Rrhoral, you know I can't see in the dark." 

"So leave yours open, Barghif, but quit blinding our new friend."

He checked Calder over for weapons, then scooped up the half-conscious human. His companion turned his lantern away and approached me, holding a hand out; I handed him the brazier, and he nodded. "You really should come with us." 

And that was how I met Rhoral the Quick and Barghif the Stubborn, and through them the dragonborn woman Sarail who commanded their troop. She asked if I was looking for work, and I admitted that I might be. I hadn't expected to find it with a troop of adventurous mercenaries and almost -- but not quite -- pirates, but I did. And I like to think that we were all the better for it.

Valthor: Dispersal, Disposal (3/?)

My father was never much in the habit of explaining himself. He simply summoned us, all of his children, to attend him upon his throne on the night of the full moon. None of us knew why, and no matter how well or poorly we concealed it all of us were unsettled. For myself, I wondered if he had intended to rebuke my sister Magda for whatever she had done to our brother Vildern, or Vildern for mauling her in return; I even worried that he might intend to rebuke me for the way I had cast Magda out of my room, though surely I'd been well within my rights in that. 

I was among the youngest of my siblings, being -- as Vildern had once sneeringly observed -- "natural-born." I was not quite the youngest; that honor -- or burden -- fell to Lynna, a gnomish peasant girl whom my father had turned from light and life almost exactly one year before. She had been, perhaps, seventeen at the time -- barely out of childhood, for a gnome. 

Our father was already seated on his throne, nine steps above us, as we assembled. I was neither the first nor the last to enter, but I saw him glance at me despite my best efforts to be unobtrusive. He seemed to be numbering us in his head, weighing and measuring; but perhaps that impression was merely my worries at work. Father could be absolutely expressionless when he wanted to be, an affectation that the rest of strove to imitate at need. 

When all of us were present and attentive, he straightened. "My children," he began, and I wish I could remember the precise words that he spoke. He told us of our value as heirs to the kingdom of the dark, of his hopes for us and for a worthy successor. The word abdication passed his lips, though whether or not that was in mockery I am genuinely unsure. What was clear to all of us was that he expected us -- one of us -- to claim the Shadow Crown by proving ourselves worthy to succeed him. 

And he did not mean worthy within the court. Whether he planned to select a successor based on our deeds, or whether he expected one of us to take the Crown from him by force, he intended for us to manage on our own. Any allies we found would not be found here; any forces we raised would not be raised within the kingdom of the dark. We would take the basic equipment we needed to survive, and some small money; but that was all.

Come the dark of the moon, he would send us out into the world, to make our way by our wits and skills alone. 

On one level -- as all of us realized but none of us bothered to say -- it was horrifyingly unfair. Our father counted as children both vampire spawn and full vampires, undead he had raised to this purpose, half-mortal progeny, and even a sister that I was quite certain was a construct. On another, it was absolutely, mercilessly fair: exactly the sort of ruthless fairness of predator and prey that the kingdom of the dark could not fail to respect. Regardless of our personal resources, we were all being given exactly the same chance. 

I do not know where the others were sent. I do not know if anyone was truly given a choice. I know that when I came into the small receiving room with the portal like a pool of black oil rippling at the back wall, my father turned to me and said, "I had thought to send you to a city."

I nodded back to him and said, "A place of many races, if you will it, where elves and their kin are not unknown." 

I thought I saw a hint of a smile quirk his lips, and then he nodded and gestured for me to step through the portal. 

Thus did I find myself in the port city of Merilos, on the shore of the Inland Sea. And that was where I would make -- or break -- my fortune.

Valthor: Family ties (2/?)

When I was twelve years old, my father had me sealed inside a coffin and buried in a shallow grave, to prove that I was truly of his bloodline. 

It was boring. 

I am my father's child. I don't need to breathe. And while I don't share the supernatural strength of some of his children, shoving my way out of a coffin and digging back up to the open air wasn't so very difficult. It was just a matter of finding the right position, so I could provide the proper leverage.

I wondered what my mother would have thought. I wondered if she would have been proud of me. I didn't bother to go looking for him, to tell him I'd survived; I just went back to my room. It was just another day, just another test.

But after that, my father started paying attention to me. He watched. He spoke to me directly -- not often, but when it pleased him. He moved me out of the nurseries and gave me my own room. And when I stabbed my half-sister in the back and shoved her out into the corridor to face the consequences of her actions, he didn't so much as blink. 

But several weeks later, he announced that he was banishing us all: all his children, born or turned or raised. We would go out into the world, and we would make what we could of ourselves, and whomever he judged most successful would inherit the Crown of Shadow -- and, presumably, the Shadow Kingdom and all that that entailed.

I didn't want the crown. 

But if any of my siblings claimed it, there would be a price on my head. So I went out, taking with me the skills that had kept me alive, and I joined a company of mercenaries. If I wasn't the most successful, then I'd have to be the first to disappear. It would have to be one or the other.

Valthor: Unexpected Visitors (1/?)

Valthor snapped awake in the darkness of his stone-walled room in the undercrypts of his father's mansion, and yanked the hidden dagger from the headboard of his bed. He slid out from under the covers, set his feet silently on the floor, and glided around the bed, placing himself beside the doorway to his study. He waited there, watching and listening, knowing that someone was in the room beyond. 

After a moment he slipped through the door. His study was just as he'd left it, but there was a figure just inside the outer door, white-haired and robed. Mabda? Yes, almost certainly. He slipped up behind the wizard, who was doing her best to remain silent, then stabbed her in the kidney and twisted. She gasped, and he yanked open the door. 

Fire scorched him, but then of course it would; Mabda's reaction to injury was a reflex so well-honed that it bordered on a natural law. He shoved her out into the hall, heedless of having been burned. A low growl sounded, built, filled the corridor outside. Mabda had raised her hand to punish Valthor, but she flinched away from that sound and turned to face its source.

Valthor swung the door shut, latched it, and then slid the bar into place. On the far side of the door, the growling grew louder and then the screaming began. Valthor shook his head and went back into his bedroom, wiping the dagger's blade with a cloth and then oiling it again. Then he placed it back in his headboard, crawled back under the covers, and slept. 

Night would come again all too soon, and he'd need to be rested. And sleep was restorative; it would help heal his burns, as well as restore his energy and his strength.