A Dark Alliance - The Endless Night - Chapter Three
Three - Sustenance and Singular Pursuits
After washing, and changing her tunic, Allessia made her way back downstairs to find that someone - most likely Karne - had taken her words to heart and found them something to eat beyond the rations they carried in their packs. A small boar was skewered on the spit that stood above a fire in the grand hearth, which was large enough to accommodate even someone of Dorn’s hulking size without stooping.
“Allessia! We eat well tonight, lady.” Borador cried heartily as he turned the spit. Allessia eyed him suspiciously, searching for signs of an enchantment. Such cheery greetings from the grumpy old goat were unusual to say the least - you were lucky if you got a grunt of recognition at morningfeast - and getting him to do anything that didn’t involve the accumulation of large amounts of looted gold and trinkets was nigh on impossible; so for him to both cheerful and making himself useful at the same time meant there had to be more to it than met the eye. The ruddy glow on his face could have been explained away by the heat of the fire or his natural colouring, but the half-empty bottle of vicious looking liquid that lay beside him was the thing that gave the game away. So, not under a geas then? Just half cut. “May Helm forgive me, but I believe I like you better this way.” Allessia thought.
If she was honest, she wasn’t entirely sure why Borador continued to adventure with them; especially after she insisted that all finders fees and spoils be split equally. He made several vociferous protests about it and set about staging a revolt against her, canvassing the others for support. He didn’t get very far though as the others agreed that it was a fair arrangement. In the end, for the sake of peace, they decided to pay Borador the fee his clan brother, Durbem, would have asked for the Halls of the Hammer vault key had Borador not been with the party. Of course the price was greatly inflated, but the gesture seemed to placate Borador, and Allessia supposed that, in the end, he must have come to the conclusion that a share in something was better than a share in nothing at all. All of this wasn’t to say that he didn’t have his uses, his ability to disarm traps had got them out of several tight situations, and only Jherek came close to his accuracy with a bow.
She considered asking him where the boar came from - there was certainly nothing living worth hunting down to be found close by - but decided that she didn’t care too much about its origins, just that it would soon be satisfying the hunger that overtook her the moment she inhaled the sweet roasting aroma. “So it seems.” she replied.
Ysuran sat in a chair on the opposite side of the fireplace from Borador. Everything about the Moon Elf was long; from his legs stretched out before him; to his mane of sleek, blue-black hair, which was tucked behind his ears to keep it from falling in his eyes as he leafed through the great black tome he carried with him.
Allessia didn’t much care for Ysuran’s brand of magic. As a necromancer, his craft went against every principle she held dear, and it wasn’t usually associated with someone who sought to do good deeds, but together she and Ysuran had somehow managed to find common ground between their wildly differing and often conflicting abilities and combine them in battle with potent effect.
The elf looked up from his spell book and furnished Allessia with a small smile. “How is he?” he quietly enquired after Jherek.
“He should be fine,” she told him. “I’ve left him to sleep.”
“Good.” Ysuran nodded and turned his attentions back to his book.
Dorn sat at the table closest the fire, a large tankard of something foamy and a small glass goblet filled with something that looked like liquid fire before him. Allessia thought it odd that he bothered to use a glass. She assumed - wrongly - that swigging from a bottle was more his style. As it was, the glass only served to prove that despite knowing Dorn the longest of all her travelling companions - having met him on previous expeditions from her home in Secomber, where she served as a cleric for hire - she still knew relatively little about him, except that he hailed from Daggerford and had elevated having a good time to an art form. What she did know was that she could rely on him wholeheartedly to be right beside her in the front line whenever there was a battle to be fought. His fighting style wasn’t as refined as her own, but faced with a baying horde she couldn’t think of anyone else she would rather have at her side.
Even Vhaidra, normally so aloof, was sat amongst the group clustered about the fireplace. In many respects, Allessia and the Drow monk were as different from each other as it was possible to be; where Allessia was warm and empathetic, Vhaidra was cold and dismissive. Where Allessia’s motivation was the restoration of harmony and order, Vhaidra’s was the acquisition of power and influence, be it in Baldur’s Gate or in her home of Menzoberranzan. In other ways they were more alike than either of them would care to admit. Each of them lived their lives by a rigid code of honour and duty and both were single-minded in the pursuit of their goals.
The two women met when, on her way to Baldur’s Gate, Allessia discovered Vhaidra lying by the roadside on The Tradeway, badly injured. Vhaidra refused to reveal any of the details of how she came to be in such a state, and at first she refused Allessia’s offer of help; saying that she had made it that far on her own and she would be beholden to no one, but in the end she begrudgingly accepted her offer.
“I owe you nothing, remember!” Vhaidra had said to Allessia when she finished the healing process.
“I expect nothing from you.” Allessia had replied. “Where is it you are headed?”
“What business is it of yours?” The Drow had asked.
“It is no business of mine. However, I am headed for Baldur’s Gate, and if that is where you are headed too, would it not make more sense for us to walk side by side rather than trailing along in one another’s shadow?” And that was how the two of them remained. Vhaidra did return the favour; hauling Allessia from Luvia Bloodmire’s diabolical laboratory and taking her to Huros to be healed when she was overcome by poisonous gas.
Karne sat away from the fire, but only by a short distance. He lay stretched out on a bench in a recess at the back of the room with his back rested up against the wall, and his sword rested on his lap as he methodically sharpened the blade with a whetstone.
The fire in the hearth and the lamp light gave the bar room a cosy air at odds with the hostile environment beyond the walls of the inn. It was entirely possible that if they stayed too long here they could be lulled into a false sense of security. The thought of which made Allessia distinctly uneasy. They were there at her suggestion after all.
“Allessia,” Dorm called, “sit, I’ll pour y’ a drink.” he added, pulling out a chair beside him.
“I will, in a moment. There is something I need to attend to first.”
Dorn downed the tankard before him and stood up, scraping his chair loudly on the stone and sawdust floor. “Suit y’self. I’ll pour y’ one for y’ return, but don’t be too long mind, or I may be forced to drink it m’self.” He chuckled.
“Thank you, Dorn.” she replied, a small smile on her lips.
Allessia passed Karne on her way out to the courtyard, as she did so he reached out and grabbed her. She stopped in her tracks but didn’t look down at him, or attempt to wrest her arm from his grip.
“Is it done?” He asked.
“Not yet.” Allessia replied. “Soon, Karne, but you should know that your lack of patience in this matter is beginning to try mine.“
Karne snarled, “is that a threat, paladin? I would have thought a Helmite was above such things.”
“No, Karne, it is merely a statement of truth. However, should you wish me to pay you the same heed when you are injured I should hold my tongue, if I were you.” she concluded, starring resolutely ahead. Karne was right, of course. She would never resort to threats, but what she had just said to him was as close to a threat as she was ever likely to come and she resented the fact he managed to draw such a reaction from her. For some reason, any slight he levelled at Jherek got her hackles up more than the knowledge of any of Karne’s past transgressions, and that made her even more uncomfortable.
Karne let go of her arm and Allessia walked away from him without looking back, her head held high.
Allessia Faithhammer had a knack of cutting Karne dead he didn’t much care for. He knew too that he didn’t scare her, and he didn’t much like the idea of that either. In his profession fear was a very valuable commodity and people who didn’t fear him were a problem.
~x~
When Allessia returned the others were already hungrily tucking in to the freshly roasted hog and chunks of blackened bread. Dorn pushed a wooden plate heaped with meat into the empty space beside him. “Saved you some.” he mumbled through a greasy mouthful of rib.
After a brief word of thanks to Helm, Allessia settled into the seat next to Dorn and took up the cup that sat before her. “And you didn’t drink my wine either.” Allessia replied with her eyebrows raised in a look of mock surprise. She looked across the room to see Karne still sat on the bench opposite, sullen faced. “Will you not join us, Karne?” She asked in as light a tone as she could muster. He looked up at her but offered no reply.
They ate in silence for a time, each of them as ravenous as the other. Vhaidra surprised Allessia with her appetite, she usually picked disinterestedly at any food that was put in front of her.
Once the six of them had eaten their fill they cleared away the dishes and distributed the leftovers between them, Allessia made certain there was a good share left for Jherek.
With the obvious exception of the room at the front of the inn, the beds in the rest of the chambers were made up and ready to be slept in, but none of the party seemed ready (or willing?) to retire upstairs. Instead, Karne and Ysuran went back to polishing their weapons and polishing up their spells respectively, and Dorn, Borador and Vhaidra settled down at the table by the fire to indulge in a hand or ten of cards. Allessia declined the offer to “deal her in,” as Dorn put it. The game they were playing relied heavily on a players’ ability to deceive their opponents, and by her own admission being deceptive wasn’t her strong point. Besides, she wasn’t prepared to gamble what she saw as the church’s money. Instead, she took the opportunity to begin the nightly ritual of cleaning down her armour. The bulk of it was where she left it in Jherek’s room, but her helm still lay on the table she placed it on when they entered the inn. She wasn’t usually so haphazard with her kit but she had been somewhat preoccupied.
If there was one person in the room who should have joined the card game then it was Karne. Allessia didn’t doubt that someone as mercenary as him would have taken great delight separating them from their coin, yet he kept his distance; appearing to all intents and purposes to have fallen asleep on the hard bench he lay on. Allessia knew better than to take Karne at face value, and sure enough a closer look at him revealed that he slept with one eye open, his hand rested on the throwing daggers sheathed at his side.
As the drink flowed and the stakes got higher the gamers got a whole lot rowdier.
Borador slammed his hand of cards down on the table. “Argh! You’re a bare faced cheat yeh damned dark pixie.” He roared.
“How dare you, gnome!” Vhaidra retorted. “You only accuse me of cheating because it would not do for you to be beaten fair and square by a woman. Though, if you were a Drow male you would have the good sense to let me win.” she added, laughing loudly.
“Me arse I would.” he yelled in reply. “Just for that, I’m doubling the stakes. Time to put yer money where yer mouth is, Dark Destroyer.”
The moniker Barador bestowed on Vhaidra appeared to please her greatly, and Allessia wondered if this rare show of camaraderie wasn’t something to do with the sense of disquiet that lay beneath the surface of the place. Left alone here too long she felt she would be likely to dwell on things it didn’t do well to dwell on, she wondered too if the others felt the same?
Karne was the first to hear the shout. He sprang to his feet from his sleeping position with his hand hovering over the knives at his waist.
“No, NO!” The shout came again.
The rest of them were not far behind Karne, their weapons drawn, their stance ready for an attack.
“ No, NOOO!” A third time the cries came from above them, more anguished than the last.
“Jherek!” Allessia exclaimed, and without any further hesitation she sprinted up the stairs.
The rest of the party lingered behind, unsure if they should follow her. Karne made the decision for them. “She can handle herself. She will call if she needs us.”
~x~