On the Crossroads of Fate

[Hey, guys. Edited the first chapter. This is the fixed version. Once again, I do not claim ownership of any monsters, items, or other terminology that's © to 'Wizards of the Coast.'Most of the races and monsters, however are open-game licensed material, so no one's being violated here, except the villains, and possibly some innocents. lol The characters and scenarios, and even the map of the country, however are mine and my roommate's, so please enjoy this tale we're retelling for you, and look forward to the much more adult-oriented "second season." To be posted soon.]

Rin was bored. She sat on the edge of the wagon her parents owned and watched as her father was bartering with a plump merchant who wore perhaps the most unpleasant and unclean beard Rin had ever seen on a human. Though, a second thought occurred to Rin that it was certainly possible he was half dwarf. Steel Helms Forge, a well known dwarven city in the mountains, wasn’t far from this town, after all. Rin knew much about this country. Five months out of eight, her family and the rest of a trade caravan traveled in this country, before returning home to Manus D’aurum, A city north of the border of Liantu. It’s name meant “Hand of Gold,” but Rin never knew why, or cared, really. Nothing but boring sands and scorching heat back home.

No, Liantu, was much more interesting; as were the people. Trouble was, she was often stuck waiting in the wagon, missing out on meeting adventurers with exciting stories to tell, and being altogether bored. Much like she was that moment. She wanted to leave; to go exploring, and have an adventure of her own. But it wasn’t that simple for Rin. The world was an unsafe place for a nine-year-old quarter therian girl. Oh, and she was well aware of those dangers: Hungry beasts and monsters in the wild, mysterious and shady magicians, and more frightening, giant monsters wreaking havoc, and dragons. To Rin, it all seemed so… Exciting! She longed to explore the many forests, discover the most ancient ruins, and slay the most fearsome monsters. Rin the Hunter! The thought made her shake with excitement. Still she was stuck sitting in this rickety old wagon, waiting for her parents to take her to the next town, where she’d doubtless wait again. Boring.

Rin swung her legs lazily and began to call to her mother to complain, simply because there was nothing else to do, when she spotted something out of the ordinary. It was a drow, dressed in heavy robes and hiding his face. A drow by itself wasn’t terribly unusual, but Rin got a faint suspicion that there was more to this shady individual than met the eye. For one, most everyone in this town wore dull, dirty rags for clothing, to Rin’s disapproval. But this tall figure wore robes of vibrant color: Purple, and red and gold. It wasn’t hard to surmise that this drow, unlike all others Rin had seen, did not try in the least bit to conceal himself, even in a busy town such as this. As Rin stared and thought this, she realized that the person was walking out of her view. Desperate to learn more about him, and without anything else to do, she hopped down from her perch and followed in pursuit.

When she caught up with the man, Rin noticed he wasn’t alone. A much shorter man, with a scar on his face, was talking to him. By the way he spoke, and his cautious glances at the people around them, Rin guessed that this was the smarter of the two. He was wearing leather armor, with a pickaxe at his waist, and wore a medium-looking sword on his back. Though he seemed to possess a higher intelligence than the taller drow, he certainly didn’t look the part. His hair was shabby, and his clothes were muddy and half-singed, and his stunted legs were almost always bent. Oh well, Rin thought. Nobody’s perfect.

The drow was talking to a store keeper over a strange book, and waving his hand as if it would help him persuade a better price out of the stingy old man. But, as they spoke, the shorter man, probably a halfling, spun around. Rin hid her best behind a corner, seemingly avoiding being detected. Rin took a minute before spying again to think about what she was doing. It wasn’t as if they’d bring her along with them to travel and have adventures, so why was she following them? As Rin thought, she’d just about decided to simply go home and eat something when she heard a scream. From around the corner, and racing passed her came the drow and halfling. She looked on to see shopkeeper flailing his arms and rolling on the ground, trying desperately to put out the fire which had set to his back and hair. From the rack beside her, Rin grabbed the largest weapon she could carry and followed after the two. She wasn’t exactly certain what she’d do when she caught up to them, but if there was trouble, she’d fight. Besides, to Rin, who’d been bored all month, this was exciting.

Down the street, she saw the two adventurers run, trying to escape, as behind her, she heard soldiers calling. “Don’t let him get away!”

“Catch that filthy, stealin’ drow,” they yelled, in anger and prejudice. Rin was fast on their heels, and had almost caught up with the two men, as she saw them jump into the forest to hide. Realizing she was the last one unhidden, and carrying a weapon, she thought fast and hid in a bush. She threw dirt on her face as more soldiers gathered by the road, and ditched her sword. Pinching her cheek, Rin worked up a good cry and staggered out onto the road again, tears pouring from her cheeks. This was a special talent of Rin’s. She’d used it often on her parents, and it usually got her what she wanted. Startled, some of the guards held up weapons when she approached, only to be reprimanded by their apparent chief. “Shame on you, men! She’s just a child.”

This seemed to set them at ease, and they lowered their swords, approaching Rin. One of the guards kneeled and spoke to Rin, who cried and rubbed her eyes, putting on her best show.

“Hello there. What’s wrong little girl?” He reached a gloved hand to pat her head.

Rin stood and looked up, crying still. “These bad men*sniff* They grabbed me, and*sniff* and pushed me down, and scared me*sniff* and they told me if I tattled on them, that they’d hurt me, and*sniff* and*sniff* …UWAAaaah!” Among fake criers, such as Rin, she doubted there was another as convincing as she. But this, at the very least, managed to convince the guard.

“There, there. We’ll catch those nasty men. You just don’t worry and tell me where they went, hmm?”

Pointing down a path opposite where she saw the two men dodge, she told the guard through dripping tears, “They ran that way. Don’t let them hurt my mom.”

The guard captain stood with urgency and told his men. “Over that way! They have a hostage!” The guards and captain all turned and ran down the road where she pointed, as Rin dried her fake tears. Once they were nearly out of sight, she turned toward the bushes, where she saw the drow whose jaw was dropped, and took a bow.

Cautiously, the drow stepped up from the bushes, dusting off his elaborately colored robes as he stuffed the book he’d taken from the shop keeper into a bag on his belt. With red eyes flashing quickly over the tiny girl in front of him, he quirked a thin white eye brow. “That was most impressive, little girl. But I must ask… Why?”

The halfling called a hissing sound from the bushes, barely peaking out from the leaves of them. “Aden! We ain’t got toim fo’ dis! Le’s get outta he’h before dem gua’ds come back, neh?”

Ignoring the girl when she started to speak, the drow tossed his hands in the air in a panic. “Ah! You’re right!” he cried on his heels to face away from the road. Jumping through the brush, he crashed loudly through the woods, making his way away from the road as quickly as he could. “Quickly my diminutive compatriot! We must retreat!”

The halfling was tearing through the bushes in a matter of seconds himself, arms held out ahead of him to keep the various branches and bushes from hitting him in the face. “Gah! All roight, all roight! But watch who ya callin’ a dim witt’d parrot!”

Stifling a bit of a laugh, Rin thought to herself how exciting it all seemed and started after them. However, she stopped short a few steps later, thinking she was forgetting something. With a soft gasp, she turned and grabbed up the weapon she’d taken from the rack in town and drug it along behind herself, hardly able to heft the great sword and run at the same time.

A long chase ensued, with Rin following after the fleeing strangers before the two of them stopped in a clearing nearly a full mile away from the town. Through thick under brush and tangled trees, the two of them were quite winded. As Rin came up from the path they’d just blazed, they both spun about quickly, the drow throwing his hands up in an awkward defense while the halfling grabbed at the heavy pick axe on his belt. When they both saw that it was the young girl from before, they sighed a bit.

Now having a chance to appraise the full appearance of the girl, both noticed she was neither fully human nor fully any other race. She had the soft, hairless flesh of a human child over her entire body—as far as they both could tell—and a shoulder length crop of definitively dyed, pink hair rolling down in mostly straight lines with a bit of a curl on the end. White furred rabbit ears poked up from the top of the sides of her head, the bases of them tinged slightly with the berry dye that was used to color her hair and a light brown spot marked the very tip of her left ear. Also, her girlish grin was markedly unique in the pair of slightly larger incisors that were her top, front teeth. Just above four feet in height, she stood a full head above the halfling and the length of her ears added roughly another foot above him, their ends reaching just above the drow’s head.

“Now listen here, little rabbit… thing,” the drow said, throwing his hands out at her as if shooing away a chicken or a cat, “We have absolutely no time to be wasting with children. Shoo! Shoo!”

“Hey!” Rin growled as the drow started to turn around. Lifting one foot from the ground, she tugged off the soft leather traveling shoe she wore and gave it a hard fling. As it struck the drow in the side of the head, she put her hands on her waist and stamped her foot to the ground. “I am not a children! Now give that back!”

“Gasha fon tura,” the halfling grumbled, lifting a hand to rub the side of his head before glancing back to the drow. “Tha’ one’s got a roight bit o’ foight in ‘er doen’t she?”

Glaring over at the halfling, the drow picked up the shoe and stomped over to Rin, holding it up over her and staring down at her. “Do you have any idea who you’re dealing with, you little cretin!?” he snapped, waving the shoe about. “I am a sorcerer of the grand city of Harouzad! But I have no interest in being held back by those narrowed minded..!”

He was cut off in his ranting as the little girl kicked at his leg, making him jump back in frustration, instinctively leaning down to grab at the bruised shin. As he came down, she reached her arm up and punched at his jaw, striking the narrow angles of his chin with surprising strength and knocking his light frame to the side a step. “I said to give that back!” Rin shouted at him, grabbing her shoe out of the recovering drow’s hand before he stumbled himself back a few steps to stand up straight again.

With the halfling roaring with laughter, he stumbled over to the drow, who seemed to be starting to fling his fingers about in preparation for some obscure magic or another. “Come off it, Aden,” the halfling smirked up at him, “Li’l poppet’s got more spunk than someone ‘er size ought to.”

“Remember the fire, Gantz!” he barked in response, losing his concentration on the task at hand. “I’ll not let some pint sized girl with ~bucked teeth..!~” he started to scream, but then stopped suddenly as he heard a few steps coming through the bushes followed by hushed voices. His right eye giving a hard twitch, he threw himself to the ground. “Shit! The guards are coming back!”

Hunkering down to the ground, Gantz cast a glance in the direction of the voices as he looked over to Aden. “Ah, bloody ‘ell. Shou’ we make a run fo’ it oh we gonna give dem blokes a good foight? Not tha’ I feel too terribly ‘appy about foightin’ a score o’ armed gua’ds.”

Blinking at the couple’s blatant disregard for stealth in spite of trying to evade detection, Rin ducked down into the bushes and brushed her hands along the ground. Finding a good sized rock, she’ reached over the leaves of her hide-away just enough to give her arm some room for leverage. With a quiet grunt, she heaved the stone as hard as she could away from them, making it crash into some bushes and knock against a tree loudly.

“What was that?” one of the nearby guards called out, turning around. Starting to move toward where the rock landed, he pointed his sword over toward it. “I think I heard something over there!”

Eyeing the direction Rin had thrown the rock, Aden grinned eagerly and nodded. “Ah, yes! Why didn’t I think of that,” he mumbled out in a hushed laugh. With a few unintelligible words and a strange gesture of his hands, the drow pointed off in the direction of those trees.

As he did so, the sound of his own voice emanated from some point near the tree, calling out intermingled words of the drow language and some Aslowan, halfling words as well. The guards called to each other, rallying to run in the direction of the phantom voice. “We’ve got ‘em now, boys! Keep at it!”

With the guards more distracted, Rin started to crawl away through the brush, moving much more slowly than Gantz and Aden had beforehand. This time, rather than crash through the brush and leave a clear trail, they followed the girl’s lead and crept along slowly, but quietly, under the hidden paths of the foliage.

In due course, the trio found themselves sitting on the edge of a stream. With nearly an hour since they’d heard the crashing of the guards in the forest, they all figured it was a decent time to just sit down and rest. Rin had kicked off her shoes and set them beside herself, atop the sword she’d drug along the whole way. Letting her feet sit in the cool, clear water of the fast-running stream, she’d given the halfling a playful splash when he went to go fill up the water skin on his belt. Without a complaint, the miniature man gave a splash back at her, eliciting a slight giggle. Meanwhile, the drow, Aden, simply stared on at the two, contemplating things as he watched.

“Little girl, I like your style,” Aden piped up suddenly, rising to his feet and putting his hands on his hips. “I dare say we could use someone of your skills and tenacity in our… Auspicious adventuring band.”

“Eh?” was all Rin could think to say as she turned her head to stare up at the garishly dressed dark elf. Her left ear flopped down toward the side of her head, her lip curving downward on one side into a suspicious grimace.

“Ah… Aden, ya caun’t be serious,” Gantz grimaced, folding his short arms over his chest whilst he stared on toward his traveling companion. Righting himself, he lifted one hand to wipe some of the water Rin had splashed on him off of his armor. “I mean, ah… She’s jus’ a lit’l girl.”

“Perhaps so!” Aden said loudly. Planting his feet on the ground, he lifted one hand near his face, index finger pointed skyward as he tried to come up with more to say, but remaining silent for some time before he actually spoke. “However, she is crafty and sneaky. And by her traveling clothes, I figure she might also be a road-weary wanderer like ourselves; A kindred spirit of wanderlust!”

Gantz stared at Aden hard as if trying to decide whether or not he was truly serious. “I… ah…” he stammered a moment, “Ya know… Ya keep talkin’ loik that an’ people gonna wonder who exactly is the brains o’ this outfit.”

“I never wondered that,” Rin murmured, casting her eyes over to Gantz briefly before looking over at Aden again, her eyes still giving him a measured look of confusion.

Thrusting one hand out toward Rin, Aden caused the bewildered girl to jump back in surprise, almost stumbling into the stream behind her. “What do you say, little girl?” he grinned broadly, “Would you like to follow along on our journey? Roaming the open road as far as it will take us and exploring the vastness of the untamed wilds in the places where the roads no longer reach?” Locking his red eyes onto the soft pink of Rin’s eyes, he gave her a more comforting smile as he continued. “Have you ever dreamed of that life of adventure and excitement?”

The young Rin could hardly believe her ears, nor contain her excitement. Hurriedly grabbing her shoes, she pulled them over her feet and rolled up her sleeves. Grabbing up the greatsword at her feet, she hoisted the heavy blade, slightly longer than she was tall and rested it over her shoulders with a labored grunt, her knees bucking slightly. “Where do I sign up?” she grinned, ears standing tall with her excitement.


[Well, guys, that was the first chapter of "On the Crossroads of Fate." Look forward to the second chapter, "Steal a Cart?." I hope I didn't disappoint. Please let me know what you thought.

~Pink]