Story a Week 20 - Propheteering, Part 8

Well, after moving into our new house last weekend and a nice, leisurely week off of work, we come to another edition of Story a Week. This week, like the last few, is from the world of Uroth, a fictitious world that I started creating over a decade ago as part of a D&D campaign that I had been working on. I think that next week I will write something different. I love me some Fantasy, but I feel that it might be getting to be too much, for now. Anyway, I have just gotten a couple of ideas, so stay tuned for that.

In other news, this is my fiftieth blog post! I've technically had this blog for a couple of years, but I've only been regularly posting since last June or so. Fifty, or so, posts in a little less than a year is a good pace, I think. Let me know if there's anything you'd like to see me do in future posts or stories. If there's a genre you'd like to see me try writing in, post a comment! If there's a topic you'd like to see a regular blog post on, post a comment! I'm here not only to get my creativity on, but to share my views with you all. That's what blogging is all about.

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Rixi wiped the tears from her face as she stared up at Yif. Out of the corner of her eye she could see her friends also crouching or standing near her.

She heard Cuddlington growl and begin to lunge at Yif. The wizard motioned quickly and Cuddlington stopped dead in his tracks as a Hold spell took hold of him. The wizard shook his head at the dwarf, but smiled. "I know what you just went through, dwarf, but I am not to blame for the fate of your cousin," Yif said. "The point of the experiences you each just went through was to teach you that even when you know what is coming, you can't always change the outcome."

The wizard paused and looked each of them in the eye. "If you four are the prophets that I seek, you will know that you will change the empire. That will not change."

Yif started pacing as he continued speaking. "The other point of the exercise was to try to show you that you wouldn't be where you are today without those major events in your lives unfolding the way that they did."

He stopped in front of Cuddlington and stared down at the dwarf. "If you and your cousin hadn't met those drow that day, would you have ever left Goldendelve?" The wizard waved his hand in front of the dwarf, releasing the Hold spell. Cuddlington sighed at Yif and shook his head.

Next, Yif moved to stand in front of Melbrid. "And if you'd been accepted to the wizard school? Would you have been living in Telquirk as a sorcerer?" The sorcerer timidly shook his head.

The wizard then walked over to Meentha and said, "If your village hadn't been destroyed by the Bortan Empire, would you have left it?" Meentha stared hard at Yif, but shook her head as well.

Yif nodded and finally moved in front of Rixi. "What about you? I'm sure that if your parents were still alive you'd be living in Telquirk, but would you be a street rogue or a fisherman?"

Rixi looked down at the floor rather than meet the piercing gaze of the wizard. "I don't know...but probably a fisherman."

The former Archmage of the Bortan Empire nodded again, turned and took a few steps back. "I have high hopes for your group. You're the first group to get this far." He turned back to the group and smiled once more. "Good luck on the rest of the tests."

Before any of the group could react, Yif waved his arms once and the group was teleported away. Rixi looked around and saw that they were standing in a circular chamber with some sort of gravel floor. The chamber was about fifty yards across. She looked up, but couldn't see the ceiling of the room.

Rixi turned around when she heard a scraping sound behind her. She saw an opening appear on one side of the circular room. She was about to start walking towards it when she spotted movement in the shadows.

Suddenly, six goblins darted out of those shadows and charged at the group. They were yelling, screaming and jumping as they were running.

Cuddlington growled and pulled the battle axe from his back as he charged towards the group of goblins. Meentha quickly drew her bow and started letting arrows fly. Melbrid began chanting and waving his arms about as Rixi drew her two short swords.

Three of the goblins stopped to fight the dwarf and the other three gave him a wide berth as they passed him by. Rixi moved forward to try and stop their charge and to protect Melbrid. Meentha dropped her bow and drew her scimitar and stepped up beside Rixi.

Two of the three goblins came for Rixi as the remaining one went after Meentha. Rixi started the fight in a defensive posture. She whirled and parried the seeking blades of the goblins as she fought hard to keep them from flanking her too badly.

Suddenly, several bright orbs of light struck the goblin on Rixi's left. She immediately took advantage of the situation by kicking that goblin square in the chest. The goblin fell back and Rixi turned on the remaining goblin. The goblin growled at her and swung his crude long sword at her legs. Rixi shot the goblin a smile as she jumped over his swing. The goblin obviously wasn't expecting that move as his swing put him off balance. The moment her feet hit the ground, Rixi lunged at the goblin, piercing it in the chest and neck with her twin short swords.

The goblin fell to the floor when Rixi pulled her swords out of him. Rixi turned as the other goblin was rising to his feet. The goblin was already injured and was looking for a way out of the fight. Rixi, seeing the goblin no longer had the desire to fight, indicated that it should run away.

The goblin took two steps back and turned back the way the group had come from and ran. Rixi looked around to see how the rest of the group was faring. Meentha was standing over the bleeding body of a goblin and Cuddlington was cleaning his axe on the tunic of one of the three goblins at his feet.

Cuddlington stood and turned as he heard the footfalls of the goblin running towards the doorway. He dropped the axe and quickly drew a small warhammer and expertly chucked it at the retreating goblin. The warhammer struck the unfortunate goblin square on the back and the creature fell to the ground. Casually, Cuddlington picked up his discarded axe and walked over to the goblin and finished him off with a quick blow of the axe.

Rixi watched Cuddlington's actions with horror. She ran over to Cuddlington and shouted, "Why did you kill that goblin? It was done fighting! It couldn't hurt us anymore!"

The dwarf looked back at Rixi with confusion. "I don't understand yer concern for the creature. Goblins are typically evil creatures, lass. They're entire race are enemies of dwarves everywhere. The world is a better place fer havin' one less goblin in it, I say."

Rixi took a deep breath to calm herself. Before this horrible day, if it was even still that same day anymore, she'd never even killed a humanoid. Now, she'd killed or helped to kill at least two real humanoids and several more in that strange simulation that Yif put her through.

She felt a hand on her shoulder and turned her head to see Meentha standing behind her. "It's been a harrd day forr you, hasn't it, Rrixi?"

The young rogue nodded at the pantheron and replied, "Yes, I was just thinking about that." She turned her head back to Cuddlington and said, "I'm sorry for snapping at you, Cuddlington."

Cuddlington smiled back at Rixi and said, "No worries, lass. I know that this ordeal has been especially tough on ye. Yer too young for all o' this mess."

Suddenly, the ground started shaking. The entire group turned as a large portion of part of the wall started rising to reveal the large form of a five headed hydra.

The creature let out several simultaneous shrieks as it spotted the group on the far side of the arena. Cuddlington chuckled and said, "And the mess just keeps gettin' bigger."