"Ses gronak na, Non Va."
The song of the angels have faded away. Familiar faces and shapes come to mind as a gentle wind caresses his face. Family members and places long gone; friends both recent and old, flash by in his mind. Then suddenly, it all stops. Barrent finds himself looking around a large well lit cavern that appears to have a city built within. As he glances around, everything has a light haze about it, and his peripheral vision is blurry. Even with the visual hindrances, the feeling of being warm and comfortable fills him. Moving forward slowly and in awe, Barrent comes upon what appears to be the city gates. His jaw drops as he sees standing out in front of the gates is none other than his father, Dugan Lockerhelm!
"Barrent! Good to see you again my boy!"
"Father, I've missed you. Is.... Is this our final resting place? Is this the Great Forge?"
"Yes my son. The Great Forge welcomes all our clan. Moradin has taken care of us here. No pain; no suffering; no nightmares. All that is here, is joy and happiness."
"Father, I would like to see Grandfather again!", Barrent starts to walk towards the gates, only to be stopped. And stopped by his father none the less! "I'm sorry Barrent. The Great Forge is for only those who are deserving and have passed over."
"Father, I'm here aren't I? I was murdered by Drow. Why are you stopping me?"
"I'm sorry Barrent. Ses gronak na, Non Va." Dugan brings up both arms and gives Barrent a deep hug. After the embrace, he brings arms back around to Barrents chest and shoves him back the way he came. Confusion clouds his mind as to why he's being pushed away, and then, why the hell is he flying out of control? Everything goes dark and finally completely black.
Sudden pain erupts from.... everywhere! A blinding bright light makes it impossible to see anything. Barrent suddenly takes a huge gasp for air, as if he had been holding his breath for an hour and couldn't hold it any longer. "Tarrik! He's awake finally!" says a smooth feminine voice. A familiar husky voice, "Barrent! Are you ok Lad?" He finally manages to crack his eyes open and the brightness impossibly gets brighter. "Yeah, I'm just fine. My bruises have bruises, and there's isn't a spot bigger than a gold piece on me that DOESN'T hurt, but yeah, I'm just dandy!" Tarrik! Now he remembers! "The dwarf from Ashbenford. I'm among friends!" he thinks to himself. Feeling warm suddenly and the pain is quickly subsiding, Barrent feels soothing hands on him, melting the pain away. The sudden comfort causes Barrent to pass out.
The next thing he remembers is sitting up in a bed. "Where am I?" Barrent looks around and tries to place his surroundings. They look familiar, but he just can't place it. A purring noise comes from above his head, and grabs his attention. Just as you would expect to see some furball of a feline sitting on the rafters above, a even more familiar sight assaults Barrent's memory. A deep purple, scaled tail with a scorpion like stinger swings back and forth from the rafter. Following the tail up into the rafters, Barrent spots the beast that owns such a tail. "Sting!" he cries out. And from the rafter flies down a small dragon like creature to land on the bed. Even though he looks like a dragon, he sometimes acts more like a cat. Sting, the pseudo-dragon, crawls up next to Barrent and starts rubbing all over him, like a cat would, all the while purring just like a cat.
"I see you've finally woken up." comes a gentle soothing voice. In the doorway, stands a very attractive human woman (Well as attractive as human can be, but nothing beats a good dwarf woman!), but other than last night, he can't seem to place her. "Pardon me, I'm sorry if this sounds rude, but who the hell are you? Not that I'm not grateful for you saving me mind you...". A small smile breaks across her face. "My name is Larissa Darkstar. I'm Sable's wife." Larissa states. "Sable?! I'm at the wayward arms?" he asks. Suddenly the room's familiarity finally sinks in. Sable Darkstar, semi-retired adventurer and his best friend Tarrik Truesilver, found Ashbenford in their adventures and eventually ended up staying there. Taking on weapon and armor smithing trades, they had become a large power in their own right, and were usually key to the town's defenses. Sable was a potent spell-caster and sword wielder, while Tarrik was a warrior and best friend to Sable. Together they had seen more fantastic adventures than most could imagine.
"I take it you are feeling better then?" Larissa asks. "Huh? Oh! Yeah I feel great actually. Did you heal me?" She responds, "Yes. My lady helped me find you and healed you before you fell into death's grasp." "Your... lady?" Barrent asks. "Lady Mystra. She guided us to you. We found you just in time. I spotted you just as the Drow" He winces a little and grasps at his stomach at the mention of Drow, remembering the intense pain caused by them. "were about to finish you off. I called for power of daylight to drive them off of you, and they ran. Sable and Tarrik finished them off." A purring into growling "Rowrp" comes from Barrent's lap. "Yes, and Sting helped to finish them off too. I'm sorry Sting I was too busy healing Barrent. Forgive me?" A small bow from his head, and back to purring and rubbing against Barrent. "Barrent, I have a question for you, if you feel up to answering." 'Well, I don't see why not' he thinks to himself, 'I mean she did just save my life last night', "Sure lass, what is it?" Larrissa then asks Barrent,"You said something just before you regained consciousness. Ses gronak na, Non Va. What does that mean?" Thinking back he does remember those words being said to him during the vision of his father. But even then he didn't understand it. "I'm sorry Larissa, but honestly I don't know what that means." Barrent replies.
"What was that Larissa?" comes from behind her in a familiar voice. "Oh, hello Tarrik. How are you?" she asks. "I'm good. How's our friend here doing?" asks Tarrik. "He appears to be doing well. I was just asking him about something he said last night. I wanted to know what it meant." Tarrik responds, "Well, what did he say?" "He said, 'Ses gronak na, Non Va.'". Tarrik thinks about it for a moment, "Wow.. That's a pretty old dialect of dumathoin. Didn't know you spoke such an old dwarven language." Barrent seems little taken aback by this. "I don't speak it actually. I think I died last night. I saw the great forge and my father. He wouldn't let me pass through the gates though." He says with a look of sorrow on his face. "I guess I didn't live up to be a good enough dwarf to get in." With a hearty pat on his back, Tarrik laughs for a moment but informs Barrent, "Easy on yourself lad. He wasn't stopping from entering because you weren't good enough or anything bad you may have done. You just weren't really dead yet. 'Ses gronak na, Non Va.' means 'Now is not your time, my son."
A strong wave of relief passes over Barrent. It wasn't because he did something bad in his past, or didn't do something good enough. It just wasn't his time. "Thank you father." he whispers to himself. Larissa and Tarrik leave the room to let Barrent get himself together and come downstairs to eat. Sting flicks his wings and takes off down the corridor at the mention of food. "I'll have to ask Sable if he's sure Sting isn't really a cat in a dragon costume." Barrent mentions aloud.
No comments:
Post a Comment