Short Story: Magmaslag Blues

Deep in the bowels of Magmaslag rock, Jorah couldn't sleep. The night before, in the wake of the adrenaline-fueled flight across the city, he had slept fine. Now with the looming threat of the Underbelly Bout and Dunan Slagmeld&rsquo;s plans, he ought to be sleeping. Of course that meant that he was instead laying atop his threadbare blanket fully awake past the hour of his shift. He quietly rolled over doing his best to not alert Reides to his predicament. The triton was meant to be focusing on keeping watch, not on Jorah&rsquo;s insomnia. Wiping sweat from his forehead he grimaced. Speaking of Reides, he hoped that his current cellmate is managing wellin the heat. If it was getting to him, then he could only imagine what it was like for the triton princeling. Making a mental note to check up on him in the morning, Jorah shifted again searching for that perfect position that would allow unconsciousness to claim him. As he circulate his hand, he felt the hard rod that was the shiv he had taken earlier that day. He carefully withdrew his hand from the weapon. Giving up on all pretense of sleeping, he opened his eyes and stared upwards. As he stared, he tried to sort through the whirling thoughts that filled his head, in the vain hope that it would let him sleep. Unbidden, memories of their arrest came to the forefront of his mind and his grimace returned. Something felt utterly wrong about him getting arrested. Maybe it was the trumped up charges of city killing. Or maybe it was the fact that he had spent the best part of the last decade putting people in prisons. So what if he hadn't done any bounty hunting since joining up with the kilwin and his gang. One simply cannot forget seven odd years of work in just a couple of months. For Aletheus&rsquo;s sake, he still carried a set of manacles wherever he went like he was going to be carrying people back to the guards. Then on top of all that coming here and just letting a guard slap some bindings on him and cart him off to some tiny cell under a million tons of stone. It was enough to drive a man crazy. For all he disliked Ashara&rsquo;s actions from a logical standpoint, he still wanted nothing more than to join her in furious defiance. That brought his mind to the drow in question and the millenia she had missed out on, magically frozen in time. In spite of the heat, Jorah shivered. The idea of waking up one day to find that an eon had passed during your sleep was a fear he didn't know he had until the sorcerer had relayed her story to them. Her latching onto their raggedy band of misfits was no big surprise once that revelation came to light. Then for her to get shoved into this cage. A damn tragedy. As always happens whenever the thought of Ashara&rsquo;s past comes up, the tiny tendril of doubt returned from whatever dark corner he had shoved it in. What if she was lying? He pushed the idea to the side out of habit. Occam's razor be damned, there was no point in thinking poorly of a comrade without proof. Forcing his thoughts away from the Vrinian Empire, he instead focused on his cellmate. On top of what must be exhausting heat, the triton had only just escaped a prison of his own prior to coming to the surface. The fact that this one was significantly less gilded than the one he occupied as a princeling was probably no consolation for Reides. Hopefully the wizard will be able to retrieve his spellbook prior to the tournament. Gods wouldn't that be cursed, if they sent the four of them into an arena with only threadbare prison robes on their backs. Jorah&rsquo;s hand reached out and once again touched the blunt end of his stolen shiv. Well, whatever happens, they wouldn't be completely unarmed. His thoughts then turned to Kilwin. The poor cleric who couldn&rsquo;t harm a fly, in prison for mass murder. Jorah wondered if the priest was doing ok. Tragic though they may be, both Reides&rsquo;s and Ashara&rsquo;s past gave them some sort of experience with this sort of thing. As far as Jorah knew, the closest Kilwin had been to a prison was the night he spent in Villas Watch&rsquo;s &lsquo;Jail&rsquo;. Not that Jorah had any real idea what the training of a priest of Aletheus entailed, but he doubted it included shivings and gangs. In spite of that, the cleric seemed to be holding it together the best out of the four of them. He hoped that he wasn't just putting on a brave front for the rest of them and was actually holding on fine. The old saying about putting all of your hopes in one hand sprung to mind following that thought. Turning his focus from his subconscious&rsquo;s attempts at humor, he instead thought of their contact. No person in recent memory had worried Jorah quite like Torble Treecarver. One does not get the position of face for an underground (Jorah chuckled quietly at his own shitty puns) fighting ring without being one hell of a shady fucker. Yet Torble was nothing but genuine with them. The absence of something to be worried about had only worried Jorah more. As Julia would say &ldquo;The knife you can see is dangerous, the knife you can&rsquo;t see is lethal.&rdquo; For now Jorah would treat him as a friend but he would keep him at a distance just in case. Just then a noise broke the silence. A distant set of footsteps began making their way toward the cell. Jorah froze in place. Even Reides became silent as they focused in on the incoming noise. Jorah's ears strained to identify the sound. Whoever it was had made no attempt to be stealthy nor were they moving quickly. It felt like an eternity as the steps drew closer. Then briefly a dim light passed by the cell. As the Guards' footsteps began to recede, Jorah forced himself to relax. He guessed that meant another sleepless hour had passed. In the other bed he heard Reides relaxing as well. Judging from their shaky breathing, Reides hadn't seen any night guards during their shift the previous night. The foul taste of regret came up as Jorah realized he had never warned the other man about the patrols. Swallowing, he cleared his head of the mistake. As always memories of the plague rushed to fill his empty thoughts. With practiced ease, he instead focused on the seemingly much safer topic of the future. Or at least it seemed safer till he actually thought about what lay in store for them. First a tournament, likely to the death. Battle after battle, wearing them down until there is nothing left. Assuming they could even kill whatever the tournament threw at them, then they could only trust that the shady criminal organization that they had made a deal with would actually follow through on their side of the deal. Assuming then that they don't just throw them in the lava, how in the world would their band of erstwhile prisoners actually deal with Slagmeld in his place of power and save the crest. That and somehow clear their names of The Devastation. Jorah quietly muttered a prayer to the gods, any of them who would listen, that the so-called &lsquo;Deep Watchers&rsquo; want the party around for a scapegoat more than they want loose ends tied up. Just then something occurred to him. Were they to survive, the next stop in their journey would be Atemcester. That would mean passing though... Homllin. Jorah nearly swore aloud as the realization hit him. How in the world he was going to explain his self imposed exile from the place where he had left his family to die was a mystery. Following that would be dealing with Julia. Damn, maybe it would be better if he died during the tournament. It would make planning things much easier. He rolled to his side once more and found his eyes drifting closed at last. Pushing his face into the paper thin pillow, he settled in for some rest before their deathmatch. Here's hoping he will still be alive come this time tomorrow. With that typically cynical thought, Jorah finally drifted off to sleep. He did not dream of battle, nor did he dream of prison. No images of forgotten loved ones filled his head. Instead he dreamt of the deep woods and the sounds of fall in the northern forests. It would be the last time he would dream peacefully for some time to come. Nearly seventy-two hours later would find a once again sleepless Jorah Wolfwood staring up at his ceiling. This time however the ranger had no excuse for his insomnia. The everpresent heat of the upper levels was gone, replaced with an almost chilly breeze which drifted through the parties' temporary rooms. Nor could he blame the bed as it was as fine a place to sleep as he had ever used in his life. Even the myriad aches and pains from the thrashing he took in the arena had faded over the course of days. No, the responsibility for this particular bout of insomnia rested squarely on the thing between his ears. As if in response to his musings, memories flashed to the forefront of his brain. A face, eyes seeing without recognizing. The silver rising through the murk. A glaive stopping just short of his eyes. Sitting up sharply, Jorah stifled a curse as the details of his dream stormed through his head once again. Looking around the dimly lit room, he sighed and silently gave up on sleep. Rolling from beneath the covers, he began to get dressed. Stepping to the cabinet sitting next to the far wall, he pulled out his timepiece from his pack. Gently he clicked it open, examining the watchface in the dim runelight. It read just a hair over half past two in the morning. A time also known as well over 5 hours before the agreed upon wakeup. Too annoyed to even swear, Jorah sighed and began to pull his boots on. As he reached for the doorknob he paused and turned. For a moment, he stood still before reaching down and picking up Quickbrand from where it lay next to the door. For a second, he held it as if weighing it. Then he silently belted the Longsword to his hip. Stepping into the common area, he found it in much the same state he had left it just scant hours before. The chairs were scattered around the room, the table was covered in half full glasses of alcohol, and Reides had apparently built a rather impressive house of cards in one corner following the collapse of the one Jorah had helped him build. Moving closer to the pile of cups, the smell of the mixed spirits hit him like a hammer. It was then that his stomach reminded him that he had partaken in just as much as the rest of them if not more. While the short nap he had caught and his own experience with the drink had kept him going it seemed to be the time to pay the piper. Hunching over he placed a hand on his stomach to try and quell his roiling guts. After a few seconds it mercifully passed. Not willing to risk getting near the table again, he plopped down in one of the scattered chairs. Looking up at the mess they had made, something became very clear. Simply enough, after the mad scramble they had been living since The Devastation, the group as a whole had forgotten how to be bored. In fact, one could say that they were taking to it like a fish takes to land. Tritons notwithstanding. Having successfully given up on sleeping now left Jorah with the question of what to do with this unwillingly acquired alone time. Cleaning was off the table as long as his stomach was as tender as it currently was. There was also no way that he was looking to wake up one of his colleagues. No reason to inflict his insomnia upon a bunch of hungover friends. That aside he would also have to explain why he was up at such an ungodly hour and that was a topic he had no intention of explaining till long after it was already solved. Glancing around the room his eyes lingered on each door in turn before stopping on the passageway deeper. The idea that sprung to his mind was not good. Were one to be objective, they could even say it was a bad idea. In that moment though, Jorah was moving towards the execution of the plan that he hadn't even noticed was forming in the back of his head. Standing from his chair, he opened the door and stepped into the underdark The path he had decided to walk was short but the darkness of the cave served to magnify the distance. He paced forward, a cloak of magical silence surrounding him.. As he passed without trace, he shivered at the sight of the worm beasts they had slain, their corpses an eerie green in the sight of his goggles. Just as he began to feel a twinge of regret for going out alone, he found his destination. There before him stood a small cairn of stone overtop a freshly dug grave. He kneeled next to the primitive tomb for a moment until the silence of the cavern was broken by two words. "Hello there.." It took Jorah a second to realize that he had been the one to speak. Even as the realization hit him, he continued to talk. "I don't remember if I ever introduced myself. I am Jorah Wolfwood, a bounty hunter. I'm here because I uh... I..." Jorah paused. What in the gods name was he here to do. "Fuck it. I'm not sure why I'm here but I might as well apologize while I'm at it. I'm sorry things had to end this way. I doubt your life goals involved dying to a ragtag bunch of adventures in some underground deathmatch, nor do I really think that a warrior like you would want such a shitty grave." "That being said, if this wasn't what you wanted, why would you not try and work with us? Were you so confident in your skills that you thought you alone could take us all on at once?" Jorah sighed while sitting down. As he sat, the loose knot holding the medallion to his neck came undone, dropping it to the cave floor. Jorah cursed, feeling the burning pain return to his wrist. The medal bounced away once, twice, and on the third bounce he snatched it from the air. Immediately the burning subsided. Jorah turned to the grave, glaring at it as if it had personally slighted him. "That reminds me. Kievan you must have been one seriously sore loser to place some sort of curse on me. Hells, I didn't even kill you, that was Reides, and I don't see you putting a curse on him." Jorah's face darkened as he thought of Reides finishing blow. "You know Kievan, I really worry about that man. He seems so happy and kind most of the time, then sometimes it's like he flips a switch and he starts being angry and dangerous instead. It's always when we are fighting, but I worry. The gods know if I were in his shoes I would be a hell of alot less nice all the time. Bet that just makes me a worse person." Jorah chuckled before turning back to the grave. "I&rsquo;ve got to say, you looked fucking terrifying on the stage. You practically tore through the tournament by yourself. You must have been one hell of a warrior.. I really do wonder what you did to get locked up here. Especially if you were a paladin of the nameless god. Guess I'll have to look into it when we deal with Slagmeld. Eh, maybe you were framed like us. I doubt your crime was anything as crazy as wiping out a city. It must have been a hell of an annoyance to get thrown in here and locked up in solitary." He smiled at his own joke, turning to the grave as if looking for a response. His smile fell when he remembered that he was talking to a dead man. "The fight I had with you wasn't the first time I've nearly died since joining up with the party, but I really thought it would be the last. Every time I draw my sword and stand to fight I know it's possible that I'll go down for good. I've never been overwhelmed so completely before, even when I fought a dragon it was nothing like that. Yet, I almost felt more alive than ever as I fought to survive. If I had been alone, well I doubt you would bother with talking to my grave." Jorah paused for a moment then continued. "Anyway I've been thinking about what you said while we fought. That shit about dead things needing to stay dead. I may have said some dumb shit while we were going at it but I think I do agree with you in principal. Hell, I of all people know that there are worse things than being dead. However, I think you made a mistake. I-" Saying this Jorah pointed to himself with his branded hand. "Am not dead and those who fought with me aren't either. Maybe fighting for the God of Death for so long made you forget that people were still living out here. So I'm going to keep your medallion and your curse and I'm going to live and save as many people as possible. Then when I die you can come take this piece of shit necklace from me, cause I'm not giving it back." Breathing heavily, Jorah realized he had been shouting at the end of his speech. Sighing, he turned and walked from the grave. As he passed the entrance to the small cavern he turned back and spat one last comment at the tomb of Kievan Duskwall. "Till then, you stay in your grave because the dead have no place in the world of the living." Jorah then continued back to the common area not even bothering with stealth. Whether it was due to the corpses of the carrion crawlers or just fear of the ranger, no creatures of the underdark bothered him on his trip back. He returned to his bed and was unconscious the second he hit the mattress. The nightmare came, but it no longer bothered him.
 * Author: Nathan
 * Google Document