The village of Trunau is a strange place, by most standards, as are the people who live there. Defined by a defiant streak and stubborn resolve as well as an acceptance of death as a simple part of life, they often capture the imaginations of bards and scribes who hear of them. Many a tale exists about the people of this village, but sadly, most of these are romantic tripe, not rooted in reality.
In truth, people there are like any other. They laugh, they live, they love. And they cry when their family dies. This is no more true than when a child loses both parents, whether to the orcs who constantly threaten the village or to the armies of a mad witch who was trying to dominate the world.
A case in point, Gwethlantithwen Orelwen – Gwen, to non-elves – a young girl of only ten when her father went off to join in trying to fend off the advancing army of the Witch of Irrisen, against the objections of Trunau’s council, who felt their place was with the village, helping to defend it against any orcs that came.
But her father, a one-time elven messenger from Alkenstar who had fallen in love with a human woman and stayed to be with her despite the danger, had never been one to allow others to dictate his actions. The witch would not spare Trunau, so he felt she had to be stopped just as much as the orcs did. Indeed, many orcs of Belkzen had thrown in their lot with the witch’s armies, so fighting the witch was little more than another extension of the fight with the orcs, and in his mind, by enlisting against the witch, he upheld the Standing Vow to protect Trunau against all who would threaten it, even if he wasn’t fighting on the town’s walls.
In the end, he lost his life in the fighting, and the witch’s armies never even neared Trunau’s walls, since outside forces stopped her. Of course, there is still argument over what ended her assault. Some say that a group of heroes stood up, five or six against the armies of Irrisen, cutting through the army like a scythe through wheat. Others say that the Lord of Xin’Shalast came down from his mountain and summoned great metal birds, which rained fire and destruction upon the army, reducing a hundred thousand soldiers to ash within a matter of moments.
It is hard to tell which is true, without asking the Lord of Xin’Shalast or the new rulers of Irrisen. What is certain is that Xin’Shalast’s metal birds are real, as they were used in a punitive expedition against a pair of orc fortresses within Belkzen for the actions of the warlords during the war. Where once great fortresses stood now lays only ash and rubble, so great was his rage at their actions.
As though the death of her father wasn’t a hard enough blow, Gwen’s mother died to an arrow from an orcish hornbow during a raid less than a year later. Many in the town considered her death punishment for refusing to stop her husband from deserting his post, as they put it. And Gwen was a bright girl. She heard their whispers as she passed. But she still had her home, and she had the money her parents had saved, so she would be fine for a time, especially after supplementing her income with siege fees – a price paid to rent a room only to be used if the orcs arrived in force, a common custom in Trunau.
She continued to pass her time, studying her mother’s spell book with the aid of the dwarven woman Agrit Staginsdar and training with the musket her father had left for her under the tutelage of her mother’s second cousin, Jagrin Grath, the town’s patrol leader, until one year after her own hopeknife ceremony had passed. That was when the merchant arrived and burned down her house.
In his defense, Zilvazaraat hadn’t meant to burn down her house. No, the tall, blue skinned mercane had simply fallen asleep in a chair while smoking his pipe. But what was he doing in her house? He was visiting the town to discuss the possibility of serving as a resupplier in the event of a siege, and needed a place to stay while the village council had considered it. And she needed the money and had a house tall enough – the insides were certainly taller than those of the Ramblehouse – that he could be reasonably comfortable in, if perhaps he had to crouch a bit.
Aside from her mother’s spell book, which she had forgotten at Agrit’s place by either providence or luck, she lost everything but her nightclothes and hopeknife in the fire. It had been such a nice evening to begin with, too. Zilvazaraat had regaled her with stories of his travels. Her favorites were the one about the time he was rescued from alien slavers by a group of adventurers and the tales he told of a strange world he had visited where the people lived in immense buildings that reached so far into the sky that someone standing on the roof of one could find themselves unable to see the ground due to the clouds.
But there she was, having done her best to soldier on since the loss of her family, standing there and watching everything she owned burn. A thirteen year old girl, having no idea what she would do now.
You can’t blame her for crying in that situation.
Zilvazaraat was ten feet tall, but he felt no taller than ten inches. “Please,” he begged. “Stop crying. I will make this right, I swear. I will replace everything.”
“B-But w-what do I-I do until then?” she blubbered. A crowd had begun to gather, but she was oblivious. “M-My gun was in there. I-I c-can’t protect myself if the orcs come! And where will I sleep?”
Jagrin Grath stepped out of the crowd. “You’ll be safe enough in the barracks of the Longhouse,” he said, putting a protective hand on her shoulder. “In fact, you’re old enough that you’re ready to move in there to focus more on your training anyway. But she will need a weapon. You do intend to replace it, don’t you, Mister Zilvazaraat?”
Gwen buried her face against the councilor as every bit of her buried emotions surfaced into incoherent sobbing. Zilvazaraat nodded rapidly. “I’ll get her the best gun I can find. And fine, functional clothes, enough to last her for years of growth. I know just the person to speak to for both. In fact, I will go immediately.”
“Good,” Jagrin said. “Do right by the girl, or I promise you that your deal with the village will fall through.” He then looked at the blaze. “You’re just lucky that her parents built their home far enough away from others that there’s no chance of the flames spreading.”
“Yes, quite lucky indeed,” the mercane said. “I will return as swiftly as I can. Two, maybe three days at most.”
True to his word, Zilvazaraat returned around noon on the third day, carrying a magical knapsack. He met with Jagrin and Gwen in the Longhouse to show them what he’d brought. First was several sets of clothing and boots, made of soft leather and woven plant fibers, cut in a utilitarian elven style. “I traveled to the city of Magnimar to find something appropriate. I got several sets in different sizes so you’d have new things as you grow.”
“Very thoughtful,” Jagrin said. “She’s expressed interest in helping with hunts, and that should work well.”
“I can’t take credit for thinking of multiple sizes,” Zilvazaraat admitted. “Luckily, the clothier I bought them from suggested them based on my story.”
“Thank you,” Gwen said, taking the clothes. The set appropriate for her current size was green and went well with her blue hair, so she was pretty pleased and couldn’t wait to try them on.
Zilvazaraat reached into the bag. “Now this baby I got from the world I told you about, the one with the giant buildings. On that world lives a wizard who is a genius at making magical tools and weapons. He still owed me for some mithral I sold him on credit a couple years back, so I called in the debt.”
The weapon he laid before them was sleek and beautiful, but it was different than anything either of them had seen, and they said so. “How am I supposed to pack in the powder down that narrow barrel?” Gwen asked.
“You don’t,” Zilvazaraat said, handing her a number of strange metal objects. “It fires these. You pack the powder into these cartridges and it fires the bullet inside. He gave me a set of tools and a book on how to make more of these cartridges, which are also in the bag. Oh, and from what he was saying, it should shoot further more accurately than a musket.”
“That’s incredible,” Gwen said, carefully picking up the weapon. It fit her hands perfectly. “I’ll take good care of it.”
“Oh, right, about that. There’s a book about how to do that too. Apparently the wizard’s people are really big on these kinds of books. They give out these instruction manuals with everything they make, though apparently no one ever bothers reading them.” He then handed her the bag itself. “Finally, take this. It will carry more than it appears, and I left some coins in there to help cover everything else I owe.”
“Thank you!” Gwen said, uncharacteristically chipper as she hugged the massive merchant.
“It was the least I could do,” Zilvazaraat said, perhaps a bit uncomfortable at the sudden show of affection. Gwen then excused herself to go try on her new clothes.
“You did well,” Jagrin said once the girl had left.
“Thanks. So, about our deal…”
“The council approved it pending satisfactory conclusion of the matter with Gwen, which I think we can safely say has been accomplished. So, I do believe we’re in business.”
“Excellent!” the mercane chortled, reaching out to shake the hand Jagrin had offered.
The next few years saw Gwen grow into a fine young woman and a skilled huntress, using both her marksmanship and her fine tools to bring down game to feed those within the town. During this time, she continued to live in the barracks, and continued to take her duties seriously. Her elven eyes served her well on night watch duty, so she often found herself given such shifts.
On one evening, sometime after her seventeenth birthday and a mere few days before the big event that would be the hopeknife ceremony of Ruby, Chief Defender Halgra’s youngest daughter, she went to The Killing Ground – the village’s bar – to grab some unfermented fruit juice and what passed for food at the place. There had been a market day that day due to the arrival of a trade caravan, and several of the caravan guards were sitting at one of the tables along with her cousin – Jagrin’s son Rodrik, the older of the twins.
Rodrik, who had treated Gwen almost as a sister since the time she had moved into the barracks, called her over. “Cousin, you have to listen to some of these stories,” the young man said. “They’re great.”
“That’s okay, I think I’ll pass,” she said, taking her usual table on one side of the room. She noted that the strange man – Jazier, if she recalled his name correctly – who had come to town last week was sitting in the corner by himself. She wasn’t sure what he was here for, but he claimed to be recruiting for something. It was none of her concern. She had her job, and she took it very seriously.
As she sat, she couldn’t help but overhear the rather loud man sitting with her cousin, as he told his story. “So, anyway, there I was, five, no, six flagons of mead deep. Then Rodd Rigez says to me, he says ‘Valbrand, you claim that you can bed any woman, but I bet you five gold pieces that I can think of one that’s beyond your skill.’ So I look at him, and there’s no way I’m going to take that smirk without response. ‘It’s a bet,’ I told him. ‘Name her.’”
“What did he say?” Rodrik asked.
“He got that smirk of his, looked me dead in the eye, and he said, ‘The queen.’ Now, you see, the queen of the land we were in is reputed to be a great beauty, perhaps the fairest woman in a dozen kingdoms. But I couldn’t let Rodd Rigez have the last word, so I went up to my room, grabbed my rope and hook, and went straight to the palace.”
“You didn’t!” Rodrik exclaimed.
“He did,” the strange small frog-man – a grippli, though Gwen did not know what he was – said, taking a sip of his tea. “Maybe I should have stopped him, but it wasn’t really my business.”
“I would have slugged you for trying,” Valbrand said. “Anyway, onto the story. I made my way past the palace guards, and managed to climb all the way into her window without being spotted. And you’ll never believe what I saw when I got there.”
“What? What did you see?” It was clear he had the listeners on the edge of their seats.
“Now, let me tell you first of all, the queen really is as beautiful as they say, but here’s the part that surprised me. She looks up at me from the book she’s reading, and says, ‘Valbrand, what the hell are you doing here?’”
“She knew you?”
“Very well, you see, it turns out that the queen was a wench I’d bedded years before in a tavern.”
Her cousin laughed. “Come on, you can’t expect us to believe that!”
“It’s the gods’ own truth. So anyway, I said to her, ‘Hey, sweet tits! I came up to bed you so I can win a bet.’”
“What did she say?”
“Nothing that I remember. Next thing I knew, I woke up to Rodd Rigez and Kermit fishing me out of the lake outside of the castle.”
Rodrik, howling with laughter, looked to the grippli for confirmation. He nodded. “I can’t say what happened for sure while he was in there, but only a few moments after going in, he suddenly came flying out of the window. He made it at least a hundred feet out from the castle before hitting the water.”
“So, did you win the bet?”
Valbrand took a swig of his drink. “No. Rodd Rigez said that even if I was telling the truth, I can’t count past conquests.”
“At least you got a story out of it. Whatever happened to Rodd Rigez, anyway?”
“Oh, he’s off scouting something. I didn’t quite understand what he meant. Said he’d come join back up with us after he finds whatever it is he’s looking for.”
“Fair enough. Valbrand, Kermit, you two are alright. I have an early patrol tomorrow, so I should turn in for the night. Cousin, shall I walk you to your post?” he asked Gwen.
“Sure,” she said. “I’m just about finished anyway.” She put her coins on the table. “Rabus,” she called over to the owner. “You really should invest in better grapes. These are terrible before they’re fermented.”
“That’s because that was plum juice.”
She considered it, taking the last sip from her cup. “Okay, fair enough. Not too bad for plums.” Outside, she chided her cousin. “Rodrik, you really shouldn’t be giving people like that the time of day.”
“Valbrand? He’s harmless and his stories are entertaining. You should have him tell you about the time when his friend Kermit stared down a rampaging aurochs.”
Gwen considered the statement. “The frog thing? The one that can’t be more than three feet tall?” she asked incredulously.
“The same.”
“Aren’t aurochs bigger and more aggressive than normal cattle?”
“That’s what I’ve heard.”
“And you expect me to believe that the little frog man stared it down?”
“We once watched a goose bully a dozen cows out of their pasture, remember?” Rodrik asked, somehow both completely serious and amused at the same time.
Gwen laughed. “Fair enough. What’s up with that Jazier fellow? He weirds me out a bit.”
“Not sure, exactly. You might ask Kurst, though. He was chatting with him earlier today.” Kurst was Rodrik’s younger twin.
“I’ll ask him tomorrow,” Gwen agreed. “A lot of strange people in town lately. I’m not sure how many of them I trust.”
“It’ll calm down again after Ruby’s ceremony. Halgra’s going a little extravagant with it, is all. Which has drawn in a larger than normal caravan. Once it’s over, the merchants will leave and so will their guards.”
The two of them walked the rest of their way to the watchtower along the village’s lower palisade where Gwen would spend her night in silence. Gwen called out to the person she was relieving and hugged her cousin goodbye. “Go get some sleep,” she told him. “I can take it from here.”
“Be safe,” he told her.
“I will be,” she responded. “You do the same.”
Her night was mostly uneventful, at least until her watch shift was over. That night her watch was for six hours, which was a simple shift. The watch durations were changed constantly to prevent the routines from becoming predictable. She had done as long as nine hours – that shift overlapped with another person’s – and as few as four.
It was still dark, with dawn several hours off, when she parted with her relief and began making her way back to the Longhouse. As she rounded a corner, she crashed into a large drunken man. “Watch where you’re going!” she hissed, barely managing to avoid falling.
“Sorry about that,” Valbrand said. His breath reeked of mead. “Say! You’re Rodrik’s cousin. You know, I didn’t notice earlier, but you’re quite beautiful.”
Gwen didn’t know how to respond to that. “Um. Thanks?”
“What do you say, want to join me for a tumble before going to sleep?”
It took her a moment to realize what he was proposing. “Eww, no. Sorry, I’m not interested in half-orcs.”
“A challenge! I should warn you, I will win you over,” he boasted. “I’m not used to taking no as a final word.”
“Just like your brute father, I’m sure,” Gwen muttered.
“What? No! Well, okay, yes, but not how you think. My father is a human, a mighty Ulfen raider. My mother just happened to be the most beautiful half-orc he’d ever seen and had the bad luck to be in a village his longboat targeted. He fell so hard in love with her at first sight that he dragged her off to be his wife.”
“How romantic,” Gwen said sarcastically.
“My mother seems to think so,” he answered before belching.
“Valbrand, we really should return to our rooms,” a voice said. Gwen looked down and just barely noticed Kermit, who was tugging on Valbrand’s pant leg.
“Go ahead, Kermit. I’m busy talking with a pretty girl.”
“No, it’s fine, go ahead,” Gwen said. “I’m sure I’ll be fine without you.”
“And deprive you of my company? I would never.”
Gwen sighed. “Please just go.”
“I’ll leave if you want,” Valbrand said. “But not without a kiss.”
The thought of kissing someone who smelled like a brewery nearly made Gwen gag. She was trying to decide whether to threaten to shoot him or bring him in for a night in a cell when another voice spoke up.
“You should be ashamed of yourself,” the voice said. Gwen turned to see a familiar face, that of Qumeel, the strange blue-skinned Samsaran cleric of Ragathiel who came to Trunau every couple months for a chance to fight savage orc raiders in the name of his god. “Drunkenness dulls your senses and will interfere in your ability to fight should this town be raided. Come along with me so I can report you to the captain of your guard.”
“What? I’m not a –“ Valbrand tried to protest.
But the cleric would have none of it. “Do not force me to repeat myself. Come along.” He pointed with the hand holding his shield, while his other hand reached over his shoulder for his bastard sword.
“We should probably go,” Kermit said.
Valbrand looked at his friend and his shoulders slumped. “Fine. Let’s go.” He began heading in the direction that the Samsaran was pointing.
Qumeel turned and gave Gwen a sly wink. Gwen, for her part, mouthed “Thank you.” Qumeel just nodded.