i've got a few chapters of this written out all ready and i'll try to update w/ a new once ever couple of weeks, in the mean time enjoy.
Chapter One: Reunited
The artic cold bit relentlessly at her flesh through the clothes she wore. She shivered, turning her back towards the icy wind blowing from the southeast up the hill. She wrapped her dark brown leather cloak tightly around her body. It was insulated so it offered some protection from the harsh, bitter wind tearing at her body. She took a deep breathe and exhaled through her mouth. The warm breathe rushed up from her throat and caught the cool air as it exited her body, turning into what looked like white smoke as it did. She turned her head slightly to the right and looked down her shoulder and off into the distance. Another cool blast of wind whipped over the hill past her, kicking up her shoulder length, sandy blonde hair as it blew past. As her hair loosely fell back down over her eyes she caught a glimpse of one of the people, broken up by her hair, she had ventured to the northlands to meet. “Ithenas, you’ve made it I see,” the tall slender figure said as he walked towards her. He extended his right hand towards her, expecting her to grab hold and shake it, but she lunged forward and wrapped her arms around her old friend, partly because she was glad to see him, partly because she felt like she was freezing to death. “Hello, Dresdan,” she said as she squeezed him a little tighter, trying to stay warm. He could feel her small, Hume body shaking and in response he wrapped his long elvaan arms around her and held her tightly against him.
Dresdan was a tall, tan skinned Elvaan with shaggy white hair. He wore a tall, pointed, black hat on his head. The front half of the wide circular brim was a light brownish color. A white triangle, embroidered with gold thread went from the brim to the tip of the hat. A brown leather, black buckled, collar adorned his neck. He wore a forest green osode that looked slightly like the gi that monks typically wore. There was a pumpkin orange strip around the waist. A pouch hung down from the front of the strip that was the same color as the brim of his hat. Slightly above that was a metallic cumber bun that held tight around his belly. Four wings were engraved into the metal, two on either side of the naval. There were also two large metal plates that hung off of the shoulders of the osode, as well as three similar plates that hung from the waist, protecting upper parts of his hips and buttock. His hands were covered with a pair of large mittens. They were a light shade of lavender mostly; however the ring around the base and the palms had an off-white cream color to it. He also wore a pair of hiadate that extended down past the knee. They were same color his body armor, and like his body armor they had a pumpkin orange him around the base of them. His feet were protected by a pair of black sollorettes, they had several, small, diamond shaped, deep purple pieces of metal that ran the length of his shin down to about his ankles. A large great axe hung from his back, attached to his body by a brown leather strap that hugged tightly across his chest, starting at his left collar bone and wrapping around to about eight inches below his right armpit, then circled back up around his back to support the weight of the hulking axe.
Ithenas wore much the same armor as Dresdan; however small differences were apparent. The hiadate she wore looked almost exactly like Dresdan’s, except that they only went down about half the length of her thigh, dark brown hose that ran out from under the shorts and down to just slightly above her knee. Her forearms were covered by a pair of kote that were the same forest green shade as her osode and hiadate. They were black around the hands and they exposed the last 2 joints of all her fingers. On the outside of the kote were fixed metallic plates like the ones that hung from her shoulders and waist. The armor she wore around her lower legs was also completely different from anything else she had on. They were clothe mostly, light brown in the front and baby blue around the calf, wrapping around and coming together just below the knee, forcing the brown cloth to come to a point there as well. The same brown color clothe hung down from the top of the knee to its bottom, and ran around the back of the leg. A small decorative piece of the blue fabric came out from the top of that making a small lace like motif. She had a tan colored axe with a dirt brown handle hanging from the left side of her belt, and there was a rather plain looking one sided dagger with a wooden handle hanging from the right.
She had left Dresdan’s embrace and was now using her axe to hack some limbs off of one of the dead, twisted trees that had been left when one of the Mother crystal towers had exploded in the northlands thousands of years before. “Let me help you with that,” Dresdan said as he walked over towards the tree, removing his axe off his back. Ithenas turned and walked a few yards away and then turned back around. Dresdan wrapped his gloved hands around the ruby red neck of the axe and slowly pushed it back diagonally over his shoulder. With a blur of red and black the axe crashed into the base of the dead tree. The base exploded in a cloud of splinters under the might of the blow and the torqued remains of the tree slowly began to topple over. Unsatisfied, Dresdan reared back his axe once more and twisted his waist and shoulders and brought the axe violently into the base of the tree again, this time the axe cut clean through the base. The tree plummeted towards the ground and struck it with a thud. The ground forced back as it were, and the tree bounced up a down a few times before finally coming to rest on the frozen surface of the tundra. “Show off” Ithenas snickered as she pulled her evergreen colored bow from her back and fished for an enchanted arrow in her quiver. Frost has formed on the string of the bow and most of it had turned into a thin sheet of ice, but she notched the arrow anyway. As she pulled the string towards her the ice cracked and shattered in objection to the bowing. The string tight Ithenas loosed it. The string violently snapped back into its starting position, knocking the rest of the ice off as it did. The arrow cut through the air with a faint whistling noise as it rocketed towards the fallen tree, it struck the tree with a “thunk” and nothing happened. Dresdan stared at the arrow sunk into the tree, confused, and then he looked up at Ithenas a shrugged.
“What was that for?”
“To make a fire.”
“Was that a fire arrow or something?”
“Yes.”
“A dud?”
“Nope.”
Ithenas said a quick incantation and smoke started to smolder out of the small hole in the tree around the shaft of the arrow, then it erupted in a small mushroom cloud of smoke and flame and then settled back down engulfing the fallen tree. Dresdan who was rather surprised by the fiery explosion fell back on his haunches. Ithenas laughed and went over by her friend. She took a small, rolled up, far eastern rug from one of her bags and unrolled it on the ground and took a seat by the fire. Dresdan, who had recovered his composure, did likewise. They sat by the fire for a while exchanges stories of adventures they had been on since they had last met. They were waiting for the last member of their group to show up before starting off on whatever suicidal adventure Dresdan had concocted for them this time around.
Another Elvaan approached them, she was fair skinned and slightly shorter than Dresdan, who dwarfed Ithenas as they sat by the fire. She had shoulder length white hair, and her bangs were cut short just above her eye lashes, but where parted in the middle so that they caressed the side of her face as she walked. She wore forest green pants that matched nothing else she had on; yet somehow seem to naturally fit in. They were sewn together using a very rare cloth and the finest hair of a siren. There was light green embroidery around the bottom of the slacks, which resembled the ocean's waves. On her feet and hands she wore a navy blue armor with light blue embroidery that was specially made for females of the Elvaan race. She wore a tabard that was typical wear for a red mage. It was blood red with stripes down the sides of a darker shade of the same color. There was a wide black stripe that ran down the front and back of the armor with brown straps and golden buckles on either side of the stripe. The sleeves were black and had a red shoulder guard with golden patterns embroidered on it. A white collar was around her neck and she wore a red ascot sort of like one would wear a tie. She also wore a red chapeau that had a black top and a large, white feather on the left side. She had a blue anelace hanging from her waist; the edge of the blade was trimmed in gold. She also had a small brown aspis attached to her arm with brown leather straps. It had a light brown edge and had three brown stripes down the center, medium shade, to dark, then back again.
“Greetings,” she said. Ithenas and Dresdan stood up from the fire and turned to see their friend. “Damita!” Ithenas exclaimed as she rushed towards her. She tackled Damita, almost knocking her down, and gave her friend a hug. Ithenas let go and took a step back and raised her head, putting her right hand behind it as she did, to look at her friends face. She smiled. Damita simply smiled back. Dresdan, who was laughing, strode over and shook hands with Damita.
“Good to see you Damita, it’s been a while.”
“Yes, yes it has.”
Dresdan grinned a bit as she used one of his token lines. Ithenas had taken an arrow out of her quiver and was balancing it vertically, head down, in the palm of her left hand. “So…” she paused for a second as a light breeze of arctic air caught the feathers at the top of the shaft and caused the arrow to begin its fall. She swiped at it with her right hand and caught it around the middle of the shaft. “Where to?” she questioned as she lowered her hands to her side. The three stared at each other for a few seconds, no one was answering. Damita put her hands on her hips and cocked her head over her right shoulder, staring at Dresdan.
“What?”
“This is your brain child isn’t it?”
“Yeah, so?”
“Lead the way then!” she said, and then she blew a raspberry at him. He turned north and being walking, Damita and Ithenas hurried up by him, flanking him on either side. For the time being, they were content with each others company, sharing stories and cracking jokes at the expense of the others.
Chapter One: Reunited
The artic cold bit relentlessly at her flesh through the clothes she wore. She shivered, turning her back towards the icy wind blowing from the southeast up the hill. She wrapped her dark brown leather cloak tightly around her body. It was insulated so it offered some protection from the harsh, bitter wind tearing at her body. She took a deep breathe and exhaled through her mouth. The warm breathe rushed up from her throat and caught the cool air as it exited her body, turning into what looked like white smoke as it did. She turned her head slightly to the right and looked down her shoulder and off into the distance. Another cool blast of wind whipped over the hill past her, kicking up her shoulder length, sandy blonde hair as it blew past. As her hair loosely fell back down over her eyes she caught a glimpse of one of the people, broken up by her hair, she had ventured to the northlands to meet. “Ithenas, you’ve made it I see,” the tall slender figure said as he walked towards her. He extended his right hand towards her, expecting her to grab hold and shake it, but she lunged forward and wrapped her arms around her old friend, partly because she was glad to see him, partly because she felt like she was freezing to death. “Hello, Dresdan,” she said as she squeezed him a little tighter, trying to stay warm. He could feel her small, Hume body shaking and in response he wrapped his long elvaan arms around her and held her tightly against him.
Dresdan was a tall, tan skinned Elvaan with shaggy white hair. He wore a tall, pointed, black hat on his head. The front half of the wide circular brim was a light brownish color. A white triangle, embroidered with gold thread went from the brim to the tip of the hat. A brown leather, black buckled, collar adorned his neck. He wore a forest green osode that looked slightly like the gi that monks typically wore. There was a pumpkin orange strip around the waist. A pouch hung down from the front of the strip that was the same color as the brim of his hat. Slightly above that was a metallic cumber bun that held tight around his belly. Four wings were engraved into the metal, two on either side of the naval. There were also two large metal plates that hung off of the shoulders of the osode, as well as three similar plates that hung from the waist, protecting upper parts of his hips and buttock. His hands were covered with a pair of large mittens. They were a light shade of lavender mostly; however the ring around the base and the palms had an off-white cream color to it. He also wore a pair of hiadate that extended down past the knee. They were same color his body armor, and like his body armor they had a pumpkin orange him around the base of them. His feet were protected by a pair of black sollorettes, they had several, small, diamond shaped, deep purple pieces of metal that ran the length of his shin down to about his ankles. A large great axe hung from his back, attached to his body by a brown leather strap that hugged tightly across his chest, starting at his left collar bone and wrapping around to about eight inches below his right armpit, then circled back up around his back to support the weight of the hulking axe.
Ithenas wore much the same armor as Dresdan; however small differences were apparent. The hiadate she wore looked almost exactly like Dresdan’s, except that they only went down about half the length of her thigh, dark brown hose that ran out from under the shorts and down to just slightly above her knee. Her forearms were covered by a pair of kote that were the same forest green shade as her osode and hiadate. They were black around the hands and they exposed the last 2 joints of all her fingers. On the outside of the kote were fixed metallic plates like the ones that hung from her shoulders and waist. The armor she wore around her lower legs was also completely different from anything else she had on. They were clothe mostly, light brown in the front and baby blue around the calf, wrapping around and coming together just below the knee, forcing the brown cloth to come to a point there as well. The same brown color clothe hung down from the top of the knee to its bottom, and ran around the back of the leg. A small decorative piece of the blue fabric came out from the top of that making a small lace like motif. She had a tan colored axe with a dirt brown handle hanging from the left side of her belt, and there was a rather plain looking one sided dagger with a wooden handle hanging from the right.
She had left Dresdan’s embrace and was now using her axe to hack some limbs off of one of the dead, twisted trees that had been left when one of the Mother crystal towers had exploded in the northlands thousands of years before. “Let me help you with that,” Dresdan said as he walked over towards the tree, removing his axe off his back. Ithenas turned and walked a few yards away and then turned back around. Dresdan wrapped his gloved hands around the ruby red neck of the axe and slowly pushed it back diagonally over his shoulder. With a blur of red and black the axe crashed into the base of the dead tree. The base exploded in a cloud of splinters under the might of the blow and the torqued remains of the tree slowly began to topple over. Unsatisfied, Dresdan reared back his axe once more and twisted his waist and shoulders and brought the axe violently into the base of the tree again, this time the axe cut clean through the base. The tree plummeted towards the ground and struck it with a thud. The ground forced back as it were, and the tree bounced up a down a few times before finally coming to rest on the frozen surface of the tundra. “Show off” Ithenas snickered as she pulled her evergreen colored bow from her back and fished for an enchanted arrow in her quiver. Frost has formed on the string of the bow and most of it had turned into a thin sheet of ice, but she notched the arrow anyway. As she pulled the string towards her the ice cracked and shattered in objection to the bowing. The string tight Ithenas loosed it. The string violently snapped back into its starting position, knocking the rest of the ice off as it did. The arrow cut through the air with a faint whistling noise as it rocketed towards the fallen tree, it struck the tree with a “thunk” and nothing happened. Dresdan stared at the arrow sunk into the tree, confused, and then he looked up at Ithenas a shrugged.
“What was that for?”
“To make a fire.”
“Was that a fire arrow or something?”
“Yes.”
“A dud?”
“Nope.”
Ithenas said a quick incantation and smoke started to smolder out of the small hole in the tree around the shaft of the arrow, then it erupted in a small mushroom cloud of smoke and flame and then settled back down engulfing the fallen tree. Dresdan who was rather surprised by the fiery explosion fell back on his haunches. Ithenas laughed and went over by her friend. She took a small, rolled up, far eastern rug from one of her bags and unrolled it on the ground and took a seat by the fire. Dresdan, who had recovered his composure, did likewise. They sat by the fire for a while exchanges stories of adventures they had been on since they had last met. They were waiting for the last member of their group to show up before starting off on whatever suicidal adventure Dresdan had concocted for them this time around.
Another Elvaan approached them, she was fair skinned and slightly shorter than Dresdan, who dwarfed Ithenas as they sat by the fire. She had shoulder length white hair, and her bangs were cut short just above her eye lashes, but where parted in the middle so that they caressed the side of her face as she walked. She wore forest green pants that matched nothing else she had on; yet somehow seem to naturally fit in. They were sewn together using a very rare cloth and the finest hair of a siren. There was light green embroidery around the bottom of the slacks, which resembled the ocean's waves. On her feet and hands she wore a navy blue armor with light blue embroidery that was specially made for females of the Elvaan race. She wore a tabard that was typical wear for a red mage. It was blood red with stripes down the sides of a darker shade of the same color. There was a wide black stripe that ran down the front and back of the armor with brown straps and golden buckles on either side of the stripe. The sleeves were black and had a red shoulder guard with golden patterns embroidered on it. A white collar was around her neck and she wore a red ascot sort of like one would wear a tie. She also wore a red chapeau that had a black top and a large, white feather on the left side. She had a blue anelace hanging from her waist; the edge of the blade was trimmed in gold. She also had a small brown aspis attached to her arm with brown leather straps. It had a light brown edge and had three brown stripes down the center, medium shade, to dark, then back again.
“Greetings,” she said. Ithenas and Dresdan stood up from the fire and turned to see their friend. “Damita!” Ithenas exclaimed as she rushed towards her. She tackled Damita, almost knocking her down, and gave her friend a hug. Ithenas let go and took a step back and raised her head, putting her right hand behind it as she did, to look at her friends face. She smiled. Damita simply smiled back. Dresdan, who was laughing, strode over and shook hands with Damita.
“Good to see you Damita, it’s been a while.”
“Yes, yes it has.”
Dresdan grinned a bit as she used one of his token lines. Ithenas had taken an arrow out of her quiver and was balancing it vertically, head down, in the palm of her left hand. “So…” she paused for a second as a light breeze of arctic air caught the feathers at the top of the shaft and caused the arrow to begin its fall. She swiped at it with her right hand and caught it around the middle of the shaft. “Where to?” she questioned as she lowered her hands to her side. The three stared at each other for a few seconds, no one was answering. Damita put her hands on her hips and cocked her head over her right shoulder, staring at Dresdan.
“What?”
“This is your brain child isn’t it?”
“Yeah, so?”
“Lead the way then!” she said, and then she blew a raspberry at him. He turned north and being walking, Damita and Ithenas hurried up by him, flanking him on either side. For the time being, they were content with each others company, sharing stories and cracking jokes at the expense of the others.
Last edited: