Non-Pony Fiction! [Dungeons & Dragons] · 5:26am May 28th, 2014
Bored again, and I was looking over some of my older writings and found this. I polished it up a bit, and thought you all might enjoy just a short little story about a bunch of thieves stealing some stuff.
A little bit of a backstory: I first got into D&D not through the game itself, but rather, through the novelization of Baldur's Gate II. That book lead me to the game Baldur's Gate, which lead me to D&D, and the rest is history. As for the novel itself...it's...not really that good. Abdel is a thoroughly unlikeable person, I find. But, the novelization did have something in it which, being about 11 or 12 at the time, I thought was COOL - that is, the dark elves. The drow. They were awesome! I wanted to play a drow! So when I loaded up Baldur's Gate for the first time, I rolled up a drow! Only really it was just an elf with black skin and white hair, but in my head, she was drow. I named her Iliira Ii'ilmerias, and made her chaotic good, and in BGII I had her dual-wield a longsword and knife.
Naturally, it wasn't until later that I learned of a certain Chaotic Good drow elf ranger that dual-wielded, and the stigma that results from playing a character perceived to be a Drizzt Do'Urden ripoff.
Anyway, Iliira was my first D&D character, and I think such characters always hold a special place in our hearts, even if they are special snowflake mary sues in many cases. A few years ago, I started coming up with a generic backstory for her that doesn't rely on the Baldur's Gate games - since most DMs probably wouldn't like me to run a child of the dead god of murder as a character - and now I sort of think of her as my "default" character in D&D. And, as with my vampire character Adrienne, I wrote a simple background story for her (in my own D&D setting, but it's suitably generic enough that it could be made to fit just about anywhere) to help develop a solid feel for her post-Bhaalspawn character. That's below, though for the record it takes place about 7-8 years before I'd run her as a character (she's 20 in this story, I typically imagine her as being 27 or so)
So, for your reading pleasure, I present below "The Three Thieves."
“Ever notice how people never look up?”
Iliira nodded. She sat with her back against a chimney on the roof of a merchant’s home, arms crossed. She was making no move to hide herself from the people in the market below her, which was still bustling even as the sun set. Well, not her presence, anyway. Neither was her companion, Derak, a pale–skinned, blond man dressed in simple clothes and a hooded cloak. At the moment, he had the hood down.
“I’ve always wondered about that.” Derak said. “Just noticed it one day. And it’s not like I’m immune. I never look up, never notice what’s going on over my head.”
“There’s a lot that goes over your head,” Iliira said, smirking.
Derak looked at her. “I know,” he said. “Birds. There’s signs, sometimes. And of course, we use it to…what’s so funny?”
Iliira had a hand at her mouth, stifling a full–on laugh that might have attracted attention to her. “Nothing.” She said. “Something funny I remembered. I agree, there’s a lot that goes over your head.” She stood up, getting behind the chimney’s cover before making any overt actions, like stretching. Derak watched her, and noticed that she wasn’t even as tall as the chimney she was using as cover. She was dressed very strangely for someone her height – dark cloth and leather, soft boots, and a pair of knives, one in her right boot and one in a scabbard on her right thigh. She also wore a long, dark gray cloak with the deepest hood Derak had ever seen, that covered almost all of her face except for her chin.
“Hard to believe you’re twenty,” he said after a moment.
“Elves age slower.” Iliira said. She looked around, then pulled her hood down and shook loose her shoulder–length, white hair and brushed it away from her red eyes. In the waning light and abundant shadows of the evening, her skin seemed darker then it normally was – quite a feat, since it was already black as coal.
“Even dark elves?” Derak asked.
“We’re elves,” Iliira said, turning to look at Derak. She wasn’t simply small, she actually looked young – just over thirteen, as a human would of guessed. “Nasty, evil, sadistic elves, I guess, but elves all the same.”
“How much longer until you look…” Derak began, pausing and thinking of a good way to phrase what he wanted to say.
“Until I look old enough to buy an ale?” Iliira asked. “I don’t know. Some elves who visited my hometown looked even younger than me at the same age. I think about twenty–five.”
Derak nodded a little, looking back down at the market. A moment later, he felt arms around his shoulders, and Iliira’s cheek against his own.
“I only look young, you know,” she said softly.
Derak smiled a little, then remembered something he’d heard. “But…don’t dark elves kill the people they sleep with?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.
Iliira stiffened a little, then pulled back. Derak looked to her, and saw her pulling her hood back up. “There is a lot that goes over your head,” the dark elf said, turning and walking away, towards another rooftop within jumping distance.
Derak stared a moment, then something clicked. “Hey!” he exclaimed, getting up and chasing after her. “I get it now. A lot that goes over my head. Very funny…”
---
The city was called Drakenmoor. It was the largest of the Three Cities, an alliance of the otherwise independent city–states of Drakenmoor, Cylordath, and Karadale. Karadale was located inland, and was the smallest of the cities, used primarily as a meeting point for farmers and ranchers and also to guard the sole entrance into the cities through the Pyren Mountains. Cylordath was a port city in every sense of the word, maintaining a vast merchant fleet that traveled to far–distant lands, and respectable navy that had never been bested (cynics noted that the navy had also never been used against any foes other than pirates). And Drakenmoor…
…well, that was the question that was oft–debated throughout the Three Cities. What did Drakenmoor actually bring to the alliance of the Three Cities, beyond its name? It was located further north on the coast than Cylordath, and had a decent navy and merchant fleet of its own, but it hardly compared to Cylordath in that respect. It was located closest to the richest parts of the Pyren Mountains, and so had the most mines for iron and other metals, but the Karadel and Cylornian mines were hardly lacking themselves.
Usually the debates didn’t last overtly long. Drakenmoor one of the Three Cities, and that was that. The Karadel and Cylornians weren’t apt to drop Drakenmoor just because it served no poetic purpose. The Draken contributed their share of taxes to the collective treasury of the Cities, and so they remained.
Iliira found it oddly fitting, that she was an outsider in a city that was considered an outsider itself. Although, she had never really belonged in her home town to begin with. The circumstances of her departure, however, were not something she liked to think about these days.
No, these days she liked to think instead about how rich she was becoming.
“It’ll be easy.” Alton said later, as he, Iliira, and Derak crouched in an alley outside of a magistrate’s office, behind a small stack of rain barrels and out of sight of the main road. Alton was a tall, handsome man in his late twenties, with a full goatee and the look of someone who’d cheat his own mother.
Iliira held up her hand at that. “Never, ever, ever say that,” she begged. “The only time anyone ever says ‘it’ll be easy’ or ‘so far so good’ or something, is right before everything goes wrong.”
Alton sighed. “Okay,” he acquiesced. “Well, it won’t be easy, then. All I can promise you is blood, sweat, and tears.”
“And my share,” Derak noted.
“Right, and that,” Alton said, looking out the alley. “Now, this magistrate, he doesn’t keep guards, so we won’t have a repeat of last month.”
“Thank the gods,” Iliira said, remembering the near-catastrophe the break-in to the Liadon estate had been.
“Here’s the difficult part, though,” Alton continued, spreading his hands apologetically. “I’ve got no clue what the inside of this place looks like.”
Derak and Iliira stared, open–mouthed. “You haven’t checked it out?” Iliira demanded. “You want to hit a magistrate’s office, and you don’t know what it looks like?”
Alton shook his head. “Wasn’t time.”
“Why not?”
“Because a smuggler of black lotus was just caught this morning. He was bringing in the lotus and being paid by the distributor in gems rather than gold. When he was caught, the magistrate appropriated all his belongings, and for now it’s all sitting in here,” he patted the wall of the building, “but it won’t be forever.”
Derak stared at the wall, as though he were mentally assessing its value. He closed his eyes. “Value,” he demanded.
Alton shrugged. “It was black lotus,” he said. “Has to be a lot.”
Iliira bit her lip. “No, it doesn’t,” she pointed out. “A major shipment came in a month ago, remember? Hydwen was ecstatic because that would drive the lotus costs down, and he uses it. And Devereau was ready to kill him because Hydwen’s already falling behind on his tithe.”
“What doesn’t Hydwen use?” Alton asked. “Look, I’m going in. I could use your help, but if you don’t want to, well…” he shrugged, “if I got caught, it’s your fault.”
“No, it’s yours.” Derak replied. He sighed, running a hand through his hair. “Alright, alright. Maybe there’s some lotus in there as well that I can sell to Hydwen.”
Iliira shook her head. “You shouldn’t take advantage of him like that. Hydwen’s got enough problems already.” She vividly remembered the last time she had seen Hydwen, strung out on lotus, coming down from a lotus high to the sight of Devereau loudly discussing with his lieutenants how best to eviscerate him for falling behind on his tithe and making it abudantly clear, even through the fog of lotus smoke, that Hydwen had only one more chance. Devereau was normally a patient man, even a forgiving one, but only up to a point. One did not become guildmaster by being overly lenient – or squeamish.
Derak smirked a little at Iliira’s concern for Hydwen. “You’re a terrible dark elf, you know that?” At an insistent look from Iliira, however, he held up both hands. “Alright, alright, fine. It’s not like there’s a shortage of lotus-smokers in this city. I won’t sell to Hydwen.”
Iliira suppressed a sigh of relief as she turned back to Alton. “Fine, fine. I’m in.” She jabbed a finger at him. “But you should have cased this place first. You owe me.”
“Sure,” Alton said, though he wasn’t paying much attention. Instead, he glanced out from the alley again, then frowned. “Did either of you see the magistrate leave yet?”
Iliira groaned, walking the other way and to a window. She had to stand up on her toes to steal a glance inside. “Candle’s still burning inside,” Iliira said, walking back over and hunkering down again, “so no. Gods above, Alton, if I was as bad at being a dark elf as you are at being a thief, I’d be albino and be a priestess of Lord Sol.”
“Oh, come on, I’m not…” Alton moaned. “I’m just used to other areas. Devereau’s the one that’s got me breaking into places to pay off my debts. It was this or…” he grimaced. “Selling myself.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Derak said with a smirk. “Handsome man like you, Alton, I bet you could make it all back in just a few nights.”
“Absolutely not,” Alton said firmly, cutting the air with one hand. “I don’t care how angry Devereau is with me. Though I would like to protest it again anyway, I really feel I’m being singled out here.”
Iliira pulled back her hood, enough to show her face, which had a mocking look on it. “Mean old Devereau, making you pay off your gambling debts. You’re the one stupid enough to try and cheat the Guildmaster at cards! You’re lucky he didn’t kill you!” Fortunately for Alton, it had in fact been a game played amongst thieves. Alton’s crime wasn’t cheating so much as getting caught – but it was getting caught by Devereau himself just as he had been about to sweep the board.
Alton scowled at Iliira’s tone. “Look,” he said. “Not everyone’s a favorite of the Guildmaster like you. Just because you’re his personal dark elf, he treats you – ”
“It’s got nothing to do with that!” Iliira exclaimed. “I pay my tithe – my two tithes, actually, since I board at the Guild as well – I keep my head down, and I don’t go into debts by trying to convince the Guildmaster that a deck of cards really does have five knaves. That’s what he likes about me.” She sighed, pulling her hood back down and ignoring that at least a little of it really did have to do with the fact that Iliira simply being in a room tended to be an intimidating factor against those who didn’t know her and instead saw only an armed dark elf. “Maybe if you – ”
“Maybe,” Derak interrupted, “we should keep our voices down as long as we’re in an alley outside of a magistrate’s office.”
Alton and Iliira both did the same motion – cross their arms and lean against the wall of the building. Alton stared intently at the ground like it had just insulted him. Iliira just pulled her hood down more, and sighed. It was going to be a long night…
---
The magistrate’s office was, fortunately, relatively simple in design. They entered through its back door after it got dark, a few hours later – the magistrate had apparently been pulling a late shift, and didn’t leave until the stars had already starting to shine in the sky. The office’s first floor was simply a lobby and a small meeting room, and a second, larger room for, Iliira guessed, larger meetings. Or something. Iliira hadn’t ever stood before a magistrate, and had little desire to do so, and so had no idea what any of the rooms were for.
The building had several upper stories, as well, but they didn’t interest the three thieves. What did was the basement, which would be where any evidence or appropriations would be. The door that they assumed led down there was in the smaller meeting room, which was still dimly lit by the moons outside. It was made of metal, and had a solid, built–in lock of unusual design for the three thieves: a series of numbers on five separate dials that had to be rotated into the right position in order for it to unlock.
The three thieves stared down at this lock. “What is this?” Alton asked, frowning.
“Combination lock,” Derak provided. “I’ve seen a few of them. No key, so no lock to pick.”
“So how do we get into the basement, then?” Iliira asked, one hand at her belt, where she kept a number of tools that were perfectly legal to own – if you were a locksmith. She wasn’t sure how any of them would be useful here, though.
“Simple enough, you’ve got big ears so – ”
Iliira’s jaw dropped, and she looked at her companion. “You did not actually just say that,” she interrupted, one hand going down to the knife at her thigh. “Because when I was young, that was all I’d hear from every other child in town. So you’ll understand that I’ll have to kill you if you actually said that.”
“They made fun of your ears?” Alton asked, eyebrow rising.
The dark elf woman shrugged. “Children make fun of everything,” she said, then looked at Derak. “I do not have big ears. I have perfectly normal–sized ears for an elf.”
Derak held up his hands. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know and didn’t mean it like that.”
“Start explaining.”
“Well,” Derak reasoned, “If I’m right, then there should be some sort of sound when you get to the right number on each dial. Something will slide into place. Think about like with a key and its teeth fitting into place.”
Iliira looked at Alton, who shrugged. “Makes sense, I guess,” she said, taking her hand from her knife and getting down onto one knee so that she was eye level with the dials. Pressing one ear to it, she began turning the first dial. When it reached the number ‘1,’ there was a click, different from the one caused by her turning it.
“I think that’s it,” Iliira said softly, beginning on the second dial. When she heard a similar click, she moved to the next, and the one after that – and eventually ended up with a number sequence of 1–2–3–4–5. With a more audible click on the number five, the door creaked open a few inches.
Iliira stood up, staring at the sequence of numbers. “I feel stupider for not trying that first,” she said.
“Me too.” Derak admitted.
“Not as stupid as the magistrate will feel,” Alton chuckled, swinging open the door enough so that the three could slip on through and into the lightless basement. Iliira blinked a little as she did so, her vision naturally slipping from the mundane one of most creatures to the black–and–white of darkvision. She saw stairs before her, that led down to a stone floor and a second door, this one wooden and with a more conventional lock. The walls to either side were solid stone.
“So…” Iliira said, “I’m going first, I guess?”
“If you want,” Alton said. Iliira turned to look at him, just as he struck a long, thin stick off a wall. There was a flare of hot, white light, and Iliira cried out and stumbled away, covering her eyes with her arm as pain shot through them, right to the back of her skull.
“Cira take your eyes!” she exclaimed, as loud as she dared as she reached out blindly, felt her hand close on Alton’s shirt, and grabbed hold. “Give me a warning next time!”
Iliira peeked out from behind her arm, blinking spots out of her eyes. She saw, vaguely, Alton holding up the tindertwig in one hand, the other grabbing her wrist. The tindertwig was one of the longer ones, almost as long as the man’s forearm. She couldn’t make out his face yet, but for Alton’s sake it better have been a look of regret.
“I thought…” Alton said apologetically. “I thought you didn’t mind light…”
“I do when I’m going from complete darkness to a damned inferno!”
“Voices…” Derak reminded the two in a low voice, and in the same tone he might use to scold children. “Guards patrol this area of town at night.”
Iliira muttered something in a low voice as she let go of Alton, eyes still fluttering to try and get her vision back to normal. “I want first pick,” she demanded as they descended the stairs. “Alton still gets his half, but I want first pick for him blinding me like that.”
“What?” Alton demanded. “No. That’s not fair–”
“I think it is,” Derak interrupted again. He was at the door and looking the lock over. “Now will you two shut up? Alton, get that light over here.”
Iliira leaned against the wall, as Derak set about picking the lock. She lowered her hood – something she was only comfortable doing when she was sure no one who didn’t know her could possibly see – and rubbed her eyes.
“I’m lighting another one,” Alton warned, as his tindertwig was reaching its end.
Iliira breathed in deep and let out a long sigh. It didn’t matter now, since she was accustomed to it. Still…
“Thanks,” Iliira said, covering her eyes with her a hand for show. She heard the twig flare up, and took her hand away when she supposed would be an appropriate time. A few moments later Derak finished with the lock. Beyond the door was an open basement, filled with bookcases and cabinets. They could only see a few feet forward in the dim light of the tindertwig, but they could already guess the size of the room.
Iliira looked around as soon as they entered, and spotted the oil lantern she knew would be in the room, on a table a few feet away. She grabbed it and handed it to Alton, who lit it and substantially improved their field of view. The room was just as big as they had thought – a good sixty feet from end to end – and just as packed full as well, with a row of bookcases on their left and several rows of tall cabinets on their right.
Derak sighed. “This is going to take a while,” he said, walking up to one of the cabinets and trying to open it. It was locked. “We don’t even know where anything valuable is.”
Iliira looked the room over. “Maybe,” she said, going instead to a bookcase and looking over the books in there. “But maybe we can cheat.”
“I’m all for cheating.” Alton said, coming up to Iliira and holding the lantern up. “Let me guess: records. Find the record on the lotus smuggler, and we’ll find where his goods were stored.”
“Exactly.” Iliira said, moving over to another bookcase and scanning the titles scrawled on the tomes’ spines. They were dates, and got steadily more recent as they got further from the door. After confirming this, she stopped looking at individual books and just walked towards the other wall, Alton in tow, stopping every now and then to check spines. “And since our boy was caught today, the most recent book will have his stuff in it. Here we go,” she stopped at a mostly–empty book case, and picked out a book dated for this month. It was mostly blank, and the magistrate’s handwriting was terrible, but she was able to find the lotus smuggler easily enough. “Here we go.” She repeated. “It’s marked as 14–12–4.” She looked at the cabinets, then back down at Derak. “You figure that one out.”
The fourteen, as it turned out, was the row number, the rows going from the left of the room to the right, with row one being near the door and going as far back as fifteen. Twelve was the number of the specific cabinet in that row, the one furthest to the right, and again the cabinets in each row were fifteen. Four was the drawer number – and the drawers, the thieves noted, were quite large – out of six on each cabinet. After that, it was a simple matter of picking it and sliding the drawer open.
Inside were two cloth bags. One was heavy, and full of hard objects that grinded against each other with the satisfying sound that gemstones made when they did such. The other was lighter, and full of something that made a very slight crunching sound, like dried leaves…or black lotus petals.
The drawer also had a few scattered silver pieces – which Alton took for now – and other personal effects that the three left untouched. Sliding the drawer closed again, Iliira lifted the cloth bag of gems, which was bigger than her head. “Alton, I take it all back,” she said, smiling. “Except the first pick part.”
“How much is black lotus worth?” Alton asked, looking at the lotus-filled bag that Derak held. It wasn’t very large, no more than both his fists together.
“A lot?” Iliira asked.
“Four silver per one-fourth ounce,” Derak said. The two looked at him, and he shrugged. “I’ve sold it before, like I said. Price goes up or down, but four silver a quarter ounce is generally about what it’s worth.”
“How much is that?”
Derak held the bag in his palm, looking into space as he thought. “Maybe a pound,” he said, “pound and a half.”
Iliira let out a low chuckle, and the two started walking away. Alton, however, stayed in place. “Wait,” he said, and they stopped. “Wait. Iliira, bare minimum, how much do you think that bag’s worth?”
“The bag?” Iliira wrinkled her nose. “A copper. Maybe two.”
“Iliira…” Alton groaned.
“I know, I know,” Iliira said, smiling. “I don’t know how much the gems will be. A few hundred gold, I’d guess. Three hundred, minimum.”
“Then we have a problem,” Alton said, coming forward, “because that’s a lot more gems then that lotus is worth.”
The other two thieves looked at the bag of gems. “No,” Derak said. “No, we don’t have a problem. Whoever paid the smuggler has a problem. We have a big hit.”
“Or maybe the gems are all flawed,” Iliira said, opening the bag…and pulling out a perfectly cut lapis lazuli the size of her thumb. Not the most valuable gemstone in the world, but there was nothing wrong with it. She put it back, and next pulled out as fine an example of a zircon as any of them had ever seen. Again, it was no star sapphire, but there was still a good fifty gold in a gem that was smaller then Iliira’s eye.
“Maybe he was doing something else,” Iliira guessed. “Besides smuggling. Mercenary, bounty hunter, missionary work, I don’t care. I’m rich, you’re rich, Derak’s rich. Devereau’s getting rich off of us, but that’s fair because he’s letting me live in the Guild, didn’t kill you for cheating him, and…” she looked at Derak. “I’ve got nothing for you,” she admitted after a moment. “You’re just giving him money.”
“It just bothers me,” Alton said. “That’s too much money. It’s like walking into some country inn and finding the Duke of Drakenmoor there.”
“Hey,” Iliira objected. “I grew up in ‘some country inn.’ I worked at ‘some country inn.’ My father owns – ”
“But you get the point, right?” Alton interrupted.
Derak sighed. “And it’s a good point,” he conceded, “But what’s it matter? Unless you’re saying you’ve led us into a trap, in which case I vote that you die first.”
Alton shook his head. “If there was a trap, it would have been sprung by now.”
“So there’s no actual problem.” Iliira reasoned. “You just feel bad about getting a huge payday?”
Alton opened his mouth to say something, then shut it and just shook his head. “You’re right,” he conceded, pointing at the door. “You’re right. Let’s just go.”
---
“And another lapis lazuli for you,” Alton said, sliding it across the table to Iliira. “And another lapis lazuli for Derak, and two more for me. Etath’s tits, this man liked his lazuli.”
Iliira smiled at the rapidly growing pile on the table before her and the rapidly decreasing center pile that Alton was drawing from. They were at the Grinning Maiden, the largest tavern in Drakenmoor’s slums district, and also the unofficial tavern of the Company of the Fallen Star, as Drakenmoor’s thieves’ guild was officially called – or at least as ‘officially’ as anything got amongst a guild of cutpurses and ne’er-do-wells. The Grinning Maiden tended to be occupied most heavily during the wee hours of the night by all manner of characters, both guild members and otherwise. It was smoky, it was raucous, it smelled of spilled drinks and other scents better left unidentified, and it was intimately familiar to Iliira, reminding her of good times when she was younger.
The three sat in a private stall, a comfortable, if somewhat worn, leather–bound, half–circle booth underneath them and a curtain separating them from the outside. A mug of Pyren mead sat before Alton. Derak was a sterner man and preferred the native beer of Drakenmoor. Iliira could outdrink them both on their best nights – it came with being the daughter of an innkeep – and had set before her nothing more nor less than a foaming, dark, and thick mug of dwarven ale.
Iliira sipped from her mug (a dwarf would have scowled at the sight of someone merely ‘sipping’ dwarven ale, but fortunately there were none about), watching Alton’s hands carefully. The Company of the Fallen Star was more than simply burglars and cutpurses: it counted racketeers and con men, among others, as part of its fold, and Alton was one of the better in the Guild. She had no doubt that he had already pocketed some of the gems, but as long as she got more or less her quarter, she was happy. Alton himself was, by guild law, entitled to the largest share, a full half in this case, since he had concocted the hit, and Iliira and Alton had technically only ‘tagged along.’
“And another lapis,” Alton said, sliding the gem over, “and another for you, and another two for me. Iliira!” He exclaimed, after taking a swig from his mead, “I’d like to apologize for everything tonight. Everything. The eyes and everything. You’re my favorite elf.” He winked at her.
“You’re not getting it back,” Iliira said with a smile, patting just above her left breast, where she had put a red garnet, the most valuable of the gems, in a hidden pocket within her shirt. “I sat out for a full four turns to get this.”
Alton sighed. “Damn it,” he said. “I’d try and come up with a clever and sensuous way to tempt you to give it back, but I have a feeling you might take offense.”
“Good use of intuition,” Iliira said, leaning back and slinging an arm over the back of the booth, the other holding her mug before her. She had taken off her cloak and vest and hung them on a rack inside, and had at the door turned in her daggers, so she wore only her white, loose shirt, black pants, and shoes. Had she any breasts to speak of and looked about five years older, she might have been quite inviting in that posture.
“Plus,” Alton said, leaning back himself, “you look young enough to be my daughter. Or at least the daughter of my older brother, if I had one. And I’d rather not explain that to anyone I met. So, sadly, you’re going to miss out.”
Iliira shrugged. “I’m going to survive your great–grandson,” she said matter-of-factly, “and still look fabulous when I do.”
Alton looked mildly insulted for a moment, then let out a laugh. “Well played,” he conceded, raising his mug in toast. “Well played. Another lapis lazuli for the dark elf.”
“Not a happy thought, is it?” Derak asked, drinking from his ale as Alton got back to divvying up their loot. “You’re going to outlive everyone you ever know, unless you go live with other elves.”
Iliira shrugged. “I’ll outlive my father,” she said. “But that’s the way it’s supposed to be. After that…” she thought a moment, then shrugged again. “That’s just how things are going to be, I guess. I could be like most elves and treat everyone around me like children.” She pointed at Derak after sipping again at her ale, with the hand holding the mug, and took on a stern voice. “Speaking of which, you need to clean your room, young man. And wash your face. And put out the cat. And Alton, please put that bloodstone back in my pile.”
Alton smirked, holding the stone up in his hands. “Only if Derak gives me back my jasper.”
“Iliira better give me my quartz first,” Derak said, producing a jasper and staring at Iliira.
The three thieves looked to one another, Iliira taking the quartz out from her breast pocket, the one opposite the one holding her red garnet. Almost as one, the three returned each gem to its respective owner. “No honor amongst thieves,” Derak observed with a smirk.
“Eh,” Iliira said, shrugging. “I steal from you, you steal from him, he steals from me…we end up with the same. So it’s not that bad.” She looked at the center pile now, down to just a few baubles now, the black lotus having already been divided between them before they started with the gemstones. “I call the three fake pearls, then I’m done.”
“They’re real,” Alton objected as he slid them over. “Freshwater, but real.”
“That’s what I’ll tell the fence, anyway,” Iliira supposed as she pulled a small cloth sack from her cloak and started putting her gems into it, after finishing her mug of ale. “So. There is one question in this. One question that is absolutely critical, that demands an answer. One question upon which the rest of the night hangs. The question, gentlemen, is simply this: who is buying the next round?”
Quicker than the uninitiated would have been able to blink, three hands slapped the table – and, surprisingly, Iliira came up last, fumbling over her bag. “Rats,” she cursed sliding out from the booth – and taking her gem bag with her as she did so, of course, as well as her cloak. “Same drinks?”
“Here here,” Alton confirmed, raising what was left of his mead in salute, draining it, and passing it to her, Derak doing likewise. “All the same all around.”
Iliira ducked out from the stall, steeling herself somewhat as she did and tucking her gem back into a pocket in her cloak, her other hand clutching the three mugs by their handles. The only people in the inn were members of the guild, and so everyone here knew who she was and that yes, she was a dark elf – but that didn’t stop them from staring, nor from the room becoming noticeably quieter as she went up to the bar. She pulled up her hood not to hide her features, but rather to give herself that extra bit of security.
As she approached the bar – she was, at least, tall enough that she could rest her arms on it – she saw the barkeep break off in mid-order with another patron to look at her. Iliira grimaced at that. “Same all around,” she said quickly, passing forward the mugs. “The local, Pyren mead, and Dwarven ale.”
“Yes’m,” the barkeep replied, taking the mugs and turning to the kegs behind him.
Iliira grimaced again, looking at the patron who’s order she had interrupted. “Sorry,” she apologized. Devereau may have liked using her to intimidate people on occasion, but that didn’t mean that she herself liked it. In fact, she hated it.
“No, no, it’s alright,” The man replied. Iliira could tell two things by looking at his eyes: it was not alright, but he wasn’t going to make even a peep over it. After all, not only would challenging her mean challenging Devereau’s ‘pet’ dark elf, but it would mean potentially angering said dark elf, and surely that was the quickest path towards death by spider venom – nevermind that Iliira was deathly afraid of spiders and had been ever since she was eight.
Iliira turned away, biting her lip and wishing that the mugs could fill faster, even as the part of her that had grown up behind the counter of her father’s inn knew that they were filling as fast as was possible. When she finally got them, she simply handed forward a pair of gold pieces and headed back to the stall with them, ignoring that she should have gotten four silvers and two coppers back in change. As she slid back into the stall and closed the curtain behind her, she let out a long sigh of relief.
“Trouble?” Derak asked as he took his mug.
“No,” Iliira lied, shaking her head. She pulled her hood back down, but didn’t take off her cape, instead clutching it tight to herself. “No. My own fault for calling slappers.”
Alton shook his head, a tired smile on his face. “You’ll outlive their great-grandchildren,” he reminded her.
“Yeah,” Iliira said. “Yeah, that’s true.” She took off her cloak and took ale in hand again, then forced a smile. Screw the rest of the guild, and Devereau too. She had Derak and Alton, and that was all she really needed. “So…what are you doing with your share?”
Oh, and Iliira's 1st-level Pathfinder stats:
ILIIRA OF GELL’S PASS (ILIIRA II'ILMERIAS)
Drow Rogue 1 (human-raised)
CG Medium humanoid (elf)
Init +3; Senses Perception +5, Darkvision 60 ft.
Languages Common, Goblin
DEFENSE
AC 15, touch 13, flat-footed 12 (+2 armor, +3 dex)
hp 9 (1d8+1)
Fort +1, Ref +5, Will -1
OFFENSE
Speed 30 ft. (6 squares)
Melee Dagger +3 (1d4+1, 19-20/x2) or
Ranged Dagger +3 (1d4+1, 19-20/x2)
Special Attacks Sneak attack +1d6
STATISTICS
Str 13, Dex 17, Con 12, Int 12, Wis 8, Cha 12
Base Atk +0, CMB +0, CMD 13
Feats Weapon Finesse
Skills Acrobatics +7, Bluff +5, Climb +5, Disable Device +7, Disguise +5, Escape Artist +7, Intimidate +5, Perception +5, Sleight of Hand +7, Stealth +7
SQ Trapfinding +1
Possessions Daggers (2), leather armor, explorer’s outfit, thieves’ tools, backpack, sack, whetstone, whatever she’s been able to steal.
Human-raised Drow Racial Traits
+2 Dexterity, +2 Charisma, -2 Constitution: Iliira retains the drow predilection for agility and strong force of personality, but also remains frail by human standards.
Elf: While raised amongst humans, Iliira is still an elf by birth and race.
Medium: Iliira is also still medium-sized.
Normal Speed: Iliira has a base land speed of 30 ft.
Darkvision: Iliira has darkvision out to 60 feet. Iliira’s darkvision is stunted by drow standards. However, Iliira does not suffer from light blindness.
Atrophied Drow Magic: Iliira retains the drow immunity to sleep spells and effects, but has only a +1 racial bonus against enchantments. Additionally, she never learned how to enter a meditative state to rest, unlike most elves, and so she needs to sleep 8 hours each night like a human to be considered rested. Additionally, she does not have spell resistance, having not grown up in a heavily magical environment as most drow do, and she never learned how to make use of her innate spell-like abilities and so cannot cast them.
Keen Senses: Iliira receives a +2 racial bonus on Perception checks. Like normal drow, she is observant and attentive.
Skilled: Like a human, Iliira receives a bonus skill rank at each level, including first.
Languages: Common. Iliira can learn any additional language if she has a high enough Intelligence (except secret languages, such as druidic).
I... don't have much to say other than I really, really like this. Only things that hinder my enjoyment is my limited D&D knowledge. But that's more my thing than yours, so... never mind that. But other than that, really awesome little piece of fiction.
Most enjoyable... though I'm not sure why you felt you had to put the story it self in a comment.
Regardless, a great character piece. I like the idea of a drow raised by humans. The arachnophobia is just icing on the cake. A shame D&D is awash in Drizz't clones, but anyone who calls Iliira one has no idea what he's talking about.
"So the combination is... 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
That's the stupidest combination I've ever heard in my life! That's the kind of thing an idiot would have on his luggage!"
Excellent little story there. Of course now you know what you have to do.... Ponify her! (probably as a changeling since that's the closest we currently have to dark elves) Then write more stories about her!
And we really need a way to thumbs up blog posts and not just comments.
That was an enjoyable read.
That was good
Do you have more non-pony writings, and where do you post them?
That's quite the backstory you've got there. I'd say you did a great job of avoiding all the pitfalls of the infamous Dritz clones. She's certainly the kind of character I'd enjoy having at my own table top.
Quite true. Though I'd say that it can extend past just RPG characters and into any creation. There's just so much genuine and unabashed creative passion that goes into that first endeavor of designing a fictional persona. Over blown Sue or not, those snowflakes really are SPECIAL.
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There actually isn't really much D&D knowledge required for this, other than the fact that Dark Elves (drow) are a thing in D&D. In brief, they have black or dusky purple skin, white hair, and generally red eyes (sometimes other colors like violet or amber, but usually red). They live underground and can see in the dark, though get blinded by sudden exposure to bright light and remain frazzled under any bright light conditions. Their society is an evil, Byzantine matriarchy of backstab and betrayal that would have self-destructed eons ago if not for the fact that their goddess, Lolth the Queen of Spiders, tends to personally intervene before things get too messed up (yet never actually whips them into shape, either, because she finds the constant atmosphere of mistrust and paranoia amusing and delights in the suffering it causes).
The drow were basically designed to be capable of being Evil Adventuring Parties to counteract the players of D&D. They could take levels in most classes (warrior, mage, etc). They have innate resistance to magic, several innate spell-like abilities that mess with lighting (thereby allowing them to plunge heroes into utter darkness, which most adventurers can't see through but drow can see through just fine), and - worst of all, to a D&D player - their magic items crumble to ash when exposed to sunlight, meaning they can't be looted for all their neat gear.
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this, but red instead of blue, and happier, I think.
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Not really...I used to write up something for each character or world I created as a sort of "feel," but unfortunately I lost it two computer changes ago. This one I only have 'cause I made a special effort to hold onto it.
I do actually have one another, though, for an original setting. A sci-fi setting. Might publish it on here at some point - though, as a warning, it's kinda' depressing.
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See, you say that, but you haven't read my first Animorphs fanfiction, which was my first fiction.
AND SO SHALL IT ALWAYS BE, because I deleted it years ago and will not be describing it to anyone, anytime, ever. Its one redeeming quality was that the OC wasn't a self-insert.
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I'm playing the enhanced edition of Baldur's Gate right now (probably what spurred me to dust this off), and, naturally, rolled up Iliira. Since BGEE uses the BGII engine, you can enter in your own journal entries in addition to modifying non-plot related ones.
So, basically, every time Iliira's encountered unusually large spiders, I've had her rant in the journal about it.
She is NOT enjoying the Cloakwood, I.E., THE HORRIBLE SPIDER FOREST OF SPIDERY DOOM.
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WARNING: LOTS OF TEXT TO FOLLOW.
Specifically, her mother was Avaunya Ii'Ilmerias of the House Ii'ilmerias, Third House of Tlauk'kur. While pregnant with Iliira (only a month or so in, and I'm acting under the assumption that elven pregnancies last something like 2 years (like elephants!), which I remember reading somewhere), House Ii'ilmerias was attacked by another drow house and destroyed. Avaunya managed to flee to the surface world (probably a result of a teleporting accident). Abandoned by Lolth for failure, her weapons and armor crumbling to ash in the sunlight, she wandered a forest alone and confused for several days, facing both hunger and dehydration, before being happened upon by a nomadic band of high elves. They pretty much would have killed her on the spot for being drow, if not for how out of it Avaunya was. So, taking pity on her, they took her captive instead, whereupon they discovered she was pregnant and, as high elves are generally Chaotic Good, decided they couldn't just kill her and her unborn child. So they had to keep her.
Avaunya didn't have much choice in the matter, of course. She hated every minute of having to stay with these cursed surface elves, though she didn't know of any possibly alternative. Truth be told they didn't much care for her, either, nor her imperious attitude, nor her constant complaining at their nomadic lifestyle
. I imagine there was a lot of grit teeth and counting to ten involved. Eventually, however, Avaunya began to relent, just slightly, and sort-of warm up to the band. Again, not like she had much choice.
The elven band wended its way through the forest and ended up at the human lumber town of Gell's Pass, which had good relations with the elves as they would stop by every few years to trade for things they couldn't get in the forest, like metal tools and weapons. Avaunya, against her better judgment, went into the human village (in disguise) and found it...utterly, utterly horrible and contemptible, just as she imagined it would be. Especially that human innkeep, Korbin. What a lout. What a complete waste of air. What a crass brute. Nice upper body strength, though. Used to be a lumberjack before opening the inn. Beard was...intriguing. Made him look like an overlarge dwarf, but intriguing...Korbin, for his part, on identifying Avaunya, had no patience for her imperious, demanding attitude and didn't really give her any special treatment, despite her obvious allure.
Which only made Avaunya find him more alluring...and despite himself, Korbin actually found Avaunya to maybe be a bit of a sweetheart under that bitchy exterior...
Well, long story short, Avaunya stayed in Gell's Pass. The elves were not entirely sad to see her go, but at the same time wished her happiness. She had it, too, for a little while, though from the way she carried on with Korbin you might not have been able to tell. Korbin could, though, and he was happy himself. He introduced her to a few of the other locals of Gell's Pass, carefully lest her drow nature startle anyone, though in general she remained hidden. In time Avaunya might have been able to live openly, but...well, unfortunately, Iliira's birthing was difficult - too difficult for Avaunya. She died.
Iliira was difficult to raise, even beyond simply not having a mother figure in her life. For one thing, at least when she was younger, bright light, like sunlight, hurt both her eyes and her skin, so she couldn't go outside much. Still, she got over that, at least. Another problem, though, was that, as an elf, she simply didn't grow up as fast as a human child would - this being based off of the idea that elves are physically mature at age 25 (Races of the Wild), rather than 15 for humans ("mature" here being defined as "old enough to go out and adventure in D&D"), so more than a few of her friends matured too fast for her to "keep up" (for example? At age 12, around when puberty hits girls, she would only have been about the equivalent of a 7-year-old). Some of her childhood friends may have even gotten married and had a baby or two before she even started puberty herself (for elves, around 18-19)
But, her father wasn't the sort to keep her locked away. Gell's Pass was small enough that it wouldn't have been feasible to do so even if he'd had the desire, but he didn't. Korbin had a kid now, and yes, the kid was a drow, and if anyone had a problem with that, he had nothing to say to them, but his fists might, and they would be loquacious to a fault. More than a few people did have a problem with that, but got over themselves pretty quickly - it's hard to think of someone as being an infernal spawn of evil when you used to watch them chase their own shadow or try and catch moths. I do imagine Iliira as having been something of a hellion as a child, but nothing unforgivable, and of course as soon as she was old enough, she helped her father with running the inn.
The one moment of angst I allow in her backstory is that, around when she was 19 or so, a band of adventurers came through Gell's Pass on the way to one damn fool of a quest or another. Unfortunately, one was a half-elf who lost his entire family to a drow raid on the surface, so their stopping off at Gell's Pass and hitting up the local inn as adventurers are wont to do...almost ended poorly. Said half-elf saw Iliira, panicked, and attacked without thinking while shouting some obscenities about dark elves - and remember that everyone in Gell's Pass had come to accept Iliira by the time she was, like, four, at most, so she coudn't really remember a time when being a black-skinned elf would have any impact on anything.
Korbin laid out the half-elf in one punch (lumberjack!) and his companions were a tad more restrained, especially on noting that Iliira was still a child, but the damage was basically done. Even after the adventurers left - the half-elf even apologizing - Iliira began to have self-doubts about her place. She began to imagine that the people of Gell's Pass actually hated her and feared her for being a dark elf, even though that wasn't true at all. So, in an act of damn foolishness, she stole a horse and ran away from Gell's Pass.
And, at this point, I'm going to stop rambling. Short version for the remainder is that she ended up in [Insert City here as appropriate to campaign setting] and ended up joining the local thieves' guild and picking up her trade there.
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Don't worry about the rambling. I love it when I unintentionally cause someone to erect a wall of text.
Also,
gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=9779&type=card I don't know, I could see it.