A Rangers Tale

[z1gg3h]

Chapter One: Hidden Secrets

So, how do you wish me to begin my tale? -Vilith chuckles softly as he lowers his hood and removes his mask. After he does so, you notice a clearly-visible scar starting behind Vilith's ear, running shrewdly and in a jagged motion along his cheek before drifting off down into his olive armour.- There are few in these lands that know my face ... Fewer still that have seen the rest. -He casts a narrowed stare to you as he sits comfortably in front of the fire, the flames dancing in his eyes. He begins his tale.-

My life was a simple one, as any would expect of one lived in an area such as High Forest. Trees all around, rarely any buildings and everyone knew each other. I was last-born, with a sister and a brother, all of us to a loving mother and father. -He leans his head back as he remembers his home.- My father was called Haldamir. A Protector of the Wood. Much like a Warden here. My mother, Tári'Laed, was a hedge wizard ... a woman of only minimal arcane ability.

My brother's name was Falassion. He was amazed at my mothers ability, more so than my sister or me, so he dedicated himself to finding out as much as he could about the Arcane to help our mother. Wish I had listened to him when he was on about spells this and energy that. -He shakes his head as he tosses another log into the fire.- Now, my sister ... Nessa ... She was ranger far greater than myself, though she did have twenty years' extra tutelage.

It was tradition with all people in my village that, if they wanted to be a Protector of the Woods, they would have to be put through a series of tests to ensure they were, to use the humans' phrase, "cut out for the job." Nessa and I both did well in all our tests, for we were taught by the best ... our father. Soon enough, we took our places in the scouting groups my father organized. I was in front, because my stealth ability was unmatched, and my sister came behind, because her arrows never missed ...

-Vilith closes his eyes slowly and sighs, sadness ringing in his voice.- She loved forests ... When old enough, she wanted to explore all of High Forest and ... Everywhere else, really. She had a nasty habit of running off ahead of me. Quite annoying, to be honest ... -He and opens his eyes.- However ... One fateful day, Nessa and I scouted further than we were supposed to--a few days' journey deep into the woods, at least. Come nightfall, we started to set up camp, and I sent Nessa off to collect some firewood, an easy task to keep her occupied.

-Vilith lowers his eyes and looks directly into the fire, his voice becoming monotone and slow.- I waited for her to return for over three hours. I heard nothing and saw nothing. Fearing for her, I ran back to our village to get my father. How I managed to cover three days' worth of forest in under one without passing out from exhaustion, I have no idea, but I'm not complaining. My father, no doubt, was furious and would discipline us both when Nessa was safe. Something I would have looked forward to, if things had turned out differently.

My father, my brother and I followed my trail, not something one could miss, back to where I had made camp the day before. We scouted for days until we came across a Goblin fortress, one we would have never thought could have possibly been built by such tiny and weak creatures ... the size of a large hamlet.

-Vilith closes his eyes again. His body becomes rigid, the muscles standing out in his neck as he tries to keep something back. After a few moments, it passes, and his voice returns to its monotone level.- The details of the battle are not pleasant, but least to say my brother was shot through the neck just as he finished a spell ... It was Magic Missile, or something similar, and it backfired and hit my father, distracting him from the goblins that were attacking him. His death was a quick one, thankfully.

After seeing what happened to my family, and wondering if the same fate had been my sister's, I simply ... lost it. Taken over by a primal savagery, I threw myself into the thick of it, swinging wildly. Father knows how many I took down before something hit me over the head ...

-He bends forward slowly and parts his hair, a clean scar visible along his hairline. It looks like it is the product of the blunt side of a handaxe or some similar weapon.- When I woke, I felt nothing but pain ... and that's all I felt for however long I was kept in captivity by the Goblins. Torture ... Constant torture with cursed tools for days, weeks--probably even months ... -He lightly traces patterns along his armour, detailing various scars hidden beneath.-

Whenever I was on the point of death, a Drow came to me and tended to my wounds, whispering, "Lloth can end this. Join her!" Each time, I spat in his face and told him to kill me ... He merely walked off after tending to my wounds, prolonging my suffering as much as he could.

After one ... Session, you could call it, of creative torture, I passed out. Next thing I know, I awake on the rug-covered floor of a large room, Goblins on all sides and the Drow seated on a throne. I had figured the Goblins would've needed an outside influence for a group this size and organised. They are a stupid bunch. I attempted to sit up, but I was chained to the floor on my stomach.

For a stupid bunch, the Goblins knew how to keep someone down. -Vilith shudders violently and folds his arms about himself, cursing under his breath.- It's cold ... -He pushes another log into the fire, huddling closer to it, though the air is quite warm around him and you.-

The Drow watched me for what seemed like hours, just staring at me with a grin. Then he spoke. His words ring clear in my head still ... "I think we'll try a different kind of torture today, boy. It involves your sister and it's quite fun ... For me at least. She's already converted, you see." At that moment, Nessa walked past me. Her eyes were emotionless and her body moved without her usual grace. As the Drow had his way with her in front of me, Nessa begged at me with her eyes to end her life ... To free her from her disgraceful fate.

-Vilith shivers again, his voice now barely audible.- Do you know what it's like? To have your closest friend and family member converted to a clergy you've been raised to hate, or to have that very same person violated in front of your eyes when you've sworn to protect her?

-He shakes his head, clearing his throat, though keeping his eyes closed, attempting to hide a tear or two.- In my struggles to avoid hearing or seeing what was happening, the chains came loose--either through my own hand, or by divine intervention. At that moment, I felt the rage again, and I knew that every enemy in sight had to die.

My sights were not locked on the dozen or so Goblins in the room, but on the filthy bastard who was raping my sister. Ripping a spear off of a Goblin, I launched myself at the Drow and my sister ... The spear went straight through her heart and into the bastard's neck ...

-Vilith wipes his eyes briefly before looking directly at you as he replaces his mask.- I am disgraced with what I've done. This is why I wear the mask, to forget. Now, if you don't mind ... -He disregards anything you say, eyes focused on his hands. If you look down into his hands, you will see a braided lock of earth-brown hair.-

[z1gg3h]

Chapter 2 - Acceptance

The halls were dark and deathly silent, haunted with shadows; none now inhabited the place but rats. It had been so long since Vilith had been inside the Goblins' fortress. He shuddered to remember what had happened here: weeks of torture, of agony, and all of it a thousand times less painful than what had befallen his beloved sister. It had been the recounting of the terrible tale that had stirred him to return to this place, to revisit the High Forest and the fortress where part of him had died … with her.

“Nessa,” whispered the moon-elf, standing still in the doorway to the throne room where he'd witnessed the unspeakable. And done the unspeakable. His softened leather boots made no sound against the rough stone floor as he walked forward, entering the cursed room. The bodies of the slain lay wasted all round--the withered corpses of goblins, half-eaten by rats, which were now homes to the foulest of insects. And there, in the centre of the room before his throne, the man who had dishonoured his sister. The spear that had ended his life, in one split second, had also ended Nessa's. When his work was done in the fortress, Vilith had taken his sister's body and given her a proper resting place, but he'd left this bastard where he lay. He had taken only what time was necessary to drive that spear into him again--right through his rotten guts.

The ranger now stood above the Drow's twisted remains, breathing steadily. His eyes were distant … remembering. But a soft sound behind him tore him from his memories. The dagger clipped his ear as it went whistling past, but before Vilith's assailant could throw another blade, he was on the floor with the moon-elf's own blade pressed against his throat and his foot on his chest.

It was a Drow, his eyes wide and his mouth opening and closing in terror now that he was the victim. Vilith raised an eyebrow, putting more weight on his foot. The Drow gasped, his hands hovering around the blade, but he dared not touch it to push it away.
“Let me go, let me go or my brethren will have your head!” It was a pathetic threat, considering the circumstances.

“I'm the one in a position to have your head,” Vilith said, slowly and levelly, through his mask. He narrowed his eyes. “Your brethren? What business do the Drow have hunting lowly rangers like me.”

The captive laughed hoarsely. “No. No, not just the Drow, fool.” He chuckled again with the uncontainable mirth of a man who knows his death is at hand.
“Who then?” demanded the moon-elf, pressing the blade harder against the Drow's naked throat. The captive grinned, his white teeth flashing against his ebony skin. “Kill me. I will never give them away.”

Vilith smiled, lowering himself slightly, his whole weight upon the Drow's chest as he bent over. “You and I … we're going to be great friends.”
As the ranger could have predicted, the Drow was not nearly as brave as he made himself out to be, once his own little throwing dagger was put to use quite creatively. A length of rope to hold him fast and that little blade were all Vilith needed to wring a confession from the sniveling cur. Of course, once Vilith learned that the Drow had turned themselves over to the Malarite infestation and now pledged allegiance to the mongrels, he had even less reason to show mercy to the man who'd meant to end his life with a dagger in the back. He wiped the bloody dagger on the Drow's filthy clothes and then tucked it into his boot, leaving the tortured corpse to fester with the others--or perhaps to become food for the new inhabitants of the fortress.

Vilith felt no need to loot the bodies. He hadn't before, and he wouldn't now. He did not want their belongings, nor their gold. He left the putrid dead and their things in the cursed, empty halls and quit the fortress, his stony expression veiled by his mask.
Even after so long away, the elven ranger knew the High Forest like he knew his longsword. He and his sister had traveled much of the territory themselves. It was to Nessa's very favourite glade that he went then, with the Drow's dying screams still fresh in his ears. The walk was long, and night had fallen thick and dark--not that night or day mattered much to a ranger deep in his own woods.

Vilith had carried Nessa to the glade himself, after everyone in the Goblins' fortress had perished at his hands. He had made the trek without shedding a tear with her body nestled in his arms. He had washed what blood he could off of her in the brook that traced its way through the trees near the glade, and then he had wrapped her in his own cloak and laid her to rest in a grave beneath an oak. That gnarled oak served as a marker for her resting place--along with her longbow, cradled in its roots. Only then had he allowed himself to weep.

The moon-elf entered the clearing, alert to all the sounds of the living forest around him. Nessa's glade was lit by silver moonlight. It seemed not a soul had passed through since he had buried her there … and, indeed, her longbow was still on her grave, now twined round with grasses, flowers and vines.

Vilith knelt down there and gently loosened the bow from the grasp of the plant life. He was about to clear away the growth, but he stayed his own hand, knowing that Nessa would have wanted the grasses and flowers to grow free, here, where they could get the slightest taste of sunlight through the canopy. He took the bow into his arms and brushed away the soil. He would care for the weapon later; he would undo the slight damage that the weather and the woods had done.

“Nessa,” breathed the ranger through his mask. He rested the slender, carven arc of the bow against his cheek and closed his eyes, kneeling over his sister's grave.
Nessa's longbow became Vilith's companion. He looked after the weapon with a doting affection, caring for it as if it had a soul. And perhaps it did. Perhaps it carried the spirit of the woman who'd wielded it, once.

It was that longbow which doled out the ultimate punishment to all Drow Vilith encountered. He sought them out as one might seek out pests, dealt with them as one might deal with an infection. He vowed that he would not rest until he had purged the High Forest of the vagrants infesting its reaches. With the Drow-slaughtering god Shevarash at his back, Vilith's arrows flew straight and true from Nessa's bow … as they might have with her own pale fingers at the string.