A Paladin's Journey


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6/25/2014 13:59:56

David the Wanderer
Legendary AK!

This is the story of a paladin, from his entrance in the Order to... Well, to whenever it will end. In all honesty, I don't know where it will end. Let's wait and see, shall we?

Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2

* * *

Prelude

As usual, the depths of Doomwood were coated in shadows and mist. Every rustle in the underwood, every glint in the darkness, even just a gut feeling, could have been the prelude to an attack by one of Doomwood's many dangerous residents, and Athrik knew it well. The grizzled paladin scratched the long, jagged scar which extended from his right temple to his left cheekbone -courtesy of a rabid werewolf- and tightened the grip on his warhammer before treading further through the trees.

When he had heard that Valefar was spotted near Moonridge, he had rushed there, leaving everything else behind, even his two apprentices. However, when he reached the giant trading hub, all that the people there were able to tell Athrik was that the warlock was last seen heading south; and so, the paladin followed him in that labyrinth of twisted plantlife.

A cracking sound, as if of someone stepping on a twig, and Athrik stopped on his track. He stood immobile for several minutes, ready for battle, but nothing happened. With a sigh of relief, he resumed going forward, but tripped on something after just two steps.
"Goddamit, even the ground is insidious in this forest..." lamented the old warrior. He was about to get back up when he saw what he had tripped on: a battleaxe, ancient, rusty and dull; but what caught his attention was the symbol carved on the handle: two crossed blades and a skull, Valefar's emblem. With a grunt, Athrik stood up and went on down the road. "Soon," he muttered, "soon we'll meet again."

He didn't know how long he walked, as the pale full moon that always shined stationary on Doomwood, never changing, made it impossible to tell the time without a clock or a hourglass. However, when he stopped, it was only because he had found what he was looking for. A small keep, built with grey stones in the middle of a dell. A tattered flag stood solitary on the highest point of the building, right above the only illuminated window.
Athrik rushed to the wooden door and smashed through it. Behind it, he found a small horde of skeletal minions, ready to stop him in his tracks. He imbued his warhammer with divine light and prepared to slay the mindless undeads.

The first skeleton that tried to approach him had its skull smashed to bits by a powerful strike and collapsed on the floor. Afterwhich, all the other abominations charged towards Athrik. He smashed a ribcage and sent a humerus flying across the room.
One of the skeletons was about to stab him in the flank, but Athrik blocked the attack with his hammer and reduced the upper body of the monster to dust with a ray of purifying light. It was at that moment that he felt a searing pain in his thigh. He turned around to see a bloodied spear withdrawing from his leg; the skeleton that wielded it was soon destroyed by the blows of Athrik's hammer.

The skeletal minions kept closing in on the paladin, but he wasn't afraid in the slightest. He kneeled down, struck the tip of his golden hammer on the floor, and started chanting a prayer with his eyes closed while his foes got closer and closer. When he reopened his eyes, they shone with a white light, and an aura of light surrounded him, expanding outwards. Soon, the light encompassed all the room, and when it faded away all that was left of the undeads were charred bones scattered around the room.
With all the minions defeated, there was nothing else blocking Athrik's path towards the top of the tower. He stood up and walked towards the stairs, limping slightly, finally reaching the archway that led into the warlock's study.

Lit torches on the walls of the circular room illuminated the many bookcases that were leaning against the wall. Scrolls and leaves of paper were scattered on a large pine desk, where a single candle was burning. Standing behind the desk, looking out of the window was a tall, lanky man. His brown hair were a dirty mess, and his long green and grey robes were stained with blood and dirt. His yellow fingernails were at least two inches long. For a moment, the paladin didn't recognize his old enemy, but the small green orb which fluctuated by his side clearly marked him as the man he had been searching for.

"Valefar, you've fallen low. Your skeletons were the weakest I ever fought, and look at you. You look like..."
"Like what, Athrik?" The warlock turned around. His face was skinny, more similar to that of one of the many corpses he had reanimated than to that of a living human, and his eyes were hollow. A mocking grin was plastered on his face, surrounded by an unkempt black beard: "Like a madman, maybe? Or an hobo? Or somebody who can't let the past go?" He giggled, amused.
Athrik tightened his teeth, fighting the urge to punch the mage in the face: "You know what I am here for. Let him go."
"Why should I?" He vaguely looked at the orb that floated around his head "He's very pleasant company, you know? However, he always asks the same boring question: 'Where is daddy? Where is daddy? Why won't he come?'" The warlock did his best imitation of a frightened child's voice, mocking the man in front of him.
At this point, Athrik's heart was filled with rage, and he jumped towards his demented foe, screaming, knocking down the table and sending the scrolls flying all across the room.

Valefar easily stopped the downward thrust of the gilded hammer by summoning a magic shield and teleported behind the paladin. "Why are you here, Athrik? Is it for justice, or for revenge?"
Athrik shouted as he spun towards his foe and let down his weapon towards Valefar's head: "I am here to put your madness to an end!" Once more, the man used his magic to divert the attack while he giggled.
"You've got slow, old man!" Valefar's maniacal laughter echoed in the paladin's head as he grasped his warhammer with both hands, preparing to attack with all his might.

Just as Athrik was rising the hammer above his head, Valefar extended his hand towards the paladin and muttered a spell. Tendrils of darkness rose from the floor, trapping Athrik in their grip. Slowly, calmly, Valefar walked up to his old foe as he struggled to break free.

“Pathetic. You can’t even save your own son, yet you claim to protect others? You’re a failure, yet you keep persevering. Why? Why do you persist?” Valefar’s face was only a few inches from Athrik’s, and the latter could clearly see the seething rage growing in the former’s eyes.
“I fight because I still can. Because you still torment the world. I won’t give up as long as I live.”
At these words, Valefar turned away, looking disgusted: “After all these years, you still don’t understand. As long as you live… Life has nothing to do with this. Death. Death is the true reason. You keep fighting me because you fear death. Yours, and your son’s, but death nonetheless. Don’t you see, Athrik?! Death is the only possible destiny! I could have avoided it, if it wasn't for you… But you took away my souls, and so I had to take your son. This is justice!” The tendril’s grip got tighter, making Athrik drop his hammer in pain.

The paladin grunt and panted, but refused to pass out. He muttered something, too softly to understand.
Valefar looked at Athrik with curiosity: “What?”
“You… you are wrong. All this time, you thought I was afraid.”
“What are you, then?”
The paladin looked at the warlock’s face, directly in his mad eyes: “I am furious.”
Light bursted from Athrik’s body, shredding the tendrils of darkness. He jumped at Valefar, knocking him down on the floor. He furiously punched the warlock’s face, breaking the nose, the mouth, turning it in a bloody mess. With a scream, Valefar cast a blast of darkness, throwing Athik off of him. The warlock stood up, and noticed that something was missing: “Where is the crystal?!”

Athrik got on his knees and spat blood. In his left hand he clutched the green orb that held his son’s soul. He could hear his cries of anguish, but at the same time there was an hint of relief. Did the child know that his father was there?
Athrik silently prayed to the Lord of Light, and crushed the orb with his hands; a sphere of light emerged from it, floating for a bit around the paladin’s head before flying away from the window and ascending to the sky.
“NO!” Valefer screamed, and clutched his chest with a gasp. His hair turned grey and fell, his skin became flabby and sagging, his teeth rot. “No, no, no, no…”

Athrik looked at the mage first with surprise and then with hatred. “You… You were feeding on his soul!” He stood up despite his wounds and grabbed his warhammer from the floor, ready to kill the warlock.
But when he reached Valefar, he hesitated. In front of him was an old, weak man, the ghost of the powerful wizard that had killed so many and brought pain to even more. But Valefar’s mind was still the same, and when he noticed that the paladin hesitated, he cast another spell with the last of his magic power. A flash of violet light blinded Athrik for a moment, and when he could see again, Valefar was lying on the floor, breathing heavily, desperately clutching for life.

The keep’s walls started trembling and dust fell from the roof. Athrik fell on the floor, and understood what was going on. The archway caved in, and the paladin calmly accepted his fate. Soon, darkness was all around him.

To even his own surprise, Athrik’s last thought wasn't for his son, nor for his wife. It wasn't the idea that he would be buried in the depths of Doomwood rather than next to his family. Instead, he thought about the two young apprentices he had left in Swordhaven: they both were just thirteen, not even old enough to officially become paladins of the Order. With his last breath, he prayed for them both.

* * *

Meanwhile, miles away, right outside of Swordhaven, two kids were lying on the grass, looking at the sky.
“When do you think Athrik will be back?” asked the blond one.
“I don’t know, but I’m sure it’ll be soon.” replied the one with brown hair and eyes “Although he sure was a jerk, leaving us behind without even saying why…”

“Hey David.” asked the blond one.
“Yes, Fred?”
“Who gets home last is a chickencow!” Fred sprang up and started running towards the town.
“Hey, not fair!” David got up as well and chased after his friend. When he finally got close to Fred, however, he tripped and fell on a pool of mud. Fred stopped to look at his best friend covered in mud, and started laughing. David frowned, and threw a ball of mud at the blond kid, knocking him over in the mud as well.
They started fighting and brawling in the dirt, laughing.

< Message edited by David the Wanderer -- 11/4/2014 11:32:45 >

AQW

Post #: 1

9/6/2014 7:12:57

David the Wanderer
Legendary AK!

The Beginning

David was sitting on a marble bench in front of one of Swordhaven’s many elaborate fountains. The gurgling sound always calmed him and helped him think. It had been three years since his mentor, Athrik, disappeared. At first, everybody thought he had just gone on a long journey, but after a few months without any news, people started doubting the old paladin would come back. After a year, everybody lost hope.

Athrik’s wife, Helena, waited for him every day for two and a half years, until she passed away in her sleep. From that day on, Athrik’s sister Lauren- took up herself the duty to teach David and Frederick the way of the paladins.

With a sigh, David got up from the bench; he had been sitting there for too long, and he had to prepare. He took the plain one-handed sword he had put down next to the bench, put it back in the scabbard which hung from his side, and walked back home.

David’s home was Swordhaven’s headquarters of the Paladin Order; a large, majestic building, covered in marble. The door was guarded by two stone statues of famous paladins of the Order, and also two flesh-and-blood holy warriors; Past that was a large courtyard, where the recruits trained under their mentors, experienced paladins sparred for sport, or people just hung out together, chatting amongst themselves. Amidst all that, David spotted Fred’s wild blond mane.

The fair boy was sparring against a younger recruit. As usual, Frederick used a two-handed longsword, covered with bandages in order to avoid hurting the opponent, and attacked without a real strategy, only trying to finish his adversary as fast as possible. Unluckily for him, the younger kid was a much more careful swordsman, and managed to dodge or block nearly all of Frederick’s attacks until they were both so burnt out they couldn’t fight anymore. Fred gave up and sat on a marble bench next to the wall.

David approached his exhausted friend and sat next to him: “How are you doing, Fred?”
The sweating boy turned towards his friend, grinning: “Tired… But I’ll be ready to spar with you in a moment!”
David shook his head: “As much as I like training, you should remember that we need to prepare for the vigil tonight, remember?”
“The vigil? What vig- Oh!” Fred looked down at his clothes with panicking green eyes. “I need to take a bath! And grab my armor!” The boy jolted from the bench and ran towards the exit.

David smirked at his friend’s forgetfulness and got up as well, although he headed towards the inner parts of the headquarters, past the engraved wooden door that led to the main hall.

The interiors of the headquarters were lit by sunlight that came through the several tall and narrow windows, illuminating the white ceramic tiles and letting fresh air come in. David’s footsteps echoed through the unusually empty halls and corridors, until he stopped in front of a door on the second floor. He took a small silver key from one of his pockets and unlocked the door.

The door squeaked as it opened, revealing a small room. The room’s decor was spartan: a bed leaning against the wall, underneath the window, a wooden desk with some leaves of paper and a bottle of ink on it, a chest to store clothes at the foot of the bed, and an armor stand.

David looked at the shiny new plate armor resting on the stand. It had been painted white with golden trims, and had an elaborate golden sun carved on the chest piece. He took the equally ornate helm from the desk and looked at his reflection: his light brown hair appeared even more messy than usual, deformed by the helm’s curvature; the face was deformed as well, but David could recognize himself, although he never really liked his face: it seemed too plain, too common; not the kind of stuff you’d find in legends. He stared at his reflection for a few more moments before putting the helm back on the desk, then started putting on the armor.

* * *

A few hours later, when the day was ending, David was walking down the hallway to the large chapel where he, Fred and a few other recruits would have to spend the night, praying to the Lord of Light and preparing for their final test the day after.

“Oh man, oh man, oh man! Do you think we’ll have to fight, David?” Fred was as excited as kid on Frostval eve, and he couldn’t shut up. He wore an armor similar to David’s, and a jewel encrusted greatsword hung by his side, clanking every time the scabbard hit Fred’s leg. He had tried to groom himself for the occasion, but his hair refused to stand down, and sprouted in every direction. The only thing that was truly well-kept on Fred’s face was his goatee.

“I don’t know,” replied David “but if we do, leave it to me.”
“Why? Feeling like being beaten up?”
“Nope, that’s why I say you should let me do the fighting.”
“Would you two shut up?” The paladin leading the small group of recruits was clearly annoyed by David and Fred’s bantering. The two boys shut up as soon as they heard his voice, but when they looked at each other a few moments later they couldn’t help snickering. The only girl of the group, Melanie, glared at them and rolled her eyes before resuming her march in stoic silence.

The night had fallen and the only light in the chapel came from the few candles on the altar and the iron candle trees standing next to the walls. David, Fred, and the other recruits were silently standing in front of the altar, looking much like the figures of the legendary paladins that were engraved on the chapel’s columns; They had stood there for most of the night.

The dawn was nearing and David could see the deep blue of the sky turning to a lighter shade as he kept reciting prayers to Celeritas to bring forth the dawn when the candles were all snuffed out by a single gust of wind, leaving the faint light from the windows as the only source of illumination. The choir of prayers stopped, and all the recruits looked around themselves, trying to understand what had happened.

As unexpectedly as the candles were blown out, ethereal black tendrils and tongues came through the windows, congealing, in three distinct places of the holy hall, taking the shape of Darkness Elementals, and shocking the young recruits.Weren’t they in one of the most sacred and hallowed rooms of the Paladins’ Headquarters? How could any enemy manage to attack this place, especially Darkness Elementals?

Yet… That was what they were trained for. Moving as one being, they unsheathed their swords, grabbed their maces and axes, and charged at the Elementals, ready to destroy them.

Fred was in front of everybody else, closely followed by David. He reached the nearest elemental, and lunged his greatsword towards it with all his might. The being jerked back for an instant, hurt by the light-empowered strike, but it then launched a blast of darkness at Fred, knocking him down on the floor.

With a scream, David jumped over his friend, towards the elemental, the tip of his sword pointed at the main body. After he landed, David summoned a shield made of pure light, absorbing the magic blast the elemental had hurled at him. Before he could dismiss the shield, he saw Fred standing up and bull-rushing towards their foe, slashing at it with an animalistic fury.

Just as Fred could deal the finishing strike, the darkness elemental meshed in with the shadows of the chapel, and disappeared. Fred looked around, confused.

“Behind you!” shouted out David; Fred turned around just in time to see the elemental’s punch coming towards him, stunning him for a few seconds. David clenched his teeth and channeled a projectile of light through his left hand, launching it at the darkness elemental. After receiving the hit, the being slowly faded away from the world, leaving behind no trace it had ever been there.

David and Fred looked at the other recruits: they had ganged up on the other two elementals and managed to dispose of them. David was about to draw a sigh of relief, when once more black shadows creeped through the windows. This time, there were many more elementals, at least two dozen, and they kept closing in on the young recruits, forcing them to cluster together in one place in the center of the room.

“Damn it!” whispered one of the youths, a short, black-haired boy wielding an axe that looked like it was forged for somebody double his size. Everybody was sweating cold, and David could feel his heart beating frantically.

Melanie looked at her companions and saw their hesitation. She shouted in a mix of anger and encouragement “Come on! You're paladins, aren't you? Stop trembling like little kids and let’s show these things what it means to be a warrior of the light!”

Fred stared at the girl for a moment and then grinned:. “Well said, Melanie!” He raised his sword to the air and let out a furious battle cry before jumping at the closest darkness elemental, sending it back to the Plane of Darkness.

David, Melanie, and all the other recruits followed his example, and started hacking and slashing at the beings of darkness that had surrounded them.

The elementals retaliated, shooting blasts of darkness and ganging up on the paladins, but every time it looked like one of the warriors of light was about to fall, one of their comrades would run to the rescue. David himself witnessed this many times, both as the savior and the saved.

After David had lost count of how long he had fought, he readied himself to strike at yet another elemental, when he noticed that the chapel was empty apart from himself and the other recruits. Slowly, David lowered his sword and looked around, making sure that nothing was hiding in the shadows.

“Did… Did we make it?” he asked to nobody in particular.
Melanie strapped her golden longspear to her back and replied: “Looks like so. You’re bleeding, though.” Only then did David notice that one of the elementals had hit him on the forehead, causing a thin stream of blood to run down his face; he took off the steel gauntlet from his right hand and placed it on the cut: a faint light emanated from David’s palm. In a couple of seconds, the cut was gone, leaving no trace behind.

Frederick approached David and Melanie, covered in sweat and breathing heavily. “What did just happen?!” he asked in a mix of fury and incredulity.
“I have no idea,” said David “but this is weird… How could Darkness Elementals get in?”
Melania intruded in the conversation: “If I may, I have a theory: the Order guards many powerful artifacts, and some of them are attuned to the Plane of Darkness, mostly the stuff we seized from necromancers, deathknights and the like, and locked away for safety, so it’s possible one of these “attracted” the Elementals, or maybe even spawned them itself.”

“So, you’re saying we need to check on that stuff, and find a way to disable or destroy whatever caused the attack?” asked David. Melanie nodded silently.
Fred sighed: “That’ll take ages…”

The doors of the chapel were sprung open, and a patrol of paladins marched in the room, led by an elderly man dressed in a long, pristine white and gold robe, clean-shaven and bald. When they entered, their faces were serene, but as they saw the devastation in the chapel - broken candle trees, smashed tiles and columns, charred walls - their expressions turned to confusion and fear.

“What happened here?!” they asked in unison.

< Message edited by David the Wanderer -- 9/7/2014 9:00:47 >

AQW

Post #: 2

11/4/2014 11:32:18

David the Wanderer
Legendary AK!

Departure

The headquarters were in disarray: frantic scholars runned back and forth through the hallways, carrying magic artifacts with them; carriages went and came from the Magic Academy, them too filled with artifacts; paladins roamed the halls, guarding every entrance; healers and acolytes performed their rituals in every room of the keep, trying to purify and protect them; messenger birds were sent to the other keeps and to the Citadel to ask for help and warn them about possible attacks.

David looked at the chaos in which his home was thrown and reflected on the happenings of the previous night: how, and why, did the Darkness Elementals entered the headquarters? What were they looking for? And how could nobody notice? These questions buzzed in his mind, obsessing him. He could see the tension painted on the face of the other members of the Order, and wondered if he looked the same.

Acolyte Reinaud, the man who had entered the chapel that night after the Elementals were dispatched, had been asking questions to all the recruits who had witnessed the attack, trying to find answers to the questions David and everybody else in the keep were asking. The young paladin himself had answered the acolyte’s questions as best as he could, but it didn't seem like he had been of any help.

Even the ceremony that would have officially marked the recruits’ official entrance into the Paladin Order was cancelled due to the turmoil, and they were instead simply told by their teachers that they were now full-fledged paladins and that they should await their first mission soon, even though nobody knew when that would happen.

After a couple of days, David was sitting on his bed, sharpening his sword when Fred burst into the room, excitedly shouting: “They found it! We know what it is!”
David took his eyes off the sword and looked at Fred, slightly confused: “Wait, slow down. What are you talking about? Who found what?”
“The artifact! I mean, the one that attracted the elementals: we know what it was! They’ll tell us everything in about an hour in the Assembly Hall!” Fred said the last sentence in one breath, nearly running out of air.
“Seriously?” David jumped up from the bed, now as excited as Fred, “Then that means - Wait, how do you know that?”
“Oh, Melanie told me. She was among the ones who found the artifact, and you know how girls are about keeping secrets…”
David rolled his eyes: “Or rather, you pestered her until she told you what you wanted.”
“That’s irrelevant.” Fred grabbed his friend by the arm and stormed off the bedroom, carrying David with him, “What matters is that we have to grab the good seats!”

Some minutes later, they were sitting in the Assembly Hall, a great room with a stone porch on the east wall, leading to a courtyard. On the opposite side of the room was the door leading into the hall, and between the two, a raised marble plan where the chairs of the high ranking members of the keep seated during assemblies. In front of it, disposed in two rows, from the start to the end of the hall, were the wooden benches for the other members of the order, leaving only a narrow corridor between them.

“There’s still nobody here.” David commented.
Fred dismissed him with a wave of the hand: “Which is exactly why we came so soon.” David sighed and followed his friend along the silent hall, until they reached a seat near enough to the chancel to see and hear clearly, but far enough to not be seen. When the room was empty, it was blanketed in a silence only broken by the echo of the two boys’ footsteps, that, mixed with the place’s stateliness, had always unnerved David.

“How come you’re so… nonchalant about this whole story?”
“What do you mean?”
“You… you act as if nothing really matters. We might be facing the greatest crisis of the Order in years, yet you… You are just you. Aren’t you worried?” Fred sat on one of the wooden benches and looked slightly up, as he did when he was thinking.
“Well, way I see it”, he started saying, “we can defeat anything that tries to come at us. We have nothing to worry about, really, so no need to fidget and go crazy like everybody is doing.”
David stared speechless at his friend before falling down next to him on the bench: “I wish I were as optimistic as you.”
“If I were you, I’d rather want to be as handsome and skilled as me.” Fred grinned, as he did whenever he wanted to screw with David.
“If I were you, I would be ashamed of how many times I saved your butt.”
Fred was about to reply, when other paladins started walking in the room, and quickly shut his mouth. Among them was Melanie, who sat next to David and Fred.

The girl’s long corvine hair was always carefully combed, and everything else about her -her nails, makeup, clothes- was diligently well-kept. Her large black eyes always scanned her surroundings; she was about to say something, but was interrupted by Reinaud, who was now standing in front of the chairs and had begun speaking.

“My fellow paladins,” he said “as you know, we’ve recently been attacked by Darkness Elementals in the middle of the night. Although there were no victims, this is a dire incident. Nothing should be able to penetrate our defenses, especially not these creatures we’re trained to face and bring down.
“Yesterday, we found what caused the attack. A relic which we had kept in our basements for so long, we had forgotten about it.”
Reinaud waved to one of the paladins sitting in the front row, and she walked up to him, holding a small wooden chest, exquisitely carved. Reinaud opened the chest, and showed its contents to the assembly. Sitting on a lining of velvet were five golden rings, each embedded with a precious stone: sapphire, aquamarine, topaz. amber and emerald. “These” said the acolyte “are five of eight rings of power, each granting great power over one of the elements. They were forged in far away times by a powerful wizard who sought to learn more about the Elemental Planes, but when they were stolen by a rival wizard who wished to conquer the kingdom, our order was asked to retrieve and guard the rings. And so we did, until now.
“When the Darkness Elementals attacked the keep, they were attracted by the Ring of Darkness, but also took with them the Light and Fire rings. We don’t know why they did so, but we know where they went. Our mages tracked their path, and they moved northwest, towards the Deadlands. We must get back these rings and avoid that they are used for evil. The question now is, which one of you is willing to go?”

No one said anything, and some people uncomfortably looked around, trying to understand if somebody was going to volunteer. Annoyed by that behaviour, David stood up
“I will go.” he said.
Fred immediately jumped up as soon as he heard that: “I will go as well.” He smiled at David and whispered: “No way I’m going to leave all the fun to you.”
Melanie smiled softly, and rose from her seat. “You two will need my help. I’ll go, too.”

Acolyte Reinaud nodded and asked: “Nobody else? After all, they’re just recruits - somebody with a little more experience could be of great aid to them.”
From the back rows rose a feminine voice: “I, Cordelia Redhart, will go with them.” The name rang a bell in David’s mind: Redhart… Wasn’t she the one who had defeated a small army of necromancers by herself in Doomwood?
“So be it” said the acolyte “You four will go, and retrieve the rings. The assembly is dismissed.”

***

The day after, David was standing outside Swordhaven’s doors alongside Fred, Melanie and Cordelia. They were each given a horse and enough supplies to last two weeks, and were ready to leave, but David had his eyes fixed on the walls of the city.

Fred approached his friend: “Is everything ok?”
“Yeah… I guess I’m just a bit… scared. This is the first time we’ll go so far away from home, and we don’t even know what awaits us. I’m not even sure we’ll come back…”
“Hey, relax, man! I’m sure this will be easy, and with Cordelia helping us, I’m pretty sure we could take down an army of Doomknights! We’ll be back in less than a month, and then we’ll celebrate ‘till dawn!”
David looked at his friend and nodded, smiling weakly: “I guess you’re right.” He mounted on his horse and looked at the road in front of him. Fred quickly got on the saddle as well, and so did Melanie and Cordelia. They were about to leave, when they heard a voice calling for them.

“Hey, wait up!” A brown-haired woman, about forty years old, was running towards them, holding a large bag in her hands. Cordelia smiled, and waved at the woman. “Lauren! Coming to say goodbye to us?”
"Yeah, and I also wanted to give David and Fred a couple of gifts." She put the bag down on the road and opened it.
"David, your battle style relies on studying your opponent's attacks and countering them. That's why I'm giving you these." She took a kite shield painted white and a steel sword about thirty-five inches in length with a sapphire in the handle from the bag, both masterfully crafted, and handed it to David.

"T-thanks, Lauren." He examined the two items "These are beautiful."
"If you want to thank me, use them well. And you, Frederick, you fight to bring down your foes as fast as possible, and to do so, you need a good weapon." With some effort, the middle-aged woman took a claymore from the bag and handed it to her apprentice. Fred took the weapon in his hands and slashed the air a couple of times with it.
The boy was ecstatic about his new sword:“It’s perfect!” He exclaimed “It’s almost as if it was balanced exactly for me.”
Lauren nodded: “There is a little bit of magic in these items I just gave you. I hope they’ll serve you well.” She looked at Cordelia and Melanie, who had been watching silently “Keep an eye on my boys, both of you; sometimes they get in trouble, but I’m sure they’ll both become great paladins.”

“We will,” said Cordelia “Goodbye, Lauren. Let’s go, guys!” Cordelia sprinted her horse along the road, not even waiting for the rest of the group to realize what she had said. A fierce look appeared in Melanie’s eyes, and she rode after the other paladin.

David and Fred looked at each other and then at Lauren before pursuing the two girls, shouting at them to wait up.

The woman waved at the four riders until they disappeared from her sight, putting on her best smile. However, when she was sure they had left, she frowned and slowly walked back towards her home.

“I hope they’ll be ok, “ she muttered along the way “I have a bad feeling about this… Oh, Athrik, if you were still here, you’d have gone with them. But I’m not as strong as you were, and I’m sure Cordelia will keep them both safe… I can only pray now.”

< Message edited by David the Wanderer -- 11/5/2014 11:43:37 >

AQW

Post #: 3

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