The other day Rellekh, Robot Chickens, and I were playing Destiny and the conversation in the chat turned to a D&D adventure they had started together. We talked about fun battles and GMing and character backstories and motivations. A few years back a few of us here at DBO started playing some Play By Post games of Pathfinder, a D&D spinoff. Play By Post means instead of sitting around a game board and playing through a large portion of a scenario in one sitting, we play by posting on a web board with each person posting when they can.

The downside of Play By Post it makes games that would take a few nights take a few years. The upside is that if you play with a group of talented writers you get some fantastic role play and, inevitably it seems, some great side stories. I mention this to Rellekh and Robot and they said they'd love to read some of those stories after I described them briefly in chat. So, I'll be posting some of them here with a bit of setup and commentary to set the scene or explain some of the details that might be lost if you weren't following along with the progression of the main games.

There are (at least) a couple different characters and a fair number of short stories I'm about to post, so bear with me as I get this little thread set up! :)

Nme'an was (and is!) my first Pathfinder character. He is a Paladin who is a Knight of the Dawnflower, a semi-religious group of peace keepers and high end law enforcers who answer directly to the kingdom's King. Nme'an himself has quite the backstory:

Nme’an was born to the daughter of a prominent leader of the Elven town near the human settlement of Brakton some twenty-eight years ago. Raised along side two older Elven brothers, he always had his mother’s love, but was never allowed to use her last name or that of his father. Though his mother would never admit it to him, the truth was Nme’an’s birth was a major embarrassment for her and her family line. She had been grieving the loss of her husband to illness when forced to accompany a trade delegation to the city of Thaleniel. One night of weakness with a charming Human who she would never see again, who’s name she would never even learn, was all it took.

Still, she was determined to give her newborn son a good life and used all of her remaining influence to shield him from the mistrust her fellow Elves typical directed to those of mixed race. She could only protect him for so long, though, and as he entered his second decade of life Nme’an began to feel the increasing tension between himself and his Elven peers. At the age of seventeen, having quietly endured years of carefully directed shuns and insults, Nme’an announced to his family that he would soon be leaving them. Where he would go and what he would do was unclear, but surely anything was better than tolerating a life of unspoken scorn. Then, just days after his announcement, his future laid itself before him.

A surprise Goblin raid from the bordering swamplands breached his town’s defenses forcing all its inhabitancies to flee or fight. Nme’an and his brothers fought. One of his brothers was slain by an arrow early in the battle, while the other was maimed by a vicious attack. Nme’an, however, fared remarkably well even though he rushed into battle with nothing more than a dull blade and a set of worn training armor he found in one of the town’s inner guard posts. He was knocked down twice, suffered a number of cuts and bruises, but for some reason none of the Goblins were able to land a decisive blow. Nme’an had never considered a life of fighting before, had never so much as held a real sword, and yet he somehow managed to fell four fully outfitted Goblin raiders before the raid was driven back.

Nme’an was hailed as a hero but soon found he could not accept the honor, or rather he could not abide the hypocrisy of his town’s newfound praise when just days before he had all but been an outcast to them. A month later he carried out his previous plans to leave, despite the protests of the town, his surviving brother, and his mother.

The next decade of Nme’an’s life were not as easy as he had hoped. The other Elven towns and villages he looked for work in wanted nothing to do with him, and the Humans, who he had higher hopes for, treated him only moderately better. Still, Nme’an persevered. He served where he could, learned to fight from whoever would teach him, and longed for a day where he might have the skill and opportunity to once again place himself between innocents and harm. He eventually found a home in the Human city of Thaleniel where his quiet, resilient demeanor and natural talent earned him a rising position among the town guard. More recently, Nem’an left his position with the town guard, having been hand picked to train with The Order of the Dawnflower. It was there he found the secret to his success against the Goblin attackers all those years ago. The goddess Sarenrae, whom The Order worships, had been watching over him all along, and now he is able to repay her.

The game Nme'an is a part of has been running for well over three years now and is nearing 3,000 total posts. There's some cool stories and happenings contained throughout the game but it'd be quite a lot of work to pull them out and set the context, so I'll post the one solid backstory piece I wrote for Nme'an separate from the main storylines.

In the main storyline, Nme'an and a few varied companions (we had a Paladin knight, a Druid with a tiger companion named Shark, a sneaky Rogue, and a powerful if rough tempered Barbarian) set out on a quest to save the life of their king. This story is set a few years earlier and was written to show some insight into the way Nme'an thinks and tries to teach.

The Thaleniel Guards

The sharp sounds of clashing metal ring out beneath one of the many tall, oil burning street lamps that intermittently light Thaleniel’s dark, southern warehouse district. Bathed in orange-tinted light, two figures, clearly engaged in combat, move and circle each other. They trade slashes, thrusts, blocks, and parries as their swords meet again and again. Eventually, one of the combatants gains an upper hand and drives the other back with a powerful stab.

”’The night shift will be easy coin’ they said…” seventeen year old Bidella Rimony mutters as she reels from the attack she barely managed to turn aside.

The young, strongly-built human woman is dressed in the lightweight rudimentary armor and headgear common to the capital city’s many guards, but given the state of combat, whatever she is guarding does not look like it will remain safe much longer. She gives a glance back to the stable she was assigned to watch, and even though her sword arm aches and she can’t quite catch her breath, she straightens her stance and readies her blade against her attacker once more.

”You are winded and soon be bested. Fighting on sees you injury-ed. What you do?” the half elf advancing calmly toward her asks.

”I would yell for help again,” Bidella answers. She cups her hands to her mouth and quietly makes a show of shouting to the left and right for help. ”…and then I would…” she pretends to hesitate as she checks her footing, ”…attack,” she very nearly yells for real as she springs forward towards her attacker.

The girl clearly has some skill with a blade as she feints and dodges past the answering swing that comes towards her. She has just enough time to catch the surprise on her attacker’s face before she begins a well executed heavy slash aimed at his left shoulder. A slash that is easily rebuffed by the light leather shield strapped to his left arm…

The half elf briefly looks down upon Bidella with disapproval, then takes a strong step forward and swipes his sword an inch from her face causing her to flinch sharply away. With her sword arm woefully out of position and her momentum already carrying her backward, it is an easy maneuver for her opponent to step up and shove her roughly to the ground. Bidella grunts in pain as her thin armor does little to soften her impact. Her sword clatters to the stone paved street beside her, but all she is aware of is the point of her opponent’s sword as it comes to a stop directly in front of her left eye.

”Wrong answer,” her attacker tells her. ”If you are outnumbered or outfought, you must run. Horses or jewelry or what you guard can all be gotten again. You cannot.” The blade near her face remains for another moment, emphasizing its holder’s point, before it is withdrawn, sheathed, and replaced by a helping hand.

”By the gods, Nme’an, do you have to be so rough?” Bidella asks as she takes his offered hand and pulls herself to her feet.

"I only am so so as to make clear your mistakes," the half elf, half again her age, responds firmly.

"It is hard to practice against you when I am so... wary... that you will punish my slightest mistake," the guard-in-training complains.

”We learn best by mistake, then avoiding it in the next time,” Nme'an replies.

”There is never any winning with you is there?” Bidella half laughs, half grumbles. In the two weeks since she’d joined the city guard, her assigned mentor had not once backed down from an instance where he thought he was correct. It certainly did not help that, so far, he almost always had been.

”Ok…” she sighs, ”What did I do wrong, then?”

”Aside from failing to retreat?” Nme’an first asks, so as to not let her forget his point. But, as quick as he is to chastise or roughly punish, he is just as quick to teach.

”You made a clever move but followed it by attacking my strongest side. You may very well done serious harm and won the fight if I had not held a shield. But I did. A battle is a string of moves from you pit to moves from the one you fight. Winning one round only to leave yourself two moves behind is no win at all.”

The teenage girl does her best to consider her teacher’s words as she picks up her weapon and begins acting out the final moves of their mock engagement in slow motion. She shakes her head as she stops her swing in the same position as when it made contact with her instructor’s shield, then starts the routine a second time.

Though her face is crestfallen at first, it lights up slightly as she acts out her surprise attack once more.

”You thought my move was ‘clever’?” she asks. A number of distant bells begin ringing out the new hour before her mentor can reply, but the small half smile that appears on his face tells her all she needs to know.

Soon, the bells complete their four rings, indicating the top of the fourth hour past midnight, and leave the moonlit city in silence once more.

”What do we do now?" Nme'an asks once their echoes fade.
The first time he had asked the question, on her first night of training some two weeks prior, she'd had no immediate answer and had been sent home for the night with a warning to know her duties. It was one mistake, at least, that she had learned from.

"We go on our rounds," Bidella answers confidently, earning herself a small nod from her trainer.

The two checked their equipment then proceeded down the partially lit street keeping close watch for any signs of trouble.

Sparks Clearpath was the second character I made for a Pathfinder game. I'd been playing Nme'an for a couple of years. He is a lot of fun to play, but he is also somewhat limited in the ways you can play him. As a good and honorable knight who answers to a higher authority and who is now (according to the game rules at least) immune to fear, there's not always as many directions for him to go in story wise as some other characters. He tends to be an honest deal maker who will use his authority and skill to right wrongs with the sharp edge of his blade when it become necessary.

Sparks was written almost in opposition to Nme'an's limitations. She is a realitively young Elven Ranger who was originally envisioned as having a much wider range of emotions. She was to have emotional highs of excitement and joy right along side lows of despair and disappointment. She was a good person fundamentally but also didn't have to be honorable at all times. Sparks official descriptionss are:

Appearance:
Though she has the look of a human girl in her late teens or early twenties, Sparks Clearpath's pointed ears, long white hair, and unusual dark eyes, with their bright flakes of orange and red, easily mark her as an elven maiden. As such, she is both slightly taller and slightly thinner than a human of equal apparent age, though a closer look would reveal that she is not unaccustomed to lengthy foot travel nor hard work. Humans almost naturally tend to see her as beautiful or elegant; her own kind, however, would not think her much more than average by their standards.

Sparks' longbow is so often with her that it too is almost a part of her appearance. Its hard, angular shape, save for the rounded wrapped grip near its center, strikes a unique silhouette whether it is across her back or in her hand. Accentuating the bow's unique design is a detailed painting of a long green and brown viper, coiling up the weapon's length.

Sparks Clearpath first appeared in the town of Sharlstown over twenty years ago at the beginning of the spring thaw. She came looking to trade the furs and crops on her small horse drawn cart for farming tools and other manufactured goods that neither she nor her mother nor father could easily make for themselves. People were wary of her at first for being a stranger and for the ornately decorated longbow she wore across her back, but they soon found they had little to worry about. Patient and quiet to a fault, though certainly good natured, the white haired elven maiden would only stay in town long enough to trade for the items she wanted before heading back into the nearby forest.

Though her activities brought relatively little to the town’s economy (the total size of her trades were never very large, she only ever bartered never wanting to deal in hard currencies, and she never so much as rented a room for the nights she was in town preferring to sleep in her cart and eat her own food instead) little by little Sparks built up a good reputation through her honesty and her generous dealings. For a time it was thought that Sparks was distinctly timeless. Those who were mere children when she first appeared grew up, got married, inherited their family’s businesses, and had children of their own all while she barely seemed to age. For most, dealing with Sparks Clearpath was like dealing with a lifelong friend. It came as quite a shock then when she disappeared!

Sparks always arrived with the coming of each new season. She always had and she always would, or so it was thought… until it did not happen. Her usual vendors began to look for her as a stormy winter transitioned to a lovely new spring but she never appeared. Spring passed to summer and then to fall and back to winter all without her presence. Slowly, it became apparent that she was not coming. A year passed and then another and another as rumors of her disappearance began to circulate. Some said she had been killed by animals in the forest. Others told how they were sure she had married, or gone to fight a war, or been arrested and executed. Some even claimed she was a spirit that had fulfilled it task and gone on its way. But everyone knew, deep down, that those rumors were just that and that she had vanished for some real reason. And that she was missed.

Now, some three years later, Sparks has reappeared. She walked into town with no horse, no cart, and only a handful of furs to trade. No longer looking to barter and leave, she now stays to seek out jobs and, in an unexpected change, only accepts hard currency and room and board in exchange for her work. Though still quiet and reserved, living among the town folks has seen her lower her guard if only somewhat. She seems more opinionated now than she ever was before even if some subjects, such as why it took her so long to return, are clearly off limits.

Over the last few weeks the people of Sharlstown have discovered what they long suspected about Sparks Clearpath: That she is a hard worker, a skilled hunter, and a kind if occasionally naive soul who has some talent for trade. Most would say they are blessed to have her in their town but privately there is a new wariness surrounding her. Why did she vanish? Why has she returned? And what is causing her to spend nearly every waking hour working herself ragged in exchange for the money she would hardly have touched just three years before?

While working on her backstory and motivation I came across the fun idea that she and most of her family were involved in a tragic fire that destroyed their home and left some of them badly injured. Sparks herself gained an unhealthy fear of fire that I got to play up at every opportunity in the main game. It got to the point that she would actively avoid campfire and even handheld torches and had begun to worry the other characters. Below are a few of her fun and varied backstory stories I wrote to further flesh her out over the year or two that her game ran.

This was the first of a couple of side stories that picked up on a small bit of Sparks' conversations about her past with the other characters and expanded and fleshed out a sentence or two of conversation into a full scene. Here, we have Sparks and her mother exploring the forest in which they live after a powerful storm had passed through. The bit of text that inspired this story was Sparks mentioning that she had a dead body before and was thus able to deal with seeing on several years later during the time the main story took place.

Ddaear

The storm had come and stayed and stayed and finally gone, but had left so much changed. To Mkali Moto Kipande Njia’yawzai's young eyes, each new downed tree, flooded lowland, and reshaped hill was an adventure that called, no demanded, to be explored. The eleven child, appearing no more than eleven or twelve human years of age, seemed only to know how to laugh and run as she carved a curving path from her parents' small, sturdy home. Trailing far behind, the child's long haired mother walked slowly, her steps somehow regal, her face calm but for an occasional smile at the antics of her offspring, as she too surveyed the damage the swirling winds had done during the long dark day and even darker night.

The scene proceeded as such for over an hour with few words spoken between mother and child, excepting when Mkali Moto Kipande would come running back with some curiosity in hand, eager to show it off and win some small amount of praise or rebuke from her parent.
Then came the odd stillness.

"Where have you gone, my child?" U'tulivu Nyeupe-nywele Malaika Njia’yawazi, called to the surrounding woods when the sounds of quickly moving feet and awed giggles did not soon resume.

"Mother, it is awful..." came her child's reply so very soft and sad.
For the first time in their morning outing, U'tulivu Nyeupe-nywele Malaika picked up her pace. Her regal, serene walk gave way to speedier movement far too elegant to be termed a mere run or dash. The worried parent soon slowed once more as she caught sight of her grief stricken child kneeling and crying on the now smooth, washed out slope of what had the day before been a notable hillside. Beyond her crouched form, bones and still decomposing flesh half emerged from the soft soaked soil.
U'tulivu Nyeupe-nywele's right hand moved to cover her mouth as her child turned and looked up to her with eyes made large and glistening by fear and despair.

"It is Ddaear," Mkali Moto Kipande informed her mother before she brought her own hand, shaking as it was with grief, up to her face forming a miniature mirror image of her mother.

U'tulivu Nyeupe-nywele knew the name well, better even than her daughter though the gnomish boy had been one of her child's closest friends. She had counseled the Dymestl-aeron family to allow her to attempt to heal their sickened eldest son, but very little could be done to dissuade gnomes of their traditions once their minds had been made. Ddaear had passed not two months before and both elven mother and daughter had attended his burial just weeks earlier.

"Do you remember, my only and dearest child, what you asked me the day he was laid to his final rest?" U'tulivu Nyeupe-nywele questioned gently as she moved closer.

The tiniest shake of a head was the only reply she received.

"You asked why we buried our departed. This is why,” the mother told her daughter. “Because the body rots once the soul has moved on. We respect the life that was but place the body out of sight so we can remember our friends as they were, not as their empty shells become.”

For a long while Mkali Moto Kipande sat and considered her mother’s words. Eventually her gaze returned to the remains of her friend only to be soon turned away once more by her mother’s gentle hand.

“I miss him,” she told her mother.

“I know. But it is not right for us to look upon him as he now is. Instead, we shall take a trip to Dymestl-aeron's and inform them of what has happened.”

Now, daughter and mother journeyed side by side, small fingers gripping tight to offered hand, in saddened silence.

This story was based on a comment Sparks had made about her childhood interactions with children of the Dymestl-aeron's, a family of Gnomes that lived nearby in the same forest as herself and her parents. We had a player (Quirel from around here and HBO) who had been amazing playing an old witty gnome with a great mix of cleverness and whimsy. This story was my attempt to capture some of that Gnomish whimsy and playfulness even while telling a story that still had some serious moments. Like the previous story, this one too is set decades before our main game story began.

The Dymestl-aerons and the Shinny Object

Sparks Clearpath continued along the unfamiliar forest trail before her, not at all sure of where she was being lead. Dressed in her soft, warm hunting gear with little more than a bow and a handful of arrows in a quiver across her back, she had, two hours ago, realized she was being hurried along to parts unknown during the clear, chilly morning. Ordinarily, she might have preferred a slower pace, but that wasn't an option, not with the Dymestl-aeron siblings keeping pace and encouraging her ever onward.

Somehow, her four Gnomish friends seemed to have no lack of energy, darting in and out of the foliage around her, even though they very nearly had to remain on the run for their short legs to keep up with her brisk walk. They were laughing and fighting and playing little games that Sparks was sure she'd never fully understand, even having observed them for the better part of two decades.

At a little over fifty years of age, Sparks was a good ten years older than Tân, the oldest of the Dymestl-aerons, though one could hardly tell, what with the differences in the two races heights and manners of aging. It was the most unapparent of facts that the four Gnomish brothers and sisters, who were only half Sparks' height, were all nearly considered adults while Sparks herself was only a few short years into her long transition to maturity.

"How much farther?" Sparks asked in elvish, addressing the four gnomes darting and scurrying around her. Even she was beginning to tire despite being as fit and at home among the trees of the forest as she was.

<"Somewhat!"> the white haired Gwynt answered with unhelpful cheer in Gnomish as she, and her long, hair breezed by.
<"It's too late to turn back now..."> Blue eyed Dŵr gushed.
<"You promised you'd help!"> Tân said, almost accusingly, so quick to anger, as always.
"Why do you care?" Galon asked sincerely in return, the only one of the four to reply in elvish, even though they had all learned to speak it years ago.

"We're getting pretty far out..." Sparks answered. <"And I will help, Tân, but I told my parents I would be back by nightfall.">

<"They will understand you had to keep moving forward,"> Dŵr insisted.
"Will they? I would think they would worry, they lov..." Galon inquired of his sister, his tone ever kind.

<"It doesn't matter now, 'cause we're here!"> Gwynt interrupted.

Here, it turned out, was a curious clearing that seemed to have no place so deep in the woods. There was no stream or river or solid, growth-impeding rock jutting out of the soil to block plant growth. It was only as she passed out of the tree line and into the bright sunlight that Sparks got her first hint as to the cause of the clearing. A dozen steps closer and she had her answer for sure. Though it was still a good twenty feet in front of her, she could now make out the rounded rocky lip of what had to be a massive vertical drop off. It was a large depression, at the very least, or maybe even a deep, deep sinkhole of some kind. Slowing her movements to careful, creeping steps, Sparks edged closer, eager to know more.

"Whoa..." she exclaimed as she reached the edge. Before her was no depression or minor sinkhole. No, somehow the Dymestl-aerons had found a huge, ten foot wide shaft of a cave that dropped almost one hundred feet straight down. Along the way were a multitude of outcroppings, divots, and patches of rock covered in moss or vines, but beyond a very good grip and a whole lot of rope, there was seemingly no safe way down... which is why Sparks was entirely unsurprised when she turned around to find her four smiling companions holding one of the longest lengths of sturdy rope she'd ever seen.

"No." Sparks told them at once. "Very much no... and where... how did you keep that rope hidden all this time?"

<"Magic?"> Gwynt asked, as if she too were unaware of the true answer. Her brothers and sister all nodded in unison, as they did an amusingly poor job of feigning tentative, unconvinced agreement.

"Fine, keep you secrets..." Sparks said, knowing she had no choice but to relent, at least on that point, "but there is still no way I'm going down there. Even with the rope. One false move and I'd be killed!"

"But look!" Dŵr replied, moving over to the cave's mouth. "Can you see it? At the very bottom?!"

"See what?" Sparks asked. She walked around the circular opening until the sun was at her back. She shielded her eyes from the bright, cloudless sky, but even then the deep shadows that covered the lowest parts of the cave made discerning much of anything impossible. Except... Sparks squinted harder and angled her head and... yes, there was something there. Something... "Glowing?"

"It's glowing fungus!" Galon explained.
<"It is a pool of moldy water."> <"No! It is a firebug,"> <"A mirror!"> the other three Gnomes disagreed all at the same time.

"So none of you know what it is but want me to risk going to find out?" Sparks asked once their explanations ceased.

The four Gnomes looked to each other for a moment, then in unison nodded and begged in their best Elven, saying: "Please? We just have to know!"

Sparks sighed. She turned back to the cave and began tracing a route from crag to outcropping to handhold. It looked...doable, and her friends had helped her with more and required far less... It was only fair that she try.

<"Okay, I'll do it,"> she answered in Gnomish, causing a small cheer to pass between them. "I want this tied double tight," she indicated as the four Gnomes jumped into action. Tân and Galon helped her with the rope while Gwynt and Dŵr scouted around for the best place for their Elvish friend to begin her descent.

<"There's a smooth patch of ground over here for the rope to slide over!"> Dŵr called out a few moments later.

When everyone was ready, and her four small friends had taken their positions in a line holding the rope, Sparks carefully lowered herself over the edge and began her long climb down. It was a slow, trick process, dealing with unyielding rock, crumbling dirt, and thin unhelpful plants. She'd spend minutes just testing her weight on the next ledge or next set of roots before proceeding. She slipped twice, but each time only dropped a few inches as the uncharacteristically quiet Dymestl-aerons did their jobs holding the rope. After nearly an hour of slow, tense work, Sparks was finally a few feet from the bottom.

"Let go, give me slack!" she called up. A second later she felt the tension on her safety rope fall away and was free to hop down to the cave floor. "I made it!" she called.

Above her, four small heads poked out over the edge of the drop off, each casting a comically large shadow on the sunlit section of the cave wall some seventy feet above Sparks' head.

<"Well? What is it?"> Tân's voice echoed down in impatient irritation.

<"Fungus?">
<"Water?">
<"A mirror?">
<"A fire bug??">

"No, none of those..." Sparks called back as she stooped down to inspect the glowing object before her. "It's... like a torch, alight... but not on fire...It seems about done for..." She smiled at the distant, excited chatter that filtered down from the Gnomes back up at the surface.

Taking a moment to really examine the dimly glowing torch, Sparks put it in her quiver along with her arrows then began her climb back up. In truth, she should have taken some time to rest, but the Dymestl-aerons' joy was so infectious that she'd forgotten just how much her arms and legs had been aching just a few minutes before.

Some twenty feet up, Sparks stretched to reach the next obvious handhold, only to find her other fatigued hand unable to keep its grip. For a long, desperate moment, Sparks felt her fingers slipping and slipping and slipping free, and then she was falling. One of the Dymestl-aerons must have remember their job though, because a moment later the rope went tight, causing her head and body to slam painfully into the cave wall. Dizzy, and in pain, Sparks felt herself being lowered back onto the cave floor. She shifted to lay on her back but when she clutched at her forehead her hand to came away wet with blood!

Sparks stared up at the circle of light coming in from the surface, but could hardly seem to move. Distantly, she was sure she could hear the cries of her friends, but answering them... it seemed... but she couldn't... to get her thoughts... line up properly...

Then, far above, she saw a small shape, complete with hands, feet, and long blowing hair, jump out over the mouth of the cave. Despite her throbbing, dizzy head, Sparks managed to it up in terror as she watched Gwynt... jump over the cave edge?! For seconds Sparks watched the insane Gnome fall down the center of the shaft, only to have a sudden gust of wind kick up along the cave floor. Sparks shielded her eyes from the sudden gust and a moment later there Gwynt was, kneeling by her side.

"Sparks? We're so sorry! Are you ok?"

"No... Not really," Sparks answered. "How..?"

"Magic." Gwynt replied, as if the answer was the most obvious thing in the world. "Can you hang on to the rope? We are going to pull you up."

Sparks nodded and, placing one hand above the other, weakly gripped the length of rope stretching upward before her.

<"Ok! Pull!"> Gwynt called up to her brothers and sister.

Inch by inch, Sparks felt herself being lifted out of the cave, even as Gwynt remained on the floor below. Sparks helped where she could, stretching out a hand or foot to push herself out away from the cave wall when it was necessary. At the cave's mouth several pairs of small hands helped pull her back up over the edge, and then...

...she must have walked back home along with the Dymestl-aerons, but Sparks could remember very little of the return trip. It was almost as if one minute she was being helped back into the noonday sunlight and the next, it was night time and her mother's worried arms were encircling her outside of their forest home.

"My child, you must not be so reckless! If you had hit your head any harder..." her mother scolded before trailing off. Not even she wanted to speak the dreadful words that would have finished the sentence. Instead, she placed a firm palm on her daughter's gashed forehead and closed her eyes.

Sparks shuttered slightly as her mother's powerful magic flowed into her. Sparks touched her hand to her forehead to find the gash completely gone and even her skin unscarred and healed good as new. She sobbed her apologies softly into her mother's shoulder and then was sent to her room for bed without supper as a punishment for putting herself in as much danger as she had.

It was only late into the night, when memories, good and bad, of the past days events kept playing out in her head, that Sparks realized one of the Gnomes had swiped her hard won magical torch!

It was going to be fun getting it back.

This story was written to show Sparks before her family's big tragedy. I wanted to show her out in the world and interacting with people, some of which were referenced in the main storyline some twenty years later.

The Failed Scheme

The constant, repeating sounds of her horse’s slow trot and her wagon’s four rotating wheels fell silent as Mkali Moto Kipande Njia’yawazi came to a sudden stop. A smile formed on her lips and she breathed a small, satisfied sigh of relief as she stood and gazed into the distance. Far ahead, only just peaking around the curve of the soft green ridge the elven maiden had been following all morning, was the first signs of a tall wood-planked wall.

The wall, no more than two miles distant, belonged to her destination, the city of Sharlstown, a place she had never been. Though she’d had complete confidence she would find the city early on the third day of her journey, she had exactly followed her parents directions as well as the map she’d bought in the city Dutos after all, Mkali Moto Kipande could not help feel that small wave of relief in seeing for herself that the city actually was where it should have been.

“N’guvu!” Mkali Moto Kipande exclaimed with a laugh as her horse pushed its muzzle past her long straight white hair to playfully lick at her ear. “Ok, ok, we’ll keep going,” she said in mock surrender as she lovingly rubbed its head in reply.

The sounds of travel picked up again, just a little bit faster now, as Mkali Moto Kipande started on her final push. More of the wall quickly showed itself as she emerged from between the two hills that had flanked her since the evening a day ago. Soon, the city’s gate and the still considerable stretch of road that led to it became visible. There were other walkers and riders on the road, a couple of wagons too, most heading towards the city gate like she was. It was an odd feeling, having to balance her excitement of soon arriving some place new with her patience of still being a good three quarters of an hour away, but somehow Mkali Moto Kipande managed.

That three quarters hours passed quickly and Mkali Moto Kipande now found it was uncertainty that weighted opposite her excitement as she neared the gate. The two guardsmen who’d first looked no bigger than nearby bees now loomed on either side of the entry way. They studied her with unconcerned expressions as she approached. When she got close one of them moved from his spot and walked out to meet her.

“Stop there, please,” he said to her in a friendly kind of tone when she was within an arrow’s shot of the wall. Mkali Moto Kipande complied and stood, holding her breath, as the guard walked up to greet her.

“Welcome to Sharlstown. May I have your name and your intensions, Miss?” he asked her.

“My name is Sparks Clearpath and I have come to trade,” Mkali Moto Kipande Njia’yawzai answered confidently.

“Where did you journey from, Miss Clearpath?" the guard asked as he walked past her to inspect her wagon.

“From my home in the woods near Dutos.”

“That’s quite the bow you have. And you’ve brought more, I see?” the guard asked as he stepped on onto the side of Mkali Moto Kipande’s wagon to inspect its content.

“Yes sir, I am hoping to trade them or sell them and the furs there for glass panes and steel door hinges, mostly,” Mkali Moto Kipande answered. Though a little nervous, she’d been through similar inspections with her parents and by herself several times before when entering Dutos. So far, things were proceeding normally, to her relief. ‘It is funny how different it feels, being so much farther from home!’

“And Dutos could not provide you with such?” the guard asked.

‘A fair question,’ Mkali Moto Kipande thought calmly before answering. “I’m certain it could, but I had long heard of Sharlstown but never seen it. This seemed as good a chance as any,” she explained.

“Really?” The guard asked after he’d finished his brief inspection. Mkali Moto Kipande stood just a bit straighter at his question. His voice… it didn’t sound suspicious exactly, but there was an extra note of interest that had not been present in his other questions. “And you would be what, fifty five or so?”

“Fifty six, sir.” Mkali Moto Kipande answered, impressed he had guess her age so closely. Judged by appearances alone most would wager she were nearing twenty years of age, and would guess in the thirties if they thought they knew something about elves. But this guard apparently did know a good bit about her people and how slowly they aged.

“All right, Miss. Clearpath, everything checks out. You are aware there is a entry tax of three silver?”
“Three? I was told it was one…” Mkali Moto Kipande said, trying to keep complaint and surprise from her voice.

She felt for her coin purse and frowned, knowing she had only brought seven old silver coins along with a handful of copper ones. Her family was almost entirely self sufficient and most times had little use for human currency. Even her parents had needed to scrounge around to locate the few higher value coins she had brought with her.

“It was one and probably will be again soon,” the other guard chimed in as he came froward from his posting near the wall. He’d apparently been close enough to hear her question. Or maybe he’d just recognized her expression? “But the city raises it temporarily when money gets tight,” the guard said sympathetically.

“You picked an unfortunate week to come visit, I’m sorry to say,” the first guard added.

Mkali Moto Kipande sighed as she pulled out the required three coins. “I usually have better luck,” she told the two guards as she forced a smile.

“I’m sure you do,” the first guard replied kindly as he accepted the fee. “Is there anything we can help you with? Direction and the like?”

“There is,” Mkali Moto Kipande replied. “I was told to seek out Cunningham Glass Blowers about the glass panes I am looking for. That he and his sons are the best in town and that his son Travis likes to hunt.”

“That he does!” The second guard said with a hearty laugh. “Drive his father crazy with it, his hunting, too, that lad!”

“I’m sure he’d love to see one of those bows of your though if they are half as good as the look,” the first guard said. “You’ll want to head straight in then turn left on the second street after ‘The Hole’ tavern. Head down a ways and you can’t miss Cunningham’s on your right.”

“Thank you! That’s a big help!” Mkali Moto Kipande said happily.

“You have a good day, Miss Clearpath,” the first guard told her as he and his partner moved out of the road and returned to their posts.

“And you,” Mkali Moto Kipande replied before she pulled at N’guvu’s reins and passed through the open doorway into the new and unfamiliar city.

Walking slowly, horse and wagon following behind her, Mkali Moto Kipande took in all that she could. Sharlstown both was and was not what she had been expecting. In broad strokes, it felt a good deal like Dutos. The main street she was on was about the same width, the buildings to her left and right shared a similar human-built style and were about the same height. Most everything had the same variations on the color brown with few accents, same as Dutos. And yet, for a town so similar at first glance it felt almost completely different.

There were people about, going about their morning business, but fewer of them and they moved with just slightly less urgency. The sounds around Mkali Moto Kipande were familiar, too. People talking. Doors opening and closing. Wood being chopped and metal being hammered. But… it was all a little quieter and a little… not more distant in actuality… but that’s what it felt like. It felt as if she were in some out of the way corner of Dutos and the sounds of the city were straining to reach her. That relative lack of noise made her own horse and wagon and even footsteps seem just a little louder in her mind.

Still, it had been the promise of the smaller town that had drawn her tens of miles from home. And, it wasn’t as if Sharlstown was a disappointment. Already it had its own charm. The main road was only packed dirt instead of the stone tile work three of Dutos’ main streets shared. And the way the people around her stopped to look as she passed by was new and intriguing. One youthful young woman playing vigorously at her fiddle stopped momentarily to wave, a gesture which Mkali Moto Kipande returned in kind. Another hurried couple took a short moment to cock their head her way before hurrying into a nearby shop.

‘Yes, Sharlstown would be an interesting place to return to,’ Mkali Moto Kipande thought, ‘that is, if she could afford the entry fees…’

Soon, Mkali Moto Kipande came across a small tavern with a somewhat newer appearance that the buildings surrounding it. Above its door was a sign that read “The Hole” the name of the landmark the entry guards had instructed her to look for. She continued on past one street then guided N’guvu onto the narrower path to her left. With the way the buildings blocked the still rising sun the small side street felt a good deal like one of Dutos’ alleyways, Mkali Moto Kipande mused. Not a minute later she came across a good sized shop with large, clean windows and an elaborate sign made of blown glass fitted with, and intriguingly illuminated by, a collection of small orange glowing lanterns.

“Cunningham,” Mkali Moto Kipande said, reading the glowing glass letters aloud. This had to be the place! She continued a short way past the shop’s entryway to a hitching post. With N’guvu secured, she retrieved a second bow from the back of her wagon, then took in and released a breath to calm her nerves before she pushed her way through the heavy wooden door.

Inside, the front half of the shop was clearly set up as something of a showcase of goods. Glassware cups and bowls of various sizes and colors gleamed and sparkled, reflecting the glow of hanging lamps above while a row of sample window designs to the left and a wide variety of lanterns and lamps and plates to the right each pulled at Mkali Moto Kipande’s attention. Samples of all kinds stretched back along the straight walls where they ended halfway into the shop. It was there that the display section stopped and the work area started, complete with benches and tools and two large, roaring fireplaces who’s heat Mkali Moto Kipande could feel even in the entryway. There in the back a large man worked a billows as his gloved hands handled a long pole with a molten glass shape fitted to the end. Mkali Moto Kipande was about to call out to him when a sudden clatter of shaking glass drew her attention back close.

“Are you… are you here to rob us?” asked a young boy no more than perhaps fifteen years of age. He had obviously gently bumped into one of the shelves displaying a row of plates when he’d seen her and now stared with his mouth agasp. Mkali Moto Kipande quickly recognized his question for what it was, realizing that she must look quite the sight in her toughened leather outfit with a hunting knife and quiver of arrows at her sides and two bows, one across her back and a second held (non-threateningly) in her hand.

“Travis!” the man working the fires and glass called loudly in a gruff voice from the back.

“Sorry…” the boy apologized sheepishly. “Welcome to Cunningham Glass Blowers. I am Travis Cunningham. Is there anything with which I could help you with?” he asked, his routine sounding only slightly over rehearsed.

“You can,” Mkali Moto Kipande said reassuringly. “I have come looking to have cut window panes custom ordered.”

“Can… May I?” Travis asked, ignoring her reply. He was looking intently now to the longbow Mkali Moto Kipande held in her left hand.

She smiled and held it out for him. The boy grabbed it immediately on end, but then, to his credit, flipped it around so that it faced the correct direction and pulled back on the string as if he had a notched arrow. His form and technique, while not flawless, clearly spoke to his having loosed many a bow before.

“Who made this for you? It must have cost you… a lot more than I make…” he said appreciatively.

“The cost was only my time and a bit of hard work. I made it myself,” Mkali Moto Kipande replied before turning at the approach of heavy footsteps. Now it was her turn to stare as the man who had been at the back of the shop towered above even her. She was considered tall among most humans, but was a head shorter than the man who now stood before her.

“My son is right. The bow is very good quality,” the man said after taking it from the boy. It looked more like a short bow than the longbow it was when held in his hands. “I’m guessing you want to trade it for something?”

“Um…” Mkali Moto Kipande said as her mind failed to find the words she had intended to say.

“She is looking to have window glass custom made,” Travis ended up replying for her.

“Ah! What sort of windows, Miss…?”

“Mkali Moto Kipande Njia’yawzai… is my name. But you may call me Sparks Clearpath,” Mkali Moto Kipande replied, finding her voice once more. “My family and I are constructing a new home of my father’s design and the front foyer calls for two sets of double windows with panes three feet two inches by seven feet five inches.”

“All for this bow?” the man asked jokingly.

“No,” Sparks said, letting through a friendly laugh of her own. “I brought nineteen more as well as an equal number of well made quivers and a few arrows for each. I also have a variety of fine furs and pelts."

“I don’t need all that,” the man replied flatly, his smile gone.

“No… but… but others will. I do not anticipate having any problem paying for my order,” Makli Moto Kipande said, trying to reassure the man.

For a moment no one spoke. Mkali Moto Kipande felt as if she were holding her breath even if it were not strictly true. Finally, after a short eternity, the man cracked a smile and said, “The name is Trevor. Trevor Cunningham. Bring in two more of your best bows as downpayment and we can talk the exactlys of these windows of yours.”

There was to be another part to this story, where Sparks and her new found business partner would have later uncovered the entry gate guards' scheme to overcharge inexperienced travelers a higher than usual entry fee. In particular, the son Travis would have overheard one of the guards bragging about the profit he made that day at the expense of a dumb elven traveler and eventually Travis, his father, and Sparks would have confronted the guards. The key line of the story would have been where Trevor demanded to know if the guards were accusing his sone of lying at which point the guards would have folded and returned the excess fee they stole from Sparks back to her.

This was a very different sort of thing I tried on a whim late into the morning one night. I wanted to see if I could show the passage of time through conversation alone. I also wanted to have the characters speed entirely for themselves with no description of who was talking. Each brief conversation takes place on a different year that Sparks visited the Cunninghams, and the story as a whole is counting down from the time of The Failed Scheme to the beginning of our main story. The other numbers show the ages of each speaker and with careful reading will let you confirm the identity of each speaker year to year. It was a fun experiment and I think it largely worked, even if it might be a bit harder for people to follow along

The Passage of Years

20 | 15, 56
“Welcome to Cunningham Glass Blowers. I am Travis Cunningham. Is there anything with which I could help you with?”


“Mkali Moto Kipande Njia’yawzai… is my name. But you may call me Sparks Clearpath,”

19 | 16, 57

“Welcome to Cunningham… oh, it’s you!”


“Hello, Travis. Is your father around? We broke a pane and I need to talk to him about replacing it.”

18 | 17, 58

“Miss Clearpath! Over here! It’s nice to see you once again!”


“And you, Travis! I will make sure to stop on by your shop later to greet you and your father properly!”

17 | 59, 18

“Good morning, Travis. It is a pleasure to meet you once again. And you have continued to grow! It seems you are taller every season and every year!”


“And each year you remain the same. Still… beautiful.”

16 | 60, 41

“Travis? … Travis? Mr. Cunningham? Are one of you here somewhere?”


“Travis! We have customers! Damn that boy… I’m sorry, Miss Clearpath, my son seems to have forgotten his duties in favor of chasing after that Melinda…”

15 | 61, 20

“Greetings once again, Travis. Or should I say Mr. Cunningham now. You look so much like a young version of your father now.”


“No, I couldn’t have you call me that, Miss Clearpath. It would be like we did not know each other.”


“Well, seeing that we do, I would think you should know me as ‘Sparks’ by now."


“Indeed. It is nice to see you again, Sparks.”

14 | 21, 62

“Back again so soon, Sparks?”


“Yes, a boar damaged… oh my! What happened to your eye?!” 
“This? A man was cat calling to Melinda and would not stop.


“Oh? Oh! I should hope he looks even worse?”


“No… not really. But Melinda kissed it afterward and it doesn’t really even hurt anymore!”

13 | 63, 44

“Good afternoon, Mr. Cunningham. Is Travis off today?”


“Ha. You could say that, Miss Clearpath. My son and his wife have gone to Dutos and will not be back for a week.”


“Wife? Melinda?! That is terrific news! You will have to relay my regards to him and her when they return!”

12 | 20, 64, 1

“Good morning, welcome to Cunningham Glass Blowers. Is there anything at all I can assist you with?”


“Good morning. Are you by chance Melinda?


“I am, and you must be the Miss Clearpath Travis has spoken so highly of.”


“Sparks, if you please. And who might this be?”


“This is Tamantha. We call her Tam. Can you wave hi Tam?” 
“Gaaaa!”

11 | 2, 65, 24

“Welcm to glass blows!”


“Oh, good afternoon, Tam. My, look how big you have gotten.


“Hasn’t she? It is nice to see you again, Sparks.”


“And you, Travis. I can hardly believe it, how big your daughter has grown!”


“Neither can I. And we have another coming!”

10 | 3, 25, 66

“Daddy! Daddy!”


“Oh… hello Sparks…”

“Travis? What has happened? What is wrong?”


“Melinda… and the baby… neither of them made it…”


“Oh… Ohhhh Travis, I am so sorry… I hardly know what to say.”

9 | 4, 67

“Spaaarrrrkks!”


“Why hello, Tam! Where is your father?


“He… he’s helping grandpa with the glass. (I can’t go back there by the fire…)


“You can if you are with me. Here, take my hand.”

8 | 68

Thank you for stopping by Cunningham Glass Blowers. I regret to inform you that due to my father’s illness our shop is currently closed. We hope to reopen soon but do not yet have a date in mind. — Travis Cunningham

7 | 6, 69, 28

“Good morning! Welcome to Cunninghams Glass Blowers. I am Tam Cunningham. Is there anything with which I could help you?”


“Hello, Tam. You know, your father used to say the exact same thing when I first met him!”


“She does it better than I ever did. She puts all of her effort into it. It is good to see you, Sparks.”


“I’m sure you did just as well when you were a child, Travis.”


“No, I really didn’t. I was far too interested in playing outdoors while Tam, here, is very much the young shop owner.”

6 | 7, 70, 29

“Hello Sparks… Grandpa is… gone now, but... We are still open!”


“I’m very sorry to hear that, Tam. Are you all right?”


“Yes. I get sad sometimes though.”


“Sparks? Sparks, it is so good to see you…”


“And you, Travis. Tam told me about your father. Is there anything I can do?”


“We are ok, just a little sad. If you have time later, would you visit him with me?”


“Of course, Travis. Of course I will.”

5 | 71, 8, 30

“Hello, Tam! Hello, Travis!”


“Sparks!”


“It’s good to see you again. You missed a season.”


“I know. We were all so busy and I could not get free. I am still busy, but I could not come and not say hello.”

4 | 72, 31, 9

“Hello, Travis. How have you been?”


“Quite well. And yourself?”


“Well, as well.”


“Do you have it?”


“I do. I think she will enjoy it.”


“Oh, it’s beautiful. And I love the painting you did! Tam! Tam, come here! Sparks is here and she made something just for you!”

3 | 32

It has been almost a year now since I have seen my good friend, the Elf Sparks Clearpath. Twice or three times she has been delayed or skipped a season entirely, but never has she not come for an entire year. I worry about her now as does Tam on occasion.

2 | 33

Checking back to the year before, as I do, I am again saddened to note I still have not seen Sparks. In many ways, her continued absence is more troubling than Melinda’s or my fathers. Friends, family, and acquaintances come and go, live and die. But Sparks, more than any Elf I have known, seemed timeless. Perhaps because I so seldom saw her and yet she always remained so unchanged. Now, I have not seen her for two years and my heart aches almost the same way when I think of others I have lost.

1 | 34

Somehow conversation turned to Sparks Clearpath today. One of the men from the 458 claimed to have seen her recently. Another claimed to have news that she had been arrested, tried, and hung for murder or theft in Dutos. I told the second one off quite angrily, Sparks would never do such a thing, and the first soon backed away from his story. It has been three years since I last saw my Elven friend. Even Tam rarely mentions her now. 


0 | 13, 76, 35

“Hello, welcome to… Sparks? Sparks!!!


“Hello… Tam…”


“Father! Father! It’s Sparks! Father! Sparks is here!”


“Sparks?! … Sparks, it’s so good to see you again. You look… Sparks? What happened to you? Where have you been and what has happened to you?”


“Travis. I… I need your help.”

This is the story of what happened to Sparks and her family. Of what cause her to be so afraid of fire that she would not go near a lit fireplace or burning torch in the main game. It also lays out her motivotation for seeking adventure. It was a lot of fun to play Sparks for a good year or more with her fears of fire manifesting themselves in various way while the other players could only guess what was wrong with her. Eventually everything came together and she told part of this story within the game. Once again, this story was something of an expansion of the smaller scene Sparks had painted to the other players.

The Fateful Storm:

Mkali Moto Kipande Njia’yawazi awoke to the unsettling feeling of her entire home shaking around her!

Still suspended somewhere between her dreams and full wakefulness, the young elven woman opened her eyes in alarm at... at what?! The only sources of sound or movement were the roaring flames and the dancing back and forth shadows that they cast from the fireplace before her.

“Maybe it had been nothing?’ she thought. But then the loud rumbling returned and the glass windows in the foyer to her right began rattling in their frames!

Mkali Moto Kipande attempted to sit up from against the foot of her family’s living room sofa only to find she could hardly move. She was pinned, not by fear or injury, but by her younger sister who had snuggled halfway on top of her in order to share the soft, warm blanket she’d wrapped herself in earlier that evening. The rumbling around the two of them intensified further until it felt as if the house might shake itself apart/ Mkali Moto Kipande gripped the edge of the blanket tightly with one hand and braced for something bad to happen… only for the rumbling to quickly echo off into the distance leaving a still silence in its wake.

‘It was only thunder,’ Mkali Moto Kipande realized, laughing gently at herself, only to then flinch an instant later as a distant bolt of lightening appeared far past the kitchen windows to her left.

The bright, enigmatic display of power forked down from the dark night sky to the forest treetops below and lit the rooms around Mkali Moto Kipande in a harsh blue glow as the bolt lingered, strobing in place for a moment, before it winked out just as quickly as it had appeared. A new wave of thunder rolled in just in time for the next flash of lighting to streak into existence. Over the next few minutes the distant flashes moved ever closer and the waves of thunder came ever sooner. Before long, the lightening and thunder was joined by a steady heavy rain that swept in as a single impressive wave.

The storm which had been lingering out past the overcast horizon for the past couple of days was finally rolling in, but aside from her brief, post slumber startle, Mkali Moto Kipande wasn’t worried. She’d been through this kind of thing many times before. Warm and content in front of the nearby fire, with her sister sleeping sweetly against her side, Mkali Moto Kipande leaned back against the sofa and watched in ceaseless wonder. Soon, the sky remained lit more often than it was allowed to grow dark, and loud, sharp, immediate cracks of thunder took the place of the comparatively gentle rumbles she’d felt earlier. The heavy rain hammered the roof and pelted the windows while gusts of wind whistled through the forest outside and buffeted the walls of sturdy home Mkali Moto Kipande had watched her parents build two decades before, back when she herself had been well and truly young.

“Wha..?” Mkali Moto Kipande’s sister asked drowsily a few minutes later as a particularly loud crash of thunder shook the house and finally woke her from her post supper slumber. She raised her head from the comfortable spot it had found resting on her older sister’s stomach only to quickly bury it again as a nearby bolt of lightening flashed before her wide, frightened eyes.

“It’s all right, Inapita Sasa. It’s just the storm we knew was coming,” Mkali Moto Kipande answered as she stroked her fingers soothingly though her sister’s shorter walnut colored hair. “Sshhhh, it’s ok,” Mkali Moto Kipande repeated as more thunder had her sister grabbing hold of her waist and whimpering quietly into her shirt.

Inapita Sasa was some twenty-six years of age now and had already started her long journey chasing her older sister towards adulthood. She too had certainly been through similarly powerful storms before, but at times like this Mkali Moto Kipande could not blame her for reacting like the child she still by and large resembled.

The storm raged around the Njia’yawazi sisters for well over an hour before the heavy rain and strong gusting winds began to die down. Mkali Moto Kipande moved to get into a more comfortable position, but there still wasn’t much she could do with her sister draped over her. They’d been in the same spot since they had concluded their celebratory family dinner some three or four hours before and her lack of movement had begun to take its toll on Mkali Moto Kipande’s neck, legs and back. Inapita Sasa had even fallen asleep once more despite the waining storm. She looked so peaceful that Mkali Moto Kipande delayed waking her for a time but eventually she simply had to move.

“Sit up, Sasa. You’re hurting me,” Mkali Moto Kipande whispered to her sister as she gently rocked her awake.

Her sister groaned and almost went to asleep again, but reluctantly rolled fully onto the floor… after playful shifting more of her weight onto her older sister first, of course. Apparently unsatisfied with her new position, Inapita Sasa sat up so her back rested against the sofa, just as her older sister’s did. A few moments later she leaned over so that her soft cheek and heavy head found their way to her big sister’s warm shoulder. This new position would not remain comfortable for long, either, Mkali Moto Kipande knew, but she could not help but smile at the tenderness of the moment.

‘…me and my sister, quiet and warm and cozy in front of the fire…’

“The storm is ending, it is time for bed you two,” Mkali Moto Kipande heard her mother’s soft voice say from somewhere off to her left a short time later. She looked around, but did not spot anyone until she noticed her mother’s beautiful long white hair move past the dining room window.

‘How long had she been watching us and the storm? All along?’ Mkali Moto Kipande wondered with a small smile.

“Time for bed,” her mother said again as she gently separated her younger daughter from her older one’s side.

Thankful for the help, Mkali Moto Kipande extracted herself from the tangled blanket and stretched long and tall before moving over to the fireplace’s hearth. The fire was still roaring with life even though she had built it four or maybe five hours ago. In truth, she’d probably built it too big in response to a long, hard day’s work helping her father out in the cold, but it felt great in contrast to the chilly air that had greeted her as soon as she’d pulled free of her blanket. Mkali Moto Kipande held her hand and arm out near the fire for a long moment, basking in its heat, before drawing back as the heat began to sting her finger tips. She drew her hand away then moved back to the edge of the hearth where the temperature was a bit more reasonable.

“I want to sleep down here tonight,” Inapita Sasa complained over by the sofa as her mother worked ineffectively to get her to stand. Mkali Moto Kipande could not help but laugh.

“There might be more storms to come, Sasa,” Mkali Moto Kipande chimed in, but her sister held tight to the covers that were now wrapped around her body and refused to move.

“All right,” their mother said, relenting. “But I do not want you too close to that fire,” she said to her younger daughter while giving her older one a decidedly incredulous look.

“…I’ll clean it up first thing in the morning,” Mkali Moto Kipande confirmed, before quickly looking away from her mother’s disapproving gaze. She rose and pulled the heavy, cast iron screen in front of the fireplace then tried to angle past her mother but was unable to resist being pulled into a loving hug.

“You did good today. I know you would have rather been off hunting or exploring these last weeks, but your father was very grateful for your help,” her mother whispered lovingly into her ear.

Mkali Moto Kipande returned her mother’s embrace then pulled away and continued on to the straight staircase built into living room’s back wall. She quietly scaled the twelve steps that led to the short hallway that, along with her room on one side and her sister’s on the other, made up the entirety of their house’s second floor.

A long rumble of rolling thunder to the southwest drew her tired eyes to her small window once she’d climbed the stairs and entered her room. The streaks of lightening that flashed far in the distance seemed to confirm her prediction of the approach of a second wave of storms, but by now Mkali Moto Kipande’s fatigue of a hard day’s… month’s… work had caught back up with her and she was too tired to give the idea much care. She climbed into her cool, welcoming bed and within minutes found her dreams once more.

***

Mkali Moto Kipande drifted back awake some minutes or hours later to a strange, pungent smell. At first, she thought maybe an animal had died somewhere nearby. A bird that had found its way inside, maybe? But there was something more to it, something… sweeter… that nagged at her in the darkness of her room. Wood? Was somebody cooking downstairs? In the middle of the night?

The odor itself was odd enough, but even stranger were the solitary little specks of hot, irritating dust that kept finding their way into her mouth and nose with every few breaths she took. She tried to ignore it all, at first, but soon found that she could not. Every time she would near sleep she would be jolted back to wakefulness! Fed up, Mkali Moto Kipande sat upright in her bed, thoroughly perplexed by the strangely warm air she tasted around her. It was still dark outside, and still raining, but the lightening and thunder had passed on by… Or so she thought until a muffled crash shook her room!

“That was not thunder!” she told herself, now fully awake.

Whatever it had been had sounded more like a tall tree crashing to the ground. Or maybe it had felt like one hitting the house? Still more curious than worried, Mkali Moto Kipande slipped out of her bed oddly thankful she had not taken the time to change out of her sturdy work clothes. She took a few moments to properly lace her ragged shoes the opened the door to her bedroom and… nearly choked on the hot, foul air that rushed in past her. Her eyes went wide as the smell that had been so hard to place hit her full force. The air was hot and thick and smelt of wood and ash and smoke and… FIRE?!

‘The house is on fire!’ Mkali Moto Kipande realized as she slipped into a panic.

For a brief moment, all she could do was recall the tragic scene of the burnt out home she had seen years before, during one of her family’s trading trips to the nearby city of Dutos. The townspeople had told of how the bucket brigade had formed in time to prevent the fire from spreading. Of how they might have very well saved that section of the city. But how the family trapped inside, a husband and wife and their children, had, tragically, not survived. The thought that her family might soon suffer the same fate pulled Mkali Moto Kipande back to the present and pushed her out into the hallway that separated her room from her sister’s.

“Wake up Sasa!” Mkali Moto Kipande called out as she reached for her sister’s door.

Not waiting for a response, she began to turn the handle. That it was hot to the touch did not register in her mind until well after she had begun to push the door inwards, but by then it was too late. A swell of smoke and fire swirled then surged out into the hallway with enough force to slam the door shut even as it knocked Mkali Moto Kipande backward into her own door frame. It was all she could do to remain standing after the harsh, unexpected impact.

Mkali Moto Kipande could hardly see, her eyes were watering so badly, but the realization that her sister was trapped with those flames pushed her forward once more. She sank low and braced herself this time before attempting to push the door open. Fire and smoke again briefly rushed out into the hallway, but Mkali Moto Kipande pushed through it only to have her heart broken when she opened her eyes.

“Inapita Sasa!” Mkali Moto Kipande half screamed, half sobbed, not willing to believe the scene in front of her.

Before her, her sister’s room was fully ablaze and had been for multiple minutes. The wood paneled walls were all but consumed, her sister’s oak desk and dresser had both already collapsed and been torn apart by the flames, and there was smoke pouring up through a large hole to the left of her sister’s burning bed. Mkali Moto Kipande wanted to believe she was trapped in a nightmare, but, rationally, she knew that she was not. But… there was no body! Mkali Moto Kipande checked a second time. Her sister’s room was all but destroyed, but her sister was not in it…

‘She had wanted to sleep downstairs!’ Mkali Moto Kipande remembered. ‘Please have let her slept downstairs…’ she pleaded before pulling back out of the doomed room.

She turned to the nearby stairway but could not seem to take the necessary steps forward. She had been so worried about her sister she had somehow missed the column of smoke and glowing embers that rolled up the slanted ceiling above the stairwell. The thick black clouds billowed up towards her before spilling out onto the wider hallway ceiling overhead. Mkali Moto Kipande clenched her fist and summoned her courage the forced herself to move to the top of the stairs only to cover her mouth at the sight she saw.

What had been her way down to a new, promising day each morning and her way up to the comfort of a good night’s rest each evening now looked more like a passage descending down into hell itself! Many of the stairs had been been blackened by soot or ash while a dozen small streams of smoke were pouring out from cracks up and down the supporting wall to her left. Worse, the floor below that should have been too dark to easily make out was disturbingly visible, lit orange-red by the constantly shifting light of unseen fires.

Mkali Moto Kipande hesitated. The staircase was her only way to safety, she knew that, but already she could feel the heat carried upward by the smoke. How much worse would it be down at ground level among the flames themselves? Another loud crash shook the floor beneath her feet and the entire house seemed to try to lurch out from under her. The thought that the house might come down around her spurred Mkali Moto Kipande back into action.

“All I have to do is make it outside. I’ll be fine no matter what happens as long as I make it outside…” she told herself before she took one last clear breath and started her descent.

She moved quickly, surefooted even amongst the heat and smoke, but Mkali Moto Kipande knew she was in trouble from her very first step. What had always been a solid, sturdy staircase creaked and shifted as soon as she put her weight onto it. The wall to her left groaned under the added stress and the smoke that had been streaming from multiple points was quickly joined by small licks of fire as what unburned material remained within the damage wall caught fire.

Mkali Moto Kipande grabbed hold of the railing to her right, sure the stair beneath her feet was about to break way, but instead the entire staircase broke free of the gutted wall with a long sickening crack and smashed apart on the hard floor below. Mkali Moto Kipande hit the ground hard then screamed in silent agony as a large section of the staircase crushed her right ankle. She could actually hear the meaty snap as her bones broke!

For the first few moments Mkali Moto Kipande was unable to think, she was in so much pain. But the pain in her leg quickly gave way to the stinging heat she felt on her face, arms and legs. Forcing her eyes open, all she could see were the flames that surrounded her with only glimpses of the fireplace where she’d built her large fire visible between them. Horrifyingly, the thick metal screen, with its curving, flowery patterns, was not where she had placed it. Instead, it had fallen… no… it had been pushed outwards and off the brick hearth. And there on the scorched floor, past the screen, was what could only have been the charred ash of spent firewood.

‘Am I responsible for this? Did I destroy my home and kill my family?!’ Mkali Moto Kipande asked herself as the heat from the nearby fires began to scald her face.

She coughed and choked on the fumes and screamed at the pain and pulled her legs up to her chest as instinct forced her to curl into a ball in one last, ineffective attempt to protect herself from the burning heat surrounding her.

‘It hurts! It hurts it hurt it hurts it hurts!’ Mkali Moto Kipande cried out in her own mind until the pain became so overwhelming that even her thoughts were pushed aside. Her only instinctual hope now was that the pain would come to an end… and then it did… though not in the way she expected.

The intense heat that had been smothering her lungs and eating at her skin and bones vanished in an instant. A moment later, a familiar surge of energy passed through her body and the pain from both her grievous burns and smashed leg was simply gone! Somewhere, deep within her overwhelmed mind, a memory surfaced of how it had felt to jump into a cool lake on a hot summer day.

For a time, Mkali Moto Kipande relived that jump from the tall grassy hill down to the swimming hole below. She squinted into the blinding sun, and felt the hot grass crunch beneath her bare feet as she ran. Her mind latched on to the warm whistling air that blew her long white hair back away from her face as she jumped and fell towards the water below. She clung to the memory of the sudden forceful upward jolt of the water as it broke her fall and enveloped her within its shockingly cool, movement restricting weight. Mkali Moto Kipande hung there for a long moment within the cool waters of her memories then went to open her eyes expecting the see the muted browns and greens typical of the murky lake, only to find herself back in the hell that was the burnt remnants of her house with… with her mother’s burned and bloody face unmoving inches above her own!

Initially, Mkali Moto Kipande tried to recoil away, but there was no where to go. Pinned on her back, she could see rain clouds through the debris above her mother and herself, but it was far too heavy for her to budge by herself. She tried anyway, of course. She brazenly pressed her hands to still smoldering sections of wall and pushed with all her might but felt no give. But she also felt no heat and no pain. How could that be?

Lightheaded and confused, Mkali Moto Kipande did the only remaining thing she could. She embraced her mother and began to cry. It was only then that she felt the shallow movement of her mother’s chest. Her mother was still breathing!? She was alive!? Mkali Moto Kipande’ joy was short lived, however, as she again began to cough on the fumes still rising up around her. Soon, she found it difficult to keep her eyes open. It felt as if the world were spinning around her even though she couldn’t move. She fought it for a long minute but soon her world again faded dim and narrow until everything went to black.

***

There were strange moments and sensations before Mkali Moto Kipande woke again. Half remembered dreams of bleary vision and muffled sound. Of being pulled from her hell. Of looking back at what little remained of her home as she was carried away. Of her father and sister hovering worriedly over her. Of having cool water flowing over her parched lips and down her aching throat. None of it seemed real. And all of it did…

***

The first thing Mkali Moto Kipande felt when she finally awoke was radiating heat. The first thing she smelt was smoke. The first thing she heard were soft snaps and pops. The first thing she tasted was burnt wood. The first thing she saw was FIRE.

Without even thinking, Mkali Moto Kipande flinched away from the flames leaving behind the old, patchwork blanket she’d been covered in. She could hear someone calling her name behind her but it didn’t matter. She had to get away from the fire!

Wet, rain soaked ground squished beneath her feet as she tripped and stumbled her way blindly forward only to fall to her hands and knees as she came to the edge of what had been her family’s home. All that was left was ash and glowing embers and a single tall pane of glass that somehow did not shatter as the house had come down.

A smaller hand gripped hers then her sister swung around to stand between her and the devastation. Inapita Sasa was dressed in one of their father’s old set of work clothes, like she herself was, Mkali Moto Kipande realized.

Her sister was hurt and limping, Mkali Moto Kipande saw. Even in the early morning light she could tell her sister’s face and arms were red with blisters and burns, but she was alive! They both were alive! Together, they embraced each other, both trying and failing to hold back their combined tears of joy and sorrow.

“Are you all right?” Mkali Moto Kipande asked after a minute.

Her sister stepped back and took a deep breath before answering. “I used all my power on mother…” she managed to say before her lower lip began to quiver and her brave facade fell away.

Mkali Moto Kipande pulled her sister into and equally tight, but oddly different, hug. Before, they had been equals who had survived a tragedy. Now, she was the older sister again, and it was her job to stay strong and fearless.

“It’s not your fault. You did everything you could,” Mkali Moto Kipande said, even though she had not been there to see it.

“I’ll try more when I can tomorrow. I… I just don’t know if I can do any else.”

“But you saved her?” Mkali Moto Kipande asked. She felt her sister nod into her shoulder. “Then you did enough.”

“Inapita Sasa? Mkali Moto Kipande?” their father called to them from somewhere behind.

Mkali Moto Kipande rose to her feet and turned to see her father emerging from the small animal pin and storage shelter she had helped him build over the last month. It was the accomplishment they had been celebrating at dinner the night before. And though it was a fraction of the size their home had been… it was their home now, wasn’t it? She and her sister trudged up the gentle slope to the shelter where their father embraced each of them in turn.

“I thought I’d lost you, my daughter!” he said to his older daughter as he gripped her tightly.

“I thought you had too, sir,” Mkali Moto Kipande replied. “Where is mother?” she asked after pulling back.

“Around the corner,” her father answered, indicating the only truly enclosed room in the small barn. “She is very badly hurt and cannot yet speak, but she will know you are there. Just let her know you are all right then let her rest, ok?”

Mkali Moto Kipande nodded, her throat suddenly going dry. Trembling, she left her father and stepped through the doorway. There, under a sheet, on top of an old dirty mattress, lay her mother, her crippled form easily the most shocking aftermath of the fire.

Just hours before, U'tulivu Nyeupe-nywele Malaika Njia’yawazi had been elegant and beautiful. What Mkali Moto Kipande had hoped to be in another fifty or one hundred years. She had been thoughtful and knowledgeable. Qualities Moto Kipande knew she herself was still working on. And she had been spiritual and magical. Two things Mkali Moto Kipande had long struggled to mimic with hardly any success. But now, her mother might not be any of those things ever again, Mkali Moto Kipande realized.

The woman lying before her was burned and broken. Her face and skin were disfigured from the heat of the fire. Much of her long, glowingly white hair had been burned away and what few patches and strands remained only served to deepen the impact of her injuries. Even the way she lay at an odd uncomfortable angle, mostly hidden beneath the sheet, spoke to how severely she had been affected by the fire and the collapse of the house around her.

Mkali Moto Kipande stood frozen for a long while with a heartbroken expression on her face. She was too shocked to really cry but somehow could not turn away. Finally, when she could bear the sight of her injured mother no longer, she made to leave, but just then her mother turned her head and spotted her. Though obviously in a great deal of pain, her mother pushed the sheet partly aside and shakily raised one badly blistered hand up towards her daughter. Gasping in sorrow, Mkali Moto Kipande stepped forward and knelt down so as to allow her mother’s rough hand to stroke her flawless skin and hair and face…

It wasn’t fair! It wasn’t even close to fair what had happened! Mkali Moto Kipande wanted so badly to reach out and return her mother’s love, but at the same time she was far too afraid that her simple touch would cause her mother more pain. Instead, she sat down nearby, and rocked herself as she cried tears of guilt that seemed to burn her face nearly as badly as the fires had. That her mother was crying alongside her made it all the more worse. Slowly though, Mkali Moto Kipande’s sorrow turned to anger and determination.

“I owe you everything, mother. I… I caused this, so I promise you, I will find a way to fix this.”

***

After three long, hard years of helping to support her family, of helping them to rebuild and survive, Mkali Moto Kipande walked through the familiar gates of Sharlstown with a plan. Though it might take two decades, she would restore life and vitality to her hobbled sister and to their mother who had nearly sacrificed everything to save them both.

Things didn’t exactly go as she had planned…

This is a look at a possible end I'd written for Sparks should she have been killed in game. Of course, the plan was for her to survive her adventures and earn enough money to buy a healing potion powerful enough to heal her mother. But, should the worst happen, she would have this little dream sequence as she faded from the world.

The End

Sparks was drowsy. So drowsy. It was all she could do to open her eyes and bear the aches in her bones and muscles and skin and soul each time the wagon, whose hay she was laying, on rolled over a bump or dip in the path.

The path… home?!

Sparks’ pained, blood shot eyes widened as she recognized the familiar archway of limbs and branches that lined the path to her home. She’d passed under them so many hundreds… no… thousands of times that she knew them by heart. She’d made it home! Somehow. Which meant there was just one last thing to do…

Her weak hands tightened around the flask she held between them, making sure to keep the red liquid with the shifting, inky black swirls as steady as possible.

Some minutes later the slow movement of the wagon stopped and Sparks gritted her teeth as she forced herself to sit… but that was all she could manage. Fortunately, her friends were there to help her. She… she could no longer recall their names… it made her head throb with pain to shift her thoughts to anything but the present… but she recognized them all the same.

There was the young woman, tall and thin… always talking so fast, thinking so fast. She’d… she’d become so much more than she had been when they first met. She helped Sparks move to the edge of the wagon and swing her feet so the hung towards the ground.

Then there, there was her strong, fair, protective, and kind half-elven friend. Still in his armor, though many pieces of it had swapped out and changed… hadn’t they? He helped her stand and held her up when it was clear that she no longer could.

And finally was the short old Gnome… always so cheerful and so wise. Always humming a tune or singing a helpful song. Always so compassionate even to a stranger like her, even at the times where he had no need to be so. He took her hand and led her towards the makeshift home that she’d set out from so many years ago.

Her other hand kept a strong grip on the flask… despite the pain the liquid it held drew from her….

As they neared, her father emerged, and her sister Inapita Sasa as well!

Her sister’s limp, though still present, had improved so much! They both greeted her with concern. With panic. But Sparks quickly hushed them with sharply spoken Elven words issued from her cracked lips and burning throat.

Another sentence or two and their faces fell, their smiles and even their concern swept away by grief as they led Sparks and her companions inside, to the room where her mother lay on a large, comfortable bed that had not been there before.

At the doorway, Inapita gave her sister a long tearful hug before moving aside. Sparks’ father did much the same, leaving her with whispers of love and of pride.

The others, too, held back to the safety of the next room as Sparks moved inside under what was left of her own power. Her steps were heavy and sluggish. Her labored breathing shallow and quick. But somehow she made it to the bed, then up onto the bed so as to stretch out alongside her still disfigured mother.

The sounds her mother made, her excited whimpers and her worried moans, they all saw Sparks smile and cry.

Sparks forced herself to sit up again, as difficult as it was to do so, then used all her remaining strength to pull the stopper from the flask of odd liquid that she’d been protecting these last few weeks.

She shakily ran one hand gently, lovingly across her mother’s cheek then, with the other, she put the open end of the flask to her mother’s mouth and slowly poured the frightening liquid across her mother’s lips.
Not much of it made it down into her mother’s mouth, but not much had to. It was the act of willful offering that mattered here.

The candles in the room snuffed out. The sounds of the outside world grew strangely quiet. Even the rays of the sun streaming in through the window to cast what had been bright patters across mother and daughter grew dim even though they still shown brightly everywhere else.

Sparks had only but a short moment to watch her mother’s eyes flash fear and alarm before her own eyes grew heavy and closed. Somehow it felt as if the room had begun to spin around her even though she could no longer see.

She put her head back down to the pillow and felt herself become wrapped tightly in a loving embrace even as everything… her pain, her fear, her thoughts, and even her love dulled down to a flat, deep, even numbness.

U'tulivu Nyeupe-nywele Malaika Njia’yawazi held the cold body of her first born daughter tightly with arms that she had not been able move in years, with fingers she had not possessed since the fire. Tears flowed down the renewedly smooth skin of her face as she gently rocked her daughter and wept and wept.

“My daughter? My Daughter? What have you done? What have you done?” she asked with lips that had not spoken a word since they had commanded the gods to cover her Mkali Moto Kipande with protection against the fire and smoke and crushing timbers that were soon to fall on them both so many years before.

“I kept my promise to you...” Sparks somehow whispered contently in reply before she gently drew and release her last and final breath.

These are wonderful! Thank you for sharing them! I love how well you know your characters. I hope we get to the point we can say the same. It is fun to hear your perspective as a storyteller. This includes your other posts. I look forward to further conversations about this topic. I can see why you chose to have two characters of such different dispositions. It certainly requires more deliberation to develop two complex individuals.

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Just being selfish with your creative storytelling.

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Now if you don't mind me, I'll be taking notes...