Gamers logo

Getting the Party Back Together – Pt 2

The Rogue

By Michael Peter ConinePublished 2 years ago 8 min read
Like
"Hyrga" in Watercolor by Maralen Conine - used with permission.

Her last job was low-hanging fruit so Hyrga vowed that the next one would be from a much higher branch. In this she was half right. This earl certainly had a horde of guards and it appeared that he was determined to prevent the light fingers of experienced thieves from touching his coffers. She noted the presence of a hedge wizard, who must be providing some magical defense, probably traps and detection spells, that would stymie the majority of little cutpurses and burglars in the city.

The long house was filled with guards and several sleeping warriors and other personages on pallets and tables. The master thief climbed in through a gap in the timbers near the roof and crouched on a rafter above the main floor, the stale stink of spilled ale, sweat, and (probably) urine (not to mention vomit, ew) wafted up to her delicate nostrils causing a slight lump to move in her throat.

Hyrga was no ordinary footpad though. She had stolen some of the best guarded items in the history of the realms and would let no lazy guards and hired mages keep her from the goods. Her weapons and gear secured and silenced as well as she could, she whispered a little prayer of protection and her deity responded by making her vanish and become as visible as a hair floating in the air. She drifted past the stoic guards and even the wizard seemed oblivious to her presence as he snored softly on a nearby pallet.

Her hands reached out to the ornately carved strongbox as her eyes swiftly scoured the surface for anomalies that could disguise a trap, her eyes able to see the strings of magic that guided her to release spells that would sound an alarm and flash brightly upon disarming attempts. She dismissed those with a wave of a yew wand then her picks made short work of the lock and she silently opened the box. She leered at the gleaming bars within as well as a signet ring and a few sparkling gems for a moment before quietly scooping them into her pouch, tugging the strings tight. Her senses told her that someone was watching her, and she carefully looked without turning her head. Her peripheral vision picked up a glimmer of open eyelids off to her left, it was the wizard!

As he made to intake his breath, Hyrga jumped straight up silently calling on Urmene to give her the strength to do the impossible. The wizard sprang up and howled for the guards to stop her and began chanting a spell. A little runestone hanging from her belt merely required her to say, “nippley” to activate the grease spell in her wake which dropped in a sheet just as the wizard’s spell released. Then she darted along a timber toward the gap and quickly slid through the hole as an explosion slightly singed her from the other side, a spell hastily blasted at her that missed. Unfortunately for the inhabitants of the long house, the oily grease was highly flammable, and screams from inside as the fireball instantly ignited it followed her away from the roof. She nimbly sprang to the ground as confused guards began to converge, shouting and pointing, but not yet seeing her as she was still mostly invisible.

Keeping low, she sped through the footpaths in the village aiming for the south wall of the fortified town. She quickly scaled the structure and stopped when she saw a guard. The guard kept looking back toward the commotion in town, another guard further away, probably a sergeant, yelled at him to stay vigilant and not to worry what was happening. She slunk past the guard, when she waggled a finger at the wall behind both of them, the sound of a clink, metal against metal. The guard spun, asked, “who’s there?” while searching the darkness. He finally walked in that direction with a raised torch. Hyrga smirked and flipped deftly over the wall landing like a cat in dirt below. She bolted across the killing field and into the region of barrow mounds.

As she sauntered behind the barrow of Skraghar, the (non-so-aptly-named) Invincible, she let her spell drop and became visible.

“Hey, who is dere?”

A soldier stood two dozen meters away, a young, blonde man with a spear and a puzzled expression on his face. Hyrga turned to face him, careful to keep her good eye on him and shroud her other eye in shadow…

This might be a good time to interrupt and tell you that her left eye was missing, and she had a reputation for stealing the eyes of her victims – misplaced I assure you – earning her the nickname “Eyetaker”. She liked it at first, because she usually aimed her missiles at enemies’ eyes, but those filthy skalds kept getting the stories wrong and telling folk that she was a witch who stole eyes! But that is neither here nor there.

She said,” It is just me; Sometimes I like to wander among the barrows on beautiful nights like this,” She looked up at the stars as if to show what she meant. The guard looked up as well and she disappeared behind another barrow. He said, “I haven’t seen you before, what is your n—” and he looked to find she wasn’t there anymore. “Lady?” Then he got a frightened look on his face as he remembered where he was – the barrow fields. He scanned around looking for more ghosts, then ran full tilt back to the town, his clanking footfalls resounding loudly among the massive heaps of earth and stone.

She quietly chuckled and walked away from the mounds into the southern forest. The sizzling “pop!” and the scent of fresh ozone alerted her to something new but, expecting an attack, she slid into the shadows and waited. Vyachislav stepped out from his warp and addressed her, “Hyrga, I have come to ask for your help again.” He was staring straight at her, so she dropped cover to speak with him. She noted that his robes had far changed from the last time they had seen one another but he still had that lazy cat dangling from his shoulders.

“Vya, how did you know I would be here?” She asked knowing an answer wasn’t forthcoming she quickly moved on, “Never mind, who or what are we hunting this time?”

“Oh, precious girl, this time forces are moving that we need to bring to ruin. The mages in the Prismatic towers are not responding, and the elder ones cannot touch it. It is up to us.” Vyachislav’s face was impassive as usual, but his cadence spoke volumes. The fact that he still called her ‘girl’ was amusing, she was thirty-three years old, but then no one knew how old Vyach was, only that he was much older than he appeared, and her father had known him when the old ranger was still a boy almost fifty years ago.

“So, it is to be all of us? Even my father?” She tried to make her question impassive, but her inflection gave away the longing. It had been ages since she had heard from him, she needed to wander while he wanted to stay in his forest.

He nodded, then magically materialized a map for her. “We are to meet at the ruins of Fort Belad.” Anticipating her question as her mouth opened to ask, he continued,” The fort fell three days ago to a rampaging orc army, bolstered by the necromancers. Some…thing has a larger plan, and we are the proverbial ‘spider in the soup’” This reference to a tale her father told her as a child was a welcome reminder of fond memories, as well as a reminder of Vyachislav’s incredible memory. “I must not tarry, the others are needed as well.” He smiled and gestured, bending reality to allow him to pass.

Left to her own devices, she dug her worn, beautifully wrought carpet from her pack and rolled it out on the sparse grass. She sat on it and mumbled the controlling words, “Ssayara sowda”. She and the carpet then floated gently in the air and shot off into the starry night to the northeast.

Writer’s Insight: I have played most of these characters from this series for a number of years with different names and faces, but for this incarnation, the Rogue, was originally a mage-thief but became a priest-thief because the spell choices were better as the material developed allowing thieving deities and she could cast them wearing armor without modification to the class. She had a few go-to spells and as she became epic, she got weird and a lot more fun of an experiment. Hyrga the Eyetaker was a more recent incarnation, merely because the image I liked had an eyepatch and the character was to be an archer of sorts.

Over time, I will show off some of the wonderful magic items my party has accumulated. Additionally, I would like to thank my eldest daughter Maralen for the cute image, she spent a couple of days with the paints and hopefully, we will see a few more of her works on the next couple of stories.

adventure games
Like

About the Creator

Michael Peter Conine

Retired Navy vet, served eight years in the Army, then 17 more in the Navy. Married, two kids. I play cards, write and fix stuff. Maybe I will write more in here later...

Reader insights

Be the first to share your insights about this piece.

How does it work?

Add your insights

Comments

There are no comments for this story

Be the first to respond and start the conversation.

Sign in to comment

    Find us on social media

    Miscellaneous links

    • Explore
    • Contact
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of Use
    • Support

    © 2024 Creatd, Inc. All Rights Reserved.