Changing Tides: A Smuggler's Tale

[Battlecaster]

[ THE OPEN SEA: APPROACHING PORT AVANTHYR ]

[ 4 KYTHORN 1382 ]

Waves broke angrily against the hull of the ship, struggling to penetrate the wooden vessel at its seams. Vargas watched them with a placid expression while the sun shone down upon him. He couldn't help but marvel at the ocean as it carried him and his ship across its churning skin -- just as he, in the same musing, wondered at the technology that man had wrought to traverse so chaotic a channel.

But there was a bitter contradiction in that last thought. For, as it turned out, man's technology was never truly a match for the natural world.

Vargas exhaled slowly through his nose, nostrils flaring as he remembered how he'd learned that hard lesson firsthand. Old Umberlee's hunger for the souls of drowned men was never more than a sudden storm or a hidden stone shelf away from being sated by an obedient, obsequious sea.

A yellow glint caught the man's eye, drawing his gaze back towards the gold ring that hung from a slender chain necklace clasped between his rough, dirty fingers. Vargas felt his lips press into a pale, pink line. His brow furrowed in recognition.

Was it truly possible for a man to reinvent himself?

That was his goal, he realized, not for the first time. He was more escaping Amn than pursuing a new life in his sailing to Sundren. But would he really be able to brush the past from his shoulders? And could it be done as easily, as casually, as a dog shakes away fleas?

"Land ho! Land ho! Straight ahead off the starboard bow!"

Vargas drew a deep breath on hearing the call from the lookout high above, closing his eyes as a particularly high spray of sea mist dusted his sun-kissed face. It wouldn't be long now. They'd be mooring at Port Avanthyr, and he would be entering a new world -- a world he knew very little about.

He told himself that he was prepared. His confidence could not fail him now. He had survived a great deal to make it this far, and he would survive much more before he could stand astride the wealth and power he was sure to find in Sundren. Yes, he determined as he watched that gold ring glitter and glisten in the sun's beaming rays, he would remake himself here.

"'ey, Dabbler, stop lazing about! Ain't ye hear the news? We're here!"

As the by-now familiar voice drew near, Vargas licked his lips and quietly released the necklace from his grasp. The ring spun a thousand times, he swore it, before it finally hit the water -- and there it sunk, rapidly. Lost. It was surely lost forever.

"Ye finally go daft on me, brother? Stop daydreaming!" The half-elven woman, who'd introduced herself as Dust a few tenday before, came up to the man and slapped him soundly on the back. "We'll finally be able to go our separate ways!"

Straightening with a soft grunt, Vargas shook away his thoughtful melancholy and put on again a characteristic grin. Turning towards the white-haired girl, he winked an emerald eye at her. "You sure do sound excited about that. But we both know you'll be missing me before long."

Dust snorted in response, rolling her eyes, before stomping towards the bow of the ship to get a better look at the port they were now so quickly approaching. Vargas, for his part, cast a final, silent eye towards the ocean's waves below -- before moving to join her. It was a new horizon . . .

. . . and he'd be damned if he didn't make Sundren howl before he was good and done with her.

[Battlecaster]

[ SUNDREN: PORT AVANTHYR ]

[ 7 KYTHORN 1382 ]

The first night was spent in a narrow alley between two dock-side warehouses. The second night? Passed out at a table in the Menacing Mariner, half-blind on cheap liquor.

Vargas had borne high hopes on landing in Sundren, but those hopes were short-lived. He'd been unable to find room or board at any of the inns, and he'd been a thousand times too proud to seek shelter at the temple of Ilmater. He was, in his mind, a far cry above a beggar.

He was just having a little bit of trouble adjusting to a new land, that's all.

On the third day, it rained. The sweet water washed away most of the swashbuckler's stink and some of his hangover. It further rusted his chain shirt. But his spirits were buoyed by the shower, and it was in this state that he staggered through the streets of Avanthyr's west gate district, where he noticed a statuesque woman standing under a lantern.

She wore brightly-polished armor and a blue cloak about her shoulders. She looked, to Vargas's point of view, very much like an angel. This angelic figure struck him as being so not because she was beautiful -- although her face was radiant, and her skin unblemished -- but because she seemed so perfectly impassive and distant to him. Like a star in the sky.

Vargas, a mariner by trade, knew exactly what stars were good for. Stars were good for finding your way.

Shaking off the last of his melancholy, the man brushed his hair from his face and approached the woman, striking a confident pose that belied his recent troubles.

"You look like a lass who knows her way around this old town. Am I right?"

The woman turned towards him, and regarded him with hollow eyes of the most peculiar shade of gold. She blinked those eyes slowly. "I am a squire in the Northern Watch, so yes, I have some knowledge of the comings and goings of Avanthyr."

"'ey?" Vargas made a face at the woman. "Squire of the Northern Watch? What's that about? Sounds mighty important."

"We are the garrison of Port Avanthyr."

"Ah, the local law, hey?" Vargas placed the heel of his hand flatly against the pommel of his rapier, then motioned with his other hand up a distant hill, towards the stout stronghold sat thereupon. "You serve the local lords and ladies, then?"

"I serve the Meriadoc family specifically. Lady Evelyn is a woman worthy of recognition and respect." She bowed her head a moment, appearing to affirm the swashbuckler's words, then looked back up to Vargas evenly.

"Lady Evelyn?" He lifted a single eyebrow high, as though the expression would soundly click the name into place, somewhere up inside his brain. "She's the family's tip-top? Or just your direct commander?"

"My direct commander is Sir Aleister Kimaris." The woman turned a hand over, gesturing simply, again acting as though these names might mean something to Vargas. "Lady Evelyn is the largest reason why the Northern Watch was formed in the first place, but she is not the head of the family."

"Hah, well, don't expect me to remember all these names, love. But, if you don't mind my asking, why form this watch in the first place? Is there a lot of trouble about the Port?"

It was the woman's turn to lift a brow. She again replied as though her words ought not be news. "Most of the country is lawless. The legion has no presence here."

Vargas wore a bit of a perplexed expression in response, but quickly replaced it with what appeared to be a characteristic grin. "Forgive me my ignorance, I'm rather new in these parts. I thought Sundren was a united country?"

"The port, the city, Sestra and Aquor are all individually operated independent of one another . . . though were you to ask the emperor, or the legion, they all belong to Sundren."

"And if I were to ask you, or the local lords and ladies?"

"The Meriadoc family is the only noble family in Avanthyr of any note. There are more in the city, and about the country at large." She gestured broadly. "But I'm not an academic of politics."

Vargas couldn't repress the smile that sprang to his lips. "Well, call me a seahorse and saddle me up. Sounds like things around here are a bit more complicated than I thought."

The woman nodded. "That is true, to say the least . . ." She then glanced down along the roadway with a pensive expression. ". . . Is there anything else I can help you with?"

Vargas answered in the negative, and asked after her name. Gabrielle Atkinson. A name that was worth remembering, he decided. Bidding his guiding star farewell (without giving her his own name in exchange), Vargas sauntered off into the night. His spirits, for the time being, renewed.

The next morning, he purchased three separate maps from three separate businesses. None of the maps were the same. One identified Sestra as belonging to Sundren, while another indicated that it was a conquered realm. One map identified places that another map simply neglected -- suggesting that those places were either no longer there, or only very recently built. One map even claimed that Sundren City herself was a-floating in the sky like some building-laden cloud.

Long story short, Vargas assessed that the mapmakers weren't keeping up with the changes. Which meant that the situation was exactly as chaotic as the Lady Gabrielle had led him to believe. Flopping back against the grass just outside Port Avanthyr's east gate, Vargas laughed. It was chaos! The country (if it could even be called a country at this point) was in the midst of chaos!

His laughter died in his throat, replaced with an easy smile, and he thought not at all of those who had assuredly perished (and in great number, too) to create the current political and economic situation in Sundren. Oh no. Vargas thought only of how he could easily turn all of this chaos to his own ends.

For a man without loyalties in a land torn asunder was a man who could serve all sides.

And a man who could serve all sides . . .

. . . was going to get very wealthy. And very influential.

[Battlecaster]

[ SUNDREN: SHARAHAN HILLS ]

[ 19 KYTHORN 1382 ]

A soft summer wind stirred the broad, green leaves of the maple overhead. High, uncut grass rocked in the sky's breath, and fluffy white clouds chased after the gentle breeze, scooting across a sky of the purest blue.

How was it that such a beautiful day could come to be stained so red?

Dragging himself up from his knee, Vargas exhaled a ragged breath and whipped drops of bright blood from his rapier. To his right a goblin's sad corpse sat leaning against the lovely maple tree. To his left, two more goblins, and in front of him a fourth. All of them dead in the grass. All of them very recently alive.

With adrenaline still burning through his veins, Vargas forced himself to remain alert. It wasn't his first time surviving an ambush. And even though he had never been ambushed by goblins before -- he still found it difficult to believe that their war band consisted of only the four he'd faced beneath the tree.

Green eyes quickly searched the valley and its surrounding hills for hidden foes, before a wrathful roar drew the man's attention to some overlooking bluffs a hundred yards distant. His foes were . . . well, they were not hidden anymore.

A score, perhaps more than a score, of goblins stood around the bluff, looking down on Vargas with their sharp, yellow teeth bared. Their tiny, clawed hands bristled with crude weaponry, and their inhuman eyes glowed with violent thoughts. Yet it was not the band of goblins who demanded his immediate attention:

Rapidly descending a hitherto unnoticed trail in the cliff-like hill's broad face came a hobgoblin at least a head taller than Vargas -- and many times stouter. As it reached the plain, Vargas swiveling around to face it head-on, it swung a massive, double-headed axe over its head and roared again with rage, spittle frothing from its jaws.

"Whoa-ho there big guy!" Vargas lifted his hand to ward off the goblins's avenger. And his next words came out in a tongue resembling the gargle of a throat choking down glass. But its meaning was clear to those who spoke the goblin tongue. "We can talk about this!"

Unfortunately, the massive warrior was in no mood to talk. Charging forward, the creature swung its axe up behind itself, and began rapidly eating the distance between them.

"Well . . . that's just lovely," Vargas complained with a click of his tongue, the muscles in his legs tensing for the inevitable. Yards became feet, feet became inches -- and Vargas nimbly danced away from the bestial warrior just in the nick of time, hearing the whoosh of the axe blade as it swept through the air where the swordsman's head had been a moment before.

Cursing his bad luck, Vargas counterattacked, lunging forward and slicing a deep gash across the hobgoblin's brow. The monstrous humanoid didn't even bother with flinching. The blood streaming down and into its eyes? It was no worry to the hobgoblin, for it was already seeing red. Vargas evaded a second attack with a backpeddling stagger, but before he could recover the hobgoblin reversed its grip on the axe haft and came back with a wide backswing.

No!

Vargas moved as quickly as he could, feeling his muscles stretch and twist from his violent change in momentum -- but it wasn't enough to clear the axe. The pitted, blunted, but still unhappily sharp blade swept under the swordsman's leg and flipped him bodily into the air.

Vargas wasn't sure whether he landed on his face or on the back of his head, but the world was spinning after a brief flash of darkness. A hundred chain links had been scattered into the grass like seed from a sower's bag, Vargas's chain shirt torn badly near the thigh. His blood ran hot and wet.

"Gods! . . . -- oh sh -- !" Vargas regained lucidity just in time to notice the axe coming down towards him, intent on finishing its grizzly work. This time he did move fast enough, rolling bodily to the side as the axe finished its arc and buried itself deep into the hard-packed ground. Opportunity? Oh yes, that's what it looks like.

Swinging back around, Vargas gripped the hobgoblin's axe haft and used it to lurch himself up and forward, driving his rapier's point cleanly into and through the hobgoblin's throat. The avenging hobgoblin startled, expression bewildered as it began to choke on the steel and the blood filling its throat. The creature reared back and away, and Vargas toppled back himself, onto his arse, grunting in the grass.

It didn't take long for the hobgoblin to collapse, clawing at its throat. It didn't take much more time for the warrior to go entirely still. And with it, the entire valley went quiet. Vargas rose and looked up unto the bluffs, where the jeering goblins had all fallen deathly silent. Their once hateful expressions were now fearful instead. Like ice melting away from a hot torch, the goblins slunk back into the hills, vanishing as one. Their confidence shaken by the loss of their champion.

"That's right!" Vargas called after the retreating goblins, his injured leg shaking with uncontrollable tremors. "Rue the day you thought to challenge me, greenskins! Vargas Martel is the greatest swordsman in all of Sundren!"

Victory rightly relished, Vargas slipped his rapier back into its sheath and exchanged its place in his hand with a knife from his right boot. Vargas staggered towards the downed hobgoblin, and sank to his knees. He wrenched the creature's head sideways and promptly removed one of its large, tattered ears. His gruesome trophy in hand, the swordsman promptly returned his knife to his boot, then frowned down at the corpse. "See? This is why talking's always better than fighting. If you'd only given me your ear sooner, we coulda been friends."

Standing shakily, Vargas rolled a sore shoulder (idly realizing that it must have taken a lot of the impact from his earlier flip around the axe) and looked down again at his dead foe. "Well, friend, a shallow grave's what we're all racing towards. Sorry it was yours tonight." He paused briefly, then chuckled. "Well, not that sorry, considering the alternative. But hey, what are ya gonna do?"

With that, the swashbuckler began to limp back towards the road and the inn. The first was more than a mile away. The second nearly three miles more. Bleeding profusely, Vargas tucked his stolen ear away inside of a belt pouch and began the trek towards safety, and healers . . .

[ TO BE CONTINUED . . . ]
[ Special thanks to DM Requiem for this character's first DM encounter. ]