Tyra's Mission: Impossible. (CDQ Thread)
Most Prominent Quest Series Involved in ATM
Power and Prestige | Layonara
Tyra stands on the northern wall of Fort Angle, staring off toward the border. It had been quite following her return from Lusaxon, sporting a strange dwarven lantern. That is, before she used it to catch an invisible kenku trying to steal food from the barracks. Once that had blown over, however, she was left with few orders besides her routine reconnaissance missions north to make sure Sagewald agents we not enlisting sneaky little bird-brained kenku to infilitrate the fort. Sadly, she found no evidence of that happening, just hungry kenku.
Now she wondered if she was doing the right thing, playing the role of a piece in the chess match between Tau'ren and those who tried to invade it. She thought back to old plans and a cold stone tower she rebuilt. The itching of her hands came back immediately, but she did not care this time. The ever constant tick of rubbing her hands when she thought of those years was fading, either due to a change in who she was, or a change in whether it bothered her any more.
She was beginning to want to find out which of her blades was her favorite:
Virtue
Or
Vice
Excerpts from Tyra's recent (mis)adventure in Co'rys.
The wind blew cold in White Harbor.
Her voyage back from Vanavar was long, and after departing from the ship with her sack of belongings, she checked the sails flags of the ships docked in the bay. No sign of her chauffer from Co'rys. She was not surprised. After months at sea traveling to and from Vanavar, not to mention hiking across Mistone before that, she did not expect him to be at port exactly when she returned. She just hoped he hadn't forgotten or given up waiting or worse, sank.
"Ms. Dragonheart?" came a voice behind her on the pier.
Turning she saw a young soldier, private by the look of his insignia. He was tall, slender, normally curly auburn hair trimmed short. Innocent green eyes. She could tell he was in fantastic shape. She grinned to herself, then acknowledged him. "Yes, Private?"
He extended a small parcel, stamped with the seal of Tau'ren's Military. "Orders, Ma'am."
Taking the parcel, she broke the seal and read the instructions. Report to Fort Angle. Nothing else. She turned it over, checked for hidden pages, even held it up to light. "That's it?" she asked the private.
"That's all, ma'am."
"How long have you been waiting for me?"
"Since your charter came back from Co'rys without you. Best asssignment of my career. First assignment, actually."
"Lucky you," she said with a smirk. She then thanked the private and dismissed him.
The blinding light of the sun was the first sign that she had failed. Then came the sounds of songbirds, and of people milling about. She knew this place.
Blinking through the glare of the surface world, Tyrra looked around at the small crowd that had stopped to stare at the battered body that had materialized in front of the moss covered bindstone. A few men and women of the court walked by, muttering to themselves while judging Tyrra with their eyes. People rarer materialized in the courtyard of Bydell Castle, least of all someone dressed in an old tattered malar skin and an eerily black cloak. After a few minutes collecting herself, she noticed a nearby guard approaching her.
"Ma'am?" he said, keeping his distance. "Are you alright?"
"I'm alive," she sniped, "I need to get to Fort Angle, immediately."
The guard looked her over, a scoff on his face.
"I'm a specialist in the Army, guardsman," Tyrra explained, producing her Warrant Officer Insignia from inside her satchel.
"Oh! Apologies, ma'am!" He gave an uncertain salute. "In that case, there's a supply train going-"
"That won't do," she said, shaking her head. "Is there a mount available?"
The guard blinked, adjusting his skullcap, then glanced back at a fellow guard. He just shrugged. "You could check the stables, ma'am."
Tyrra sighed and adjusted the pack on her shoulder. "Never mind, I will just go on foot."
"But ma'am, you just-"
Tyrra didn't have to do anything for the soldier to silence himself. He simply wished her luck and returned to his post.
* * *
The hike through the country was both refreshing and tedious. Sore from head to toe after her revival, she did not enjoy the walk. The rolling hills and the fresh air could not distract her from the constant thought that she had led friends on a fruitless endeavor in the Deep, on top of potentially ruining Taur'en's plans. She also wasn't sure which of those things bothered her more.
She finally arrived at Fort Angle in the dark of night, Orn glowing overhead. Passing the main gates, she requested to see Commander Moreau as soon as possible and then headed to the barracks to wait. She had hardly time to take off her pack when she was summoned to the Commander's quarters.
"You sure took your time, Dragonheart," the Commander said as she entered the room. He was draped in a robe and gently puffing from a pipe, a bottle of Xeenite Red on his desk. He did not look at her. "Report."
Tyrra let it all spill out. Her descent into the mine, the encounters with the strange creature seen below, her encounter with the beholder Vespero, and the deal she had tried to uphold with him.
"You made a deal with a beholder?" Moreau asked. He had kept to looking out the window at the moon up until then. "What in the Pits were you thinking?"
"I thought it was a good opportunity to make an ally. The mine was his home, and he did not immediately attack me when I came across him, so I thought-"
"We didn't hire you to think!" Moreau shouted. "You took your team down into the Deep to deliver some message to a Dark Elf, and you had no idea what would come of it because you thought it was a good idea?" Moreau started pacing, his smoking billowing from his pipe. "You once thought it was a good idea to warn a Sagewald farmstead that you were sent there to destroy the farm. That worked out for you, and us, so I let it slide. I thought, and they pay me to think mind you, that we had something special in you, and with the famine at the time who was I to criticize you for securing such a large stockpile of food. But more recently you've thought it was a good idea to question your orders or go completely off-mission to help out a monster!" He picked up the wine bottle and took a long drink. "If I recall, your orders were to eliminate any hostiles and threats found in the mine, not compound them! Did you forget that just because you found a lonely beholder with a love of books?" Moreau turned to look back out at the moon, gently pounding his fist on the windowsill. "Do you have anything else to report?"
Tyrra opened an unfolded a map that showed the location of the dark elf city in relation to the mine shaft. She then explained what she remember of the cities layout, and what sort of garrison they had.
Moreau turned to look at his desk, then picked up the map and gave Tyrra a long look. "Is that all?"
"With your permission, sir, I want to go back to the mine and make sure nothing has changed, and perhaps find Vespero."
"And what do you intend to do if you find this Vespero?"
"Attempt to salvage my bid for an alliance," she said.
Moreau sighed, rubbing his temples. "To what end?"
"My associates and I found an old experiment of Milara's down below. An aberration. With recent events beyond the Bloody Gate, and the Wasting Sickness-"
"Wasting Sickness?" Moreau looked confused.
"That - condition where people turned to goo?"
"Ah, that." Moreau gestured for her to continue.
"To be succinct, we may need allies familiar with the Deep and capable, at least potentially, of countering Milara's magical machinations. Vespero could have been one, and perhaps still could be. I strongly recommend whatever the plans are for the mines, we leave the tunnels alone from where I found Vespero and below. Perhaps even leave a level between us and where he is, or was."
"What happens with the mine isn't up to me," he said, puffing at his pipe. "If the orders say to turn the mine into a palace for the King, that is what will happen. If the orders are to turn it into a hole in the ground, that is what will happen. If the orders are to drop it into the Deep-" he crossed his arms and fell silent for a moment. "You will have about two weeks if you leave tonight. By the time you get there, you should have three days at best to scout the mine again, find your beholder if you can, and meet up with the detachment being sent to commandeer the mine. They will camp half a day's ride south from the mine, secure the approach, drive off the kenku, and move in on that third day. Your orders are to -scout- the mine. If you find anything that could kill you or my men, you are to disengage and report. Do that, and when you get back I may have changed my mind about throwing you in a cell for insubordination, conduct detrimental to the Kingdom, and -seeing as how you made a huge mess in a Dark Elven City- quite possibly inciting war. Am I understood?"
Tyrra took a deep breath.
"Now get out of my office. Dismissed."
Tyrra gave the Commander a salute, turned about face, and left. She retrieved her things from the barracks and left the Fort. She had two weeks.
"He's not here," she said in the middle of the disappointingly vacant cavern. Nothing was left. Not a carpet. Not a book. Nothing that suggested a beholder once lived there. Not even a new tunnel suggesting he made some other exit. She had hoped that he might at least leave her a message, but she was left lacking. Whatever happened between her leaving Vespero, her escapades in the Deep city, and returning have netted her an empty cave, and little else.
And then there was the magical barrier at the bottom of the mine. Something was beyond it, for sure. She could hear it. Whatever it was. Whether it was Vespero's doing, or something else, she wouldn't know. All she knew was it did not sound good. The only thing she hoped for was that Milara wasn't licking his lips behind it, waiting for Taur'en to blunder into something that would cover her chosen Kingdom in darkness. Climbing back out, she headed south and climbed up into a tree, and waited for the approach of her Taur'en comrades.