The Long Way Home

It wasn't until dawn that Tarlassiel stopped running. Collapsing at the bottom of a shrub-covered ravine, he looked up at the sky, considering the situation he was in. How did it all go so wrong?

It had started with the casino. The lawless human border town of New Kersh, here on the eastern edges of the south continent, had the most interesting games Tarlassiel had encountered in his 120 years of life. It was exquisite. Dice of different sides, shapes, sizes. Card games of almost infinite complexity, with combinations of potential winning hands numbering in the tens of thousands. Roulettes, hand crafted by lizard artisans. Bets on everything: gladiator games, clockwork beetle races, Sergal eating contests. Probability elementals summoned by an unassuming Burmecian calculatrix watched over the games, ensuring cheaters were dealt with. Tarlassiel didn't cheat. Perhaps he should have.

It had started innocently enough, him playing a simple dice game and winning a modest sum. Then that smiling, tan-skinned human dancer girl with the husky voice suggested he have some more dwarven ale, and led him to a table where a game of Yoshuri was being played, a gnoll croupier smiling silently at the attentive crowd. Tarlassiel bet. Then lost. Then bet again, with higher stakes this time. And lost again. And so, as midnight approached, he had lost his entire allowance, a considerable sum; he was, after all the son of Dutchess Kryleira, ruler of the more prosperous Drow city of Ilshum.

With sobriety came the realization of what he'd done. He borrowed money from a Dwarf, and lost that too. Returning to the stout, bearded figure, his prepared apologies were ignored, and two Sergal enforcers stepped up. The Dwarf was Eberhard Axehandle, apparently a notorious figure in these lands. Telrassiel smacked his face with his palm and groaned. How had he managed to become indebted to a gangster?

He had ran, then. And only now, as the dawn lit up the unfamiliar forest around him, had he stopped to look around. Where had his flight taken him? The trees were vast, moss-covered and silent, like temple arches. The ground, covered in mulch and leaves.

His ears twitched. Voices! Were they coming after him? He stood up, brushing himself off, and drew his blade. They wouldn't take him unprepared!

The voices grew louder. Telrassiel's keen hearing allowed him to form an image of a group approaching, the noises they made making their path evident. They were moving in a slow, leisurely pace. Not like a hunting party. He strained to listen.

"Look, all I'm saying is, we shouldn't have listened to that toothless old fart in the inn! He was obviously insane, and now we're going off into Asu knows where in order to find... a heap of rocks?" A shrill, human male voice. "That heap of rocks is the key to the home to the creators of my race. I cannot ignore information about such things, regardless of the trustworthiness of their source." A deep, resolute voice, as if carving the words into the air. An elderly Burmecian. "I don't know about you guys, but I love it here! The trees, the grass... It reminds me of home!" Soft barks. That must be one of those sentient dog-men Telrassiel had encountered during his visit to Solaris. He relaxed. These were adventurers, a party journeying through the woods. He sheathed his blade, and walked towards them, confidently, with arms outstretched in a gesture of peace. Already rehearsing a sob story about how a Drow prince managed to find himself two continents away from home with no money, he smiled as the party came into view.

They would be his ticket out of here.

...They had been walking for hours, twisting paths taking them deeper into this forest, somewhere along the easternmost coast of Lindwurm. Telrassiel noted his exhaustion, his frantinc run from New Kersh and this march with his new travelling companions into the wilderness were taking their toll on his feet. But he took pride in not complaining or slowing down. He walked tall, hands in his pockets, looking around at his surroundings...

THWACK! The flat end of a broad halberd struck him in the back of his head. He swore, and looked back to see the elongated, vicious-looking head of the party's Sergal warrior, Udmyn. He had his tongue out, like a dog.

"Eyes on the path, darkelf. And pay attention to what you're doing, this isn't a stroll in the park. Weapon out, space 7 paces, scan the surround, silence your steps. Understand?" He hissed at Tar with a dry, desert acccent. The drow turned away from the Sergal's face, his breath smelling of raw meat and blood. "I understand." "Good," the reply came, "Then I won't have to remind you again. Walk like you just did, and the next time you get whacked in the head, it'll be the business end of my spear." The Sergal licked his lips and moved away silently, crouching. Tarlassiel rubbed his head and swore again, quietly this time. He walked with caution now, weapon drawn and ears attentive to the sounscape around him.

As he listened and scanned his surroundings, he realized how different the forest was compared to what he had entered in the morning. It was much quieter, and the trees were older. The ground was damp and mossy. No birds sang now.

Suddenly, they stopped. Rhyn, the small, energetic corgi ranger who scouted ahead of the group, had halted abruptly and was motioning to the rest of the party. Tar approached with the rest, looking at where Rhyn was pointing.

It was a trail. A depression in the mossy ground, as if someone had dragged a heavy sack across it. Tarlassiel kneeled beside it. The corgi was aleart, ears out. "It's nearby. I think. The scent's all over the place, and it's moving in strange patterns... I can't track it properly." "What sort of creature made these?" Tel asked in a hushed tone. "A wurm of some kind?" "Not a wurm. Worse. I've smelled this before, it's the smell of a..." The corgi's tale was interrupted by a loud crashing and an unearthly wail. The party dropped to the ground, but it was too late. They had been seen.

Tarlassiel looked at the emerging creature. It was taller than a man, its scaled snakeing lower body pulsating with muscle contractions. Its upper body, rising above even the sergal, was vaguely female-proportioned, and as his gaze traced the gray figure, it met the thing's eyes, green-gray and glowing with power. It stretched out a grotesque clawed appendage towards them, each of its four arms bending in strangely obscene gestures, and roared again with a voice that seemed to Tarlassiel to contain a hint of sadness within all the fury.

"Godsdamnit." He heard Lutessa, the Burmecian adventurer who he had understood to be the leader of the party, partly because of her authority, partly due to her age. She stood up, drawing her weapon. "Godsdamnit, naga. Just what we needed."

They rose to their feet, and the naga coiled itself, and charged, like a blur, unnaturally fast for something this big. Tarlassiel dove out of its way, his blade bouncing off the creature's tail. He saw the Sergal hiss in approval as he struck out with his halberd. It would be a long fight.

Udmyn was baiting the thing, egging it on, stabbing at it almost playfully. Lutessa leaped, jumping twice her own height, landing gracefully on the creature's back. It reared and shook, swatting at Lutessa, but the Burmecian had time to stab it through the shoulder blades with a short sword before tumbling down to the ground and landing on her feet. Rhyn, the Corgi was muttering something, making gestures with her paw-like hands, and Tarlassiel felt the familiar taste of magic in the air, a sudden dryness. It was probably going to be fire, or a bolt of lightning.

For the first time in his life, Tarlassiel felt that he had gotten in way over his head. These adventurers were obviously far more experienced at what they were doing. He looked at the naga, and suddenly it turned to face him, and its eyes met his. He froze, mesmerized by the glare, willing his muscles to move but completely unable to break the trance he was in. Cold sweat was pouring down his back.

A smile seemed to pass over the naga's bluish, corpselike lips. It turned, and charged again. This time, directly at Tar.