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rallis-fatalis · 5 years

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The Fremennik Trials

Back when Rallis wasn't a big shot or a name known kingdoms over, she was just a simple explorer who wanted to see every corner of Gielinor. The world was big and she was small and she was determined to see it all. When Rallis travels north for the first time, she gets the opportunity to become part of a town and explore even more! This Relleka sure is an interesting place! Hopefully the entry trials aren't too difficult.

It was very cold this grey and gloomy day. The sky threatened to rain, but it never carried through with it. A lizard shaped splotch of blue in the form of Rallis was scrambling over the grey basalt rocks cloaked against a dreary grey sky, a bright stain of paint against an otherwise monochrome canvas. Even the waters were a similar depressing shade and the seaweed almost seemed drained of color. A grey spined head poked through the waves to investigate the cheerful giggling and chirping blue dragon from above, but ultimately resigned itself back to its depressing life under the waters.

Rallis came upon a decrepit old lighthouse perched atop dark slick rocks and stared at the structure in awe. Once she had enough, she bounced over crumbling bridges and dying shrubs and soon found the earth turning to softer dirt and crunchy undergrowth as opposed to the hard dark stone of the basalt lined barricade in the ocean. Sad workers hammered away at a broken bridge, glumly going about their day. Shadow black unicorns stomped around, angry and depressed, warning away anyone who drew near. Wolves prowled in the underbrush for food, but this blue dragon was too cheerful for their tastes. Such exuberant happiness would just give them indigestion.

The happy small dragon chirped in surprise as a fortress of fencing came into view, menacingly sharpened spears of wood jammed into the ground and pointed outward to warn away intruders. Structures loomed inside, obscured by pale grey fog and further cementing the depressing atmosphere of it all. She smiled and bounced inside. It was overcast and dark, fog and shadowed skies dyeing everything in black and white. Nothing seemed to be alive here, just dirt and stone and quiet houses drenched with condensation from the fog and sea breeze.

Despite how dead the entire world seemed to be, a noise broke through the emptiness. It was a lilting sound, like that of music, seemingly coming from nowhere. The dragon followed the sound, blindly staggering into the foggy town as if entranced. The world grew warmer, the colors brighter, and before her twirled the magic of story and song. The grey melted away into the color of fire, a sunrise on a quiet grassy hill. The cold and dreary fog faded into the warmth of sunlight and company. The quiet melancholy made way for the strings and song dedicated to weaving the tale of a better place and a better time. It was magical. What was once a depressing bland landscape turned into a picturesque storybook. The dragon smiled and closed her eyes, enjoying it all.

A low chuckle broke her trance. "It appears we have a guest."

With that, Rallis snapped back to reality and looked around. She was no longer standing in a warm field at sunrise, but rather in plain sight right smack in the middle of a very large room filled with dozens of people, and every single one of them were staring at her.

"Huh...? WHAT?!?!" She jumped back in shock. 'When?! How?!'

Someone muttered about the bouncer not doing their job, others looked her up and down in disdain, others in fear. The words 'outlander' and 'monster' echoed throughout the room. This place was not welcoming. Rallis spun around looking for a way out only to find two burly men blocking what she presumed was the only entrance. Her ears pinned back in fear as she faced down all the angry untrusting glares.

A large bearded man with an eyepatch and tankard howled from his seat in the audience. Rallis stepped back as he rose and walked nearer. "Welcome, stranger!" he boomed. "Oh no need to look so nervous, come! Sit down! Join us!"

Rallis timidly obeyed, not wanting to cause any more trouble, and slowly tiptoed over to the man. She had been insulted and shooed away by humans before, but this room wide feel of disdain and distrust was a whole new experience. It made her scales crawl. She had a seat across from the big man and at once the stares began to turn away. The people near her scooted away and the rest of the room went about their quiet murmuring.

"Don't mind them," the man started after taking a swig of his drink. "We don't get many visitors. And you're by far the most interesting to stop by! I don't think I've ever heard of a talking monster outside of the bard's tales. What brings you to Relleka? Not here to do anything untoward I hope." It was as if the room collectively had a hand on a weapon at the word.

"I don't know what that word means..." she started quietly. "But I heard music. I wanted to listen more..." She was shocked at herself at how timid and quiet she was being. She shook her head and steeled herself. This wasn't like her! She was smiley and loud and bouncy and it was time to get back to it!

"Oh and is that all? Well I'm sorry to say Olaf is done for the day. Perhaps if you had come earlier." He took another drink. "Where are you from?"

"Taverley. South east of here, long walk. Over the white mountain with all the wolves!"

"Hmm, that is far! Certainly you didn't come all this way for a bit of music! What brings a creature of your kind so far from home?"

"Exploring!" Rallis exclaimed, once again turning cheerful over the topic. "I want to see everything and everywhere and I found this place. It's so cold up here and so different!"

The man laughed. "I suppose it is cold if you're not used to it. And it is Fall. It will be terribly cold for an unprepared outlander soon so I suggest you leave before dark."

It was already starting to grow dark outside but Rallis couldn't tell if it was because of night beginning to fall or just the general grey and gloomy atmosphere of the place. Either way, it was cold outside and she wasn't prepared for it. The smidgen of wind chill was much more dangerous for a dragon than it was for a human,

"Is it okay if I stay here? Just for tonight? I don't do cold so well..."

The man frowned thoughtfully. "Unfortunately outlanders may not stay here. Traditions and rules and what have you. Only if you are Fremennik or known by one may you stay, and you are neither."

Rallis' ears drooped and a hint of fear and sadness flashed across her face before being replaced by a curious smile. "Then can I be one? A Fremmer-Nick?"

The man snorted into his cup. "You're an interesting one. Outlanders don't normally even give us the time of day, and now here one is asking to join us! And an inhuman one at that! Let me tell you, when I woke up today the last thing I was expecting was for a talking monster from mountains over to ask about becoming a Fremennik."

Some of the people nearby were listening in on the conversation and scowled at the idea. They didn't want this talking... thing in their home. It was an abomination and its demand went against their way of life.

"I want to explore," Rallis said. "And if I gotta be a Fremmer... Fremennik to do so, then I'll do it! And I wanna hear the music again!"

The man was a bit disappointed at her reasoning but hid it well. "I suppose I could let you try the trials to become a Fremennik. But be warned I will only allow it once." Rallis nodded. That was fair she supposed. "The trials weed out those who do not belong," he said quietly. "Should you want to be one of us for the wrong reasons, should you not put your best foot forward, you will find yourself unable to pass. Your determination and ideals will be tested and judged."

His words had weight, and Rallis would keep them in mind.

"It won't be easy," he continued. "And most everyone will likely be working against you. I'm sure even you can feel it."

She could, the hatred and uncertainty in the room. But that wouldn't stop her! It hadn't yet and it wouldn't now and she told him as much.

The man rose with a groan. "Well, I suppose I need to get everyone ready for tomorrow then! This should be quite the affair! You're welcome to stay in here for the night but expect to be up early tomorrow for your trials."

Rallis nodded. "Okay. Thank you, big eyepatch man!"

He chuckled and held out a hand. "I suppose we didn't introduce ourselves. Chieftain Brundt. Welcome to my village."

Rallis took it with a smile. "Rallis."

He walked off and with him went half the bystanders, giving her odd glares and stares, muttering curses. The others left in the room stayed far away from her, never making direct eye contact and keeping a considerable distance away. She was offered no food, drink, or company, and once night fell things to sleep on or with were added to the list. Not that she minded. She usually slept on the ground anyway, though she frowned at the lack of grass and leaves present.

Every patron shot her a glare as they left, as if wary and uncomfortable of a stranger staying in their town throughout the night. Rallis curled on the floor by the dwindling fire and buried her face in her arms, watching the angry people as they left. Many people she had met in her travels hated her for no other reason than because of what she was, and sadly it seemed no different here. Perhaps trying to join them wouldn't be such a good idea after all. She could always leave in the morning and fail the trials, though she doubted she would ever be welcomed back.

'How frustrating humans are sometimes...'

Eventually the room was empty save for a man nursing his drink and two other men asleep in their seats, snoring loud enough to wake the dead. Rallis began to shiver by the now ash pile of a fire. Venturing north without a cloak was a bad idea, a mistake she would be sure to rectify for future exploration. But that didn't stop her from being cold now. She closed her eyes and tried to concentrate on falling asleep.

'Think warm thoughts. The bed at home, the beach in Catherby, that fantastic sunning rock by Ardougne, blankets... I want a blanket...'

As if hearing her silent prayer, a blanket fell over her. Her ears shot up in surprise and opened her eyes to find a tall bearded man with a long brown almost auburn ponytail and long white cape standing before her. He had another blanket in his hands which he handed over. Rallis excitedly buried her face in it with a purr and curled up in it. She chirped a quiet thank you and hid under the blankets, only her face peeking out. The man sat down next to her.

"You've certainly sparked some discussion, you know," he told her. "When was the last time I met a monster that could speak? My trip to Morytania perhaps? Where the wolves speak and wear the skin of men. I never thought I would find such a rarity in my own home."

"All of us can speak," Rallis said. "You just can't understand us."

"Maybe so! This is definitely the first time I've been able to understand the speech of a lizard."

Rallis growled at the comment but she didn't believe he meant it in the derogatory way others had before. "I'm a dragon, not a lizard!"

"My apologies if I offended you," he said sincerely. "What brings such a noble beast as a dragon to our stagnant fishing town, hm?"

Rallis shrugged. "I just wanted to see everything. I want to go everywhere!"

The man smiled. He could understand the sentiment well, wanting to see everything the world had to offer as well. "Well I hope our little town isn't a disappointment."

"No way! This place has music! That means it can't be bad!"

"Oh? Liked it, did you?"

Rallis nodded. "Yeah! It was really pretty! Reminded me of my mom. She makes pretty music too."

The man smiled. "Well I'm glad my music finally made someone happy. They don't much appreciate my work anymore." He rose and brushed the dirt off his pants. "Perhaps I'll play more if you finish your trials tomorrow."

"You got it! ... Um, what's your name?"

"Olaf the bard," he said with a bow. "And yours?"

"I'm Rallis! Rallis... the dragon, I guess."

"Beautiful name. I shall see you tomorrow, Rallis the dragon. Good night."

Olaf walked off, cape swishing behind him, and Rallis got comfortable under the blankets. 'I like him! Maybe not everyone here is an angry scowly grump!'

She fell asleep dreaming of music.

The sun wasn't even up when Rallis was awoken. Something hard and wooden slammed into the ground inches from her snout. She woke with a start and yelped as she jolted back, tangling herself in the blankets. Standing above her was a shadow of a man, hidden in a forest green hooded cloak, calculating eyes hidden in the darkness. His golden beard was braided with what appeared to be leaves, and upon closer inspection his cloak had a mantle of matching foliage, making him seem almost like some kind of nature spirit. The object he had slammed down to wake her was a bow, carved with intricate inscriptions for who knows what. He said nothing, only nodded for her to follow and slithered off into the gray morning sky like a shadow. Rallis folded the blankets on a nearby bench and clumsily ran after him.

It was just as dark and grey as yesterday, though perhaps this time because it was hardly even morning. Rallis yawned as she followed the cloaked man to the entrance of town, trying to force herself awake. The awful chill made her want to fall back asleep immediately. A few feet down the path out the gate, the man stopped, watching the fog ahead of him like a hawk.

Rallis hummed in confusion. "Wha--?"

The man snapped her snout shut with one hand and pointed into the fog with the other. Rallis growled, unappreciative of the gesture, but watched where he pointed. Vaguely in the fog was a flicker of light in the shape of a human. She squinted but couldn't make out any details. It shuffled along and wailed angrily, high pitched and distraught. The dragon flinched from the sound and saw the figure wasn't walking, but floating. It was a spirit! She shivered and looked to her companion for answers. The man began to rummage through a pouch and speak.

"To become one of us, you must do seven tasks," he whispered, voice quiet and stealthy like him. "Only twelve of us may give them to you, the twelve of Chieftain Brundt's council. Some will oblige, some won't, you need to convince them." He pulled out an oddly shaped wooden figure, much like the design of a rune talisman. "If you do the task successfully, you receive a vote. You need seven. Seven tasks for seven votes." He handed her the talisman. "This is my task. Unlike the rest of the village, I don't care what you are, what you look like, where you come from. I only care if you can pull your weight. Show me you can do just that. Catch me a draugen."

Rallis tilted her head in confusion and looked around. She turned back to him and pointed to herself. "Okay, I did it! I'm a dragon and I caught myself!"

Rallis swore she heard something like a choked laugh under the man's hood but he quickly quieted himself. He was definitely smiling now though. "Draugen, not dragon. That spirit you just saw, that's a draugen. It will disappear soon so I suggest you get going. They stay near water and in the fog. Once the sun comes out, the fog will vanish and so will it. Prove to me you can be a huntsman and catch it and you'll have my vote." He pointed to the talisman in her hands. "That will help you find and catch it."

She expected a net or something to help catch it but received nothing more. "What am I supposed to catch it with? My hands?"

"Part of the hunt is figuring things out at the most crucial moment. You will have to figure it out yourself." He nodded toward the fog. "Now get going."

Rallis pouted at the lack of direction but she wasn't about to fail! Talisman in hand, she sprinted into the fog and vanished.

Everything was muffled and distorted in the fog. Animals scurrying in the undergrowth sounded like rattling bones, their howls like the wails of demons. It was unnerving not being able to see anything. The talisman in Rallis' hands glowed brighter in certain directions and softer in others. 'It must be leading me to the spirit!' She slithered under the fog hot on the trail of the Draugen.

Running water could be heard next to her. She must have reached the river to the south, she figured. 'And that hunter said this thing stays near water. Oh, I didn't catch his name either. What is with these people and not telling me their names? They just start conversations without greetings!' Rallis shook the conversation out of her head. She had to focus. The farther along the river she trekked, the brighter the talisman glowed.

'Getting close!'

Suddenly a loud angry moan cut through the cold silence, filling Rallis with dread. It was the same moan from before, only this time much closer. It rattled her bones and made her halt in fear. It took all her willpower to take cover under a shrub. The fog was beginning to fade away, one wisp at a time, and there far in a clearing was the draugen. It was wailing to the river, as if angry it would not listen to its woes. Otherwise, it didn't seem to move on, content to scream at the water. Rallis began to think.

'Alright, so the hunter wants me to catch it and bring it back. It looks like a human. Maybe I can just grab it and drag it back?' The draugen howled, cutting off her train of thought. Rallis shook her head and shivered. That howl was horrifying, freezing the core of anyone who would hear. 'Think quick. How to catch it. I don't think he wants me to just tie it up and bring it back. Can you even tie a spirit up?' The draugen moaned again, Rallis pressed her hands over her ears and head to the dirt. 'Shut up you whiny ghost! What do I do then?! All he gave me was this glowing stick! Maybe I have to use it on the spirit in some way? The spirit I helped in Lumbridge was pretty nice once he had someone to talk to. Maybe this one just needs to talk. Oh but I didn't bring that amulet... Well maybe--'

Rallis stopped her thoughts. The world was quiet. Too quiet. The draugen wasn't moaning and groaning anymore. She peeked over the shrub and across the way to the clearing and sure enough, the spirit was gone. 'Uh-oh.' A chill ran up her spine, completely different from the cold of the morning northern air. Low moaning echoed from right behind her, an eerie saddened whisper on the wind. Turning around was the last thing she wanted to do, but she had to. The dragon slowly turned around to find a blackened blue skeletal corpse standing right behind her, ethereal glow forcing the fog away. It screeched like a banshee and scared the dragon into submission. Before she could curl up and hide, the draugen grabbed her by the throat and brought her struggling form to its face.

She wanted to move, she wanted to run, she wanted to do anything, but she couldn't move an inch. The soul piercing scream, the bony fingers wrapped around her throat, the dark rotting skeletal face staring into her eyes... This was a nightmare she wanted to wake up from! The draugen opened its mouth, disgusting rotting breath hitting her in the face, and if that wasn't a wake up call, nothing was. Right as the spirit was about to scream once more, Rallis grabbed the talisman tight and bopped the spirit on its head.

"LEMME GO LEMME GO LEMME GO LEMME GO LEMME GO!!!!!"

Each syllable was punctuated with a smack to its skull, wooden talisman making the draugen's hollow head ring. It dropped her with a growl and rubbed its head. Its precious skull had a dent! That was unforgivable! The spirit reached for the dragon again, but stopped when it noticed the talisman in her claws. It was pretty and the spirit wanted it. It reached for the talisman and Rallis pulled away. "No way! You can't have that! It's mine!"

The draugen howled again and reached for it, but instead of the wooden treasure, the spirit received another bop on the head. Now it was angry. The spirit's eyes grew red and it growled demonically. Rallis yelped and ran off, angry screaming spirit in tow.

The angry howls and silent footsteps chased her throughout the foggy forest, growing closer and closer by the second. It was impossible to see where she was going, stumbling over roots and rocks every other step. After her third nasty fall, she couldn't catch herself in time. Rallis rolled into the dirt and straight into a briar patch, snaking thorny branches grabbing hold of her like clawed hands. The talisman was sent flying, skittering to another equally thorny bush nearby. The moaning of the draugen was right beside her now, it's glowing figure breaking through the fog. Rallis ripped out of the thorns and grabbed the talisman, shredding her gloves to pieces. It was then that she noticed the talisman was still glowing, and not in the direction of the draugen.

'Is there something else?' She didn't have time to think as the skeletal glowing figure came into view. Rallis sprinted on the path the talisman was taking her.

The fog was starting to dissipate, rays of sun cutting through like a hot knife. It made the tiring run easier, but no less stressful. She was running out of time. She couldn't hear the spirit anymore, only the chirps of birds greeted her now. The talisman grew brighter and brighter until it began to flash and even heat in her hands. Rallis dropped it as she tripped over a mound of dirt by the riverbank and tumbled into the waters. She grabbed onto the crumbling earth before the currents could take her away and crawled out of the freezing water coughing and gasping. She didn't have the talisman anymore.

'Where is it? Where is it?!'

She began to panic but breathed a sigh of relief when she spotted it sitting nearby the mound she tripped over. She crawled over to grab it when a heavy weight slammed itself on the hand reaching for it. Rallis yelped and whined, in pain then fear. The draugen stepped on her hand, hard, and smushed it into the dirt. The dragon whined with tears springing to her eyes as the spirit crushed her hand, bending down to pick up the talisman without any more interruptions. It kicked her away, nearly back into the river, and stared at the wooden figure in wonder. It was flashing like crazy, as if upset someone else had a hold of it.

Rallis sniffled and cradled her crushed bleeding hand and glared at the spirit. The sun was almost fully over the mountains now, its rays piercing the draugen and beginning to make him vanish. The dragon snarled with ears pinned back in rage. 'You're not beating me you stupid ghost!' With a screech and claws out, Rallis leapt at the fading spirit and bit and clawed into it. The draugen wailed in pain, flailing and trying to throw her off. Rallis snapped and snapped like a rabid dog, grabbing the arm holding onto the talisman and chewing its hand clean off at the wrist. The talisman fell to the dirt as the sunlight dissolved the severed hand.

The draugen howled as Rallis dove for the talisman, growling as the spirit grabbed after her with one hand. The talisman flashed frantically, practically pulling itself toward the center of the dirt mound. The spirit grew panicked as if just realizing what the wooden icon was. Its skeletal face distorted in fear as it frantically tried to pull Rallis back, but the dragon wasn't having any of it. With a final shriek, she slammed the talisman so deep into the mound only the top poked out, and at once it and the draugen exploded into a shower of light. Sparkles rained down with the sun as the spirit disappeared. All was quiet, all was calm, as if nothing had ever happened.

Rallis slowly scoped the area from her spot on the dirt, panting harshly and breaking the still silence. The last wisps of fog were fading away. The birds were singing and the rabbits came out to say hello. Even the black unicorns seemed particularly happy today. The draugen was gone. Timidly, Rallis pulled the talisman out of the dirt. The spirit didn't suddenly spring out, thank Guthix. The wooden icon glowed with a different color, the shade of anger and malevolence.

'I guess this means... I caught the draugen.'

At the realization, she sighed and flopped onto the dirt and stared at the sky. She did it. But perhaps catching her breath for a moment longer wouldn't be such a bad idea.

Rallis trudged back into town with two missing gloves, two bleeding hands, clothing covered in dirt and soaked and dripping with water, and the promise of a vote. The hunter was impressed, Sigli she finally learned his name was, and was almost sure she wouldn't be able to do it. He had purposefully given her something hard to see if an outlander could even hold a candle to a Fremennik, and he was pleasantly surprised. She was sure to have his vote. Rallis wondered what he was going to do with the captured draugen, and he muttered something about a ritual and walked off. She didn't pursue.

'If all seven trials are going to be like this, maybe I'll just drop out now,' Rallis lamented. 'Or die. That's an option too.'

The sun was out, as were the people, and she had already been up for hours and was beyond exhausted. She shuffled into the building she began this whole charade in, which she learned was called the Longhall, and practically sat in the fire she was so cold. She wrung out as much water as she could and sat down to dry off. Heavy footsteps stomped up behind her and a voice as booming as thunder grabbed her attention.

"Rallis! I was looking for you!"

The dragon turned around to see Chieftain Brundt standing before her. He was shocked to see the state she was in.

"Oh my. What happened to you?"

"Sigli," was all she muttered.

Brundt nodded in understanding. "I see you've already begun then. He always did like to start early. Sigli is a man of few words. Did he explain everything well enough for you?"

Rallis nodded. "Seven tasks, seven votes, twelve possible people." A smile cracked through her glum facade. "Now six votes to go."

"Ah so you got his! Good!" He leaned down to whisper in her ear. "If I'm honest with you, Sigli's trial I find to be one of the hardest. Don't lose hope yet!"

Rallis smiled. She liked Brundt. He was like a big happy dad.

He stood back up straight. "Well, the day is still young! You should have some food and get back to work! Why don't you go see Yrsa about some clothes after you eat? You'll get sick if you keep wearing that." He motioned to her sopping wet attire. "And if she says otherwise, you can tell her I told her to help." He pointed her in the right direction and she ran off with a thank you, snagging a leg of chicken from the fire as she left.

The Yrsa lady ran a clothing store and even made shoes from scratch! She was very talented. Yrsa let Rallis have whatever she needed surprisingly, and the dragon left with a warm blue long sleeve shirt and a gray long skirt which she quickly pinned up to make it short. The woman gave her a look when she declined shoes, but when the dragon waggled three long clawed toes at her, she realized it probably wasn't the best idea to wear them. The woman was even kind enough to let Rallis leave her wet clothing there to dry by the fire. She thanked the woman profusely. It was always nice when a stranger didn't treat her like a monster, and she wasn't expecting that in this town if she was honest. Rallis would have to be sure to bring some platinum back with her to repay her kindness.

With new clothing, Rallis felt like a new dragon. She ran off at lightning speed, bouncing up to anyone and everyone to see if they had a task she could do to earn their vote. She found two other council members rather quickly and she had much more of a fun time doing those than tracking down a monster for Sigli. One man named Swensen had her do a maze. Supposedly it was difficult for most, maze having been built with magic and making anyone who stayed inside too long sick to their stomach, but Rallis was a mage herself. A little teleportation never hurt her! Another man named Peer had a test for her in the form of riddles, some spoken, some written, some even interactive. Rallis may have found her time learning human language with Reldo beyond boring, but he did teach her riddles and puzzles and those were super fun. But Peer took it a step further and had interactive riddles! Rallis was reluctant to admit she spent more time doing the riddles than she needed simply because it was so fun to mess around with all the stuff.

'Three out of three votes so far! This will be easy!'

The sun was high in the sky now, noon shining down below. The town was more bright and vibrant than yesterday, though it may have had to do with the bouncy blue dragon running around as much as it did the change in weather. Olaf was hiding a snicker as he watched the dragon bounce around the market square running errands for Sigmund.

'Ah Sigmund you crafty asshole, you're just getting the poor thing to do your work for you.'

He watched a bit longer and was about to leave when he saw the dragon run his way. She stopped in front of him, panting. "Hi! I need music!" she said between breaths.

"Good day to you too, Rallis the dragon. I thought I told you after you finished your trials."

Rallis shook her head. "No not for me! Fooorrr..." She spun around, finger pointed to the market trying to find someone particular. "Him!" she shouted victoriously as she spotted the fisherman she spoke to earlier. "He needs music!"

"As in he wants me to sing to him?" As good as Olaf thought his music was, he didn't quite think Sortur of all people would want to be regaled by his song and charm.

"No he needs a written song! For this lady he likes!"

Ah. That made sense. Wait, no it didn't! Sortur hated everyone! He only enjoyed killing monsters, fishing, and killing monsters he fished. Olaf was curious, but he'd pry later. "I can do that," Olaf told her. The dragon smiled and jumped happily. "But it'll take a little while to think of what to write. I don't suppose you can do an errand for me while I write it, could you?"

Rallis shrugged. "Sure. What do you need?"

"I was on my way to Yrsa's to pick up some new shoes when I got... sidetracked. If you could get them for me while I think of what to write, that would be great."

"Okay!" Rallis chirped. She was about to run off when Olaf stopped her.

"My apologies," he started. "But I'm simply too nosy for my own good. How have your trials been going?"

"Fine I guess. I have found seven people who can give me votes, I've gotten three, and I'm working on one! So I could have four soon!"

"That is fine! Beyond fine! Well done! Who have you spoken to?"

"First I did Sigli's trial," she started and poked her hands out of the overly long blue sleeves. The cuts weren't bleeding anymore but they were still red and angry. Olaf flinched. Sigli's trials could always be a bit brutal, though not as brutal as...

He shook his head. Hopefully she wouldn't have to do that one. Thorvald's was the worst trial of them all, or maybe second alongside Sortur's. And at the rate she was going with four out of seven votes she might not have to do his. "A tough trial to be sure. Who else?"

She was excited to talk about the other two. "Peer's and Swensen's I got! Those were fun!" Her excitement was contagious, Olaf found himself smiling too. "I tried three more but they all made fun of me," she pouted. She pointed back to the fisherman. "That guy was one of them. What was his name? Sortur? He told me I could get his vote if I made the sky turn red, the water turn pink, the rocks turn yellow, and the sun turn black. So I did!" Rallis pulled out a now slightly crumpled drawing from under her shirt to keep it out of the water by the dock and sure enough the drawing detailed just those four things, drawn as if a child had done it. Olaf choked on a snort. Sortur would surely take her answer as a slight but Olaf thought it was both creative and hilarious.

"He didn't want it though," Rallis said with drooped ears. "Now I don't know what to do with it."

"Well, I'd certainly love to take it if no one else will have it. It's charming." It was such an odd looking picture but it was really quite adorable. And if she wasn't going to get a vote from it, she might as well get some appreciation for her work. Rallis beamed and handed it over, happy someone liked it. "Honestly it might be a good thing Sortur won't give you his trial. It usually involves killing monsters." Rallis looked back at the fisherman with horror. "Who were the other two you tried?"

Rallis pointed to a woman laughing by Sortur. With the man's expressions, he was likely telling her about the picture Rallis tried to give him. "She said I was too gull-able. I don't know what sea birds have to do with it but she wouldn't talk to me after that."

Olaf rolled his eyes. 'Really Sassilik?' He watched the two laugh, probably making fun of other people throughout the day. 'Perhaps she's who he likes. Rude attracting rude.'

Rallis pointed to someone else. "And he said I could get his vote if I gave him like 100 times 100 billion coins! I may be a dragon but even I don't have that much!"

"Agnar is always looking for money to gamble with," Olaf said with a groan. "He probably thinks you're rich because you're a dragon."

Rallis snorted. "Anyway I gotta get back to work! I have to get Sigmund's vote!"

"Yes, alright, good luck! I'll be writing that ballad you need for Sortur in the Longhall." Rallis sprinted off with a thank you. "I certainly won't make it good however!" he muttered.

After much running back and forth and being a delivery dragon, Rallis got Sigmund's vote. She ran back to Olaf in the Longhall with a message from Sortur saying the bard was the worst in existence and he was a prideful fool if he thought the trash he handed over was anything but abysmal. Olaf laughed into his drink. Rallis waved goodbye and ran off to find other council members.

One other woman said no immediately and wouldn't hear anything more of the subject. Four of eight still wasn't too bad. She happened to find someone else who would help her while delivering the boots for the ballad in the Longhall for Sigmund's long chain of deliveries. Probably the happiest drunk she had ever met, Manni. It was barely past noon and the man had already downed at least six tankards of beer. He was singing and telling stories as he swung around a beer in each hand. Rallis wasn't surprised when the man said his trial would be a drinking contest. Unfortunately, that was something she could not do. Even the slightest bit of alcohol made her violently sick. She was sad to say she did in fact cheat to win his vote. She filled a keg with water beforehand and crumbled a smoke rune into the Longhall fire pit as a distraction to swap out the alcohol for water. When the smoke cleared, no one had suspected a thing, and Rallis came away with a fifth vote and a new happy drunk friend.

Rallis was told the names of the last three possible people she could get votes from, and the first of those three simply mocked her for even trying. That left the other two. She would have to get their votes if she wanted to finish the trials. There was no one else. She was surprised to hear one of the last two people was Olaf. Maybe that's why he had been watching her on and off all day, checking to see if she was even worth his time. Funnily enough, Rallis couldn't find him now. Off to the other person it was then! Thorvald.

Thorvald was huge, a giant warrior of a human. He could probably hold his sword up with just his pinky. He dwarfed Rallis and stared down at her scrawny small self with disdain. "You want to try and get my vote?"

"Yes!" Rallis shouted with an eager bounce. She wouldn't be deterred that easily.

"You're so small," Thorvald said as he held up his hand in mock measurement.

Rallis snapped at the air where his hand was. "No, you're all just too big!"

Thorvald's laughter boomed throughout the room they stood in, shaking the flimsy walls. They looked like they had been broken and shoddily put back together many times, like he kept breaking them. "You have guts! I like that! Hopefully I won't see them on the floor after this." He kicked up a rickety trapdoor beside him and pointed. "Down there is a demon in a man's skin. He is ruthless, he knows no fear, and he will never stop fighting. He has killed many, and can only be held back by valiant warriors. You will go down there and fight like your life depends on it, because it does. And you will do it unarmed."

Rallis put on a brave face but it did sound scary. She wouldn't be stopped though! She would fight that human demon and win! She carefully put her whip aside. "Please don't touch that," she warned, pointing to the weapon. "It likes to freeze people it doesn't like." Thorvald looked at it with horror. He hated magic and weapons imbued with it were even worse. Rallis gently placed her pouches and runes atop the whip and hopped down the trapdoor. She had fought unarmed plenty of times before and she wouldn't lose now!

"Remember, like your life depends on it!" Thorvald echoed after her followed by the slam of the door shutting.

The trapdoor hid a ladder that went a considerable distance underground. There were many underground and oceanic caverns in the area, and this seemed to be the former. Though this one was furnished, Rallis was surprised to see. Torches, carpets, tapestries on the rocky walls, even a bed and places to sit all much farther in. Where she stood at the end of the ladder was red paint. It traced along the rectangular stone stadium before the furnished area like a sacrificial altar. Old bloodstains dotted the stadium, trails reaching the red painted edges and disappearing. And there, stood at the opposite end, was a lone man, shirtless with what she assumed was blood drawn in a pattern across his chest, sword drawn and ready. He immediately put Rallis on guard. She figured Thorvald was playing up the drama to make her nervous by calling him a demon in human skin, but he was at least partially right. This man wasn't human, she could smell it, feel it in the air.

The man took a step forward. "My name is Koschei the Deathless," he whispered, sound bouncing off the wall to sound as if fifty of him spoke at once. "I would know your name before you die."

Rallis growled. "My name is Rallis. But it won't be me who dies today." She bared her fangs and flared her claws. "Fight me!" she roared.

Koschei was on her in the blink of an eye.

The fight couldn't even be seen by normal eyes, both of them were unnaturally fast. Every swipe Rallis gave, Koschei blocked with ease. Every swipe of his sword, Rallis dodged or blocked with her claws. She was normally the faster one in a fight, this was all new territory for her. She just had to keep up until she saw an opening. After one particularly bad miss, she saw one. He left his side open and she slashed hard with her claws. He didn't even flinch, retaliating back with a kick that sent her flying against the far wall.

Rallis fell to the ground with a thud, unable to breathe for a moment. Koschei was coming her way, taking his sweet time. His side was bleeding but he didn't even seem to feel the pain. Rallis didn't give him a chance to get any closer, rushing back into the fight with a snarl. A scratch to his arm, a nick to his cheek, a claw through his boot and into his foot, he didn't feel a thing. And every strike she landed left her open, a bash to the head, a slash to the leg, a dangerous near-hit as he stabbed at her side only to strike air. Rallis grew more tired as the fight continued. She wasn't used to things lasting this long. She usually killed or disarmed her enemy in seconds. But it didn't matter. She wasn't about to lose to this violent murderous demon!

Koschei lashed out with his sword again and Rallis bit down on his arm, straight through his arm guard. Before she could crunch down and shatter bone, he punched her square in the jaw and sent her flying. She groaned and spat the blood out of her mouth and froze. She gasped and stared at the man, horrified.

"Thorvald said you were a demon! A demon in human skin! But I've chewed through the throat of demon and human alike and I know the disgusting tastes well. You're not a demon! You're not human either but you're not a demon. I don't want to fight you anymore!"

Koschei wouldn't hear it and slammed down his sword, narrowly missing.

"Wait!" Rallis tried. "Can't we talk this out? I don't want to hurt you anymore!"

He continued to ignore her, slashing and fighting away.

'Well fine then! If that's how you want to play then I'll just take your sword from you!'

Rallis focused on his fighting style. Every time he swiped at her with his sword, she went for his hand or its hilt. First she tried to grab it and accidentally slashed his arm. Next try, she tried to bite the hilt and nearly took one of his fingers off. Then she tried grabbing again and nearly got the blade stuck in her hand! Every disarming attempt just hurt him more and she was growing frustrated.

"FOR THE LOVE OF GUTHIX, HOLD STILL!"

Rallis had had enough! She sunk a claw into his leg and brought him down. Koschei swung his sword up in defense and finally Rallis had a victory. She grabbed the sword in her jaws, teeth slicing through like a hot knife through butter, and wrenched it out of his grasp. That finally elicited an emotion from him, a blink of surprise. Rallis threw the mangled useless sword aside and helped him up. Pain might not have easily registered with him, but she messed up one of his legs pretty badly. Walking wasn't going to be easy.

"I'm so sorry, I didn't want to do that, BUT YOU WOULDN'T STOP! You need help!" Rallis slunk the silent man over to the ladder and set him down. She pounded on the trapdoor and shouted. "Thorvald! Thorvald, let me out! This is important!" No answer. "Thorvald I'm serious!"

Koschei hobbled to his feet and tugged on her tail, motioning for her to come down. "Thorvald..." he quietly muttered.

At once, the door swung open. Thorvald's shocked face greeted them. "Well this is highly unusual." He held a hand down for Koschei and helped him up, setting him down on a seat. Rallis followed after, panicked and upset.

"I know you said he was a demon," Rallis started. "But he's not! He's really not! When I found out, I didn't want to hurt him anymore because he might not be bad, but he kept attacking and I couldn't get him to stop! You're terrible at listening by the way Koschei! So I tried to get him to stop by breaking his weapon, and I did, but I hurt him a lot trying to do it and I didn't mean to I'm so sorry why do you even have this man in your basement anyway oh can you please help him!"

She gasped, having blurted all that out at once. The two men just blinked at her. "What in the holy name of V are you on about?" Thorvald said. Rallis opened her mouth to explain again but he waved a hand in her face. "You know what? No. Forget it." He turned to Koschei, currently pressing a nearby cloth to his bleeding side. "Koschei, how'd she do?"

The silent warrior simply held a thumbs up. Thorvald grinned.

"Good, good!" Rallis was so confused. "You fought for your life," Thorvald explained. "And then you fought for someone else's. I'm impressed! You definitely have my vote." The dragon was happy at the news but still lost. "Listen outlander, we play up the fight to be this ultimate scary thing. Fighting a monster that looks like a man with nothing but your fists. It's intimidating! This trial isn't a test on how good of a fighter you are, it's a test of bravery. Are you willing to go down unarmed into a pit you can't escape from and fight? That's what this is about, and you did it and then some."

"Oh," she managed to squeak out. "Are you okay though?" she asked Koschei.

He nodded. "I don't feel it."

Rallis was still upset. "If you're sure... I owe you now! I'll make it up to you! Whatever you want, an apology for kicking your butt!"

"You did not," he whispered.

"She totally did," Thorvald laughed. "I got him, you go run off and do whatever you have to do. You've got my vote, remember!"

Rallis nodded, bowed, took her things, and ran off. Just one to go.

The sun was finally beginning to fall. Rallis sighed. What a long day it had been. She shuffled back to Yrsa. Her clothes were dry and she wanted to get back into them. Her new Fremennik outfit was cut and bloodied. Rallis apologized profusely but Yrsa was more mad at Thorvald than her. She gave the dragon her clothes and shooed her out so she could fix them.

'The last one is Olaf. Where could he be?'

Not in the Longhall. Not watching the market. Not by the houses. So where?

As if on cue, he walked through the entrance of the town with a stretch and a yawn. Rallis walked over excitedly. Running wasn't easy with the cut she got from Koschei. "Olaf! Olaf! Olaf! I have six votes!"

"Excellent, Miss Dragon! I take it you now want to do my trial?"

Rallis nodded excitedly.

"Night is falling soon which means we will need entertainment for dinner." He took out something that was hooked to his belt, something small and wooden with golden strings. It was very simple but also very pretty. It almost seemed magical as well. "So my trial for you is simple. You'll need one of these."

"What is it?" she asked as she gave it a delicate poke.

"It's a lyre. It plays music."

Rallis was appalled. "Your instrument tells lies?"

Olaf laughed. "Not liar, lyre. It's a simple to make musical instrument that can play a lot for its size. You're going to make one of these and come back to me for the rest of your trial."

Make a lyre and come back. Sounded easy enough. Olaf ran through everything she'd need to make one and where to get it. With a determined nod, she hopped out the gate, forgetting the pain from the previous fight.

It was well into the evening when Rallis returned, lyre in hand. It wasn't as nice looking as Olaf's but in her defence it was her first time making one. It wasn't hard to make either, though sneaking passed that obnoxious troll to steal some golden wool was a pain. Hopefully the next part would be just as simple. Olaf met her by the entrance to town and walked and talked. "Good! Now you can finish the trial! All that's left is to go on stage and play!"

Rallis froze. "On... on stage?" She figured she'd have to play the instrument, he was a bard after all. But she thought maybe she would just have to play in front of a couple people, maybe sing at a table in the Longhall, not in front of ALL OF RELLEKA.

"Yes. There's a big stage at the end of the Hall. That's where I was playing when you stumbled by yesterday."

Rallis gripped her lyre tightly, claws scratching its back. "But I don't even know how to play it."

"That's what the enchantment is for. If you think it, it will play. Imagine what you want to hear and you'll find your hands simply know how to make it a reality."

Put that way, it did sound rather wondrous and magical. But she was still beyond nervous.

She didn't get a word of argument in as Olaf showed her to the back entrance of the stage. "I need to get everyone ready and inside. Give yourself a couple minutes to think and get in there!" With that, he ran off.

Rallis waited until he was gone and began to whine and pace. What was she going to do?! She couldn't just go up there and play in front of the entire town. That was horrifying! She'd rather fight Koschei again. And another draugen. At the same time! She began to panic. She didn't know how to sing. She didn't know how to play. What would they do when she went up there and realized she was awful? Would she only get the vote if she was good? Oh she did not want to do this!

She didn't even hear Olaf come back as she stood shaking by the back entrance, lost in her thoughts. She yelped and jumped with a fright as he put a hand on her shoulder. "You're keeping everyone waiting," he told her. "What's the matter?" Had it really been so long already? Hadn't he left a second ago? She heard the impatient groans from inside. Apparently not...

Rallis growled as she looked at the lyre she made. "I don't want to go up there!" she whined. "I don't even know how to play this stupid thing! It doesn't matter if it's enchanted, I'll still mess it up! And look, I have claws, I'm gonna tear the strings! And I can't sing!"

Olaf frowned. "Sad to see you give up so easily. You went to the trouble of making that lyre and yet you won't even try to play it. Considering you've done the rest of the trials, I will say I'm rather disappointed mine is the one you quit on."

Rallis' head drooped and she turned away. "I just... don't want to be laughed at... I don't want to be made fun of again." She had enough mockery today with the other council members teasing and making fun of her as they pulled her along. She could handle being made fun of for being gullible and not having the best drawing skills or even her appearance. But she didn't want to go up on stage in front of all these people and be laughed at because she didn't know what she was doing.

The bard's gaze softened a bit. "No one expects you to be a master up there tonight," he said. "It's you're first time and they're not going to make fun of you for it. And if they do, so what? You shouldn't care too much about what others think of you."

She looked at him like he just spoke backwards. "I shouldn't? But everyone else says I should."

"Probably to get something from you," he replied. "There are times you should care, sure, but playing and singing in a room full of happy drunk people is not one of those times. Don't get too hung up on other people's ideas." She still didn't seem convinced. "Rallis, do you know what the point of these trials are?"

"To see what you're good at?" she tried.

Olaf shook his head. "No. Each one shares a valuable ideal. Thorvald's trial is to be brave in the face of death. Sigli's trial is to realize there are many paths that reach a destination and it's up to you to figure out which to take. Do you know what mine is?'

Rallis shook her head.

"It's to be yourself, and be happy with who you are. I'll tell you a secret. I know my music isn't the best and I know a lot of people don't like it. I know the only time I get even a couple positive reactions is when I play music that isn't mine. But it doesn't matter because I enjoy doing it. I'm happy with what I do and who I am. That's all I want you to do. Go up there and play something you're happy to play."

"Okay," she whispered. That little pep talk made her feel a lot better. "I'm still gonna rip the strings though," she said as she held up her clawed hand for emphasis.

"Remember, it's enchanted. That little lyre is more sturdy than you think."

She ran a claw across the golden strings, ears perking up happily as it made a sound, albeit quiet. It didn't tear. She smiled. "Do I still have to sing?" she asked, trying to weasel her way out of it.

He smiled exasperatedly and shook his head. "Yes, yes you do. Just go play, have fun, and stop worrying."

He was damn near about to push her through the door and onto the stage, but she smiled and walked inside. Olaf waved and walked away. "I'll be watching from the audience! Get going, you're running late!"

Rallis ran in and hopped to the edge of the stage, peeking her head around the corner. There were a lot of people down below. The chieftain himself, the other six council members she already received votes from, and some others whose names she was still trying to remember all sat down below. Farther back were dozens of others. The room was filled to capacity. It really was the whole town inside. Rallis laughed as she saw more than half of them with a tankard of beer and more than past a little tipsy. Olaf was right. There was no reason to be nervous.

She stepped onto center stage, grabbing everyone's attention. Some lifted their mug to her, others frowned, one person yelled happily from the back. Rallis flashed a small smile then grew more serious as she looked down at lyre. There weren't many strings, so she didn't think it could make many sounds. But she knew what she wanted to play, she kept the tune in her mind, one of her favorites, and found her fingers bringing her thoughts to life, playing the strings in a pattern, over and over. Her foot tapped along, her tail swished along the floor back and forth. When the sounds came together, it sounded like rain. Beautiful, oddly mystical rain. The audience grew quiet, no more talking or laughing, and gave all their attention to the odd performer. Olaf was resting his head on his hands, watching curiously.

Shakily, Rallis started to sing, but it didn't sound like Common. It didn't even sound like words. It sounded like she was singing music from an instrument. Murmurs started to arise but she quickly shushed them by singing louder and clearer. The sound echoed off the walls, filling the whole Longhall with what sounded like a spirit singing in the rain.

Olaf slowly lifted his head from his hands, watching her move as she played and sang. Having traveled Gielinor learning music and song, there wasn't much that impressed him anymore in the world of music. But this, this was almost ethereal, like it was something mortals weren’t meant to hear.

It was as mystical as the starry skies above, endless and full of possibility. The roof made way, opening out to the night sky, and stars poured in to coat the world in magical shimmering powder. Raindrops of starlight dripped down, splashing into sparks of fire and sparkles. The world vanished and all that was left was a rain of magic against the night sky and the guide of an ethereal songstress' voice.

Rallis quietly finished her song, enchantment fading from the lyre, and timidly clutched it as she tried to appear small, shuffling away from the stage. Some of the audience looked shocked, almost unnerved even, as if trying to come down from the after effects of magic overexposure. Rallis started to droop from the silence, thinking she did something wrong.

'Fuck's sake,' Olaf thought as he stood and clapped.

That seemed to jolt some of them out of whatever stupor they were in and they timidly started to clap as well. Others nervously muttered under their breath, barely understandable. Rallis nervously smiled and exited the stage quickly, Olaf following after. He found her softly tapping at the now unenchanted strings of the lyre by the back entrance of the Longhall.

"Wow..." he said with breathless wistfulness. "That was beautiful! You are one of the greatest bards I have ever had the pleasure of watching performing!"

Rallis blushed at the compliment. "Really?"

Olaf nodded. "I have never heard anything like that before, never felt anything like that before. It was... well there are no words! Beyond magical."

"I'm glad," Rallis breathed a sigh of relief. "I know that's not what your kind sings but it's all I know. And it makes me happy."

"It was certainly different. They might not have understood it, but I thoroughly enjoyed your performance. You've earned my vote."

Rallis jumped up and down, smiling and thanking him. It was honestly rather cute.

"What language was that, by the way? The one you sang in?" Olaf asked.

"Wyvernic," she said with a toothy smile. "I like the way it sounds."

"Wyvernic? I've never heard of it. It's very pretty when you sing it, though. I'd love to hear more some time. Perhaps even a duet?"

The comment flew over her head. "Okay!" she said with a grin. "I don't think humans can speak it though. We'll talk later! Right now I gotta go see the Chieftain!"

With that, she galloped off to see Brundt and await his and the council's decision. The bard slowly trailed behind her, smiling to himself. 'She certainly is an interesting one,' he thought. 'I hope she stays a while. I'd love nothing more than to get to know her.'

As Rallis ran back into the Longhall, everyone gathered round the group of Brundt and his twelve council members. It was a short affair, those who voted for Rallis to stay raised their hand while those who disapproved stepped back. It was seven to five, just as she was promised. Rallis would stay, an honorary Fremennik of Relleka. The Hall shouted and cheered, even the unhappy and disapproving too drunk to do anything other than celebrate. Brundt gave her a name, Denkir, a name as honorable as every other Fremennik in the Hall tonight. The Hall cheered once more and drank to her name. They partied into the night until Rallis fell asleep atop a table and even then continued to drink for her. The poor dragon was tired, and she had a lot of exploring to do tomorrow. She couldn't help but smile before she fell asleep. Oh, the places she'd go...

#osrs #runescape #my writes #oc tag #I wrote this in like 2 days lmao #why can't I be this productive all the time

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ao3feed-runescape · 7 years

Text

Tales of the Trials

read it on the AO3 at http://ift.tt/2m2qMvO

by Zanik_of_the_Dorgeshuun

Doktin Far-strider tells two children the story of her coming of age. Some laughter, some uncomfortable memories. A lot of her stories are touched by loss these days.

Words: 3856, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Series: Part 1 of The Wind and the Waves

Fandoms: Runescape

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence

Categories: F/F

Characters: World Guardian Doktin Far-Strider, Inge Hradson, Rilkal of Rellekka, Hilde Jikkarsdottir, Haakon Jikkarson, Koschei the Deathless

Relationships: World Guardian Doktin Far-strider/Rilkal of Rellekka

Additional Tags: Coming of Age, Quest: The Fremennik Trials, Fifth Age, Sixth Age, Fremennik, PTSD, Injury, Unhealthy Relationships, Unhappy Ending, Storytelling, adorable kids

read it on the AO3 at http://ift.tt/2m2qMvO

#IFTTT #ao3feed #fanfic #runescape

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weazelsun · 7 years

Video

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbNuExePhKs) A new episode of @runescape now up on my @youtube channel.

#Runescape #Episode 26 #Fremennik #Trials #Tailoxen #Kevin Baris

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rskija · 6 years

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Quest complete: The Fremennik Trials

By proving my might, my cunning and lots of other things, I have become an honorary Fremennik and been awarded a new name. from Recent events for: Kija https://ift.tt/2ECka0P via https://ift.tt/2xv6sqc

#runescape #RS3

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jotawakening-blog · 7 years

Text

23 Fentuary, 5A 169: Today I Fucked Up

As soon as it’s light, I take advantage of the fact that the sea remains calm to get back to where I left Erjolf and bring him the Muspah tail. Sure enough, he’s there waiting for me, or, more specifically, waiting for the trophy I’m bringing back. Well, I show it to him, and he gets excited! Rather than thank me, though, he asks me to keep this whole business on the down low, just in case the Fremennik elders find out that he didn’t score this trophy alone and make him do the rest of the trials in the usual manner. Given how he sponged on me this entire time, I tell him I can make no promises.

Well, he heads off to Rellekka to become a Fremennik, and I’m left trying to decide where I want to go next. One thing I could do is check in with the natural historian, and tell him that the Muspah sighting was… not of an actual Muspah at all. He’s disappointed by this, but I manage to fire up his excitement again by telling him where the Varrock museum might find that Muspah statue I unearthed in the desert. Pleased, he gives me a spirit lamp he’s been keeping around. I inhale… and am treated with brief flashes of visions of a craftsman at work. Interesting.

Since I’m already here in the Fremennik Province, I get it into my mind that I might want to see if the ban on entering the city has been lifted yet. So, I go through the mountainside tunnel and down to the river Kelda, and inquire about passage at the ferry dock. The ferryman is most obliging, explaining to me that the Consortium’s travel ban has cost them a lot of business, so they decided to rescind it, and are even allowing humans to travel in and out of the city for free, to make up for lost custom!

The boatman starts up the paddlewheel on the boat and casts off. Once we’re floating down the river, he tells me about the history of Keldagrim. It’s been 500 years, he says, since the reign of King Alvis, known to history as the saviour of Keldagrim and the victim of his own inventions. He explains: The King federated the city’s mining companies into a body called the Consortium, which was meant to serve the monarchy. But in time, it was the monarchy that became subordinated to the Consortium. Now, Keldagrim has no kings, and only the statue of King Alvis stands to remind its people of the old days, the dark days of monarchy.

The statue is right there on the approach to the city! We would be passing it, but as we approach, the engine of the boat emits a disconcerting noise and the craft begins to veer erratically hither and thither. And then the prow crashes into the statue and it falls into the water, shattering into fragments. Well, shit. What a start to my visit.

It gets worse, though: the moment we dock, a squad of Black Guards in gold-trimmed armour runs up and places us under arrest. I am separated from the ferryman and dragged to the guard’s headquarters, where its Commander, Veldaban, interrogates me. Or, rather, he wants a chat. See, it turns out I’m not actually under arrest: the statue was due for replacement anyway, and besides, it’s the ferryman’s damn fault for losing control of his boat. Still, he says, it would be good if I helped in the effort to recreate the sculpture, working as the assistant to Blasidar, Keldagrim’s finest sculptor. His workshop is on the eastern side of the Kelda. I reply that I’d be more than happy to help, which pleases Veldaban.

Before I go off to explore the city, I hang around the Black Guard HQ for a bit, even stealing a few words with the Supreme Commander, a black-bearded dwarf named Bisi. I ask him about his relationship to Veldaban, and he explains that, while Veldaban commands the Black Guard in Keldagrim (by far the largest command), he oversees all the Black Guard regiments all over the dwarven realm. For instance, Commander Lawgof is of equal rank to Veldaban, and subordinate to Bisi. Aha, that makes sense. I ask Bisi whether he’s heard any news around the city. Of course, he says, the biggest and latest news is the collapse of the statue, but he can’t shake the impression that it’s somehow connected to the other disturbances that have taken place around here recently. The ones that led to the city’s closure. Hm, if there’s anything to that theory, perhaps I shall find out as I work to rebuild the statue.

For now, though, I have a city to explore! Keldagrim is a marvel to behold, a city the size of Varrock built free-standing in a massive, vaulted cavern. The buildings are dour, squat affairs of grey stone reinforced with metal that exude solidity, and the streets are brightly lit with lantern-light. A remarkable place, but very, very dwarven. Even the heights of the storeys in the buildings are all wrong, my head bumping almost up against the ceiling of most of them.

I begin my tour of the city by walking about the western side. The first building that captures my attention is a small armour-shop run by Saro, who stocks it with high-quality wares— even adamantium, which is rare in human lands except by special order from the Grand Exchange. It would seem he’s working on something even better, a system of lightweight metal plates meant to increase the durability of armour, but all he’s got now is prototypes, and they’re extremely expensive.

The building next door is something of a dwarven stereotype: an inn called the King’s Axe, serving up dwarven stout to dwarves in search of the good stuff. I don’t know whether it’s the time of day (do dwarves living underground follow a day-night sleep cycle?) but it’s pretty empty right now. Still, I have a glass of dwarven stout along with a fun-loving dwarf named Gauss. After I’ve finished my pint, I go looking for the innkeeper to inquire about lodgings. He offers me a room, and lets slip there’s a gnomish delegation staying at the inn right now, come to negotiate with a cartel known as the Red Axe. I’m in pretty good stead with the gnomes, so I decide to have a chat with them. They are pretty aloof and standoffish, more so than most gnomes, though I figure they may be some of Glough’s flunkies. After talking to them for a while, though, I get the feeling that there’s something more sinister going on: I ask both gnomes I meet where they’re from, just casually, and they give me two different answers! The official story is that they’re from the Grand Tree, getting much-needed supplies of an unspecified nature, but the junior of the two delegates tells me they’re from Tree Gnome Village and is instantly corrected by her superior. I don’t know what to make of it, and can’t think of any way to press them into telling me the truth, so I move on.

Along the street to the south-east, I stop by a stonemason’s workshop to see whether he would consider selling stone to a human interested in furnishing her house. He tells me he sees no problem with that, and walks me through the varieties of stone he’s selling, from common limestone to vastly expensive magic stones.

On the same street is one of the entrances to the former royal palace, a grand hall that dominates the skyline and straddles the river. On this side, there are the gardens (a rather shabby affair by surface standards, with only a few fly-eating cave plants and an unkempt soil-bed), where I run into an uncommonly tall dwarf named Tombar (not really the talkative sort, though) and Rind, the palace gardener, who talks to me about the intricacies of growing anything so deep beneath the mountains. I ask him where the dwarves get their food supply, and he tells me they can grow a bit here, but most of Keldagrim’s food comes from trade via the mine cart tracks that run deep beneath the earth to various outposts. In the Era of Kings, though, technology was more primitive, and the food situation was worse, but the dwarves never considered abandoning the underground. I ask him why that was, and he replies that food shortages were preferable to being in the thick of the God Wars. This state of affairs continued well into the Fourth Age, and only after King Alvis’ glorious victory over the mountain trolls did the dwarves send scouts to the surface to check on the situation.

On the northern side of the west bank, I find a bank, staffed by dwarves but fully connected to the Bank of Gielinor network. Quite convenient! Further on, I make a few more stops. For instance, there’s a store selling quality weapons that even has runite longswords in stock: quite remarkable given the rarity of the metal. I also pop into some private dwellings to ask the locals what the gossip around town is. It doesn’t go too well. Some, like a certain Dromund, tell me to get out, and others, like a quarrelling dwarven couple, are too absorbed in their own quibbles to spare me any time. Fortunately, there’s a library nearby, and the librarian, Hugi (the name means ‘personification of thought’ in Dwarven) is pleased to have someone to talk to. I ask him about the collection, and he says it’s been accumulated over centuries, from the Era of Kings, to the Rise of the Consortium, to the present day, the Era of Prosperity. I glance through the books, but find nothing so exciting that I would put aside my exploration of the city to ensconce myself with it, so I make small talk with a human researcher— the first human I’ve seen in the city besides myself— then continue on my way.

Rather than visit the palace, which I expect will take a long time, I decide to cross over to the east bank via a bridge just upriver and look for the stonemason’s workshop. On the banks of the Kelda, I notice a section of the cavern wall that positively gleams with rare ores. I try to take a closer look, but a dwarf stops me, saying I’m trespassing on public property. Okay, fair enough: access to all that ore would have been too good to be true.

East Keldagrim is a bit of a different world from the west bank. The buildings here are smaller, shabbier, working-class. There is no public street-lighting, only lanterns hung from houses, and even the street is a bit of a foreign concept. Right by the bridge is a dock where I run into that damned ferryman and his boat. I give him a piece of my mind about his shoddy piloting, but he doesn’t seem fazed; he just caustically reminds me that I got my money’s worth for the journey. Grr.

I don’t know if it’s just my imagination, but the locals around here seem to be friendlier than the well-heeled lot over in West Keldagrim. There’s this one dwarf, Karl, for instance, who’s not angry at me for knocking on his door, but listens raptly to my firsthand account of the collapse of the statue and my subsequent arrest. Then, to the north of his place, there’s a shop selling kebabs, whose owner complains to me about some particularly drunken dwarves who live in the area. In fact, I run into one of them soon afterwards: as I’m passing by his house, he throws an empty bottle in my direction! I barge in to confront him, but see that he’s drunk well past the point of throwing the bottle maliciously: he’s hallucinating about dwarf-eating kebabs that have arrived to invade the city! Oh dear, I hope he will be all right.

On the far eastern edge of the city are the actual slums, little dwellings carved straight out of the rock, interspersed with some actual buildings. In one of the buildings, I find a dwarf selling decorative armguards, but he won’t sell to me, because apparently they’re not the right look for my arms (I don’t have forearms the size of a tree branch!). Oh well, should probably have seen that coming. Behind his house is a small coal mine where some of the locals from the cave-homes make their living. They say I can mine there as long as I don’t draw too much attention to myself. Alright, good to know.

The colourful sociological observations don’t end there. One of the locals is a dwarven male wreathed in smoke, who looks completely out of it. Is he doing some kind of drugs, I wonder? There’s also the mostly-deaf owner of a pickaxe shop, who sells remarkable-quality wares (even runite picks) but is burdened by his son, who is supposed to be helping him run the business but is actually kind of a layabout. I also encounter a dwarf who’s wallowing in self-pity because after ninety years mining, all he’s got is a small house on the east bank. I would tell him to count his blessings— it doesn’t seem like too bad a life— but I doubt he’ll listen, so I leave him be.

Further south, the character of the district turns from residential to industrial, with a number of important enterprises all located close to one another. There’s the lava flow mine, for instance, which is off-limits to humans but provides geothermal power for the mine cart network, so is of crucial importance to the functioning of the city. Then there’s a brewery, which advertises its alcohol by way of a drunken dwarf who walks around with a placard: apparently this is the only job he could get after being fired by the Red Axe for… not showing up to work in uniform one time too many, the brewer believes? Anyway, their profit margins are low, so they pay him in beer. I ask the woman at the bar if I can use the brewing facilities for my own purposes, and she tells me to go ahead: her husband Blandebir will charge me an appropriate amount for the yeast. I have it in mind to brew some cider, and unless I take another trip to Morytania (which, actually, I well might) this would be a decent place to do it. But for cider, I’ll need apples, and I don’t have enough right now to make any. What else? Oh, the brewery has a cat, but it’s big and mean and even when I speak to it in cat through my amulet, it just glowers at me.

South of the brewery is the rail yard, a sprawling tangle of mine cart tracks that spreads its tentacles to all corners of the dwarven realm. The main trunk line goes all the way to the Grand Exchange in Varrock, with a through stop at the Ice Mountain mines. I ask a conductor how much it would cost for me to travel by mine cart and learn that it is free for humans: another part of the city’s bid to get business booming again. Very useful stuff, though I still have a statue I’m duty-bound to rebuild before I feel I can leave.

Right by the rail yard, I notice a large factory building of some kind. The foreman outside isn’t very communicative, but he lets me know that this building houses the blast furnace, which the Consortium has opened up to all and sundry (even non-dwarves, which he’s displeased about) so that it can secure the manpower needed to run it. Since no one is stopping me from going inside, I head in and try my luck talking to the dwarves inside to find out more. The shop floor workers aren’t much help, but I finally manage to convince a foreman to talk to me. He tells me that the blast furnace is the pinnacle of dwarven metallurgy, cutting in half the amount of coal needed to refine ore. The downside is that it takes a five-man crew to get the thing going, and since management refuses to pay workers anything (they argue it’s a privilege even to be working on this technological marvel!) the furnace runs idle a lot of the time and requires human volunteers at all others. I question the logic of this business strategy, but hey, if it works for these guy, who am I to question it.

A few other dwarves are hanging around the blast furnace to support operations. One of them is an ore merchant, who sells large quantities of ore of various kinds (nothing rarer than mithril, though) to smiths who didn’t bring, or cannot procure their own; the other, meanwhile, is a quartermaster for the Black Guard, who buys top-quality armour from smiths who can’t be bothered to market the wares they produce here. Since the furnace isn’t running right now, though, his stock is all empty. Well, there’s nothing really for me to do here, so I go out again and look for that sculptor.

I find his shop right by the eastern entrance to the Consortium palace. Blasidar is a middle-aged dwarf with a greying beard who greets me with courtesy, but no special warmth— but that’s only to be expected from the dwarves, really. I tell him why I’m visiting him and ask whether there’s anything I can help with as far as rebuilding the statue goes. Blasidar thinks for a bit, then tells me he’s already got an assistant and a model, but could use an errand girl. I tell him to go on. He explains that his brief was to rebuild the statue exactly as it was, but, the dwarves not having much of a painting tradition, there exists no visual record of it. So, we’ll have to make do and produce a plausible facsimile using ornate, but probably ahistorical clothes. Specifically, he wants me to find a pair of boots, the fanciest I can find; robes in the royal style; and King Alvis’ axe, which is said to still survive. He has no idea where in Keldagrim I can find these items, but wishes me best of luck anyway in finding them.

That’s… more of a challenge than I expected. But I shall try to make some headway tomorrow (or at least, after I’ve had what would be a full night’s sleep above-ground). I’ll begin at the King’s Axe (I’ve a feeling the inn I’m staying in has that name for a reason) and move on to the Consortium palace: if there’s one place that’s bound to have rich dwarves and fancy clothes, it’s there.

#runescape #journal #roleplay #keldagrim #giantdwarf

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hebemm-blog1 · 7 years

Text

Spring Faye will start next Monday

Prevalent Information and facts

A gathering including the Sea side.

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Helter Skelter -- couple of differnet area to let people to bear in mind screenshots.

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Overrides-Pickaxe Imagination, Mallet, Pretty golf ball, Bundle of money Teller Cape, Mysterious People override

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Seer's Township Transform

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Plan paintings

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The minute Seer's township is certainly whole, most people can look so that they can graphically updating supplemental near-by destinations.

#runescape cheap gold #Old School runescape gold

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rallis-fatalis · 5 years

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Little Moments

Life's all about the little moments. It's about playing with friends, and watching sunsets, and being with someone you love. It's about living in the moment and loving it too. Even a rambunctious blue dragon and a hopeless Fremennik bard can have such moments. Though for Rallis and Olaf, their pile of little moments would eventually lead to something maybe not so little.

It was a particularly quiet day in Relleka, the last solemn days of Winter fading away into Spring. Most people were huddled somewhere warm or passed out drunk in the Longhall. There was a line between how much alcohol kept a person warm and got a person drunk, but it appeared some people never bothered to learn. Active and moving unlike the rest of the people in the hall was Olaf. He was lost in his own little world as he walked the length of the room, back and forth, trying to figure things out. He grew antsy when he stayed still for too long, especially when he was trying to think.

"What the hell are you doin', bard?" a man with a half empty tankard called to him from a bench. "With all that pacing, Yrsa'll have to make you new shoes again!"

"I'm just thinking," Olaf said without stopping his march along the room.

The man snorted into his tankard. "Dont hurt yourself now."

"Thanks, I'll try," Olaf replied with an equal amount of snark. He stopped his pacing in the center of the room, directly across from the man. "You know the dragon that visits every so often? Rallis? Or Denkir I suppose."

"Kinda hard not to know her," the man said between drinks. "She's a bloody talking dragon!" Rallis had been visiting often since her completion of the trials six months ago, using the town as a sort of home base. The dragon made her rounds enough for everyone to get to know her whether they wanted to or not. She had especially become fast friends with Olaf, at first just having a nice time talking the day away, but soon evolving into lunch dates, duet performances, out of town adventures, and more. There wasn't a day that went by where he didn't wish she could stay forever or he could travel alongside her.

"She's so interesting," the bard started, already completely enamored. "And not just because of what she is. She's so sweet and kind too. I want to get to know her better, like really know her, but I want to do something nice for her as well. I just don't know what! What do dragons even like?"

The man looked at him oddly. "You sound like a boy trying to plan a date. Don't get too carried away now." The bard would think that notion idiotic. A date?! You don't date your friends! And that's all she was! The man put his drink down. "Wait a minute, you mean to say you heard nothing about dragons on all your trips around the world?"

Olaf thought about it for a moment. "Hmm... I suppose I did hear things. Not much though. I'd love to know more." He really only had a few myths and hearsay to go off of. Not many people were willing to tango with dragons in any part of the world, and the lack of information showed. Most he had were old stories and tales of mass destruction. Not like that applied to Rallis! "I suppose I'll work with what I've got," he mumbled to himself and ran off with a noncommittal thanks.

The man raised his tankard to the bard as he dashed out the Longhall. He shook his head when he was sure the bard was gone. "What a hopeless romantic."

A few days later, Rallis came to visit. She bounded into town with a smile, waving hellos to everyone. She still wasn't quite used to being called Denkir yet, forgetting to greet some of the people who said hello to her using that name. She caught up with Askeladden by the market square, threatening to smack a gull with a giant fish he had presumably stolen. Rallis barely spoke to him when she did her trials, but she became fast friends when she learned how much he loved to play around. Rallis laughed and joined him with a fish of her own (though she actually bought hers) and the two laughed like idiots as they chased each other with smelly beatsticks. Everyone watching rolled their eyes and ignored them, save one person who couldn't help but stifle a snort of laughter as he watched Rallis trip and fall, fish bat sent flying into Askeladden's laughing face. The bystander walked over to help the dragon up.

"Hello, Rallis. Welcome back."

She turned to the voice and smiled, taking its owner's hand. "Hi Olaf!" The bard pulled her off the ground. "Nice to see you again!"

The boy ran off, realizing his playmate was off to talk with boring adults now. "How have things been?" Olaf asked as he walked her to the Longhall.

"Alright I guess. Been helping my new friend out in Ardougne lately. She's so nice! And her family is too! Though it's been one crazy adventure. How about you?"

"It's been alright," he said. He smiled down at her. "Better with you here though." Rallis giggled at the comment and all but bounced into the hall with him. Some of the people inside waved hello, more than a little red in the face and tipsy. Rallis smiled and waved back. Olaf pulled up a seat for her and sat across the way, waving down Thora for a drink and food. She scoffed something about a tab not being paid and walked off with a glare. Olaf rolled his eyes and turned back to Rallis. "I'm glad you came by. I actually had some questions for you if you'd be willing to help me."

"Sure thing! What's up?"

"Well, I've been wanting to learn about dragons," he started. That immediately got her interest. "I've heard some tales here and there over my travels but I wanted to make sure they were correct and learn anything else I could."

"Of course! I'd love to help!" Rallis said cheerfully. "What do you want to know?"

Thora came back carrying two glasses of ale and two plates of roasted chicken. Rallis couldn't help but drool. If that was the same chicken that was roasting over the fire not a minute ago it was bound to be amazing. It certainly smelled incredible. Thora muttered something about not being able to leave until she was paid to the bard and flashed the knife she used to cut the fruit for her drinks at him, making his face grow pale. She left before he could reply.

He would think about that later, though. "I've heard this one a lot," Olaf continued as if nothing had happened. "Is it true dragons collect treasure?"

Rallis was already stuffing her face with chicken. She was not wrong, it was amazing. "Well, it's treasure to us," she said between mouthfuls of food. "Not all dragons collect gold or gems or what humans think of when they think treasure. We collect what we consider treasure. For example, I collect woad leaves not gold."

He took a sip of beer with a thoughtful hum. "So it's different for every dragon. How interesting. I wonder why all the stories only ever portray them as gold hoarders." Rallis shrugged. "Is it true they like music just as much?"

"Oh yes!" she nodded. "You can calm nearly any dragon with good music. Dragons are beautiful musicians themselves if you listen too. Mom sings so nicely." She smiled as she remembered her mom singing her and her brothers to sleep when the nights were rough. She missed her mom. She'd have to pay her a visit soon.

'Oh I know how beautiful a dragon's music is,' he thought with a blush. He dared not say that out loud. "So they like music and treasure, but is there anything else?"

She had to think for a moment. "They love to fly high in the sky, where there's no limits." Her ears drooped a bit. "I wish I could fly... I like to walk instead." Olaf frowned at that. He supposed you'd need something bigger than deformed bird wings to lift off the ground. 'Must be frustrating having wings but not being able to fly.' He chewed on a chicken wing, not missing the irony in that. Rallis gave her glass a sniff and recoiled with a grimace. How anyone could drink such foul tasting and smelling stuff, she didn't know. Her face lit up as she thought of something else. "If they trust you enough, they love to be pet too. Behind the ears or between the wings and they'll just melt. And warm places are the best!"

"I see," he said, making sure to remember everything she said. "That makes them seem so adorable! Not like the monsters the stories make them out to be. This has all quite fascinating. I can't thank you enough."

"Despite what human stories say, we aren't monsters! And any time! It's nice to see someone interested!" She grinned ear to ear. "If you ever want to know anything else, let me know!"

They finished up their discussion and food, Rallis' plate picked clean. It was just so good. Her drink remained untouched and Olaf couldn't help but chuckle. "A Fremennik not into ale? I afraid that's cause for exile," he joked.

Rallis wrinkled her nose in disgust. "No way! That stuff is gross! You know what's good? Fruit juice! It's sweet and good and doesn't taste and smell like old burnt sock!"

"You mean this gross stuff?" he teased as he slammed back her entire drink. He wiped his mouth and laughed at the face she was making, something between impressed and horrified. "Oh that's nothing. You should see how much Manni can drink. Speaking of, how did you even get his vote if you don't drink?"

"Oh, you know! I just did!" she said nervously. "Anyway! Was there anything else you wanted to do?"

"Yes, actually. Come on!"

The two left money behind on the table and ran off. They spent the entire time together, nearly five days, and made every moment wonderful. When it came time to leave, he felt sad to watch her go. She was so charming and entertaining and really brought life to this dreary fishing town. It would be all the more quiet and drab without her. They waved goodbye and she ran off in search of another adventure. Now armed with information, Olaf got to planning. He'd have to have some surprises ready for the next times she came back! Friends did nice things and surprises for each other after all! And friends were all they were!

Winter was finally coming to a close the next time Rallis visited. The season gave one final hurrah and covered the town in ice and frost and cloaked the forest nearby in a blanket of snow. Rallis slunk into town with a shiver. It was much colder where her new kyatt friends were, but for a reptile even this lessened amount of snow was dangerous.

Few people were insane enough to stand out in the cold doing nothing all day, but that certainly didn't stop Sigli who was stood like a statue at the entrance to Relleka. His hooded head was topped with a pillar of snow. He had to have been standing still there for a while for all that to pile up! Rallis waved hello and trudged over to knock the snow off, frozen unicorn horn decreasing to a more large forehead shape. Sigli pat her head with a smile to which the dragon purred and bounded into the Longhall. She could feel the ice melt off her scales instantly upon entering, warm fire and smiles greeting her.

"Hello~!" Rallis trilled.

A group by the entrance raised their drinks to her in greeting before continuing their conversation. Manni sauntered over, red-faced and drunk, and plopped a tankard into her hands. "Hey Denkir, buddy!" he drawled. "Here have this! It'll keep you warm."

"Thanks..." she smiled. As soon as Manni turned around she slid the drink across a nearby table. She'd rather freeze to death than drink that swill.

Rallis spotted familiar faces closer to the fire in the center of the room. Brundt was chatting with a small group, fully engrossed in his chat. With a devious smile, she crept behind the Chieftain and covered his eye with both her hands. "Boo!"

The man laughed. "Hello Rallis!"

Rallis' ears drooped. "Aww you knew it was me so quickly!"

She let go and let him turn around. He tapped his eyepatch. "You covered the wrong one. The four-fingered blue hands are quite a giveaway."

She pouted for a moment, but quickly began to giggle as he pat her head. Then suddenly something cold exploded against her back with a poof. Bits of snow flew off her wings as Rallis spun around to find Askeladden with the most devious grin on his face and snowball in hand. "Welcome back, dragon!"

The boy threw his last round of ammunition, snowball missing Rallis and exploding against some poor soul farther away from her, and ran away with mischievous laughter. Rallis grinned and readied to run after him, but was stopped by a hand on her shoulder. She turned around with a questioning chirp before smiling again, this time hiding a snicker. It was Olaf, face serious and head topped with freshly thrown snow. She couldn't hold her laughter in, giggling as she pointed at his snow covered head. "Snolaf!"

Olaf's serious facade melted into a smile as he laughed and rubbed the remainder of the frozen fluff off his head. "It's nice to see you again, Rallis." He placed a dollop of melting ice atop her nose. "I didn't expect you'd be here again so soon! But the surprise is a pleasant one indeed. How are you?"

"Cold and ready to play!" she shouted. "I must strike back!" She pointed to the entrance of the Longhall where Askeladden was sticking his tongue out at her, more snowballs at the ready.

"You can't go out in the snow like that!" Olaf exclaimed as he motioned to her light attire. "You're not even wearing shoes!"

Rallis scowled at the idea. "Shoes... are awful! I refuse!"

"You don't even have appropriate clothing! No cloak or hood or anything! Even your playmate has at least that much." Rallis side-eyed the taunting boy to see Olaf was correct. The kid was bundled up like an overstuffed pillow. "Come on, if you want to go in the snow you need more than a scaly skirt," Olaf told her as he dragged her away by the arm. He knew just where to get her some clothing.

Yrsa threw shirt after shirt, glove after glove, every article of clothing and more at Rallis. At this rate she was going to be buried alive under all of this! She groaned at Olaf as the pile of clothing in her arms grew larger. "Do I really need all this? I was in the snow with the kyatts just fine earlier."

"I may not know how dragons work, but I'll assume it's a miracle you didn't get sick then! I know enough to know reptiles shouldn't be in the snow."

Rallis rolled her eyes as Yrsa threw one final piece of clothing into her arms, a thick white cloak. "Just return it all when you're done," she sighed. "And preferably not torn to pieces like last time."

"Can do!" Rallis chirped. Two more shirts, an extra pair of pants, one more pair of gloves, and a cloak later, Rallis was bundled in an embrace of fluff. On a normal day, she would've been itching to get out of so much clothing, but she had to admit it was pretty cold and this felt nice. None of them could figure out how to get the earmuffs to stay on and a hat would just be ripped from her horns. Rallis sprinted out with a thank you as Yrsa brought over a pair of shoes to try on, eager to play and be far away from those evil foot contraptions. Olaf ran after her with a thanks as well, followed by shouts for the dragon to slow down.

Yrsa groaned and began to fold and put away the extra discarded clothing when she saw a small pouch left on her table. Curious, she opened it. Inside was a small note with some of the worst handwriting she had ever seen.

"I said I'd pay you back for the clothing for my trials. Thank you so much again! Rallis."

"That's sweet." Yrsa looked back into the pouch, expecting maybe a hundred gold at most. It only felt like a hundred pieces after all. But when she dumped the pouch onto the table, her jaw dropped and her eyes went wide. She looked back to the note, then the pile of money, then out the door, back to the note, back to the table. It wasn't gold pieces that fell out of the bag.

"FIFTY BLOODY PLATINUM?!"

Maybe Agnar was on the right track thinking the dragon was rich.

Rallis sprinted after Askeladden, pelting snowball after snowball at the boy. The two howled with laughter as they ran through the snow covered forest and played. Olaf huffed as he trudged along after them at a much slower pace. Leaving those two unattended in the frozen forest probably wouldn't be a good idea so he followed behind. Or he would have if he could keep up. How those two were moving so well in the thick layer of snow he had no idea! Every step felt like a chore for him. He was already tired! Though, he supposed watching Rallis' smiling face and hearing her adorable giddy laughter was worth a tiring trek in the snow.

Olaf had been following their footsteps in the snow, but one incorrect step had him falling into a pit with a yelp as the snow fell away. Rallis and Askeladden stopped horsing around at the sound of their tired ward crying out. At first they were worried, but their worry melted to mischief when they found the man simply sunk into the snow up to his waist. He couldn't move an inch.

"A little help would be grand!"

Rallis and Askeladden looked to their trapped companion then to each other and both came to the same conclusion with a devious smile. The two scrambled to make as many snowballs as they could and pelted the trapped bard with them.

"How unfair! How cruel! I can't even fight back!" he yelled with feigned hurt. The snow stuck to his clothes as the snowballs exploded on impact and Rallis and Askeladden quickly decided to have a competition on who could cover the man in the most snow faster. Askeladden had a far lead with how good his aim was, but Rallis was not about to lose! While the boy was busy focusing on trying to get snow to stick to Olaf's cloak, Rallis snuck off to climb a nearby tree. Askeladden hadn't noticed her absence until he realized her laughter was gone.

The boy looked around for his friend. "Where did you go, dragon?"

The two heard a snicker above them and looked up to find Rallis perched on a snow covered branch directly overhead. It looked ready to snap from the weight of all the compiled snow and the dragon. She grinned wickedly and started to make the branch sway.

Olaf realized what she was doing quickly. "No no no! Rallis please don't!"

Too late. The branch creaked and dropped all its snow. Askeladden and Olaf's yells were cut off with a muffled thwump as they were buried under a mountain of fluff. Rallis bounced on the branch, laughing like a maniac. "I win! I win! I--!"

SNAP!

Already weak from Rallis' shenanigans, the branch could no longer hold her and her energetic bouncing. It broke with a loud crack and sent her plummeting to the ground. She disappeared into the fresh fallen pile of snow, leaving a hilariously dragon shaped indent in the ground.

Askeladden popped out of the snow and laughed at the dragon. "Serves you right! And that was cheating! I still win!"

Rallis groaned as she crawled out of her snowy cushion and flopped on the firmer cold ground. Olaf shook the snow off his head with a brrr. He looked like a gopher with just his head sticking out of the snow like that.

"Well I don't think it was cheating," Rallis said. "We should let Olaf decide!"

The man in question was now freezing and even more trapped. Outside of his head, he couldn't move at all. "I say it's a tie," he told them. Both of them immediately opened their mouth to argue but Olaf quickly hushed them. "So I have a tiebreaker in mind! Whoever can help me out of the snow fastest wins! Get to it!"

More focused on beating the other, neither of the two realized their competition was a ploy to release their living target from his snowy prison. The two dug as fast as they could, but Askeladden was no match for a beast with claws. He couldn't keep up if he wanted to. Rallis stood triumphantly as she hauled Olaf out of the snow, an explosion of powder puffing up as he shook the snow off. The boy huffed but smiled.

"That was a lot of fun!" he said. "I need to go home, but we need to play more often!"

Now that they bothered to notice, it was starting to get dark. Nightfall certainly came quickly in Winter, and they had left to play late into the day as well. Rallis frowned at the setting sun. Now she wished she had come by a lot earlier. It would be wise for them all to make their way home before growing lost in the forest at night. However, Askeladden was running off before either of them could offer him an escort back. Hopefully the boy wouldn't get lost.

"He gonna be okay?" Rallis worried. "It's getting really dark."

"Yeah, he'll be fine. He knows his way around." Olaf looked over at the dragon and realized just how tired she was now. She was so energetic and excited just a minute ago, yet now she was shivering and swaying as if ready to fall over. "You okay?"

Rallis nodded slowly. "I'm just really tired all of a sudden."

He put a hand to her head. "Maybe because you're ice cold! You really can't be out in the cold, can you?"

"It's not a good idea, no. When have you ever seen an ice dragon after all?"

"We need to hurry back then. Once the sun is gone completely it gets freezing out here. Come on, let's get you out of here."

Olaf led Rallis through the forest, setting sun turning the snow to amber. "It's so pretty out here," Rallis whispered as she trudged along.

"Mhm. You should see the swaying tree when the sun sets. It's like it's made of fire and the river turns gold. That old tree makes everything around it enchanting."

"That does sound pretty. I'll have to see it when I visit again. I didn't hang around when I made my lyre there."

"Next time we'll go! It's a dat-- uhh... day! It's a day... we'll spend there!" Olaf sighed and shouted in his head. 'Good job, dumbass. Real smooth.'

Rallis was none the wiser. "I'd love to! Maybe when it's not so cold."

The two made it back to Relleka as the final rays of sun faded under the ocean to the west. Rallis was ready to fall asleep the cold was making her so tired. "You really aren't doing so good, are you?" Olaf worried. Rallis whined and shook her head. "Come here, let's get you out of the cold."

Olaf pulled her along to the edge of town, far from where she though they were heading. "Isn't there fire in the Longhall?" she asked

"Yes but by now everyone's going home. It won't be as warm. I've got blankets at my place too and you can sit right next to the fire if you like." They came to a small home at the edge of town, close to the back entrance to the stage. He opened the door and held it open for her with a smile. "After you."

Rallis shuffled inside, Olaf followed behind her. He lit the lanterns hanging by the entrance and got to work on a fire. Rallis looked around with interest. It was so much different from her house, so much smaller and less colorful, but still charming. The house itself was really just one giant room, a fireplace against the far wall lit up the entire place nicely. A worn rug sat in front of the fireplace for anyone to lay on, a nearby table was covered in papers and ink bottles and books, a knife acting as a paperweight for one of the larger paper stacks. Another table sat to the other end of the room, this one much more clear. All that sat on it was a piece of bread on a plate from earlier in the day. Bookshelves, drawers and cabinets, and shelves lined the walls, most topped with some kind of wood carving. Rallis hid a smile when she spotted her silly drawing from her trials framed and sitting on one of the bookshelves. An unmade bed sat in the corner hidden away from everything else, blankets trailing onto the floor and on top of a pile of clothing. Olaf groaned at the sight and walked over to take care of the mess.

"Sorry, it's not usually this messy," Olaf apologized. "My brother was staying the night and he forgot to take care of this before he left I guess. He's always forgetting things." He sorted through the clothing pile and frowned at a shirt. "I don't even think this is mine. He can't even remember to take his own laundry with him."

Rallis sat down by the growing fire and watched her friend. "You have a brother?"

"Yeah. His name's Falo. He doesn't live in Relleka anymore. He has his own place near Seer's Village. He comes up here to say hello every now and then though. And he leaves at least one thing behind every time."

"Falo? Isn't that just your name but--?"

Olaf sighed as he tossed the clothing into a closet. "Yes, yes it is. Our parents weren't exactly creative. They came up with one name and couldn't think of another. So they just did the same name but backwards. Ridiculous, I know."

"I think it's adorable," Rallis laughed.

Olaf pulled some blankets out of the closet and draped one over his guest. "This oughta help." He sat down next to her and wrapped the other one around himself. "I can get more if you need it."

Rallis shook her head. "No this is fine, thank you." She snuggled into the warm blanket. "It's so soft." The fire melted the cold away, and combined with the blanket Rallis started to feel better immediately.

"You look better already. Hope today was fun for you."

"Are you kidding?! It was so much fun! I wish we could do it again! But I really have to go tomorrow... I just came by for a day to say hi."

"Doesn't mean next time won't be fun as well." Rallis smiled and started to nod off. "So do you have any siblings?" Olaf asked. "I've just got the one brother."

"Yeah, I've got two brothers. They're blue black dragons and super fun and silly."

The two chatted the night away in front of the fire until Rallis fell asleep against Olaf's arm, snoring away under the blanket. He carried her off the floor and tucked her in bed. She probably needed the warmth of the covers a lot more than he did after today. He grabbed more blankets for himself and lined the floor with them to sleep on and hid under another. Olaf smiled as he started to drift off thinking about the day. Rallis really was a ray of sunshine, cutting through even the drab grey boredom Winter brought. Just another boring day changed into a snowy day of fun and he couldn't have been happier. She was just so cute when she smiled and laughed, he couldn't help but be happy around her. Next time they would definitely have to have another play date. And that's all it was! A play date, not a date date. You can have play dates with your friends and think about how cute they are as they have fun in the snow and how pretty they look as the sun sets on them in the most beautiful way. Friends can totally think about stuff like that! And that's all they were.

Rallis thanked Olaf for everything the next day and went to get her clothes back from Yrsa. Rallis didn't understand why the woman hugged her and was on the verge of tears when she came in, but she seemed happy at least. The dragon smiled as she hopped off toward adventure. She couldn't wait for the next time her travels brought her back.

It was the heart of Spring the next time he saw her, a beautiful sunny day that brightened everyone's mood. Rallis bounded into town with a smile and a fistful of flowers. She had picked them on her way to town and handed them to everyone she saw. She handed one to Sigli who smiled and knotted the stem around his bow, Askeladden who gave it to his pet rock, and then bounced inside to run up to Brundt with a hug and slipped one under the strap of his eyepatch, flower curling half around his ear and half around his face from its awkward pinning. They chatted and caught up with a smile and a laugh before Rallis moved on, slipping a flower into Manni's drink. She handed one to Thora and spun around to find Olaf cheerfully watching her hand out flowers.

"Olaf!" Rallis bounced over and grinned.

"Rallis! So good to see you again! I see you're a flower lady today."

Rallis nodded and slipped a flower behind his ear. His face dusted pink at the gesture and played with the little white daisy. "White because of your cape!" Rallis stated proudly. "There are so many flowers out! It's so pretty!"

"It is indeed," Olaf said as he admired the other flowers in her hand. "How have you been?"

"I've been good! Was doing some work in the area and wanted to stop by. I should be here for a couple days before I have to head back out."

"We should make every day count then! It's Spring! Let's have some fun!"

Rallis jumped with an excited chirp at the prospect.

The two spent the day being goofs, playing and singing and dancing and acting out stories. They even began to attract an audience and had story time around the Longhall fire by nightfall. Soon half the town joined in with food and drinks and laughter as people got on stage to act out hilarious tales. Rallis told the story of her trying to fly off Eagle's Peak with nothing but gnome glider wings and dramatically jumped off the stage like a bird fully expecting to flop on the floor, but Olaf caught her. The two laughed as the others howled over her silliness. It was a lively night, one Rallis was glad to be a part of.

The next day, Olaf woke up early, long before most everyone else. He was packing something, looking over his shoulder every now and again as if worrying someone would see. It was a basket, and a reasonably sized one at that. He stuffed it full and ticked off every individual item before nodding. He then grabbed a blanket and folded it around the top. With another nod and a smile, he made sure he was presentable and strode over to where his dragon friend was resting.

After much hemming hawing and yawning, Rallis woke up and was practically dragged out of town by Olaf. She quickly perked up at the sights and smells of Spring, happily skipping along with him. They chatted and laughed as they walked the dirt path heading east. The man soon strayed from the road and led his companion up a small hill. A giant winding tree sat atop it, radiating magic. Bunnies hopped around its base, butterflies fluttered overhead, and birds sang in its branches. With the way the sunlight shimmered off the tree's falling magic, it was like something out of a fairytale.

Rallis gave Olaf and the tree a nervous smile. "I'm not making another lyre, am I?" she joked.

The man laughed as he put the basket down. "Hahaha, no! No I'd say not!" He flipped out a fletching knife. "Unless you want to." He smiled jokingly and she snorted at his jest. He put the blade away and unfolded the blanket with a flourish. He put the basket on it and motioned for her to join him as he sat down.

Rallis cocked her head. "What is this?"

"A picnic!" he said and patted the blanket once more. "Come!" She chirped curiously and flopped onto the blanket. "The town can be rather drab, don't you agree? I thought going out and away would be a nice change of scenery." He flipped open the basket and started pulling out an assortment of goodies. Rallis was practically drooling. Cheese, bread, apples, and more came out of the box, as if it was bottomless. Olaf pulled out a bottle and handed it to her. "Thought you'd like this a bit more than 'burnt sock juice.'"

Rallis undid the cap and gave it a sniff, ears perking up in delight. "Fruit!"

"Mhm. Got it from the gnomes. I think they called it lemonade? It's really sweet."

Rallis took a sip and fell in love with the stuff, tail wagging happily. The two snacked and chatted and laughed the day away, lost in their own little world. It was like the rest of the world didn't exist. No one else was around, no one to bother them, they could be as loud or as silly or as dumb as they wanted. Rallis managed to lure a rabbit out of its hole and the two watched with a smile as it ate a piece of apple they tossed it. Rallis played around, hopping around the tree like the rabbit, and ultimately tripped over her own feet and rolled down the hill. Olaf laughed and slid down the grassy slope to join her, offering a race back to the top to which she eagerly complied. Olaf lost. As a reward, he played and sang for her. Rallis chimed in as well, making it seem like the wind itself was singing alongside him.

The day was starting to come to a close, sun beginning to set and cast the world in a pale orange light. It made the river in the distance shimmer like glass and the tree behind them look like it was made of amber. Rallis was curled up on the blanket like a dog, eyes starting to close. The food, the playing, the sun, it was all starting to make her sleepy. "You were right," she started quietly. "It is pretty here at sunset. All bright and orange..."

Olaf smiled. "Told you. It's probably the prettiest thing for miles in the boring north. Well, almost the prettiest." He glanced over to the dragon at the last comment and couldn't hide the blush creeping along his face. The sky and river and trees weren't the only thing made more beautiful from the sunset. The dying rays almost seemed to make her glow like fire, her own scales and the ones of her outfit shimmering like jewels. He shook his head to get his mind off such things and fiddled with a flower he picked nearby. Even still, he couldn't help but smile as he saw Rallis close her eyes, content.

He stopped toying with the flower. He didn't know if this was overstepping a boundary, but...

He slowly reached over and timidly scratched her behind her ear. Her head shot up in an instant. Olaf pulled his hand away. Why did he just do that?! Did one pretty sunset make him lose all sense?! "I'm sorry!" he apologized. "I just-- I mean you said before how dragons liked to be pet-- And you were tired so I thought--"

Rallis snorted at his blubbering and rest her head back on the ground. She said nothing, just went back to semi-sleep. He thought about doing it again. She didn't say not to do it, after all. While one part of his brain shouted to not be an idiot and the other part screamed to just do it, his hand had a mind of its own. He cautiously scratched behind her ear again and this time she didn't jolt up. Olaf grinned as he continued to pet her, scratching behind her other ear next. He almost stopped when she started to growl but he quickly realized she wasn't growling, but purring like a cat! The idea that she was like a pet cat that loved scratches and pats and treats made him chuckle to himself.

Remembering what else she had said, he traced his hand to her back and scratched between her wings. They flared open as he scratched and Rallis couldn't help but let out a happy growl. That wasn't an easy spot to reach and it felt great. The man couldn't help but find this all rather hilarious. Were all dragons like this? He pictured a giant beast threatening to burn the lands only to be taken down by a well-placed back scratch.

"You are funny, you know that?" he said with a laugh.

Rallis cracked an eye open to look at him. "So are you. I haven't had anything close to a picnic since I was back on the other side of White Wolf. It was fun, thank you."

"It was fun. When you come back, let's do it again."

The two packed up, wanting to be back in town before nightfall. Rallis trotted alongside Olaf, grinning like a fool over the events of the day. "You know," she started. "I used to be scared of humans. I thought they were all mean and scary. Guess I was wrong, huh?"

Olaf understood the sentiment. Being a monster in this world probably wasn't the most ideal situation, what with all the monster hunters out and about.

"I've found lots of people are nice." She bounced in front of him. "You're nice! Super nice! The nicest human!"

He bashfully rubbed the back of his neck. "I guess. That's just what friends do. And you're the nicest dragon."

Rallis grinned a toothy grin and giggled as she hugged the man. His face turned pink as he hugged her back. Rallis started to skip ahead of him, humming a tune without a care in the world. Olaf trailed behind a little more slowly, thinking about things. Mainly just how silly Rallis was and how he hoped she'd be back soon. It really was painfully lonely without his new friend here. And that's all she was! A friend! Friends went on picnics and sang for each other and spent every waking moment thinking about each other and how beautiful they were, right?

She left the next morning promising to return soon.

Months passed, then seasons. Spring ended, Summer came and went, Fall was starting up. Olaf was growing worried. Rallis came by to say hello very often when first exploring the north, and she continued to make time to come back even when exploring farther and farther away. Even when her trips took her long distances away, she would come back once or twice a month to say hello. But for two whole seasons to pass without a word... it felt wrong. The others told him he was being stupid. She was an adventurer after all. She traveled far and had things to do. It didn't comfort him any more though. Something really did feel off.

Rallis did come back one Fall afternoon. She shuffled into town, tired and dragging her feet, no usual chirp and cheer. Some of the residents gave her an enthusiastic hello, wondering where she had been, but she just gave them a silent wave and walked on, not speaking a word.

Footsteps rushing her way made her turn around and find her bard friend running over to say hello. "Rallis! Oh it's so good to see you!" he said as he hugged her. He could feel her tense from it and mentally slapped himself for rushing in like that and making her feel uncomfortable. He immediately backed off with a nervous cough. "Sorry! I just missed you. It's been a while. Oh wow nice scarf! Is it new?" She looked at the ground nervously as she pulled at the white scarf around her neck. Something wasn't right. "Hey, what's wrong? Is everything alright?"

Her ears drooped, her eyes turned red, she tried to hide her face and a sniffle. Olaf put a hand on her back and coaxed her out of the open. "Here come inside. It's warm and quiet there." He led her to his place and sat her down at a table, ensuring no one else could spy. "No one can hear us now. Why don't you tell me what's wrong?"

Rallis swallowed and shook her head no, trying not to cry.

Olaf went to a knee and tilted her head up, forcing her to look him in the eye. She looked so sad, and so worried and conflicted. "You can tell me anything," he whispered. "I won't hurt you. I promise. Whatever's on your mind, I'll help however I can."

She watched him, as if assessing the validity of his statement, and ultimately relented. She motioned for paper and something to write with. Olaf grabbed some nearby and handed it her way. She only wrote four words, messy and barely legible, like chicken scratch.

'Throat cut. Can't speak.'

Olaf didn't understand what he read, didn't believe it even. "W-What? No, that can't be right!" It was just four words but they didn't make sense, it just didn't compute.

Rallis fiddled with her scarf, scared and nervous, before pulling it off. The sight it hid made Olaf's heart stop. Long and wide across her throat was a long nasty silvery mark, like an evil grin. A darker deeper slit ran perfectly around her throat while paler jagged silver marks bordered it, like the scales had been torn off violently. It was a nasty sight to be sure.

"Oh my god..." Olaf gasped as he looked it over. He gently reached out to touch the mark but she pushed his hand away, putting the scarf back on. "Oh my god... Rallis... I'm so sorry."

Now he was almost crying. He hugged her again, not ever wanting to let go, like if he held her tight enough she'd never leave and get hurt again. 'How could this happen? How?!' his thoughts screamed. He started to tear up and held her tighter. 'I don't want to let go. Not ever. I should have been there. I should have protected you. Damn staying here if it means you getting hurt like this!'

All he could mutter were sorrowful apologies as his thoughts raced with what ifs and reprimands. Rallis gave him a comforting nuzzle and pulled back to see his face, giving him a confused look as if to ask if he was okay.

Olaf couldn't believe her, worrying about how he felt when she had nearly died. He shook his head with a smile as he wiped a tear away. "You nearly died and can't even speak and yet you're worrying about me? Don't. You're the one who's hurt." His frown returned. "God Rallis I'm so sorry. I should have done something..."

'It's not like there was anything you could do,' she wanted to say but couldn't.

"If I wasn't here! If I stayed with you, I could do something! If I went with you when you left, maybe it wouldn't have happened! If--"

She shushed him with a finger to his lips. She sighed, wishing she could tell him it wasn't his fault, there was nothing he could have done, that his place was here and he did nothing to feel so bad about, but she couldn't speak a word. She was happy he cared, though. She was happy to have someone worry about her and want to stay by her side. It was nice. Getting attacked and nearly killed was horrible, but at least the aftermath wasn't all bad. People cared about her, and after what had happened that meant a lot.

At her behest, Olaf stopped his fretting and rambling. "You'll get your voice back," he said, as if trying to convince himself as well. "And that will heal, and everything will be fine, and no one will ever do such a thing again. Everything will go back to normal! Right?"

Rallis nodded and smiled for the first time that day. Everything would be fine, he was right! Maybe it would take a while but everything would work out in the end. She felt a lot better now after spending weeks moping about and feeling betrayed and disowned. She gave Olaf a thank you smile and a hug.

He returned the favor but he still felt awful. He felt like he could have done something. Maybe he should convince Brundt to let him leave again and follow her on her adventures. Maybe he should try to convince her to stay here. Surely there was something! But he didn't know what. Every idea had double the flaws. All he knew was he never wanted to see the friend he'd grown to love with all his heart ever hurt again. Well, okay, maybe 'friend' wasn't all she was.

#osrs #my writes #oc tag #this is just an excuse to write some shitty fluffy cuteness #and I've had this in my wips for like a billion years #just needed to get this done and off my mind

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jotawakening-blog · 7 years

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22 Fentuary, 5A 169: A Freezing and a Funeral

I get going on Asleif’s burial as soon as the sun comes out. I begin by gathering rocks for the cairn: fortunately, I’m in the mountains, so rocks are very abundant. Once I’ve gotten all the rocks I need, I go out to the lake and ask Ragnar, Asleif’s beloved, if he’s got any keepsake of hers that I might place in the cairn. Ragnar tells me it’s good that the Chief has finally seen what he’s felt to be true for years now, and says he might have something of Asleif’s: a necklace that he was planning to give her on the night she disappeared. Technically, it’s hers, so it would satisfy the Fremennik conditions for a decent burial.

I thank Ragnar and take the necklace, the body and the rocks over to the centre of the lake. There, I bury the body, with the necklace around its neck, and cover it up, forming a small mound. Around the mound, I arrange the rocks in the shape of a longbow. When I’m done, I notice, quite literally, a change in the air. The voice of Asleif, which was ever-present in the mists of the lake, quiets down, and I think I can hear a ‘thank you’ as the whispering and singing stops. All that is left is the hissing of the mist through the geyser vents…

Once the rite is completed, I return to the mountain camp, where the villagers are, for once, glad to see me and talk to me! I enter Hamal’s tent and let him know that his daughter has been buried honourably. Hamal thanks me and tells me I’m quite an extraordinary outerlander, and that I should consider attempting the Fremennik Trials out in Rellekka. I ask the chieftain what’s next for the tribe: will they be moving on? Hamal tells me they will not: thanks to the white pearl fruit, their food supply is secured, and they will be able to stay here for many years hence under the protection of Asleif’s spirit. About that: Hamal believes that a part of her spirit was infused in the pool she loved and that she will stay connected to it forever, no longer a part of the tribe, but a true daughter of the mountain. Hamal’s words surprise me: I thought the tribe wanted nothing to do with any sort of magic? Hamal explains: the tribe merely believes that magic ought not to be wielded by human hands. They do recognise the power of magic, for instance the magic of spirits, such as the Draugen, an evil spirit, and the Fossegrimen, a spirit of water. And for this reason, this camp is a propitious place to stay.

I thank the Chieftain for his hospitality and patience with my stupid outerlander questions, then take my leave of the camp. My next destination is the cave where the muspah remains entombed in its icy prison. I have my doubts as to whether I’ll meet Erjolf there— it’s been three weeks, and for all I know he could have given up or even passed his trials the standard way— but I’m pleasantly surprised to find him inside, making fire rafts and continuing to try to melt the ice. I tell him what I’ve found out about the creature: that the natural historian deemed it a myth, and that Ali the Wise deemed it a creation of a powerful magical race. Erjolf takes the news with excitement: if the creature is known only from myth, then securing a trophy from it is sure to allow him to pass his trials! He directs me to step to it and thaw the creature in the manner that Ali the Wise set out!

Erjolf has built a rickety bridge over to the block of ice while I was away, so I cross over, and, using my dwarven army axe, chisel four cracks into the ice, into which I place a sapphire each. Then, I go around the block enchanting the sapphires. Once the magical lattice is in place all around the block, the ice suddenly melts, freeing the Muspah from within! Erjolf, startled that his quarry is alive, runs off, leaving me alone with the creature…

At first, the being doesn’t seem too interested in me. It growls and roars and seems confused at suddenly awakening inside this cave. I try to exploit its confusion by quietly edging out toward the entrance, but it stops me and demands explanations, mentioning that it feels like it has too many arms. It asks me where, and what, it is. I tell it that it’s in a cavern somewhere near Trollweiss Mountain, where I found it entombed in a block of ice. As for what it is— that was difficult to ascertain, but according to expert opinion, it is a Muspah. The creature seems confused at this, but only briefly. Without warning, its body begins to change, shifting into that of a giant humanoid, about half again my height, whose face is a grinning skull, and whose clothes are exotic garb unlike anything I have seen, with an emerald-incrusted diadem on the forehead. I’ve seen a being like this before, when I was dealing with the cult of Hazeel in Ardougne. Might Hazeel and this entity both be… Mahjarrat?

The being tells me its name is Jhallan, and that I would do best to cower before its presence. As it attempts to lunge at me, to scare me off, however, its legs buckle and it curses the weakness that has set in over its long slumber. On second thoughts, it tells me, it could use a drudge such as myself to carry out a few tasks for it. Seeing how it would be impolite, and possibly worse, to refuse, I ask what tasks it has in mind.

First, though, the creature tells me something about its predicament. It explains that it took the form of the Muspah inadvertently, from the contents of its dreams: the Muspah, it says, is a being that doesn’t exist, save in the collective imagination of his people. The Mahjarrat, it tells me, have well-developed shape-shifting powers, even if those use up a massive amount of energy to maintain. It shudders to think how much power its inadvertent dream-transformation has cost it.

I take the chance to ask it about its appearance: is it always a creature of sinew and bone? Not always, it tells me, and only when its power becomes depleted. It has been long, long years, it says, since the last Ritual of Rejuvenation, and it was biding its time in the ice, trying to conserve its strength while waiting to be filled up with power once more: a most difficult feat. I ask him about the ritual, and he tells me it renews the power of all Mahjarrat… save for one, who is sacrificed during the ceremony. This is why he’s been concealed down here in these caves: they’re close to the ritual site, and since his weakened state would make it likely that he would be the sacrifice, he concealed himself here to gain all the benefits of rejuvenation with none of the risk. He reveals to me that he is ancient, several thousand years old at least. He remembers the times when the present-day Wilderness was a paradise blessed by the gods, when the world was engulfed in war and Zamorak strode across the battlefield, smiting with hate and fire. These sights have tempered him, somewhat, reduced his lust for battle.

I ask Jhallan what he needs from me. A secure location even closer to the ritual site, he tells me, to wait it out without being disturbed. He cannot afford to dream of the Muspah again, and he fears that unless his repose is assured, he will be too weak to partake in the power from the ritual. Indeed, he is too weak right now to go into hibernation unaided, and I will need to reverse-engineer the lattice Ali the Wise taught me, with new sapphires and cosmic runes, to send him back to sleep. As for the location in which this is to be done, he suggests I ask Erjolf, who is waiting outside: he can sense his fear. So I go outside and ask him how I might access the more remote mountains to the north, where Jhallan can slumber free from interference. (I tell him only that the monster will go away if he helps me, and it works perfectly as a motivator!) Erjolf says the mountains are too steep and treacherous to be climbed, but I could go by sea if I made a canoe. In fact, he knows where a suitable log for one might be found, on the shoreline by the good hunting grounds up north. I tell him to meet me there, but take his time: I’ve got other stuff to do around here that will occupy me for a while.

And when I say ‘other items’, I mean a hunting safari on behalf of the odd old man. The first part of the hunt actually comes to me, while I’m deliberating how best to approach the task I was set, in the form of a black unicorn that shoots off in my direction unprovoked with magical bolts. It goes down easily to my combat magic, and I skin it for its hide.

Ultimately, I decide to begin the hunt proper by going after the biggest game I was tasked with: a mountain troll, for its bones. There were trolls hanging around the entrance to Keldagrim, last I checked, so I go there, and, sure enough, find a few of the big, ugly brutes. I close in to engage one, and my magic fells it more easily than I could have dared expect! I get the bone the old man wanted intact, as well, allowing me to move on in search of my other prey.

I cut a swathe through the woods south of Rellekka, bagging myself a unicorn and skinning it. Unfortunately, my bag is too full to hold anything else, so I need to take a trip to the bank. Not the one in Seers’ Village, though: I think the time is ripe to return my bar crawl card to the barbarian outpost before I misplace it and have to go through all the hard drinking again. I don’t think my liver would forgive me for that. So I brave the treacherous causeway and, several hours later, arrive at the outpost. There, I clear my pack of superfluous gear at the Penance hall and hand my card in to the guards at the gate of the inner compound. The guard happens to be illiterate, but he knows signatures when he sees them, and lets me through. The interior, though, is slightly disappointing: besides a few combative barbarians, there’s a very dangerous-looking obstacle course… and little else. It’s bug-infested, too: in one of the huts in particular, you can hear them skittering around. Was it worth endangering my health over? I doubt it.

On this slightly underwhelming note, I make the crossing back to the Rellekka woods and resume my hunt. As my list of prey includes cave craters, and those are said to be poisonous, I take care to bring an antidote with me. Likewise for the cockatrice: I did not buy that mirror shield for nothing.

The hunting goes by quickly and efficiently. I begin by tracking down a fox and a Fenris wolf in the woods, then head up to the Rellekka beach to nab a crab. Finally, I go southwest to the monster-infested cavern by the troll’s apple orchard and look around for a cave crawler and a cockatrice. The crawlers make no effort to conceal themselves, merrily roaming around the entrance hall, and I take one out without getting poisoned. The cockatrices are not much harder to find, but killing one is significantly trickier because of a flaw in my plan: I anticipated that, to block the beast’s gaze attacks with my mirror shield, I would need to switch out my wand for my staff, but I forgot that my wand does not provide air runes, whereas my staff does… and didn’t bring any air runes. Fortunately, I have a Plan B: to hack the cockatrice to death with my dwarven army axe. It’s a clumsy, messy fight, but in the end, I do kill the overgrown dragon-chicken and take its hide.

Well, that’s all the furs the odd old man and whatever is hiding in his bone sack wanted, which means I’m free to meet up with Erjolf and conclude all this Mahjarrat business. I hike north to the Fremennik hunting grounds and follow the coast until I find him, standing by a decent-sized log. He’s mainly just here to tease me, as he neither wants to help with making the canoe nor go with me up the coast. Gritting my teeth against his ingratitude, I dig out a serviceable canoe from the log and push it into the water, hoping that it will carry me up the coast…

With my life in my own unskilled hands, I step into the canoe and paddle northward, hugging the coast until I find a suitable landing area. The sea is calm, so I make the journey safely, though there are a few uncomfortably big waves. Upon making landfall, I scout the area for a suitable resting place for Jhallan, and discover a small opening in the ground that leads to an ice-filled cavern. To my surprise, I find Jhallan already there, thinly sealed in a block of ice much like the last. He tells me he found this location and it’s suitable, but that the effort took almost all of his remaining energy, and if I don’t seal him off quickly, well, that’s it. According to him, this place is right below the ritual site, and he can feel the latent energy from it already. I ask him whether he wants me to seal him away now, but he tells me conditions are not yet right: the place we’re in is too central. No, what he needs is a side corridor, far from the entrance, below freezing and free from the gelatinous cubes that live here.

I look around for a place that seems suitable and find one at the very back of the cave. I report my findings to Jhallan and guide him there; he confirms that he is satisfied with my proposal and asks me to seal him in. So I bore four holes in the ice covering the floor at his feet, insert the sapphires into them, and prepare to renew the enchantment. Before I do so, however, I feel obliged to let Jhallan know one problem I see with his plan. Specifically, the reason I found him was that Erjolf was looking for a trophy with which to pass his Fremennik trials. Now, Erjolf still doesn’t have a trophy, but he will know roughly where Jhallan’s new resting place is, and how to wake him from his icy tomb. So, if he wants his slumber to be undisturbed, I tell him, I will need something for Erjolf in return.

Jhallan is very displeased army request, but sees that he has no choice, so he draws on the last of his power and, grimacing with pain, conjures up a Muspah’s tail for me to bring back to the Fremennik lad. Once I’ve got the tail, and convinced myself that it’s solid and, well, real enough, I complete the spell, and the ice grows quickly all around Jhallan, sealing him in for good. Well, that would be that, and I should return to Erjolf now, but night has pretty much fallen at this point and I am not foolish enough to attempt the passage in darkness. Fortunately, this cave has a few spots where I won’t freeze, andI did bring food with me, but it’s going to be a long, cold night…

#runescape #journal #roleplay #mahjarrat #jhallan

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