Legends of Belariath

The Quest For The Baron's Silver

Celia Traevese – First Silver Cutlery Set

A shaft of sunlight streamed into the room from the open window, striking the young torian Celia upon the fae as she slept. Stirring slightly, moaning and rolling over, she finally yawned deeply and sat up, the sheets of her bed falling away from her naked form. Her breasts bounced softly as the thin sheet fell from them, pooling around her waist. She smiled softly, raising her hands to slide over her breasts for a moment, before throwing the sheets to the side, and rolling out of the bed. Standing upon the bare marble floor, the stretched her body languidly, her wings extending to their full twelve-foot span before collapsing back in, folding neatly behind her back as she reached for the small bundle that was her clothing and equipment. Quickly dressing, which consisted simply of her short dress, thigh boots, and long gloves, she briefly counted her daggers in their oiled sheathes, sewn into the tops of her boots for easy reach. Finding all eight still there in their respective sheathes, she stood from her dressing and stretched her body and wings once more, before moving to the open window and looking down upon the courtyard far below. For a moment she simply stood there, admiring the view of the early spring grass below and the greening forest in the distance, leaves and blades alike waving gently in a cool breeze that broke upon the white marble walls of the tower of magic.

She hopped into the window after a moment of observing the fine day, and then leaped from the tower, spreading her great black wings after a moment to catch a draft of wind, sendign her spiralling up into the air with a lightheared laugh. She did a few minor aerial tricks and stunts, mainly having to do with diving through the occasional cloudbank and dragging along fluffy cloudstuff on the tips of her wings as she came out of it, among the usual assortment of rolls and dives and other such simple tricks on her way towards the town of Nanthalion, intending to search around the town for something interesting to do that fine day.

Looking to the ground, and the streets and buildings of Nanthalion below her, she saw a man, human and of average build, nailing a sign to a board. her keen sight identified a sigil of the bounty hunter's guild upon his tunic, and, without further hesitation, she baned sharply within the air and spiraled towards the street.

As she descended towards the cobbled street, the man looked up, and gave a gruff grunt from his scarred and bearded face. He had but one eye, the other covered with a long gash stretching over his forhead and down his cheek. He shrugged for a moment, then continued on, walking down the street a little stiffly, as though one of his knees caused him a bit of pain, and paid no heed to the black-winged girl that was descending upon the point where he had vacated just moments before.

A soft 'ta-tak' heralded Celia's landing upon the cobblestones, where she had dropped from the rooftop line straight down, landing in a kneeling position in the centre of the street. She glanced for a moment to the man walking down the street, but he was already gone, turned down a corner to an adjacent street. Shrugging for a moment, she turned back to the board where he had been a moment earlier, walking up towards it to read the brand new flier.

"Hmm....a baron's silver, eh? It might be a challenge....at least, enough to warrent the reward. One hundred mehrial? Heh...this should be easy," she murmured to herself as she read over the list of items. Nodding once, she set off down the street, folding her wings back behind her and striding towards the bounty hunter's guild within the city.

Approaching the stout building, she glanced warily at the heavily armoured guards standing watch. Offering them a bit of a nervous smile, and a small wave of her hand, she quickly darted inside the building, not wanting to disturb the guards further, if indeed she had even registered at all in their stoic minds, as they had not reacted at all to her presence. One of them did, however, reach over and close the door that she had left ajar in her haste, causig her to jump momentarily in surprise as she looked around for the questmaster, guildmaster, or at least someone in the building, the soft 'clack' of the door closing echoing through the almost empty halls.

"Um...hello?" she called out theough the halls, looking into empty offices here and there as she wandered confusedly through the building.

"Yes....what is it, miss?" she heard a voice behind her. Jumping in surprise for a moment, she spun around to face this new person, who was nothng more than a large man, heavily muscled and wearing only a pair of breeches and a bandana, with large, thick boots covering his giant feet. She stared up at his towering form for a moment, before he spoke again, "Miss....hello, miss, are you alright?" and taking a step towards her.

Snapping out of her minor awe at the huge man, she shook her head vigourously for a moment, and said, "Y-yes! I'm fine, just looking for someone to ask about the, um, fliers I saw being put up around town lately..."

"Ah....you mean about the baron's lost silver? Mmmhmm...aye, we have had a few others looking for cheap mehrial by returning some of those items. If you wish, you may search for one, as well....though, perhaps you should choose a simple one, not heavily guarded...." he states, his eyes roving over her light frame, lithe and wiry as it was compared to his brawny and heavy build.

She smiled for a moment, and shook her head, "I've decided, I think, upon the cutlery set....that ought to be rather simple to return...." she said, looking up to him for a moment more.

"Ahh...yes, well...perhaps you should take an assistant....one who can fight, with you...I know not of a free one who will work without reward, but perhaps you should look into it" he offered, before turning away and beginning to walk towards one of the rooms.

"I-is that it? Just an 'off you go' type responce? I don't ahve to sign up or anything....?"

"If you return successfully, we'll take that as you've accepted the job!" he hollared, before closing the door he was venturing through behind himself, leaving her again alone within the building, no further than when she decided to start upon this course of action several minutes ago.

Sighing to herself for a moment, she turned, heading out of the building and back onto the streets, looking up and down them for a moment. An assistant who could fight? Pah. She'd prove he was wrong, and that she didn't need someone to watch her back, and she could take care fo herself. Leaping into the air, she flapped her wings once, hovering briefly, before streaking off high into the sky rapidly. Once sufficiently aloft, she gazed out across the landscape, eyeing the forest to the east where the set of cutlery was rumoured to have been taken.

"Hmm...so, that's where they are....?" she mused to herself, letting her wings unfold lazily and catch the currents of air billowing about her body, keeping her bobbingly aloft on the winds. Squinting her keen eyes through the clouds and forests, she spied the tip of a broken tower breaching the treetops. Nodding once, she said to herself, "That must be it right there," and, making sure that there were no other obvious forts, encampments, or other such apparitions in the forest, of which there weren't, she spread and angled her wings to catch a swift current, which bore her away towards the broken fortress in the woods.

As she drew nearer and nearer to the broken tower fragment, she noticed the end of a stairwell protruding from the crumblingremains of the three story tower. Circling once, she noticed the retreating figure of a short, stumpy goblin down about two turns of the tight stairwell, the single burning torch revealing its shadow upon the wall of the otherwise almost black interior of the tower.

A few fragments of stone stair loosened themselves and tumbled down as Celia applied her minor weight to the top few steps of the tower, folding her wings and peering down into the murky depths. She saw no sign of the goblin from a moment ago, nor of any other life down below, or even any light beyond that single torch upon the wall. Mentally, she figured it was likely just a beacon to let the inhabitants, who have almost all of the passages memorized, know that they're in the right spot. At least, that's what she figured would be the cause of not bothering to light the otherwise inky passage.

Carefully picking her way down the stairs on the solid steps, she noticed that, down several turns of stairs in what could only be the basement level, was a light flickering down a hallway. It was on that floor that the stairwell ended abruptly into stone flooring, and the light was made apparent as a dual row of torches lining either side of the hallway. Far down, where the hallway ended into another stairwell, was the gobling she had seen, grudgingly stomping down the hallway and muttering in its own gutteral tongue. The inner wall, she noticed as she began to slowly step into the hallway, was actually collapsed rubble for the first few yards, evidence that there was once a hallway there, too, which was now gone or sealed.

As she slowly sidled her way along the hallway, the goblin turned and began stomping down the other hall, not up the darkened stairwell of the other tower. She coudl guess why, the tower she just came down is the only one visible, so it likely is the only one that even had any sort of view. As soon as the goblin dissapeared from sight, she broke into a short sprint, her boots echoing dully across the stones, though mostly covered by the quiet flickering of dozens of torches keeping the hall bright as day almost.

Charging a spell in her hand, she peeked around the corner of the hallways. The goblin, exhibiting an unnatural ignorance, was looking around like an idiot for the source of the rapid tapping of boots on stone. Grinning for a momentto herself, sh reaches around the corner with her hand, and let loose with a few well sized shards of ice towards the goblin. Striking true, the shrapnel embedded itself into the creature's shoulder, thigh and knee, causing the creature to crumble to the ground with a strangled cry of surprise and pain. With one rushing movement, Celia showereve upon the downed beast several more shrapnels of ice, impaling its skull and killing it almost instantly.

She sighed heavily after that, leaning back against one of the well-lit walls to regain her breath from the flurry of spellcasting she just executed a moment ago. Finding her breath once more, she quickly slipped off down the hallway, stepping over the goblin corpse and heading towards the only other stairwell with light up it. The last hallways was also blocked by rubble, giving only a choice between the open tower she came from, the lighted tower she was at right now, or the inky black tower between the two. Deciding that light must mean there are living beings near it, she set off carefully up the lighted tower.

However, no sooner had she taken two crouched steps up the stairs, than a shadow fell into the town, cast by the torches in the space of the floor just above her. Quickly, she jumped to the side, darting under the hollow stairs as the large shape of an ogre loomed into view above her. It loked down the hall to the goblin's corse, in all its bloody, wet glory, and shrugged its great shoulders, grunting something to itself in its unique tongue. It then turned around, rumbling back up the stairs and into somewhere above her on the first floor.

She breathed a heavy sigh of relief, and waited several second longer untl the sound of the ogre's thunderous footsteps could no longer be heard or felt, before quickly scampering up the stairwell, and darting into the room that had been directly above her, on the first floor. She looked around for a moment, as it looked to be simply a storage room for some rather disgustingly reeking garbage. Though, under one open crate of refuse, a speck of light shone off a small piece of silver.

Sliding around a box, placing it between her and the door further into the keep, she pulled free the small knife, dirty and covered with grime, but precious silver nonetheless. Rooting around for a moment more, she found a small burlap sack, having mostly escaped the grease of refuse, and tossed the piece in. One down, countless more to go.

She looked at the several crates of piled high refuse, and didn't much enjoy the idea of digging through them for more of this silverware. So, she decided to look for the next logical place for cutlery to be kept, within the kitchens. Luckily, food refuse was kept conveniently near the kitchen, in fact, just in the room adjoining one another. It was drawing late in the day by now, so she figured, they would probably be coming in for dinner soon. Nodding ot herself, she decided to hurry and dash into the kitchen room, breathing a sigh of air only marginally cleaner than the refuse-filled heap she had just left.

The kitchen was small, a few campfires and such mainly, and piles of knives and forks from which it appeared they would just grab haphazardly to carve or stab. Many of them were rather dirty, not cleaned from their last probably lifetime, though the sparkle of priceless silver still shone in places upon the ends of forks and spoons.

Another large bag, emptied of a rather bloody pig carcass, made a sufficient carry sack for every single utensil that was spread about the room, and telekinetically tossed into the sack, even more haphazardly than their piles, amid clanging and scraping of metal. This, in turn, roused the goblin cooks who were on their way into speedy action, and they crossed the threshhold just as Celia darted down the stairs amid a clunking sack of silverware.

Alarms were shouted, and one of the cooks gave chase, but was waylaid by several blade, bladed darts launched from Celia's wings as she retreated. He did not die, or even get hit, but they were close enough and annoying enough to slow him down just enough that Celia could run up the crumbling tower and leap to the air, the full sack swaying below her in her hands. She sighed for a moment, and angled her glide towards a river cutting the forest, and proceeded to dunk the bloody bag and equally bloody utensils within the rushin waters, getting them clean enoughto at least sperate the prized silver from the other, more mundane items.

Nodding once, secure in the knowledge that her mission was complete, she took the clean sack and threw all of the silver into it, the remaining cutlery was left for any who wanted it by the river, wet and smelling. As an afterthought, from sniffing once, she walked downstream a ways and cleaned the silver properly, washing off all of the grime and dirt from the blades and tines and any othe part of the cutlery one could name.

Returning it all to the sack, she again took to the air, heading towards the town. The sun was beginning to set, so she met with a friend and lover in the town, a fellow darkwinged torian, and stayed the night at her house, along with her fae slave. In the morning, she set off towards the guild with a slight jaunt to her step, and entered the doors, heedless this time of the massive guards.

This time, she did not have to look for the man who had 'given' her the quest, and he looked up to her and the sack she was carrying. "So, I see you returned...and rather quickly at that. I take it you found part of it?" he asks, cocking an eyebrow.

"Aye, sir, I did...." she returned, pouring the silverware with a great clatter onto the floor. and smiling softly.

"....hm...this is not all of the set that was stolen..." the giant man began, after eyeing the collected items for a long minute in silence, "It is only about half of what was stolen."

"What? But....that's all that was there...!" she began, before the man raised a hand for silence.

"It is, however," he continued, "Enough to reward you for a job well done. Come, let me get your earnings from our common vault..and, do pick up the silver...we wouldn't want to have yet another person set out to find it again..." he finished, only a mild hint of anythign other than an expressionless droll in his voice.

With thanks to Celia

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