She took a deep breath, drawing in the mixed earthy scents of herbs and the industrial smell of alchemical reagents.
Stepping out of retirement hand exactly been the plan, but then, the plan hadn't accounted for an agent of the Rusty Quill showing up in the same backwater village she had been passing through. The Guild had tangled with that mysterious group a few times back when she'd been active, and had come out the losers each time. Then, they just... Stopped running into each other. Nobody had seen a member of the Rusty Quills in a decade or more. So, why now? Why here?
The questions troubled her. Something was in motion and she had burned the life that would have made finding answers easy. Not for the first time that evening, she asked herself what made this event worth undoing everything she had achieved to get her a new, safer, better life. Her ego wanted to say that whatever was happening was something big, something she needed to be part of... But a smaller part of her chimed in that this was maybe a fight she wouldn't walk away from, and she knew herself well enough to recognize that the razors edge was where she'd always felt the most at home.
"Are you sure it was wise to involve the adventurers like that?" Her bodyguard, Mishann, asked. "Kieran Vega was not the forgiving type, even before he got tangled up in -"
"Yes, Mishann," Elaria quickly replied, cutting the other woman's sentence short. "Best not to speak of... That... Even here."
Mishann was an unparalleled bodyguard, her draconic heritage and talent with anything bladed had made her a nightmare for Elaria's enemies, but she sometimes forgot to have a healthy fear of the way cities could capture certain word s and deposit them right into the ears of exactly the wrong people.
The Dragonborn bodyguard paused for a second before replying, "You didn't answer my question."
Elaria put on a show of dramatically rolling her eyes, which usually brought at least a smirk to Mishann's lips. Not today though. She was really worried about the adventurers they'd hired.
"House Vega can afford to replace some random furniture, and we left enough footprints leading back to us that he's going to be more irate with me than with them. Which, as I will remind you, was the goal. I need a moment of his attention, and he's been notoriously difficult to reach lately."
Mishann nodded.
"He will put a bounty on their heads, if he doesn't hunt them for sport himself and dump their corpses at our feet as a message," she replied after a moment.
Elaria grimaced, but nodded in turn. "Likely. To the headhunters that is. Unlikely he will make this personal, I think he's got bigger fish to fry than a pair of crafty thieves with wierd taste in stolen goods. Plus, something tells me that their misfit act is hiding their true nature. They're stronger than any of us game them credit for."
Mishann looked unconvinced.
Elaria continued, "They scared off a Quill, saved the boy from a curse that reeked of wrongness, and gained the interest of the pompous asses at the Bandyhand Institute. All in, what? A week and a half? Maybe a push from Vega will give them the catalyst they need to finally shine."
Mishann fingered the dagger at her belt, still looking full of doubts. At length she sighed and nodded, before muttering - half to herself, "Bones shine."
Thank you for reading! I thought I'd do a bit of writing to add a new perspective to the events of my D&D game. The players began our very first session contracted as merchants escorts to Elaria Silverleaf, her bodyguard, and her apprentice.
It was Elaria who tipped the party off about where to find healing for the cursed mage, Dorin, and it was she who tipped off my pair of Rogues about a conveniently easy manor to steal some furniture from.
I wanted to get a better sense for her motivations so, sat down for a freewrite not really thinking too hard on anything. Which gave me several new things to add into the mix. We now have a name for the mysterious group who's agent the players had stumbled upon that first session. We have a name for the chap the Rogues stole from. And, apparently, I have an NPC that was supposed to be throw-away revealing more of her own dangerous background and stepping into the playing field.
I freaking love emergent storytelling!
