This is a side-story in the Moving Forward RPG campaign, from the point of view of Emilien, our NPC rogue/fighter. He died in our last session, effectively shutting up Gwenn’s voice for a bit.
Emilien shook his head as the rest of the Harriers ran off to delve further into the mines. Guard the rear and secure the exit. The orders were deceptively simple– working alone had never been a problem for him, but these mines were riddled with portcullises and gates. Finding the mechanisms for each would be a challenge, to say the least. He already knew one of them was in the side room– the other couldn’t be that far off.
He slid into the side room easily and started on the portcullis crank. As he did so, he bit back the curse that rose to his lips, unbidden. Something about uppity rich girl ordering him around and sending him off on an errand instead of–
The room shook violently, and he grabbed the mechanism to brace himself. The entire complex shuddered and Emilien heard the distant roaring shriek of some great beast.
As he stood shakily, he looked around for a locking mechanism for the portcullis. A brake, mounted to the wall beside it. He flipped it, just as the door burst open and two guards stepped in, weapons readied.
Damn, Emilien swore under his breath, waiting for them to come closer. He side-stepped into a position he could defend.
“What, looking for me?” he called out to them. Buy time. Secure the exit.
The men moved forward, growling. “Fiend– you killed them!”
“I did no such thing– Well, maybe I did,” he replied, just as the men moved in for the strike. He dodged, parried with his sword, and shot wildly at the second man.
Two on one is not great odds for most men… but most aren’t Emilien of the Harriers. He dispatched the first easily, which left him fighting close and fierce with the second. Ducking quickly, he barely avoided a cleaving stroke from the armored guard’s weapon, which clashed into the wall behind his head. A darting blow from Emilien’s sword slid neatly under the man’s breastplate, and Emilien felt it sink deeply into the man’s gut. Warm blood flowed over his hand, and he smelled viscera, dank and filthy.
When it was done, he wiped his sword on the man’s tabard and looked back at the mechanism.
The brake was broken, shattered by the guard’s sword.
Damn. Double damn.
Emilien realized, by glancing into the hallway, that this mechanism operated the exterior portcullis. No sense in securing that one if they couldn’t get the inside one done.
He backed out of the room, slowly heading down one of the corridors. Just as he was on the stairs heading up, he heard grating metal and pounding feet. Almost as quickly as they’d come, they were running further out, and Emilien ran down the stairs, making it to the bottom just in time to see Gwenn’s dark brown ponytail disappearing around the corner…. and on the other side of the outer portcullis.
Damn.
Now, it was a matter of securing his exit– and he was nowhere close to strong enough to merely lift the gate upwards. He needed stealth and smarts– fortunately, he had both in spades.
He retreated to one of the side rooms, cloaking himself in the shadows to consider his options.
A few hours later, he had the remaining guards’ patrols figured out– they had convened in one of the central chambers and were engaged in a heightened patrol schedule.
He’d also been listening to what they considered important enough to guard. The inner portcullis release, for example, which must be upstairs, given the attention they were giving it.
He stole up the stairs, listening. The patrols were close together– he had minutes to work, if he was going to pull this off. But even if he didn’t, there were only four of them, and they patrolled in pairs.
He found the mechanism for the inner portcullis. His hands were barely on it before it gave a screaming, grinding complaint.
Damn.
Bootsteps on the stairs. Emilien stepped away from the mechanism and drew his weapons. He was gratified to see that the portcullis remained up, if only a few inches. At least this one had a working brake.
The fight was swift– they always were, weren’t they? And at first, it was going well– one guard and an archer stumbled in from the stairs. He dispatched the archer swiftly, while the armored guard closed in on him.
And then, as bad luck would have it, the other guard and archer pair burst in through the second door.
Now, Emilien was outnumbered. He could bring down their artillery quickly, but these two fellows in armor flanked him readily. For all his dodging and dancing, he couldn’t get away from them.
Just as his sword slipped across the neck of one, dropping him, he felt a shiver down his spine. He barely turned in time to avoid having that very spine severed by a lucky cut. A cut which, in the end, slid across his own gut, spilling his blood everywhere.
My favorite shirt, too, he thought, bringing the crossbow up to bear. One shot, point blank, through the eye, and his assailant went down.
Unfortunately, so did Emilien. The blood wouldn’t stop, and he felt his legs fold beneath him.
In the end, he lay on the floor, cursing his wretched luck, the guard who’d taken that lucky hit, and the fact that, for whatever reason, he had a potion of oil in his pack and nothing to heal himself.
And… he was alone. He wasn’t supposed to die alone, and certainly not from some half-wit guard. He should have had his head taken off after a trial for treason, or shot while covering a daring escape.
Well, perhaps that’s what he was doing. And yet…
He didn’t feel like one of the Harriers. Not yet, and not ever. They had trusted him with information– more than he’d wanted to know, perhaps. They said there were no secrets.
She trusted him with words, but not with actions. Guarding the rear was not the act of a hero.
He resolved to speak to her about that, just as soon as he woke up….
When he finally woke, he felt so awful, so drained, so tired, he forgot to berate the lieutenant. Gwenn leaned over him, gently putting one hand on his shoulder.
“Don’t get up just yet– you’ve had… quite a day.”
“Where am I?” He tilted his head up, but his vision swam dangerously, so he leaned back. Better.
She was still leaning over him. “We’re safe, in the cabin. You’re going to be fine. You were wounded pretty badly….” She looked away and he heard Firiel’s soft drawl. “I’ll be back in a bit,” she finally said, standing.
He leaned back, letting Firiel, Tristram, and Ordune take over his care for a while. Everything hurt, even parts that hadn’t been hurt originally. It was simply easier to let them change his bandages, feed him, help him sit up– than it was to do these things for himself, or think about it, or even want to.
His gut hurt, but more than the wound, it hurt deeper inside, a sick place of worry that he thought he’d long ago quashed.
Gwenn had lied to him. To his face, she had lied. About his wound. He hadn’t been wounded. He’d been killed, and his lieutenant had seen fit to hide it from him.
It was going to be a hell of a long day.