Druids and Rogues (a DND love story)

Prologue

Alfie's POV

My life was always the same. I would wake up, help Dad in the fields, practice my magic, chart the same stars night after night and then sleep just for the same thing to happen the very next day. This went on for years, until I developed an affinity for nature magic, peaking the interest of the local druids. So everyday, I would train with them, learning to fight, how to hone my magic and how to use it to defend myself.

A year later, the druids packed up their stuff and started on their journey to the next place they were needed. They had asked me to go with them, and, with some convincing, my parents said I could go. So I traveled with them, learning more to use my abilities to help others around me.

The farther we went the more I missed home, but I knew I was doing great things and that I was helping people. I knew that eventually I would see my family again, whether or not it was with a family of my own was up to me.

A few years later, I decided to leave the tribe and go off on my own. This journey took me all over the continent, from villages to cities, farms to castles, I would wander in and help those I could. Upon this time, I found myself in a small market town, where I decided to stop for a while and resupply.

While taking a short cut to the other side of town, I was looking at my book of star charts, when I felt something hard hit my chest. I looked down and found a pair of dull gray horns and a mop of dark crimson hair peeking up from between my breasts.

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Beric's POV

Born as a Tiefling boy to a Drow mother, my life was never easy. Tieflings are often seen as cursed offspring of devils, fiends, and demons, so the people of the city where I was born were not too pleased to have one living among them and were not afraid to let me know it. This alone made me hate what I was but I eventually came to terms with it and even accepted it.

I would spend my days helping my mother in her tavern but I would often look at the night sky and wonder if a better life was out there for me. One day I saw a man wander into the city, a man who was flaunting around some new wealth he had acquired. It was at this moment I decided to try my hand to make my own opportunity for a better life rather than waiting for one to appear. I waited till the man was in a crowd, snuck up, and picked his coin purse right off him. I then ran to a makeshift hideout I had made. I had succeeded in my first theft and that was only the beginning.

I would continue my escapades getting better with each theft I completed. I had begun not only picking the pockets of travelers but stealing for some of the nobles and shops in the more noble district. Among those that I had stolen from was a hooded man who had drifted into town.

I was able to lift off of him not only the sack of gold he carried on his hip but also a letter embroidered with a symbol that would stick with me for my entire life. It was a triangle with a crossed dagger and key in front of it. Upon obtaining these items I would flee to my makeshift hideout but when I arrived there I saw the hood man. I expected to be arrested or beaten and the items taken from me but instead he clapped for me saying "a young man such as you with such skill, is wasted in this city.

I was confused by what he meant but he lowered his hood to show me his face, a human man in his older years. He had given me his name, Gallus, and offered me a place in the guild which he had membership; he called it the Ebonheart Court. Once he told me what the guild was and what it did I saw the Court as my opportunity for a better life. I had so desired so I had accepted his offer, packed my things, sold off the last of my stolen goods, said goodbye to my mother, and left the city of my birth traveling with Gallus throughout the next few years.

I would join the Ebonheart Court rising in its ranks learning not only to steal, but also how to spy on Kings and Lords. Learning the dark secrets they hide behind closed doors, learning to assassinate those in high positions in my teen years. I encountered a woman named Astrid, a fellow member of The Guild who I fell in love with despite my better judgment.

Within a year of our relationship, she left me for dead while on a mission to steal from a noble's home and took all his items for herself. Heartbroken and betrayed, I swore never to love and not to let my emotions blind me again. I would go on in the next few years stealing, blackmailing, and killing without an ounce of regret in my adulthood. I'd been sent on another mission which I'd be given false information about and nearly apprehended by the city authorities in my escape. I would unexpectedly bump face first into the well-endowed chest of a beautiful firbolg woman.