Stories and Legends of the Inner Sea:Book the First: Rise of the Runelords

Severine I

Chapter one

Sandpoint.

A quaint little town just on the Varisian coast. Home to just over 1,000 people. What in the name of the gods was my mother thinking sending me to such a backwater town? "Find my father" my ass. If there's a dude here that's got horns, a freaking tail, and a pair of fucked up looking wings, I'm sure I would have found him after like day four. It's been almost a month. You'd think a big-ass festival in the honor of some deity (that I know but don't really care about) would make it easier right? Tons of people all gathered in one spot, two horns, a tail, and two crumpled wings would be easy to spot.

I might as well be trying to find my shadow in complete darkness.

I rolled my shoulders, trying to get the blood back to my wings. Mother recommended sewing them to my back when i was in public. It would be great advice if it wasn't so damn painful. Now that I'm complaining about how hiding shit is stupid, my tail is obviously there, I mean who ties something that looks like rope around their waist underneath a set of leather armor? And sawing down my horns every morning is getting really fucking annoying. One of these days I'm going to say screw it and let them go wild. See the looks on everyone's faces as they run and scream in terror. Oh gods that would be amazing!

I really didn't care what the festival was about (something about a chapel or some shit), but I was kinda inclined to join in on some of the less...kiddy games. Tug of War was a stupid game played by meat heads trying to impress a date, same with the weight lifting. The balance beams however were quite interesting. The event itself was quite boring, although the duo I saw when watching it were...interesting.

Standing in front of the platform to the large wooden beam stretching down all of the road (Tower street or something) was a man of larger height, his musculature further emphasized by the very heavy looking armor he bore. At his hip was a large sword (A bastard sword if I guessed correctly) and on his back was an absurdly tall shield. Standing - leaning more like - next to him was a three foot tall halfling (I would have assumed child if he didn't have a half full bottle of ale in one hand and five empty ones in the other). He had a rapier strung on his belt (I could probably use it as a tooth pick), and was wearing a garish set of armor that would probably fit quite well in a circus. I double taked the first time I saw them, they made for a very interesting sight. The halfling said something to the man, who looked back at him in disbelief, curiosity took over and I made my way through the crowd, closer to them, to better hear their conversation.

"-no way in hell I'm doing that" The larger man stated simply.

"Oh come on Daerion! It's just one little wooden beam, you can walk it no problem." The Halfling poked the larger man's greaves several times

"Need I remind you that I'm nearly ten times your weight?"

"So? What's the worst that could happen?"

"I could break the beam in half."

"Your point?"

"My point is I'm going to throw you at the beam and break it with your face if you don't shut up."

I couldn't hold back the laughter, so I turned and walked farther into the crowd so as not to arouse their suspicion. I made my way out of the area and into one of the smaller alleyways, silently chuckling to myself. As I made my way through town, I passed several food stands (and helped myself to several handfuls of free goodies), one of which had an arguing pair of very tall elves, I caught a couple of words, something about a language, sneaky sneaky, and a sweet-roll? I really didn't care. Although I was quite shocked when a large flower bud burst out of the ground and split in half, revealing a red, fleshy mouth with hundreds of large white teeth covered in a film of green saliva. The pod wiggled a bit until it was completely out of the ground, roots and all, and sauntered over to the arguing elves, without any hesitation it scooped up the shorter of the two in its maw - much to the elf's displeasure - and began making it's way down the street. From the maps I had looked at of the town, the only things that way were stores specializing in herbology and plant care. The remaining elf look quite confused before shrugging and following the large plant creature.