Same people.
Different idiots.
A living scrapbook
of our adventures.
Explore
The Village carries pamphlets, fel-fire, and a thirst for celebration into a night that grows larger than its plans.
I have seen war councils convene over maps, banners, and officers who worked very hard to look solemn. The Village’s began when Blaedy left Brill, declared it time for a council, and hurried into Undercity’s War Quarter. Summoneyy found her there, and the first great matter settled was that Summoneyy’s staff was amazing. That was the sort of beginning that tells an honest chronicler to keep his inkpot open. The Village had a direction, a name to make, and trouble enough ahead to make both matters memorable.
Arrowyy · Undercity War Quarter and the flight to Tarren Mill
Green witchlight lay across the Undercity stone, catching on the buckles of Summoneyy’s trousers as she came through the passage. Arrowyy looked once, then let the corner of his mouth move.
“Nice pants, Summoneyy.”
Blaedy appeared behind the warlock, pale hair bright in the gloom. “Hi, Arrowyy!”
“Hi, sister.”
Summoneyy stopped and turned her face toward him with deliberate patience. “My eyes are up here.”
Blaedy’s giggle skipped through the corridor. Arrowyy felt heat creep up his neck. He looked past Summoneyy at a weapon rack and found it suddenly worthy of study.
He used the pause to settle himself, checking the familiar pull of his bowstring and the placement of the arrows at his hip. The green lamps hummed above the old stones. Somewhere deeper in the War Quarter, iron rang once and went quiet.
Blaedy watched him with her hands folded around her staff. “So, where are we attacking today?”
Arrowyy considered the dim passages, the weight of his bow, the waiting hush of the city around them. “We should go somewhere classic.”
He glanced to Summoneyy. “What do you think, Summoneyy?”
The warlock’s answer came quietly. “We should spill Southshore blood.”
A short roar burst from Arrowyy before he could stop it, fierce only in sound as it struck the corridor walls and ran away beneath Lordaeron. He lowered his head at once, fingers closing around his bow.
Blaedy blinked at him, then at Summoneyy. “Where is that again?”
“Hillsbrad,” Summoneyy said.
Arrowyy nodded. Southshore lay in Hillsbrad, south of Tarren Mill. He raised a fist, not high. “For home.”
Blaedy straightened at once, boots together, staff tucked smartly to her side. She saluted with a solemnity that lasted only until the hint of a smile returned to her face.
Summoneyy looked toward Friendly, then to Haaroon, her felguard. “Friendly and Haaroon are hungry.”
Arrowyy came to attention beside Blaedy and returned the salute. Then he crouched by Friendly’s broad head, his fingers working through the giant bat’s fur between its ears. Friendly held still beneath his hand. Arrowyy smiled at the beast.
Behind them, Summoneyy called up her dreadsteed. Its arrival was heatless smoke and hoofbeats on stone; it vanished, then came again at her bidding, impatient as the warlock herself was not.
They moved out through the city’s canals and echoing quarters, past Forsaken sentries unmoving beneath green lamps. Blaedy and Summoneyy kept ahead through the Trade Quarter and toward the way out. In the outer courtyard, the flight master’s bats waited with leathery wings folded against the gray Tirisfal air.
Blaedy looked to the southbound mounts. “Okay, Tarren Mill first.”
The bats bore them beyond the ruined city and over the autumn-brown country. Wind worried at Arrowyy’s hair as the land unrolled below: pale Lordamere Lake, dark Fenris Isle, and the broken reaches near Dalaran. The route carried them over Gavin’s Naze and the Headland, then across the hard-backed rise called Corrahn’s Dagger.
Blaedy · Tarren Mill
Tarren Mill crouched behind its spiked palisade beneath a hard, colourless sky. Watchfires breathed smoke over the muddy road, and the wind worried at the hems of Blaedy’s robes as she faced the little knot of her companions.
Arrowyy stood with one hand resting against Friendly’s thick-furred neck. The giant bat had folded its wings close, patient and broad-backed beside him. Summoneyy waited a few paces away, composed as ever, her attention moving between the road ahead and the others as though she were counting what had yet to be done.
Blaedy drew a breath. The whole thing felt important when she said it aloud—more real, somehow, than a purpose held quietly in her head. “Okay, you guys, this is gonna raise the Village’s reputation with the Horde.”
Arrowyy reached into his gear and produced a slim packet of folded papers. “I brought Village pamphlets.”
For a moment Blaedy only blinked at them. Then she smiled despite herself. They were such a tiny thing to carry into whatever waited down the road, and yet the papers made the plan feel wonderfully proper. Somebody ought to know who had been there.
“I’ll leave them behind,” Arrowyy said.
Summoneyy’s mouth tilted, not quite a smile. “Let’s make a name for ourselves.”
The wind snapped at the packet in Arrowyy’s hand. Blaedy looked from him to Summoneyy, then beyond them, toward the cold road leading out from the outpost. Her heart beat too quickly, but that did not mean she had to let the others see it. She lifted her chin.
“Then we have to stop every one of them.”
Arrowyy’s answer came sharp and certain. “For the Village!”
Afterward, preparations resumed with the peculiar calm that followed a shout. Blaedy raised her hands and sent a steadying prayer through the three of them. Strength settled into her companions, a quiet assurance beneath skin and mail and cloth. Friendly’s ears twitched as Arrowyy checked the straps at his side.
Summoneyy began her own work. Shadows gathered at her feet and climbed, thickening into the towering shape of Haaroon, her felguard. The demon’s presence seemed to press the chill air outward. Summoneyy settled protective magic over herself with a motion that looked almost absent-minded.
Haaroon came to stand at Summoneyy’s side, broad and waiting. Blaedy could not help it. She put two fingers to her lips and gave the felguard an appreciative whistle.
Summoneyy · Southshore streets
The Village’s rhetoric ceased being rhetoric at Southshore’s boundary. Timber fences, whitewashed walls, and lanterns along the wet streets gave way beneath the party’s advance. Summoneyy laid Curse of Agony and Corruption upon the first guards, then fed Immolate’s fire into the gaps Arrowyy’s arrows made. His serpent stings and arcane shots struck with spare precision while Blaedy wrapped them in shining shields. Two Southshore Guards and Caretaker Smithers went down in the first rush.
Blaedy laughed at Caretaker Smithers, a quick bright sound that broke off when she glanced over Summoneyy and Arrowyy. More guards came running through the lane. Blaedy’s hands rose at once, renewing the hurt they carried; Summoneyy and Haaroon met the next pair in a churn of fel-fire and steel, while Arrowyy’s shots kept the guards from closing cleanly.
Power gathered thinly in Summoneyy’s hands. She drew upon herself for more, the familiar wrench of Life Tap leaving her hollow beneath the ribs. Blaedy noticed immediately. Warm light closed the hurt Summoneyy had made in herself before the next turn in the street swallowed them.
An Alliance gnome warlock appeared beyond the fighting: Raistlinnem, small beneath his staff and braced for them. Blaedy slipped from easy notice, then made a rude gesture at him from behind her shield. Summoneyy put two fingers to her lips and blew Raistlinnem a kiss.
Arrowyy’s arrows fanned through the lane as Blaedy’s healing snapped from shoulder to shoulder. A Southshore resident named Darla Harris was caught in that violent churn and fell. Then the hard, borrowed clarity around Blaedy guttered out. Her Elixir of the Sages had worn away.
Shadows passed over the cobbles.
The Enraged Gryphons came down screaming. Their talons struck harder than any guard’s blade, and their wings beat smoke into Summoneyy’s face. Haaroon hacked upward at one descending shape while Summoneyy tried to keep another in fire and pain, but the street had become too narrow, too crowded, too full of claws.
One gryphon smashed through the space Blaedy had tried to hold. Blaedy crumpled beneath wings and talons before Summoneyy could reach her. The priest’s light vanished from the street.
At the graveyard near Tarren Mill, Blaedy’s spirit had risen before Summoneyy’s and was already walking the long road back toward her body in Southshore.
Blaedy · Southshore Inn
Summoneyy stopped before the Southshore Inn’s battered door. Lamplight and hearth heat seeped through the warped boards into the salt-cold street, along with the muffled shouts of those inside. She glanced toward Blaedy, calm as if they stood outside an empty shop.
“Keep me healed, Blaedy. I’ll melt the flesh from their bones.”
Blaedy tightened both hands on her staff. “Yes, ma’am!”
“Let’s go inside this inn.”
They shoved through the door together. Warmth closed around Blaedy at once—hearth smoke, sour spilled drink, wet wool, and trampled rushes. Tables scraped back as defenders surged up from the common room. Blaedy cast Power Word: Shield around Summoneyy before the warlock reached them.
Hellfire burst from Summoneyy in searing rings, driving enemies away from her and drawing others into the crush. Each time the warlock tore strength back into herself with Life Tap, Blaedy felt the cost in the sudden pallor of her face and answered with Flash Heal. When there was room enough for a deeper prayer, Greater Heal poured through the smoke. When there was not, Blaedy kept moving, mending wounds with Heal and remaking shields as fast as blows could crack them.
Arrowyy held the doorway flank. His Multi-Shot scattered a fan of arrows through each knot of defenders, while Arcane Shot snapped blue-white across the hall. Friendly, his giant bat, wheeled low beneath the rafters. Haaroon forced space open near Summoneyy; Gelqua darted through the smoke while Jhaagrym prowled at its edge. Blaedy tried to keep all of them in sight, though the press made that nearly impossible.
A defender named Neema fell among overturned tables. Innkeeper Anderson followed, then another defender, Huraan. Southshore Guards crowded the hearth and the casks until Blaedy could barely see more than armored shoulders and raised weapons. The party drove through them without yielding ground. Twenty-one guards went down in that choking struggle, followed by Lieutenant Farren Orinelle, Barkeep Kelly, and Raleigh the Devout. Summoneyy’s Curse of Agony clung to the last of the resistance while Blaedy caught Arrowyy, then Summoneyy, then herself beneath fresh shields.
The common room quieted only by degrees. A shutter thumped upstairs. Coals popped in the hearth. Blaedy looked from face to face, counting quickly: Summoneyy was standing; Arrowyy still had his bow; Friendly circled overhead; Haaroon, Gelqua, and Jhaagrym remained close.
Arrowyy · Southshore
The gryphons chose their moment badly for everyone. Arrowyy fell beneath them, and Blaedy followed; for a few brief heartbeats the priest’s spirit held its angelic shape and kept healing before even that last grace faded. Blaedy rose at the graveyard near Tarren Mill as a spirit and made for her body. Summoneyy, still standing, mourned neither for long: she knew her friends would return. Blaedy rose again where she had fallen, and Arrowyy called Friendly back to his side. Southshore had not grown any kinder while it waited.
Blaedy entered Southshore beneath the hard clatter of boots and steel. The Village was the cause Arrowyy and the others carried into these Alliance streets, and they could not let a warning run south toward reinforcements.
Guards pressed through the tight lanes. Arrowyy planted explosive traps where the paving narrowed, then sent arrow after arrow into the crush beneath Friendly’s sweeping wings. When steel reached him, he met it at close quarters. Summoneyy’s curses gnawed at the defenders while Blaedy’s shields flashed around the party; when hostile attention fixed on her, she blurred from it and renewed what was failing. Midway through the push, Summoneyy called Haaroon to her side, and the felguard drove into the melee.
By the time the first street cleared, nine Southshore Guards, Marshal Redpath, and a startled chicken had been cut down. Innkeeper Anderson had returned to his post since falling earlier that night; he fell again. So did Huraan, a returned Southshore defender, followed by two more guards. Lieutenant Farren Orinelle, Neema, another Southshore defender, and Barkeep Kelly were swallowed by the fighting after that, with six more guards before the party could breathe. Blaedy’s healing kept finding Arrowyy and Summoneyy through the movement.
At the street’s littered edge, Summoneyy looked down at Huraan and laughed.
Nearby stood Morgäñä, a draenei shaman of the Alliance. Arrowyy kept his bow in hand as he regarded her.
“Join the village.”
Blaedy gave the shaman a rude gesture. Summoneyy stepped beside Morgäñä and began to dance, composed enough that the wrecked street seemed to vanish around her. Arrowyy did not lower his weapon.
“Leave that filthy cause behind. Join the village.”
Blaedy joined the dance with a bright, incongruous smile.
Summoneyy · Brewfest Grounds, Rocktusk Farm
The company reconvened in Shattrath with victory still loud in their voices. Arrowyy saw to Friendly’s fur, and Summoneyy judged that Haaroon had enjoyed the work immensely. The Goblin Commoner at Scryer’s Tier had promised Blaedy and Summoneyy free beer for speaking with the Brewfest Organizer, which was reason enough to seek the Brewfest Grounds. In Orgrimmar, Arrowyy suffered a fatal misstep before the drinking properly began. Blaedy wept, urged her brother back to his feet, and made certain he was fit to celebrate. At Rocktusk Farm, Bizzle Quicklift and his target, S.T.O.U.T., awaited.
At the bright edge of the Brewfest tents, Blaedy leaned toward the serving man with the earnest gravity of someone requesting medicine.
“Give me your heartiest ale, sir.”
The three of them carried their cups away from the banners and drinking songs, out toward Rocktusk Farm, where Durotar’s red dust skimmed through the scrub beneath the hard orange hills. Blaedy set a basic campfire going beside the road. Its little flames worried the dusk and made a circle of tolerable warmth.
Summoneyy settled beside it, Haaroon looming at her shoulder. Arrowyy remained outside the fire’s reach until Blaedy patted the dust nearer her.
“A toast!” Summoneyy lifted her cup.
“Sit closer, silly.”
Arrowyy lowered himself by the fire and raised his own drink. “I’ll drink to that.”
“To murdering the Alliance.”
Blaedy laughed, nearly tipping her cup. “To us, then.”
Arrowyy answered with a slurred insult cast toward the distant city, then drank. Whatever had been eaten with the ale sat comfortably in Summoneyy’s stomach, leaving her steady with the simple strength of a good meal. Arrowyy took another bite from his own portion and seemed to gather the same settled vigor. Blaedy followed a moment later, chewing thoughtfully before she smiled at the fire.
Arrowyy’s mouth twitched. Then he laughed outright, short and sharp. Blaedy caught the laughter from him without ever learning its cause; she folded over, then rolled onto her back in the dust, laughing until grit clung to her robes.
When Blaedy finally sat up, Summoneyy remembered Bizzle Quicklift’s warning. The goblin had asked her and Blaedy to learn the simplest defense for Brewfest’s property, in case Dark Irons came nosing about again. They left their cups by the fire and went to the target called S.T.O.U.T.
Arrowyy · Falconwing Square
The feast’s good cheer followed them from Durotar. At Jaggedswine Farm, Gelatine, a Blood Elf paladin, handed Blaedy two Unstable Mana Potions and earned the company’s gratitude. A Greater Duskbat fell during their homeward wandering. In Silvermoon City, the Village greeted Lor’themar Theron with embraces, a high five, and a report delivered with considerable pride and considerably less precision. Even the pink elekks of Eversong Woods received the astonishment they deserved. By Falconwing Square, the drink had not entirely released its hold.
The Brewfest grounds had gone soft around the edges for Arrowyy. Lanternlight pooled gold over trampled grass; the air smelled of spilled ale, roast meat, and the sweet sharpness of fruit. Blaedy swayed beside him with the pleased concentration of someone attempting very hard to stand straight.
Ahead of them stood Sheri, a tauren woman. Blaedy lifted a hand at once. “Hi, Sheri!”
Summoneyy answered the greeting with delighted applause, each clap crisp despite the drink warming Arrowyy’s own head. Then the warlock crossed to Sheri and took up a small, unsteady dance with her, turning beneath the lanterns as though the musicians played only for them. Arrowyy raised his hand in a quiet wave when Summoneyy’s spin carried her aside.
Blaedy leaned nearer, her smile broad and earnest. “We’ve seen the world, Sheri.”
It sounded important to her. Arrowyy considered it, then stepped forward before the thought could blur away.
“Sheri. Go on a date with me.”
He flexed one arm with grave purpose. The motion nearly put him off balance; he corrected it before the stumble became visible, or so he hoped. Blaedy broke into laughter, shoulders shaking as she pressed a hand over her mouth.
Summoneyy’s expression settled into its calm, knowing shape. “And it ain’t pretty.”
Arrowyy let his arm fall. There were other ways to make his case. He offered Sheri a low bow, then straightened and held her gaze. The judgment might have been affected by the beer. Across from him, Summoneyy turned her attention on Sheri as well, her smile small, direct, and entirely untroubled by the competition.
For a little while, the three of them occupied the same patch of lanternlight, attempting to look worldly and failing in three different ways. The festival moved around them: cups clinked, laughter rose from a nearby table, and a breeze worried at the bright streamers overhead. Blaedy’s gaze wandered after a streamer. She seemed to lose the thought she had been following, then caught it again with a faint start and a hiccup.
Blaedy · Sunstrider Isle village campfire
On the last stretch toward Sunstrider Isle, Arrowyy admitted that he missed his mother. He then asked whether the others had admired Meho’s mother in quite the same way. Blaedy and Summoneyy did not. Their laughter carried them onward, along with Arrowyy’s renewed appreciation for a broom he had missed. Soon Blaedy recognized the paths around them for what they were: home. The Village had returned with much to say and very little dignity left to spend.
The Brewfest drink had put a soft, unreliable sway into the crystal lamps along Sunstrider Isle’s pale paths. Blaedy stood beneath golden leaves with Summoneyy and Arrowyy, facing a small knot of villagers, and tried very hard to keep her own feet in one place.
Arrowyy regarded the villagers with grave attention. “How’re you liking the village?”
Blaedy smiled, relieved somebody had begun. “Hello, villagers.”
Summoneyy leaned toward one of them, narrowing her eyes as if conducting important research. “Your hair’s nice.”
That seemed friendly enough. Blaedy nodded, and then the thought grew larger in her head than it had any right to. “It’s a big world out there, you know.” She swept an arm toward the bright water beyond the village roofs and had to make a small correction to keep from turning with it. “You’re better off staying here.”
Arrowyy’s boot caught a raised edge of stone. He lurched sideways, made a stiff little hop, and stared at the paving as though it had shifted beneath him.
A young villager had drifted close, looking between the adventurers and the abandoned Brewfest mugs. Blaedy caught sight of him and lowered her voice—though not nearly enough. “He’s not old enough.”
“Maybe when you’re older, kid,” Summoneyy said.
Arrowyy seemed to consider that. Then his face settled into quiet resolve. “I’ll dance for you.”
Before Blaedy could decide whether dancing was safer than mugs, Arrowyy wandered toward a villager named Dramena and lifted his palm. Dramena met it. Their high five cracked sharply through the gentle evening.
Arrowyy next pointed across the path at a villager named Elviora, standing beneath one of the red-and-gold banners.
“Hey,” Summoneyy called.
Elviora looked over. Summoneyy gave the matter a moment’s consideration, then said, “I like your hair.”
South lay beyond it.
Arrowyy leaned toward the rushing air and spoke so Friendly could hear, whether the bat flew close enough or not. “Friendly. Stay with me.”
At last Tarren Mill’s roofs and palisades gathered beneath them. When his boots met Hillsbrad ground, Arrowyy called for Friendly. The giant bat answered the summons, descending with a beat of wings to settle at his side. Arrowyy rested a hand against Friendly’s neck and looked south, toward the road to Southshore.
“There you are,” Summoneyy murmured to him.
Blaedy grinned at Haaroon, though the demon gave her nothing back that she could read. Still, with Friendly’s great wings beside Arrowyy and Haaroon looming beside Summoneyy, their small party seemed less small. Not safe, exactly. But ready enough to make safety a thing they carried with them.
She reached into her satchel for the small vial she had saved. The glass was cool against her palm. Blaedy considered it for a second—she had brought it because thinking clearly was always a good idea, especially before doing something that involved pamphlets, demons, and stopping everyone ahead of them.
“Okay,” she said softly, mostly to herself. “Wisdom first. That is definitely the responsible order.”
She drank the Elixir of the Sages.
The taste was bitter and bright. It ran through her in a swift, clean warmth, and the muddled edges of the morning drew suddenly into focus: the watchfire’s smoke, the wet sheen of the road, the measured scrape of Friendly’s claws in the dirt. The elixir’s borrowed clarity settled over her, temporary but keen.
Blaedy did not waste it. She lifted her hands again, weaving a blessing of intellect over the group, then another of spirit. The magic passed from her in pale, quiet currents, touching Arrowyy, Summoneyy, Friendly, and Haaroon alike.
She lowered her hands and checked them all once more. Arrowyy had his pamphlets. Summoneyy had Haaroon. Friendly waited under Arrowyy’s hand. No one looked hurt. No one looked uncertain.
Blaedy nodded toward the road. “Okay, you guys. We’re ready.”
ArrowyySister, why isn't your shirt on?
Summoneyy had only a breath to understand the empty place beside her before another gryphon descended. Hooked talons and beating wings filled her sight. The impact tore the world away.
She woke as a spirit beneath the bleak sky near Tarren Mill and set herself after Blaedy along the cold, colorless road. Behind her, the fighting still broke against Southshore. Arrowyy fell in that distant violence, returned to the fighting, and later fell again.
The road seemed to lengthen with every step. When Southshore’s lanterns finally shimmered ahead, Blaedy’s spirit reached the place where her body lay among the stones. Summoneyy came after her, looking down at her own body as though it belonged to another warlock. Then she stepped into it.
Breath punched into her lungs. Pain followed. She rose.
Summoneyy summoned Haaroon, and the felguard took shape at her side, broad and solid amid the smoke. Arrowyy had returned as well. He summoned Friendly, and the giant bat settled close while he fed it from his supplies.
“Well, that sucked. Worth it, though.”
Blaedy returned to her body a moment later and rose again, unsteady but whole. Together, they drove through five more Southshore Guards and a Southshore man named Bartolo Ginsetti before the street could close around them.
Blaedy drank another Elixir of the Sages. Its temporary sharpness came over her anew as the party pressed onward through Farmer Kent, Loremaster Dibbs, Apprentice Honeywell, six Southshore Guards, and a Southshore resident named Nandar Branson. Curse, arrow, shield, fire: the rhythm resumed before Summoneyy could decide whether returning had made it cleaner.
A Southshore resident named Wesley went down in the next stretch. A chicken was caught in the turmoil; then another guard, and a resident named Phin Odelic. The little body lay among ash and bootprints, and something in Summoneyy tightened more sharply than the gryphon’s talons had.
“Are we the bad guys?”
Blaedy answered while more guards rushed the lane. “No, Summoneyy. We’re the good guys.”
Six Southshore Guards fell back beneath their combined assault. Summoneyy nodded once, though the unease stayed beneath her ribs.
“Okay.”
Haaroon advanced. Arrowyy drew. Blaedy raised another shield, and Summoneyy turned her attention to the last Southshore Guard in the lane.
BlaedyThe gryphons!! Ahh!
ArrowyyIt hurt.
Summoneyylmao
“The inn is ours!”
She raised her staff toward the smoke-dark rafters. “For the village!”
Boots struck the planks outside before the echo faded. A Southshore Guard pushed toward the entrance, and Summoneyy answered by spreading Corruption through the renewed resistance. The guard fell before he could get farther down the street and carry word to more defenders.
Blaedy stepped out into the coastal air and spat onto the boards. Between the crowded buildings, a man named Jaysin Lanyda charged through the confusion. He was late, alone, and running straight into the people who had taken the inn. Blaedy laughed at him despite herself. The laughter vanished beneath steel, spellfire, and the beat of Friendly’s wings; Jaysin Lanyda fell in the melee.
Beyond him stood Iciclepickle, a human mage in Alliance colors, cold light gathering in his hands. Summoneyy laughed at him, low and unhurried. Chef Jessen fell as the fighting spread along the road.
Then Lieutenant Farren Orinelle came back to his post with fresh guards beside him, despite having fallen inside the inn. Blaedy saw him turn toward the street beyond them. They could not let a warning reach reinforcements. Farren fell again amid the press.
Blaedy laughed once more as two Southshore Guards stumbled back and the line broke around them. Brewmeister Bilger fell with the defenders, and for a moment the road lay open toward the dark shine of the sea.
Arrowyy watched that opening with his bow lowered but ready. “They will know our name.”
Blaedy heard the weight beneath his few words in the shouts carrying from the next street. The fighting had spilled beyond the inn. Everyone nearby would know where the noise had begun.
The returning line came hard. Four Southshore Guards fell in the next surge. Loremaster Dibbs, whom Blaedy knew had already fallen once that night, had returned to the fight; he fell again before he could slip past the party. Another guard went down. Apprentice Honeywell had come back as well after an earlier defeat, and fell again in the same relentless push. Nine more Southshore Guards crowded forward, only to be driven down before the party yielded a step.
At the far end of the road, a defender named Darla Harris had returned to her post. Summoneyy pointed at her through the drifting smoke and lifted one hand. Green fire gathered over her palm, a silent promise of doom held where Darla could see it. Blaedy renewed the shield around the warlock.
Summoneyy spat onto the ground and advanced.
Darla fell again as the defenders broke around her. Arrowyy’s Concussive Shots staggered those trying to close on them. When attackers reached him, he used Wing Clip to slow them and keep the line from folding over Blaedy and Summoneyy. A Southshore Guard fell near Blaedy’s shoulder.
Then a shadow passed over the road. Blaedy looked up. The sound of gryphon wings had hunted these streets before; now another gryphon attack was descending over the rooftops toward the inn. She lifted her staff as the beating wings grew louder.
Beyond them stood Waitinforyou, a human warrior of the Alliance. Summoneyy turned from the shaman and stared him down. Shadow gathered lazily at her fingertips as she made a silent threat of doom. A moment later, she pointed toward him and made an equally silent vow of revenge.
The party moved on before either Alliance watcher could carry a warning. Five guards tried to stop them in the next lanes and were driven down before Farmer Kent, returned to his post after an earlier death, fell again. The streets kept feeding bodies into the clash: ten more guards, Wesley—a returned town defender—then another guard, Phin Odelic, and five more. By the end, the civic quarter lay open before them.
The noise thinned. Arrowyy used the lull to study the guarded lanes and the practical waterfront buildings pressed close around them. The coast lay behind Southshore; ahead, its official buildings stood amid broken cobbles and abandoned weapons.
Blaedy lifted her staff toward the doors ahead.
“Bring out your mayor!”
Summoneyy checked Haaroon at her side, then glanced from Blaedy to Arrowyy.
“Get ready.”
Arrowyy saw the man at the far end of the street. He had the settled posture of someone accustomed to being obeyed, and he carried a scepter.
“There he is.”
He pointed at the human official. “The magistrate.”
Magistrate Henry Maleb faced them across the battered lane. Arrowyy held his pointing hand steady long enough for the others to mark him, then reached for another arrow.
“Any last words, Magistrate?”
Summoneyy leaned around Haaroon’s shoulder and told Maleb a joke. Blaedy answered the magistrate with a rude gesture, then raised a shield as Maleb brought his scepter up.
The street constricted into violence. Friendly wheeled overhead, beating the air with broad wings while Arrowyy’s shots threaded past Haaroon and into Maleb’s defense. Summoneyy’s magic clung to the magistrate in ember-red and shadow-dark strands. Blaedy moved behind the line of fighting, her healing reaching wherever it was needed.
“Your scepter is weak.”
Maleb held his ground. Haaroon met him in the center of the lane while Arrowyy shifted around a fallen guard, seeking space for another shot. Summoneyy drank from a healing potion without taking her eyes from the magistrate. Arrowyy summoned Eranikus the Chained.
Then the party closed around Southshore’s magistrate, their pressure unbroken. Magistrate Henry Maleb fell beneath it.
Arrowyy spat on the ground.
“Take that!” Blaedy said.
Summoneyy laughed at the magistrate’s death. Blaedy spat after Arrowyy, and Summoneyy’s laughter broke into an angry swear at Maleb’s body.
“Victory!” Blaedy said.
Arrowyy looked down at the dead magistrate.
“Should’ve joined the village.”
“Maybe in your next life.”
“For the village. Forever.”
“We brought glory to our village!” Summoneyy said.
The complimentary samplers burned bright on Summoneyy’s tongue. She drained one, caught the empty mug by its handle, and sent it spinning at the target. Blaedy did the same. Ceramic rang out across the dusty farmstead. They kept at it until the fifth throw struck home, then returned to Bizzle Quicklift and told him the drill was finished.
The next swallow Summoneyy took went down badly. She jerked upright, a startled curse catching in her throat as heat rushed into her face.
Blaedy had one hand raised toward Arrowyy, the last gleam of healing fading from her fingers. Arrowyy tipped his cup to her.
“Thanks, Blaedy.”
He held the cup out again. “One more, then.”
Blaedy’s smile loosened at the edges. “Um, I’m not feeling so good.”
“Drink more. That’ll help.”
“Hate dwarves. Fine brew, though... hic.” Summoneyy wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
Blaedy blinked at the campfire. Its flames seemed to have acquired a slow, private sway, and she swayed with them.
“The honeymead is, like, particularly superb,” she said.
Across the firelight stood Threemil, a male Troll hunter who was not with them. Summoneyy fixed him with a stare. The pleasant fog behind her eyes did not stop her from holding it.
“Who’s laughing?” Arrowyy asked, looking into the dark beyond the fire.
“Something funny?” he added, quiet rather than challenging.
Summoneyy snapped her head toward Threemil. A sharp call broke from her before she found the words she wanted.
“What are you staring at?”
“Troll... hic.”
Blaedy looked between them, baffled, her cup held halfway to her mouth.
“Fight me.”
Summoneyy rose and strutted around Threemil in a loose, wobbling circle. Her arms flapped at her sides. She clucked like a chicken, chin lifted high, while Haaroon paced close behind her.
The scrub erupted into motion. A Wild Wolpertinger broke the circle apart, and Summoneyy’s drunken performance vanished beneath the need to move. Fel fire answered her lifted hand; an arrow cut through the smoke of the campfire; Blaedy scrambled clear. The party fought through the interruption together and cut the creature down.
Afterward, Arrowyy stood very straight, as if he had personally instructed the ground to stop shifting.
“I feel amazing... hic.”
“Summoneyy, we should do this every day.”
He looked over to Blaedy. “Blaedy.”
When she only blinked at him, he tried again. “Hey, Blaedy.”
“Blaedy, how many humans do you think we killed?”
“Who cares?” Summoneyy said.
“Somewhere between ten and a hundred!” Blaedy announced.
Summoneyy considered this with all the seriousness it did not deserve. “How many ants have you killed in your life... hic?”
Arrowyy nodded at her, grave and immediate.
“That’s a good point.”
Blaedy peered down into her empty cup. “I have no idea.”
Summoneyy looked from Sheri to the others. “Let’s play strip poker, Sheri.”
Arrowyy blinked. That was a different kind of contest.
“Good idea,” Blaedy said immediately.
Summoneyy’s clothing was different when Arrowyy glanced back at her a moment later. Before he could decide whether that was part of the game or merely something that happened around Summoneyy, she had changed her outfit again.
“I’ll start,” Blaedy announced.
The declaration was confident. Her hands, when she set about it, were less so. Arrowyy watched Sheri instead and tried to summon the same certainty he had brought to the flex.
“Sheri, is it the beer, or should we take a walk?”
Summoneyy had changed her attire a third time by the end of the question. Blaedy, apparently unwilling to be outdone by that mystery, altered her own outfit as well. Then she selected one item, struggled briefly with it, and set it aside.
“There.” She looked around the small circle, satisfied. “Your turn.”
Arrowyy frowned at the absence of an actual rule. A game needed one. Otherwise it was just people changing clothes near a tauren woman while drunk, and that seemed hard to manage.
“Lowest roll takes off one,” he said.
That improved matters, at least in principle. The festival lanterns blurred again when he turned his head. Somewhere near the edge of their circle, Summoneyy’s clothes changed once more. Arrowyy decided not to ask how. Some questions were better left where they fell.
The evening had acquired the loose, dangerous feeling that came before a truly bad idea found its feet. Blaedy seemed to feel it too. She gathered herself, gave Sheri a warm little wave, and said, “Bye, Sheri.”
Arrowyy followed the others away from the lanternlight before anyone could propose rules for a second round. Behind him, the festival carried on. At his side, Summoneyy changed her outfit one final time as they left.
Blaedy decided this all needed a campfire. She knelt beside the stone walk, arranged kindling between three rocks, and coaxed a basic fire into being. Its small flames warmed the pale ground and gathered the loose little crowd into a circle of light.
A passing villager named Kalivastan came along the path. Arrowyy waved. Kalivastan returned the gesture with a patient uncertainty that made Blaedy want to explain everything, though she was not certain what there was to explain.
At the fire, Arrowyy abruptly straightened. “The magistrate in Southshore died.”
Blaedy’s hands paused over the flames. Arrowyy’s voice remained even, but his focus had drifted somewhere beyond the firelight.
“There was so much blood,” he added.
She needed something useful to do. Her fingers found the pouch at her belt, and she untied it, tipping its ten Stout Shrunken Heads into Summoneyy’s open palm. The little heads clicked together as the warlock closed her hand around them.
Arrowyy threw both arms high and cheered.
Summoneyy looked from the heads to the fire. “We’re murderers.”
A low, dry laugh escaped her. Blaedy watched the flames climb and fall, trying to work out whether that had been a joke or a conclusion.
Arrowyy drifted back toward Dramena and bent close enough to tell her a joke. He illustrated it with a brief, crooked movement of both hands, then stood back with the same solemn satisfaction he had worn while speaking of Southshore.
Across the fire, Summoneyy approached Elviora with an easy smile and a tilt of her head that made her intention plain even to Blaedy. Elviora answered with a small shake of the head and stepped back beneath the banner.
Summoneyy stopped. “No...”
The village had grown quieter around them. Arrowyy gave the gathered villagers a final nod. “Take care.”
Summoneyy raised a loose hand toward Dramena and waved farewell. Blaedy did the same. “Goodbye.”
“Have a great day,” Arrowyy said, though the crystal lamps now shone more brightly than the fading sky.
A little later, he lifted his hand to Elviora too, waving goodbye as she moved away along the bannered path.
The fire had settled into red coals. Summoneyy looked down at the small heads in her palm, then at the warm stones beside the blaze. “I’m gonna pass out.”
“Shame,” Blaedy said, and meant it a little. Still, the invitation of the fire was stronger than her disappointment.
Arrowyy folded down nearby with the practical economy of someone bedding beneath open sky. Summoneyy lay on Blaedy’s other side, one hand still closed around her odd bundle. Blaedy eased herself between them, curled near the heat, and felt sleep pull her under. A loud snore escaped her as the last of the firelight blurred.
Arrowyy was asleep beside her. Summoneyy, too, had gone still beside the coals.
So I leave the Village where a proper chronicle ought to leave such people: asleep beside a small campfire on Sunstrider Isle. Blaedy snored between Arrowyy and Summoneyy; the coals held their red glow; the villagers had their quiet again. There would be time enough for sober accounts, if sobriety ever found them. For this night, the Village had carried its name far from home—and brought it back, battered, boastful, and together.
