Trendran sat in the tree line gazing into the clearing full of wildlife and deer, watching as the creatures eat away at the grass, plucking away the fiber and the bugs which were hiding atop. He pulls his bow and plucks the string, then pulls an arrow from his quiver and readies it on his bow. Pulling the arrow back, steadies the bow pointed toward the herd of deer and wait. A soft patter builds up in the distance and a couple of the deer look up directly towards Tren, the clacking of hooves become intensely close before 3 horses with Maladrin upon their backs jump directly past Tren from behind, one almost crushing him. The deer, frightened, scatter in every direction and eventually all head Eastward through the woods in fear. The horsemen stop and the middle one command the other two to set up camp. As the other two climb down from their horses Tren, hoping to strike the rider, lets the arrow go. The arrow, flying awkwardly through the air, misses the middle rider but instead hits his horse, splitting a muscle. The horse veers and knocks the rider off. The other two horses, frightened, run away from the riders who are slowly and sluggishly chasing after them.
Trendran drew his sword, didn’t mean to do that, but this almost seems better than trying to take out all the riders. He runs out at the last rider while he is still dazed and holds the point of the sword to the man’s neck, Tren calmly commands to him “Fairend, you took my rune chalk you’d better tell me where I can find it!” Fairend replies stubbornly, “you're going to kill me anyway, why would I bother telling you?” Trendran straightens his grip on the sword “tell me, I'm already breaking promises to our kin just by holding you here and killing you would only break more.” Fairend reaches into his pack “fine then, I won't let you have the joy of killing me, nor will you get your rune chalk” Fairend proceeds to draw a dagger from his pack and stabs himself directly in the heart, right through his leather armor.
Defeated, Trendran lays his old friend and newly found foe down on the ground before removing the dagger from Fairend He was always a foolish one. Trendran cleans the dagger and lays it on his Friend's chest so he can get to work on covering him with dirt and away from the wildlife. Once done burying his friend, Trendran goes through all the equipment, finding no sign of the rune chalk aside of a lot of money. Frustrated he throws the coin pack on the ground, breaking it open and spilling the contains, and something stands out. Trendran pulls a folded parchment form the mess and reads whats written upon it “Fairend, this is a call for help, the Magic city of Elantris, made by my ancestors, holds potential to create a powerful, longlisting kingdom. I need you to go there and harvest the elements that have built up and recreate the magic used on it so we could make our own city even better than the po” that’s where the letter end before the a large section of the parchment is gone.
Elantris is ashore again? This is my opportunity, I could learn magic there and maybe even use some from the city as my own. Trendran swiftly grabs the rest of his old friends supplies and follows the direction the others were taking before they tried to set camp, East.
[03] Wild Rock
Seems I always get called in when trying to do something important. As Trendran walked through the archway another Templar patted his back. Trendran tightened his belt and hid his bag under his cloak as he walked past all the busy soldiers. There were soldier leaning over tables on one side of the room, marking out on maps and discussing tactics. The Other side of the room multiple people of different variations people working on or looking through weapons of all types. A fair number of steps ahead stood the soldier who was sitting in front of the cathedral when he joined the Templars, turns out the man's name is Ranson and he was a Meladrin raised in the Resveld kingdom. It's weird how you could not like somebody at all when you first meet them, then after being around them for a while they become good friends, of course not all of them turn out like that though. After he had pledged to the Templars Trendran ran into Ranson, he eventually learned that the soldier also had a similar backstory to Tren and they had been talking about future plans since. Ranson came running with a worried face.
“hey, we need to go out and push a scouting party away from the city” Though Ranson had promised he was to work on his spit problem he still sprayed Tren across the face as he spoke.
“Again, didn’t we attack one yesterday, and isn't the force out right now taking care of one?” The enemy army had relentlessly been sending out scout parties to Elantris and all the Templars have been doing is planning defenses and pushing away scouts.
“yes again, but this one is small and agile, we are going out without horses and a smaller force due to our main force garrisoning along the forest lines” Ranson noticed his spit and pulled out a handkerchief Tren had given him, while pulling it out he dropped it and rushed to pick it up. Oh god this guy truly was raised a resveld, doesn’t even know how to hold a rag, Tren beat Ranson to picking up the handkerchief, moving agile and fast to stop it from hitting the ground. “You need to be more careful with this thing”
“yes sir, thank you” Tren shivered whenever called this, he had already grown high in ranks among the Templars due to the fact most of them consisted of Resveld, allowing him to move swiftly and much faster than them. Though it was nice being honored, it hurt Trendran to think that he was stuck with sword arts surrounded people who aren't his kind because he was forsaken as a child and should never perform magic. “please just call me Trendran, or Tren for short”
“yes sir, er I mean, of course Tren” Tren walked off with Ranson towards the rear gate of the city, laughing as Ranson repeatedly jumbled up words. Leaving through the rear gate using a mission scroll to get through, they came upon the scout force in a matter of no time at all, there were about 8 soldiers hiding among some trees, 2 archers with bows and daggers, 4 of the soldiers with one and a half handed swords and daggers. there was a broadsword man, metal plates shimmering upon his torso and small links of chain draped over his face and legs. and a commander led them all with a mace in hand, and an axe hanging from his waist.
Trendran looked at Ranson, who was fiddling with the handkerchief trying to get it back into his pocket. Ranson broke sweat and then looked at Tren, he looked back down and just crammed it into his pocket before standing and charging the group. Trendran quickly overtook Ranson and drawing his sword slid under a front soldier and slashing an archer’s bow from his hands, while doing so Ranson slashed an arm off the soldier Tren slid under. Tren grabbed the dagger from the archer and jumped backwards thrusting the blade into Ranson’s soldiers back as an arrow from the other archer hit his target right in the waist. Ranson turned around and met blade with the broad swordsman, falling over and quickly pushing away as to not be killed. “Choose your targets better Ran..” Tren yanked the broadsword man’s face chainmail pulling the man's head backwards, he thrust an arrow into the soldiers eye and let him fall. Ranson wobbled up and looked around with a scrunched face, “Well that’s your job, fighting smart” Tren scooped up Ranson’s sword which had been knocked to the side, and with a graceful move jabbed it through the neck of a soldier sneaking up on Ran. “i don’t have to be the only one who stays alive while fighting” almost as though it were fate, as Tren spoke an arrow stuck into his side. Trens cloak, torn by the arrow fell to the ground showing the arrow had stuck to his ld leather pouch, that was a close one. Trendran and Ranson stood back to back, Tren stared into the eyes of the archer who shot him, the man quickly tried to restring his bow and fumbled dropping the arrow. Tren rolled after the arrow and picked it up quickly shoving it completely through the ankle of the owner, eventually as Ranson and Tren moved back and forth killing soldiers the screams and choking increased within the tree line until it came to a stop.
Tren bent over and picket up his cloak, covered in blood on the edge, always the dirty work. Tren put the cloak on despite the blood and looked at Ranson moving along the bodies checking them, if I were to run now, I could get away, he would be unable to follow long. Trendran looked out at the Mistborne forest, I will be able to get away easily through there, Tren look at Ranson who was now fiddling with the handkerchief again. “We did good aye, the Resveld style Meladrin stood and went to pat Trens back.
“Indeed, let's go now” Tren turned around ignoring Ran’s embrace and hiked back towards the city. From behind Tren heard unnatural rustling of leaves, he turned around to see a rock about the size of his fist blur in front of his face.