The ranger is bounty hunting. He’s following the lackey of a powerful evil wizard who is working towards an act of some abominable evil. The ranger desperately needs to find him, so he’s followed the lackey to an area far from civilization, where he discovers a tower. He sees the lackey entering the tower, and thinks he has his prey.
Hilo stopped his horse and sat as still as possible, watching the trees ahead of him. He knew that he would see it, and not just that he would see it, but that it would be there in spades. Normal people, he thought to himself, are not built for this sort of thing. Hilo reined the horse around to face the other direction and narrowed his elvish eyes. And there it was. Just as he had seen it in his mind. A broken branch, a soft plod of earth pulled from the earth as the wizard rode through. He followed the trail as though it were blazing fire in the darkness of the forest.
Sunlight glinted ahead and he thought briefly of his home in Oakwood. It would be nice to be back there now. Out of the sun, relaxing with a mug of cool tea, watching Ilyana cook a nice dinner. He put these thoughts out of his mind and spurred his horse forward.
Slowly he edged up to the clearing, where the woods had stopped in a shallow circle, and a small pool of water bubbled from the hot spring below. It would be nice to relax in there. Take off his dirty clothes and his mud crusted boots and let the warm spring water wash the stink and the filth off of him. He considered this for a long moment, thinking back on the last three days, following the man through the woods. He couldn’t stop now though. He was close. He could almost smell him. He squinted his eyes at the mud around the spring and saw the hoof prints plain as black ink on white parchment.
He thought again of the wizard. What would he be doing now? Waiting for this lackey to return, with a stolen parchment of magic. The council had offered him 500 gold for the return of this parchment, and 300 more if he brought the man back with it alive. If he killed the man then his extra 300 became 100. Six hundred gold was a lot of money. It would mean another three or four months of relaxing with Ilyana before he would have to work again. Perhaps longer if he could stretch it out. It never occurred to him to try to bring the man back alive. He was dangerous. And three days travel with a dangerous captive through the woods was too much to risk, even for another 200 gold crowns.
He stopped his horse and dismounted, making his way to the tracks in the mud. He felt the ground around the tracks and pushed at the ground in the center of one of the hoof prints. Very fresh, he thought to himself. Maybe only an hour or so ahead of me. Back at the horse he pulled the crossbow from a saddlebag and drew back the string. He notched a bolt carefully in the groove and swung himself back up astride the horse. This time when he made his way back into the forest he was more cautious, holding the crossbow ready.
The parchment that had been stolen was just a fragment. Part of a larger body of work that dealt with unspeakable evil magic. The council had kept it, only because they feared destroying it, and had locked it safely in the vault of the mayor. Or so they thought. They’d only noticed it had gone missing because the thief had killed a guard to escape the mayor’s house. If not for that it would have vanished without anyone realizing it. Wherever he was taking it, and Hilo suspected he knew just the wizard for such a task, something bad was going to happen.
It had occurred to him that he could have ignored following the rogue, and just gone straight to Byrn’s tower. Byrn was notorious in these parts. He’d tried and failed twice to raise an army of kobold’s to raid some of the forest villages, and he had aspirations that made him more dangerous than he would have been if he’d just been insane. The man wanted world domination. And Hilo had dealt with him before. Yes, back when he and Rainos had tried unsuccessfully to destroy the dragon Smoke, Byrn had been there as well. The man actually had the balls to talk to a dragon, to try to cut a deal with him. They’d interrupted Byrn’s meeting and between the wizard and the dragon they’d lost more than twenty good men. Many of them Hilo’s friends.
But the fact of the matter was he couldn’t be sure. The rogue could have been going anywhere. Perhaps it was just a coincidence that Byrn’s fortress was in this direction, but Hilo didn’t think so. He looked around and tried to remember the surroundings. How close was he now to Byrn’s tower? A day’s ride? An hour? It had been almost ten years now, he couldn’t be sure. The forest had changed since the last time he’d rode through here. And the fact of the matter was he couldn’t remember. If he’d been a pure blood elf he probably would have. He remembered his father, human father, telling him that elves never forgot forest once they’d traveled through it once. But he was a half-breed. And it made him feel inferior. Now, tracking the rogue through the woods he wished that he were full-blooded elf. But he also remembered his father fondly, and so this thought panged him with guilt. He put it aside and rode further into the trees.
Half an hour later he saw the top of the tower in the tree line. Solonor’s bow, he’d almost ridden right into the thing. He stopped and tied the horse to a tree and quietly made his way through the woods towards the base of the tower. About twenty yards away he could hear rustling and he turned his head to look. There in the trees, just in front of the tower was the rogue. Tying his horse to a tree, just as Hilo had done, and walking, no striding, boldly into the tower. There was a parchment in his hand.
Now was the time. He had them both. If he killed Byrn it would mean so much more than 600 crowns. He thought about the possibility and it made him giddy. They wouldn’t be wary. The rogue didn’t realize he’d been tracked. Byrn would be unsuspecting. Killing the wizard meant more than just the thousand crown bounty. He’d be able to loot the man’s tower, no doubt full of stolen treasures and powerful magical artifacts that he could sell for quite a nice price to the Mages Guild. This could be his retirement! At long last, a lifetime of Ilyana and mugs of tea, and no more traipsing around the woods following cold trails, sleeping in the rain, and eating hard packed rations that tasted like week old bread. A smile played across his lips as he made his way back to the horse for more arrows.
(Rewrite this, but use some of it, I lost the whole thing. Sendant should be more worried, at some point he should throw the dagger at the wizard who redirects it to the apprentice and says something like “Yours will do.” About the blood)
Sendant strode boldly into the tower and let the door close behind him. The interior of the tower was circular, just as on the outside, and there were no walls to break the monotony. Down on the floor level the wizard’s apprentice, Tusmit, was standing over a large stone cauldron built into the floor. Green and black smoke mixed as it lifted out of the boiling liquid in the cauldron and made patterns in the air as though they were alive.
On the second floor landing the wizard stood looking over a large book. He glanced up as Sendant entered and immediately returned his attention to whatever he was reading. Tusmit stared at the rogue over the cauldron and waited expectantly.
“I have it.” Sendant said to the room at large.
“Give it here.” Tusmit demanded, walking around the cauldron and heading towards him.
Sendant held the papers defensively away from him. “Not until I get paid.” He said matter-of-factly.
“Just give him the papers.” The wizard said, his voice hoarse and crackling with exhaustion.
“My money.” If there was anything a man like Sendant feared it was that he wouldn’t get paid.
“You’ll get paid in due time.” Tusmit said, his voice straining. He was angry about something, and Sendant got the distinct impression that it had to do with something other than the papers he had been hired to steal.
Sendant reluctantly handed the papers to Tusmit who glared at him for only a second before turning and heading back to the cauldron, reading as he walked. Sendant reached into the folds of his clothes and touched his dagger nervously. He hated himself for giving up the papers before getting his money, but he feared the wizard. He glanced up now to where the wizard was reading and watched him expectantly. He couldn’t bring himself to think of the man as Byrn. He was just the wizard. Tusmit was just an apprentice, and as such hadn’t earned the respect that Sendant showed for the wizard. It was Tusmit that he would deal with.
“When do I get my money?” He asked aloud.
“In due time, due time.” The wizard almost whispered.
A crash from overhead caused Sendant and Tusmit to look up. The wizard had almost fallen over the side of the landing. As it was he’d managed to grab the pedestal the book was perched on and keep from going over completely, but he’d knocked over a large metal bowl filled with some blue liquid.
“Blood!” Tusmit shouted and Sendant glanced over to him. Tusmit was ignoring the wizard’s obvious state of pain and exhaustion and was now actually yelling at him. “Human blood! Where the hell are we going to get human blood? Now? This late into the casting?”
“I just want to get paid!” Sendant shouted.
“Shut up!” Tusmit yelled without looking at him.
Within the tower the evil wizard goes about his task. He is working with an artifact of ancient evil in order to create a weapon of magnificent power, a wand, which he will use to help destroy a city. There is an accident. A magical force is unleashed from the components he has brought together. There is an explosion, which he and the lackey escape from, just as his second lackey enters from below. The second lackey dies. The ground is tinged for a mile around with a green magical light. The ranger sees the explosion, but isn’t within the mile.
Ranger and evil wizard both observe (from different places) a creature, huge, hideous, crawling forth from the tinged ground. The dreaded Tarrasque. It sits up and eats the remains of the tower, and then lumbers off to the north. The ranger, unaware of the existence of the wizard and lackey who survived, heads off in front of it, realizing what it is, and what it will do.
An old wizard lounges at a roadside inn, a place far from the beaten path, he drinks whatever it is wizards drink and smokes cigarettes in the sun, while reading a book. He’s startled from his reading by a horse approaching, it’s the ranger. They know each other, and the ranger quickly tells him what he’s witnessed. The wizard knows of such creatures, he tells the ranger that they must head north and evacuate everyone. The ranger reminds him that only a few days to the north there is a city under siege by an army of evil. He also mentions a small village that he passed on his ride here, that refused to listen to his urgings and leave their small town.
The city goes about it’s daily tasks in fear, the siege has reached a fevered pitch, and only the huge sturdy walls surrounding the city are keeping the barbaric invaders from killing them all. The guards have made all the preparations they can, and now simply await the final assaults to begin. The mayor has a plan, but it requires tunneling out under the north wall, and he’s afraid not everyone will make it. He hopes to intersect the dwarven mines that are buried under the hills north of the city.
In the city, in a home, a boy has a vision, he dreams of the tarrasque, but doesn’t know what it is. He tells his mother “it’s coming” She asks what and he says the big lizard. She finds her husband (who’s scrounging for weapons) and tells him. He doesn’t know what she wants him to do about it, then she reminds him of previous times when the boy’s dreamed of things and they came true. He remembers and he asks the boy questions. Is it a dragon? A wyvern? Neither the boy says. He sends mom to the library with the boy to find a picture of what he saw. The boy says they should worry more about it, and not about the siege. Father goes back to scrounging, but now he’s thinking.
Outside the city the siege rages on. The evil fighter commands his troops mercilessly, sure that he can take the city with only a few days of work. He plans to commit slaughter, and he awaits some great force of evil, that he will not speak with his lieutenants about.
The wizard and the ranger decide that they must stop the tarrasque. The ranger asks for information, which the wizard gives him. Tarrasques only travel for about 2 weeks at a time, then they hibernate, they can only be killed with help from a wish spell, which the ranger reminds the wizard that he knows. Yes, but the wizard knows another who can cast a wish spell and will be useful to them in other ways. He tells the ranger he will call upon this new friend of his, and the ranger should right to the east about two hours and find the Paladin.
The tarrasque has come across the village, which he eats in horrific fashion. Many Godzilla moments ensue. People are eaten. Pets flee. Birds panic. All is eaten that is within the path of the Tarrasque.
The ranger reaches the keep that the wizard told him about, and finds an old broken down warrior who has lost all. His daughter and wife have died, and his soldiers have left him to fight for the evil fighter. He is in despair. The ranger tells him it is his duty to help save the city from the tarrasque, and the paladin must be persuaded further. Finally, he gives in, and off they trot to meet the wizard.
The wizard finds the priest and tells him what’s happened. The priest is only too happy to help, but he isn’t sure what he can do. The wizard has lost some time getting to the temple because he’s old and fell asleep along the way. When he arrives it is late at night and the priest is performing a ceremony (mass-like). He isn’t sure what he can do, or who to leave in charge. The wizard speaks with him about his abilities, and the powers that his god has granted him. The priest understands, but has trepidations. He’s never been a warrior, or for that matter even an adventurer. He was attacked by a band of goblins once, who robbed him and beat him senseless. He isn’t a violent man. The wizard tells him not to worry about it. He won’t have to do much but cast the spell the wizard needs cast. The priest finally agrees and leaves a young acolyte to look after the temple.
In the library the boy is having trouble finding a picture of the monster. The librarian and the mother are working hard trying to find anything with a picture of what it could be. While the two of them stand around and discuss where they have pictures of various dragons the boy wanders off to the religious texts of the library. While the mom and the librarian discuss, he yells out that he’s found it (very happy). They come and look and the librarian says “Oh, my god….”
The ranger and the paladin meet up with the wizard and the priest. Just in time too, the dust from the tarrasque can be seen from where they stand. They ride out towards it, the paladin gearing up for one last great battle. The wizard, preparing in his mind the spells that he will cast upon arrival. The priest worried as all get out about what he can do. The ranger is the only one who seems to be calm. He notices first that there is a group of women in a cart, riding in front of the tarrasque at top speed. “Why don’t they turn?” He asks aloud, but no one else seems to know what he’s talking about. They arrive in time to watch the tarrasque destroy the wagon and the women go flying out in front of it. Before it can move towards them and eat them, the battle begins…
Evil Fighter is having some problems with his troops. They’ve been working too hard and they aren’t making any progress either tunneling under the walls (they go down too far) or tearing through them (they’re too thick). He gathers all his captains in one place and executes them, immediately promoting the lieutenants. He tells them they better come up with a good plan, and they go off to think.
The battle rages on. The ranger is having no success against the creature with his bow, and seems capable of doing little. The wizard has drawn the beasts attention, or so it seems with a few well placed lightning bolts and fireballs, though much of the actual damage has bounced off. The tarrasque is confused, and eats one of the women who has been stunned and hasn’t gotten out of the tarrasque’s way as it stopped to take in the wizard. The priest is in abject fear, he is frozen to the spot and cannot move. The tarrasque is heedless of the man’s problems, and continues on. The wizard is almost drained, and seems to have done little to the beast. The paladin is calling upon the force of his sword but can’t seem to do any damage to the creatures legs, which he has been trying to hack off.
Our evil wizard from Chapter one arrives at the siege, and the evil fighter seems smug, and glad to see him. He asks for the artifact that will help him destroy this wretched city, to which the evil wizard must reply that he’s failed. The evil fighter seems calm, but has the wizard killed. His new captains have come up with nothing.
The boy in the city speaks with the town elders, who have scavenged all the equipment they could, and now are listening to what he says with great trepidation. He and the librarian show them what he has seen in his dream and they are in disbelief. The tarrasque? It cannot be. Surely the boy is mistaken. They look fearfully at each other, glances are exchanged. What of the invading army? What should they do now? The mayor decides that the boy must be wrong, and they should continue with their original plan, of digging under the walls into the mountains.
The wizard has all but lost his power. He is drained and can do nothing. The ranger gives him a potion which revitalizes his energy, but can do nothing for the magic that he has already expelled from his body. His spell casting is spent, and he hasn’t been able to do anything at all to the beast. In fact it seems to have given up on them and is moving northwards again, leaving a wake of destruction in it’s path. The forest will have a permanent new road. The paladin decides to get the beasts attention and drives to the front of the rampaging monster. The beast eats his sword, and is about to eat him, when the priest intervenes. He dives into the fray, pushing the paladin aside, and is eaten himself.
Night falls, and the wizard and the ranger make a mad ride to the north, trying to find something or someone to help them. They come upon a temple. A temple of evil. The tarrasque is not far behind them. The high priest of the temple comes forth and berates them for being fools, how dare they tread upon such unholy ground? The wizard is in no mood and let’s the man no it, pointing out the oncoming tarrasque. Do you think he cares the ground is unholy? The evil priest is stunned, he cannot move, and in a matter of minutes the beast will eat his temple. “Help us man!” shout’s the wizard, and the evil priest finally moves, casting spells, and drawing undead from their slumber. He sends them to attack the tarrasque, and they succeed in slowing him down only a little. Hordes of skeletons and zombies pour from the ground in front of and behind the temple, which was at one time a battlefield, and a cemetery. The tarrasque doesn’t tarry long, destroying the undead, and finally making his way through the temple of evil. The evil priest vanishes.
Realizing there is little they can do to stop such an invulnerable force, the ranger and the wizard decide their only course of action is to ride like mad to the city and warn everyone, including the invaders, of their impending doom. They converse about the best way to go about this as they ride. They can come to no conclusion.
The wizard and the ranger are waylaid, by an orc tribe. They are taken prisoner, and carried off to the orc’s lair just east of the path they’ve been traveling. The orc’s rob them of all their belongings, and demand that the wizard perform them a service. They wish to rob a neighboring human village (the ranger translates all this, the wizard never learned what he calls such a ‘dirty’ language) and they need magic to do so. The wizard refuses, and demands that they release him, not mentioning that in his current condition he couldn’t cast a spell as simple as levitating a feather. The ranger tries to explain the situation with the tarrasque, but to no avail, the orcs don’t seem to care.
Evil fighter has decided to attack the main gates of the city with full force, knowing that he will lose countless men, but also assuming he can get inside and be done with this god awful city. Archers in the towers rain arrows and fire down upon his troops but he is managing to break down the door, the towns people gather to fight, though many of them run to hide.
After a night in captivity, with no food, the orcs awaken and again try to force the wizard to help them. The ranger tries to tell them that they will be destroyed by the wizard, but the wizard reminds him that without time to study his spells he’s still useless, even after resting so long. Finally he tells the ranger to tell the orcs that he will agree to help them if they will let the ranger go. They refuse, they will keep the ranger as insurance to make sure the wizard actually helps them. Finally the wizard agrees and they unbind him. Quickly the wizard grabs his attacker and throws him into the mob, grabbing his sword as he does so. He cuts the ranger loose and hands him the sword. The ranger tells him to go, he will keep the orcs at bay as long as possible, but the city must be warned, his own life be damned. The wizard goes, in awe of the rangers fortitude.
Evil fighter breaks through; he’s inside the city with much of his force in tact. He is about to begin his slaughter of the innocent when a scream diverts his attention behind him. The tarrasque has arrived. He gapes.
The wizard arrives, minutes too late and watches as the tarrasque feasts on the evil forces (though the wizard doesn’t realize these aren’t innocent townspeople for a while) Then when all seems lost and the tarrasque turns to attack the city, the boy walks out and stands before it. It sits on it’s haunches and falls asleep. The entire city watches shocked as the tarrasque dissolves into the earth before their eyes. The boy is hailed as a savior. The wizard rides into town to speak with the boys parents and asks if he can teach the boy the ways of magic. They agree.
The end.