The
common peoples of the world do love a joke.
Pity they tend to joke about things of which they are ignorant. I have yet to encounter a Human, a Dwarf, a
Halfling – any of the lower races – who was there when the highest tower of
civilization began to crack. If they
were, then perhaps they would not be so jovial.
A
fallen warrior finds a smile hard to crack, which is why you might not see much
grinning on me. When the Schism came I was
a Far Scouter in service to the Queen, trained in combat, stealth, and reconnaissance. We had all the craft of our Wooded brethren
but without any of the coarse habits or predilection for the filthy and low. Far Scouters were the elites. We may not have reported directly to the
Queen but our intelligence was always transferred to her untainted by the grimy
hands of politics and base courtly intrigue; when the Far Scouters spoke, the
Queen listened.
It
was a surprise, then, when our great leader turned a deaf ear to us for the
first time in living memory on the eve of an event that would change the course
of history. Despite our reports of
subterfuge and dark alliances, the Queen consented to hold an unprecedented
gathering of holy and unholy warriors. We
were staggered. Perillion had never
played host to such wicked types as the warriors of Bane or priests of Lovatar,
nor had a sitting King or Queen ever gone against the express warnings of the
Far Scouters. We whispered and quarreled
in secret, wary of other prying ears but baffled and incensed nonetheless. We even debated taking drastic action, for we
were confident – nay, certain – that the Queen was unwittingly installing a
trap in our very home.
In
the end, we raised no voice, and the trap was sprung.
I
was in my quarters at the time, enjoying some very rare rest, when the alarms
were sounded. I emerged to find chaos, which
soon swept me away and took me toward the conflict. The pearly white halls of our city were
crowded with lumbering oafs, dark figures, and foul abominations. I waded in with blade and bow but made little
headway in staving off the rampage. We
seemed locked in a stalemate, while outside the great beasts did battle. I escaped the deadly bottleneck in one of the
great hallways and emerged into a nearly starless night sky. Many a great warrior, Elven and otherwise,
had been felled and more were dying.
Even the great Stedwick of Helm was pummeled near to death before being
dispatched in a flash of bright light by a hulking, unholy behemoth who raised
the great man’s helmet in triumph and crushed it with one hand. Hope seemed to be sucked out of every
good-natured creature in the region. To
this day, I do not know how we managed to preserve the city. The rest is a blur; I only hope I honored
myself in keeping death at bay.
As
it was, the forces of evil retreated, leaving us to mourn over a once beautiful
jewel now smashed and only barely recognizable.
We had not lost our home but we knew it was weak, and we knew that
another attack would be imminent. Broken
and humiliated, we turned our anger on our Queen, the one who had welcomed
these hellish fiends with open arms. The
Far Scouters were among the first to call her leadership into question, for we
knew how deep her folly did run. She stayed our fury, though, and, whether
through magic or rhetoric or sheer force of will, rallied us together and made
clear the dire straits we faced. A set
of heroes had been sent on a mission.
The fate of the world was in their hands. We would do our part to make their work
worthy.
So
the Far Scouters, still swamped with suspicion and stinging with betrayal,
shouldered the burden of monitoring our enemies and got back to doing what we
did best. We spread throughout the lands
and traveled in as much secrecy as we could, afraid for the first time that the
outside world, gripped by some mysterious curse, would well and truly overpower
us if given the opportunity. We shadowed
the movements of these poor, mindless slaves, scouted the settlements of the
Orcs, even traced the dark footprints of the Drow. It was overwhelming, like swimming through
ink. Never before had the forces of
darkness seemed so prevalent and so bold. It did not take long to realize how dire our
situation truly was. Even when news came
that the mysterious band of heroes had done their work and stayed the advance of
the Bastard God, we knew the fight was hardly over. Evil had landed a heavy blow on the Good of
the world, and it could smell blood.
Blood. No matter how big they are, all savages crave
the taste of it. The blood that was shed
in the Schism drove the great beasts of the world mad. One might say it even drove the great minds
of the world mad, for in the end it was one such mind that invited the beasts
to the dinner table.
My
memories of it are so clear that I can conjure them up and live in them like an
illusion. I was in a tree when I heard
the news. I had found a long, thick
branch that would support my weight, allowing me to stretch my legs and rest my
back against the trunk. The night was
the quietest I had encountered in what seemed like ages; only the crickets were
out to cry at the moon. It had been a
warm day but a cool breeze was sweeping through to wick the last beads of sweat
away. Peace had come to me at last,
peace that was shattered when a brother came to me and spoke those fateful
words, “Perillion has fallen,” words that struck so heavy they nearly knocked
me from my perch. Looking back now, it seems
that was the last true day of peace for me.
My world has been nothing but chaos since.
We
rushed back to our home as soon as we could, but it still took a week. By the time we arrived, there was nothing for
us to do but look on from the edge of the valley at charred and crumbling
remains. The towers, once razor sharp in
the light of the sun, had been blunted.
The white stone was black with soot and scorch marks. The garden that sat beneath the floating city
like a lush blanket ready to catch it should it fall was nothing but ash. The sky, legendary for being crisp, blue, and
welcoming to only the most pleasant of clouds, was red with fire. Looping in and out of that fire like death on
wings were the Scarlet Sisters, our vanquishers flaunting their new prize.
The
devastation on display paled in comparison to the devastation in our
hearts. As one, the Far Scouters,
certain then that we were the last of our kind, wept into each other’s
shoulders. Millennia of cold, clinical
training melted away in a stream of hot tears, which in turn fell onto the warm,
beaten ground of Dragon conquest.
Of
course, we were not the only survivors of the onslaught. The alarm had been sounded in time for many
residents to depart. But the casualties
were still astonishing. Many had stayed
to fight, others tried to leave too late, some could only watch in horror as
the flames swept toward them. Even then,
in those early days of shock and bewilderment, there were some who envied the
dead, for they were not around to see the proudest civilization of the Known Realm
suddenly reduced to mere nomads. I count
myself among the many who flirted with ending it all at the edge of a blade.
Such
despair can be conquered, though, and it is often most easily conquered by
hate. When news filtered in that the
Dragons had converged on our home to avenge a broken deal with our Queen, a new
fire was lit. She had apparently sought the
assistance of the Dragons in the event her mysterious heroes were unable to
defeat the Bastard God and offered ample reward in exchange. When their services were not needed, the
Dragons nevertheless felt entitled, and took it upon themselves to collect
their reward when the Queen refused to pay up.
As one, we, the last of the High Elves, turned our fury on the Queen and
drove her out of our midst, wishing nothing less than the bowels of the Nine
Hells for her punishment. I, myself, had
hand to blade as the anger of the mob reached its violent zenith, but alas, she
was too quick for us, and teleported away even as hails of arrows and daggers
cascaded toward her.
High
Elves are rarely given to such blind rage and for good reason, as it rarely
ever leads to results, as was again proven in this instance. Banishing the Queen did not solve our loss of
home and pride, nor did it heal divisions that had emerged and festered since
the Schism. With no base left and no
leader to guide us, our civilization shattered like a dropped vase. Some sought new pastures in largely human
lands where their long life and predilection for magic could prove useful. Others made for Seran’vine and the chance for
welcome from the Wooded brethren. Still
others went mad and delved into lives of crime, or even joined forces with the
Drow. Families were split down the middle. Old friends turned to bitter rivals. The Dragons may have knocked the High Elves
from their perch, but it was the Elves who truly made themselves extinct.
As
for me, I had vengeance on my mind. I
joined a cadre of fellow Far Scouters bent on claiming two targets: the Queen
herself and the Dragons who had taken her place. Our hearts burned with the shame and
indignation caused by these great conquerors, one of them a bumbling fool, the
others malevolent to the highest degree.
We formed a pact there, but a stone’s throw from the new Dragon Keep,
and swore that we would see justice done long before we saw death. I gripped the hands of my brothers and
sisters tight in that moment as we passed strength and love from one to
another. We were at once burdened and
enriched by glorious purpose: to balance the ledger of the High Elves, or to
die trying.
Sadly,
many did die trying. Over the next
hundred years or so we scoured the Known Realm for signs of our fallen Queen,
looking in every nook and cranny, working ever last contact we could make. Surely someone as powerful and, as much it
pains me to say it, as beautiful as she could not hide for long, and yet there
was no trace of her. It didn’t help that
the Known Realm itself was in the midst of a crisis. The after-effects of the Schism had rocked
the societies of the Realm to their very core, and an age of relative order was
now giving way to chaos. Soon we did not
know who to trust, or where to go, or even if our search was entirely in
vain. Perhaps even she, mighty though
she was, had been overcome by forces beyond her control.
The
Dragons, meanwhile, were making a name for themselves as the true merchants of
chaos. United for the first time in
centuries by a common purpose, the Scarlet Sisters ravaged the great kingdoms
of Humanity, plundering them for all their worth and hoarding tons upon tons of
treasure in their stolen Keep. We dared
not engage them in open combat, nor we did we feel strong enough to breach
their lair. The lesser peoples of the
Realm, meanwhile, cowed by the force of the great beasts and no longer able to
turn to the Elves or the holy warriors for guidance, would crumble at the first
sight of red wings on the horizon. The
Scarlet Sisters flew where they wanted and took what they wanted, and soon
other Dragons did likewise, attacking otherwise peaceful lands almost at
random, emboldened by such unchecked force.
It soon became clear we were living in the Age of the Dragon, and the
Age of the Elf, if there ever was such a thing, seemed more distant with each
passing day.
Nevertheless,
we kept hunting and kept fighting despite the odds, which is why I am now the
last of the Far Scouters left standing. Most
of our brethren died, and those who didn’t soon gave up, no matter how much I
pleaded for them to stay. It was as if
the Dragons and the forces of chaos had been nefarious enough to break our
strongest, knowing then that the weaker ones would give way soon after. But that would not explain why I remained. Perhaps they have a personal vendetta against
me. Perhaps they know that with each
rattle of death and each turn of a back my heart breaks a little more.
When
the last one left me I knew weakness like nothing I had ever encountered
before. My heart continued to burn
bright but my mind and body were growing weary.
I found myself seizing at the tiniest hint of a trail or straining to
hear even the faintest of whispers.
Surely, surely there was something for a poor, worn out, homeless wretch
like me. But I found nothing. The nights grew longer, the days colder. Life itself became a burden that not even my
hate could bare. I found myself passing
time with other wanderers of lesser stock – Humans and Gnomes and the
like. A small band of would-be “adventurers”
took me in as “one of their own” with promises of thrills and treasure. Really, I just wanted to see if joining up
with them would stir up something, anything of use to me. Alas, they have proven more troublesome than
anything.
I
was just when I was about to turn and leave them to their childish escapades
when I began to pick up on some tantalizing rumors. They would surface every now and then in the
dingy, common pubs while we rested our feet and choked down our cheap mead. They concerned someone referred to as “the
Mad Queen.” I thought nothing of it at
first for I assumed they spoke of a Human queen, Humans being much more prone
to petty madness than Elves, but something intrigued me. It was the way they talked about her in
hushed, almost reverent whispers. This
Mad Queen, as it turned out, was no mere mortal; she was powerful. Very powerful. What little had been gathered of her
strength, her manner, even her visage suggested a being that had not been seen
in the Known Realm for some time, someone very old and wizened, yet very
dangerous. The rumors seemed to be
emanating from the south, where all manner of exotic peoples and places could
be found, including a place called the Uran Oasis, a land of beautiful and
terrifying power; in other words, a place where a once great being could find
some solace.
I
was so jaded by my experiences up to that point that I first tried to convince
myself that these were just stories. I
couldn’t bear the thought of chasing another wild goose only to find heartbreak
on the other side of the field. I even approached
the brink of giving up entirely, so as to spare myself the trouble and
pain. But I could not get the idea out
of my head. It gnawed at me night and
day, begging me for a pursuit.
So
I have rededicated myself to the pursuit.
My allies are gone and the world is not what it was, but I remain. I will have to adjust my strategy, no doubt, which
may involve depending on lesser creatures more than I like to. Graft and guile are part of being a Far
Scouter, though, and I must not lose that part of me. I must not forget who I am, who I was, and
who I was meant to be. Let other High
Elves toss aside their heritage and pride, for I will hold mine tight. I am Simeele, last of the Far Scouters,
Hunter of the Mad Queen, Bane to the Dragons, and I will have my vengeance –
our vengeance – or die trying.
And
there is no joking about that.
