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Nightingale
| Ellín Dínen, the Starlake Shadow | |
|---|---|
 Nightingale At the Carved Village, Fahako's Bay. | |
| Vital statistics | |
| Character Name | Ellín Dínen, the Starlake Shadow |
| Player Name | The Nightingale |
| Gender | Male |
| Race | Mixed Race Athalli |
| Alignment | Chaotic Good |
| Primary Class | Warrior |
| Expected Classes | Not Relevant |
| Deity Worshipped | Not Divulged |
| Place of Birth | Néeá Dínen |
Contents |
Nightingale The Legend
Edit
I journey Embracing Death. The Nightingale's Mournful Song. Bearing Blood, Carnage, Pain. Yet Surviving Still.
Depending on where you stand in society the name is either cursed or revered throughout Manerous and the surrounding areas.
A man of contrast, folks still remember the hard-bitten assassin silent and deadly. Stories to frighten the children into quiet; tales around the banked tavern fires of the man-beast emerging from the shadows to strike and disappearing as swiftly leaving only blood and death as a sign of his passing.
Perchance they also remember the kindly stranger risking himself for others and asking for nothing in return. The dark man with an eye-patch who wields a dark crysteel blade so thin as to almost be translucent; smoked glass with an edge that glitters like the reflection of the stars on calm water and caresses open the flesh of those who would do innocents harm....
Can the two be the same man? It is the same people gossiping both sides of the tales, seperating the two in their own minds while the innocuous young man sat in the corner of the tavern sips his ale, his head bowed in silent contemplation as he listens to the tales of his deeds and sadly turns a small gold coin in his fingers.
Nightingale The ManEdit
Perhaps in his late twenties the tanned man would would stand at a little under six feet tall. A long black coat partially obscures the blackened steel rings of a finely wrought mail-shirt and a long curved sword hangs from a baldric at his side beneath the coat. An ornately tooled black leather bracer adorns his left fore-arm.
The dark clad stranger seems to feel more than see your appraisal and turns to momentarily meet your gaze with a single emerald-green eye, the left side of his weather-beaten visage accented by the patch which covers his other eye; he winks at you in genuinely good humour before returning to whichever of his affairs you interrupted.
The Song of The NightingaleEdit
“I was there at the beginning”. The old man sat by the hearth, gnarled arthritic hands wrapped around the body of a freshly filled ale flagon. Some spilled down his beard as the palsy caused him to shake as he raised it to his lips. He lowered the tankard and as carefully as he was able and looked slowly around the group of young soldiers drafted into the army and on their way to the front. “We were logging at the edge of the forests.... They are smaller now by some twenty miles, down by Blanchard’s Brook it was....”
There was a blast of cold air as the soldiers’ sergeant entered the tavern seeking his charges then a bang as the heavy door blew shut. He stood and watched the men with a gaze as bitter as the blizzards that had halted their travel for the last two days.
“We were felling trees, laying them across the open ground of the stream and the clumsy bugger fell in” Greybeard gave a low chuckle and took another pull at his ale managing not to spill any this time.
“He found the first nugget.... the felling stopped and the panning started. We became rich men overnight - too quickly for our own good I reckon.” He drained the last of his ale.
“I was twenty years young, and foolish” His rheumy eyes scanned the group of soldiers in their ill fitting leather jerkins and turned over boots. They hadn’t learned to crease the boots yet to break them in and he reckoned they would all have open sores on their calves.
“It was the gold that brought the evil and the war lads, never let go of that thought. Rich men wanting to get richer and raising armies to push the elves from their homes” He coughed and wiped his sleeve across his mouth, then leaned forward to stare into the fire.
“Still peddling your lies old man?” The sergeant spoke for the first time. The grizzled old man seemed to ignore him, but then slowly raised a hand to him, pointing an accusing finger.
“We started it boy, whatever they tell you……… I was there.”
The sergeant called his recruits to one side and led them back to their quarters, berating them for listening to the man. “He is old and senile. He tells his seditious tales to any who will listen, for the price of a few jugs…. We have a war to fight against those murdering scum, lads. Don’t you forget that.”
Back in the tavern, Owen Blanchard stared into the fire and remembered the first reports of an elven family murdered; their home burned by the first government sponsored prospectors. He reached into his pocket and fumbled around with trembling hands, feeling the cursed lump of metal he had found so many years before.... Worn smooth first by the stream and then polished by years of such handling, there had been so many others he had kept the first one.
“I am resigning my commission, sir” The young man with dark hair and piercing green eyes addressed his commanding officer, who frowned in return.
“You have a promising career Ellín, do not ruin it by thinking too hard on carrying out your duty.” The older man paused for a second “Your mother died last year did she not?”
“She did sir, her heart gave out” The young man nodded.
“She had you late in her life… she was in her sixties was she not?” The grey haired officer was seated behind a campaign table and looked over the officer stood at ease in front of him.
“No, sir…. I just have a youthful complexion, sir.”
“What of your father?” Commander Duggan asked. Any issues I should know about?
“None, sir. I have not seen him in years.”
“Oh…” The older man grunted “Well we can’t afford to lose good men to fits of conscience.... you have a good unit and are looked up to by your men and others - will you desert them when they need you to protect the flanks of the advance? I hear Captain Oaks was slain by the pointy eared scum as he rousted out another settlement.... If you are seeking advancement there is opportunity for you here.” The offer was vague but clear to the young man, who blushed at the words and made up his mind. Reaching up to his left shoulder he removed the lieutenant’s broach and handed it to the senior officer.
“I think not, sir.”
The seated man glared up at him coldly. “No second chances, lieutenant…. I will give the command to Ragoril if you don’t accept it now” He flipped a captain’s brooch onto the campaign table. “Take it, Captain Dinen”.
“No, sir”. The young man started to give a perfunctory salute out of habit then stopped himself and placed his hand instead on the table. “I am a civilian now; I have served my time and done my duty on the borders. It is time for me to leave.”
“You think too much for your own good Ellín” The officer’s look was cold as the young man turned and strode out of the tent, and he went back to planning the next move forward.… now he had to replace two officers, and one of them a scout. Ragoril was ruthless enough, but was he subtle enough for scouting? Maybe a special assignment. Shock troops. He would think on it after the next batch of gold came through, hoping it was as incompetently weighed as the last....
Reports came in from the ranger groups sent out to reconnoitre and picket the front lines. It was a dangerous job as the elves had a habit of coming close undetected and killing a few men before disappearing into the forests but their intelligence was essential. They had tried burning them out the bastard elves but more than a handful of his men had died from smoke inhalation and many more would not fight again from the burns they suffered when the wind had suddenly changed. There was a renegade human fighting for the enemy in the eastern sector. His sector.
Manrohan Duggan studied the maps, and saw the pattern. There must be three settlements out there - he had lost men along the front on all sections save one, but in clear arcs as they advanced…. The settlements must be at the centre of each arc. Calling in a subaltern he rubbed his tired eyes and requested Ragoril sent to his tent. The man was obnoxious but an effective leader. He thought of his new villa and twenty eight… no twenty seven servants. He idly recalled the serving wench dismissed after his nephew Blain got the stupid girl pregnant. Taking another sniff of the powder the physician had given him to ease the pain of the headaches, he considered who to replace her with.
There was another pretty thing in the village near the villa, barely fourteen years old. Yes she would do nicely, he decided. Plenty of gold to persuade her parents to engage her services and keep young Blain entertained, the stallion....
The mission was simple - cut through their lines - through the arc - and kill everyone in the settlement They wouldn‘t defend something that was no longer there and thus a whole new area to maybe get rich from. Captain Ragoril studied the map. Straight in and straight out. He chuckled. A little sport in between the two, perhaps. He had picked his men carefully - they were all skilled warriors and ruthless in their own ways.
He had used the extra intimidation factor from the ‘special duties’ commission to extort better equipment from the quartermaster, and even persuaded one of the camp sutlers to make them surcoats emblazoned with a crow on the left breast - a motif proudly sported by his men, and looked upon with vaguely concealed fear by the rest of the army.
He assumed it was fear - the quiet and nervous glances they received when setting out and returning from their fighting patrols. Yes - even his own people were afraid of him. That was good. Fear was good.
Ragoril was tired and angry having had a bad few days. The attack on the settlement had not gone as well as he had hoped Of his command of sixty men he had lost twenty three - over one third and due to pure damnedest bad luck. Oh, they had found the settlement alright…… but there were a few elves there able to defend themselves and their people.
Many of the women and children had escaped being led away deeper into the forest while a few warriors harassed his people. They had caught a couple of the bastards though; surrounded them and cut them to pieces as their cursed families got away.
Two good pieces of intelligence as well; they had confirmed that the other two settlements were where they should be and they had found the renegade. Seven of the men he lost in the fight at the village, taking both of the elves who had stayed to fight, but it was how the rest died that disconcerted him.
They were all good men. He chuckled slightly to himself. They were anything but good men, but they had been good soldiers. More than competent. Yet on the way back they had been attacked from the shadows…. the renegade with a long curved blade scything into their ranks and leaving men bleeding or dead on each occasion, then gone back into the shadows before they could even react. There was seemingly no such defence against such a ghost of a man and he was glad he was back into his lines. He could accept the loss of his men, but what drove his anger more than anything else was the looks he received from the regular soldiers as he led his demoralised men back into the camp.
The reputation and fear he had carefully contrived to give him standing and importance was dispelled, and that hurt far more than any other losses he could have sustained.
He dismissed his servant after the man had brought in the third carafe of wine and went back to writing his report. He played up the destruction of the settlement and the numbers of the elves they had killed, massaging the details. These reports were all about details.
He screwed up another parchment and threw it in the fire. They had encountered stiff resistance yet had located the renegade and made a fighting retreat back to their lines after destroying the settlement. They had been repeatedly attacked on the way back by superior numbers. He left it deliberately vague and poured sand over the ink to dry it.
The rustle of the door of his tent disturbed his thoughts.
“Go away I’m busy”.
He returned his attention to the report scroll and looked up in irritation when a shadow fell across his desk.
“What are you doing here Ellín? Back with the army?” He chuckled “I’ve got your captaincy now and you ain’t having it back.” His voice trailed off as he recognised the dark armour, the long, elegantly curving blade...
“IT WAS YOU!” A sickening terror carried through the fibre of his being as he lurched to his feet grabbing for his sheathed sword that was leant against the side of his writing table. His exclamation died off into a gurgle as the blade flickered out into his throat, and the sand covering the report scroll turned red as the dead man scrabbled at his sword, trying to draw it with arms that suddenly felt fatigued; arms and fingers that just didn’t seem to work. The fireplace had turned sideways, he noted. Why was he lying on the floor?....
“Four dead, including Captain Ragoril sir.”
Saris was nervous as he made his statement to his commanding officer. A new lieutenant fresh to the front lines, It was well known that Duggan had made a fortune from the war and had sponsored Ragoril’s swift rise in fortunes in the army.
“and there was this, sir………” The man offered a neatly written report scroll and one bloodstained one which Duggan took, and then turned to go.
“Stay a while” Duggan’s voice betrayed a weariness beyond his years. “Sit.” He gestured at a folding chair in front of his desk and spent a short while reading the scroll, then flicked it to the lieutenant. “Did you read it?”
“No, sir”. The younger man blushed “Should I have?”.
“no - you did the right thing” Duggan removed his hand from the hilt of his dagger and his attention wandered back to the reports.
Contact/Mission Report:
To Commander Manrohan Duggan, General Officer Commanding, Eastern Sector. Incursion by force of sixty armed thugs into peaceful settlement. Unit identified as Carrion Crow by distinctive insignia on left breast. Six women and four children murdered. Two warriors slain while defending survivors as they fled. Seven enemy cleanly despatched. Followed and harassed retreating raiders, killing six and wounding nine more. Enemy despatched their own wounded rather than bearing them. Followed enemy into their base of operations. Killed their captain and three further guards.
Further observations, a waxed pasteboard card left on each body reads as follows:
"I journey embracing death."
"The Nightingale’s mournful song."
"Bearing blood, carnage, pain."
"Yet surviving still."
The writing looked somehow familiar and the assassin knew his name. He also knew the one sentence format for the report forms. How? I know this man. He wrote a short note consisting of a specialised service authorisation.
“Take this to the communications officer and have copies posted along the border. This renegade "Nightingale" is worth ten thousand coins to any bringing him in. Dead or alive - either, I care not.” He paused to take a sniff of powder from the small gold case that had arrived from his whitesmith the day before.
“At once, commander.”
“Saris?”
“Yes?”
“Have him courier this to the capital as well, to the merchant Ectarin”
Duggan wrote another note and sealed it securely with wax. Ectarin knew people who could get things done. The war was reaching a stalemate and as there was less gold being found these days and he couldn’t see it being sustained indefinitely. This ‘Nightingale’ would die when the hunters caught him, and they knew where to start looking far better and more efficiently than the army.
“Dismissed, lieutenant.”
A dark cloaked man stepped over the body of the last goblin and carefully wiped down the blades of his long curved sword. A slight movement in his peripheral vision and he rolls onto his left shoulder, coming gracefully to his feet behind the bole of a mature tree. A brief glance reveals the slender figure of a hooded elf maid carrying a bow....
A hunter? No. Couldn’t be - not an elf. Moving backwards through the trees he snuck another glance to see her moving at a tangent to him - long strides - like a deer running swiftly through the woods? No, he considered. More like a leopard with a predatory feline grace. then she was gone - disappeared amongst the trees. Momentarily distracted by the fleeting memory of the elf maid he headed with his usual caution towards the smudge of smoke that gave lie to the city of Manerous on the coast.
He made his way into the immigration office; all newcomers to the city had to register with the office, located on the upper floor of the Lady Elvalia inn, without exception.
“I am the Nightingale” The young clerk blinked and wrote down Nightingale in her ledger, offering the latest arrival a bunch of papers to deliver to various traders in the city and giving him a bland, meaningless smile.
“Enjoy your stay here, Mister Nightingale”.
Pausing only to drop the bunch of papers into the nearest trash can, the dark haired young man with piercing green eyes made his way to the city centre to start looking around his new refuge. Home until the next lot of hunters arrive; longer perhaps, if his song was strong enough? He found lodgings in the suburbs and settled down to rest…... As he drifted off to sleep he saw the elf maid again in his minds eye, bow slung across her back, long pale limbs moving in perfect harmony as she ran effortlessly through the woods; and wondered who she was....
Nightingale tied off the bandage covering the last of the scratches from the pygmy weed’s club. He had avoided getting badly bruised, but he had gone far enough into the forest for this day, he reckoned. Such wounds could turn bad if not treated straight away. With his regular caution he emerged from the ruined building where he had stopped to rest, and headed back towards the city. The forest had a plague of pygmies and other creatures that attacked all the travellers passing through the area - they needed culling for the safety of all and the training was good preparation for if...? no, not if; when the hunters caught up with him. Passing through the slums he kicked to one side the rats that emerged to tear at his legs.... His boots were good and their teeth would never penetrate the thick yet supple leather. They stared at him malevolently from the shadows, awaiting easier prey.
Nodding a brief greeting to one of the city guards he stepped out into the docks and headed straight to the locksmith where he could sell the few bits and pieces he had retrieved from the bandits who had attempted to waylay him earlier in the day and then settled down at the base of a gazebo where he could rest in the open. In relative safety. Neither truly awake nor fully asleep, the sounds of the docks washed over him. Something was out of place. There were footsteps not in keeping with the others, and they were approaching. Moving his hand slowly to the hilt of his blade he opened his eyes and his heart missed a beat, for moving gracefully towards him was the elf maid he had seen in the woods. Her bow held loosely over her shoulder their eyes met and the recognition was instantaneous, her golden eyes shining at him from the shade of her hood. His father’s words from long ago came unbidden to him; “Son, you will know your true friends better in the first moment you meet than you will ever know your acquaintances in a thousand years.... but love....?” Ellín smiled as heremembered the twinkle in his father's eyes. "Love won't stalk you so much as throw itself into your heart like an arrow and you will know". He felt stunned like he had just walked into a wall. Glad of the fact his own hood concealed his furious blushes his breathing came in short gasps as he stammered out
“Pleased to meet you miss. I am Nightingale”.
The thrum of a bowstring and the fluttering noise of a loosely fletched arrow alerted him to the danger and he reacted instantly hurling himself into the rock face of the cave. The arrow went wide shattering against the wall, and light flashed across his left eye as section of the splintered shaft tore into his face. Still moving, the man rolled away from the wall gaining sanctuary behind a stalagmite, resting his back against the rock and knowing he had maybe six heartbeats before he had to move again. His perception of time seemed to slow as he rolled out from the protection of the protruding rock into the shadow of a crevice in the cave wall. A second arrow flashed past him, again going wide and to his right. Trying to blink the blood out of his damaged eye, he realised he would not be able to deal with the wound quickly enough and focused through the pain to access the shadow realm. The familiar swimming sensation flooded through him and he refocused on the image of the man stalking him through the caves. A man dressed in brown, his face hidden in a green hooded cloak; short bow in hand and a longsword hanging on a baldric at his side. The hunter was stealthy, no doubt of that. Wait for him to stalk past……. he saw the assassin more clearly as the man stalked past the crevice he was concealed in. Safe in the shadow realm with adrenalin enabling him to ignore his wound he drew his long knives from their sheathes bound to his thighs and span from the realm, slamming his left hand blade under the man’s shoulder then using his inertia to wrench it clear and plunge the right blade under the ribs on the right hand side, piercing a lung. Spinning away he re-accessed the realm even as he withdrew the blade, and the assassin coughed blood, subsiding against the same stalagmite that had offered Nightingale the moments of protection he had needed only seconds before. He pushed his hood back from from his face and stuggled to sit up, staring into the shadows still seeking his quarry. Nightingale stepped clear of the realm in front of the mortally wounded man. “You still move quietly Nurek” Nightingale spoke. The man coughed more bright and frothy blood, his breath becoming more laboured.
“I am sorry about your eye, Ellín”. The man wheezed.
“Do the others know where and who I am?” His one good eye focussed on the sandy haired man dying in front of him.
“Don’t know. Don’t think so.” The words were slurred now “...after the war... ...contract... ...ten thousand... ...Would have set me up... ...get married.” His voice trailed off and he stared at Nightingale with dead eyes.
“Well it killed you, old friend....” Nursing his injured eye and cursing his own lack of condition he raised his hood and headed back out of the caves where he had been hunting giant ants to hone his skills.
The priest in the temple looked at the man with sympathy. “There is little I can do for it I am afraid. Only time and Tymora will tell whether you regain the use of the eye. My restoring spells are ineffective in such things until the body gains the will to repair itself. The tissue is healed well, but the scarring across the eye will perhaps remain if not forever then at least until you stop blaming yourself for something.”
Nightingale nodded his acceptance and placed a small pouch of gems on the offering plate. He turned away, wondering; hoping, nay praying that Ana would not find the change in his aspect abhorrent. Concealment would be the key - become something they would not be looking for.
He thought of the temple priest in his robes.... inoffensive and unwilling to harm... it may provoke the moment of indecision that might make the difference if another hunter found him. Grimly he made his way to the tailor near the Caravan Gate, wishing Ana were with him....
Nightingale The PrinceEdit
Life has moved on.... events have been and gone, and Ana and Nightingale were married in a ceremony presided over by Celurian, a priest of Corellon in the idyllic surroundings of Shard's Grove and witnessed by Kei as registrar of the City of Manerous.
It came as a surprise to Ellín that the wedding band Anarania presented to him at their wedding was the signet ring of the Silverleaf family....
Anarania Jardon Silverleaf's mischeivous smirk set a wave of horror through Ellín's whole being as he saw the jade ring that his wife slipped onto his finger. The former soldier turned renegade assassin had become a prince in a noble elven family.
His new wife's winsome smile and irrepressible cajoling persuaded her father to buy the comission from the guild of assassins at four times it's face value, two times to lift the geld, and another two times published to be used against any hunter ignoring the purchase of the geld or taking out a further comission against his son-in-law.
Nightingale still makes time to come to Manerous when he can take leave of his duties as crown prince of Silverleaf, and when he does, he divests himself of the finery associated with his status and travels the lands to remind himself of his life's journey, and maintain the perspective that makes him so good at what he does.
