Breath Mints

Serenity makes her way through the roads and alleyways, not used to the brightness and the crowd.

Sounds of screaming and yelling, accompanied by large explosions echoing throughout the roads. The ground shakes with every explosion. It is an odd site, the sky is clear, the weather nice and it sounds like she was in the worst thunderstorm of her life.

She glances back to see a family 10 feet behind her, running wild, tears falling and panic in their eyes. Smoke billows not 200 or so feet, as the onslaught gets closer and closer. “We had two days notice that this would happen, and here we are running for our lives,” she says to herself with a shake of her head.

That Camerondale scum is attacking the City in the worst way, I have to find a way out, she thinks to herself. The scared young woman finds a narrow road that leads to a deserted warehouse. She knows these roads as she is used to navigating them at night, when her guardian permitted it.

After entering the warehouse, another explosion, very close. The ground shutters and debris falls from the ceiling as she maneuvers through the building. Hops out a window on the other side that leads to a dead end. A secret door leads into an infamous alley way that is called “Butcher Row” because of it’s dark and tragic history.

Serenity should have known better, but the South gates had to be overrun and clogged and their was for sure the wretched Camerondale army there grabbing and killing everyone. This was the only quick way out, I will have to take my chances, she thinks.

After getting through and closing the door, she wrinkles her nose forgetting how bad it smells here. Between drunks, vomit, blood and death; it was practically a field of daisies. Serenity starts down the alleyway that she knows leads right into the thick of the adjacent forest.

The way is about 20 feet wide, carved out between the outer wall and the city landscape. It goes 40-50 feet high before the sky can be seen through debris and stones. About 50 feet ahead she spots two squatters, who don’t seem too worried about the pending doom of catapults, enemy soldiers and loud explosions.

By the time she realized they were looking for a good time, Serenity skitters to a halt and backs up. She can almost smell their breath of ale and leaks. One of them seems to linger in the shadows while the other, much more bold, steps in front.

“Well well well, what do we have here? Where are you going in such a hurry?” He says with a toothy grin. He pulls out a sword and gives her another smile that makes Serenity wish toothbrushes were free.

She looks up to the Sky, and just then another explosion rocks the ground. Sounds of little rocks falling in the alleyway, debris and dust getting worked up.

“Are you deaf or something?” she says in amazement, points to the north side of town, “Camerondale scum is invading, and by the looks and sounds of it, destroying everything in their path. I am getting the fuck out of here!”

With a nonchalant shrug of his shoulders, he shakes his head, “I don’t think you are going anywhere right now. Hand over what you have and possibly let us sample your…” he starts to giggle a little, and all he could finish with was, “your cookies.”

With a scowl and a shake of her head, “are you deaf, AND, dumb?” she blurts out frustrated at these two idiots before her.

That didn’t go over well as the bold one gives her a furried brow, starts to move forward. The second man stands more straight pulling something from his belt. Serenity looks around, sees that the alleyway is made of stone, not that wide. Ball Bearings, she tells herself; see how my cookies taste while they are breaking ass on the stone pavement, she thinks to herself with a slight chuckle.

Glad she took the time to gear up before she left, she pats herself down and finds the small pouch of Ball Bearings. She grabs a handful and flings them at the low life. She does it again, pretty much surrounding the man with these decent size metal balls. He looks around confused a bit, and Serenity doesn’t know if he is clueless or trying to figure out what to do next.

“Be prepared,” rings in her head, it was her guardian preaching to her about the basics of survival on the streets. I guess he always knew there would be a time when he didn’t come home or I wanted to move on.

With that thought, she unsheathes her Khopesh sword. It’s a specialized sword that her guardian brought home a few months back. The blade is a bright silver, made from Bluesteel, the handle, a gripping black leather with the hilt lightly ornate with more bluesteel. She twirls it about like a professional would. For a second the man stuck in the balls, nods, somewhat impressed. His eyes get bigger seeing this weapon, how nice it looks and probably how expensive it is.

He takes one step and down he goes. His foot hits a few bearings and he slides and as he tries to catch himself, his other foot gets caught up in them and he is 180 degrees before landing square on his ass, with his head bouncing off the pavement (taking 2hp of damage).

The other man’s eyes bulge and he scrambles forward, in a haphazard attempt to protect his friend. Luckily this man did not know what was on the ground either and he slips, goes horizontal, lands hard on his back making him lose his breath. His momentum sends him sliding on the balls and hammers the farther wall. “What the fuck! That is gonna cost you dearly!”

Another explosion, more ground shaking, and debris falling. Getting closer, she thinks to herself, got to get out of here.

As the bolder man is trying to get up, Serenity thrusts her weapon deep into the man’s throat. His eyes bulge and he grasps for his neck. She pulls it out and blood spurts then drains out (6hp of damage). He covers it with his hand, blood gushing in between his fingers. He is still sliding around the ground with the bearings.

She steps back a bit, keeping out the range of any wild swings. By the time she was ready for another attack both men, gingerly, made it back to their feet.

It was a big mistake for the man with the sword. As he was letting go of his neck, Serenity swings the Khopesh, with precision, it sliced right through his neck again, cutting it in half (11hp). The man’s eyes grow big, reaches again for his neck that is now wide open and blood gushing out. He crumples to the ground lifeless, if only with a few gurgles.

“Always go for the weakest point, the chance of critically injuring someone is much better than just randomly hitting your opponent” is spoken in her head by her Guardian again, his teachings paying off for the young thief.

The man welding the hand axe glances over and sees his friend slumped on the ground in the middle of the ball bearings just bleeding out. “NOOOOOOO!!!!!” he screams.

Taken back a bit by his yell, Serenity turns to face the man, but not in time. With a rush of speed, he jumps over most of the balls and he lands both himself and the axe (5hp of damage). The weapon digs into Serenity’s shoulder and she winces, yells a little and does a tumble backwards to get out of the way.

Yet another ground shaking explosion, this time even closer. Not only could you see the debris, but hear it and feel it coming down around them.

The man was standing not 5 feet in front of her. Her shoulder leaking like a sieve. She gets a wiff of his breath and she winces, “I don’t know what is worse, your breath or this wound. Ever heard of breath mints?”

He growls, eyes like slits, very unhappy that his friend is now laying dead in the alleyway.

She lunges forward with her weapon, only to have him side step it with relative ease. She pulls back and runs for the balls, jumps and lands on top of the man’s friend. She is in the sea of balls, but the man’s body is protecting her from slipping and falling.

In a furious move, he followers her and lunges to her, slicing through the same shoulder, the same arm (5hp). Luckily she uses the other for most of her moves and attacks. She yells out in pain, and the man’s eyes get big and a smile washes over his face.

She turns to look at him, and she jams her weapon against his chest and he steps back, right into the sea of balls. His eyes again go big and his arms start to flail around again knowing one wrong move… and down he goes.

Serenity looks over her shoulder that looks like a gutted deer. Freedom, she thinks. She leaps over the rest of the balls and sprints as fast as her wounded behind could take her down the alleyway. As she was running another explosion, another rumble and this time stones fall, and more yelling and screams.

The man gets his “bearings” about him, glances down to his friend and he growls with anger. He goes to race after the young woman but the first step, he hits the balls, slides and go slipping, falling square on his back, smacking his head off the road (2hp).

She didn’t remember much after that. Her eyes were tearing up with pain, her body growing cold and numb. The alleyway had a large gaping hole from the damage from the attack. She looks out and it is right into the edge of the forest. Climbing down gingerly, holding her shoulder that is just pouring blood out, she jogs in a good 300 feet into the forest. The shade is darker here, she thinks to herself, means more trees, more cover.

The young woman stops, looks around and thinks she is in a decent enough spot. “They gave us fair warning,” she thinks to herself, “guess they wanted a surrender or something” she continues to think in regards to Camerondale and their impending attack.

She can still hear the battling from the City, but it is far enough away. She glances around and far off she sees people running, some Thorn Gate troops who look to also be fleeing. Letting out a big sigh she drops her pack, opens it and looks for the few clothes she grabbed. The young woman smiles seeing the vial she put in the pack, ‘just in case.’

Serenity pours some tonic that she concocted that helped her guardian heal, on her shoulder. It burned and she let out a little yell, keeping quiet enough. “shit, I brought this just in case, I didn’t expect to use it 5 minutes outside my room,” she thinks to herself. She rips her shirt apart, binds her wounds the best she can.

looking towards the walls of the city she frowns as more and more people are pouring out. It looks like the Camerondale army has made their way to the gates and are corralling people.

Serenity walks from tree to tree looking for the perfect one. She finds one with large strong branches high above. The young woman fondly remembers sitting in her room, reading book after book, learning everything she can. Hoping one day that information might come in handy. Never sleep on the ground alone, find a tree to sit in, rock to climb upon or even a makeshift cave – she remembers from a survival book.

She chuckles to herself amidst the stress and anxiety, “guess all my reading is paying off now,” she says quietly to herself.

With all the strength she had, she climbs a tree, finds a sturdy branch to set up in. Making sure she is secure and even with all the noise and commotion she leans her head back and falls asleep.

Part Two

The day goes by and the sounds of war fade to a slight echo through the trees. Serenity wakes up and looks around suddenly, forgetting where she was. She grabs on to a branch nearby, eyes wide looking down. She breathes a sigh of relief, that would have been a long way down, she thinks.

In the distance she can see out of the forest a little, and there are hundreds of camp fires, tents and unfortunately guards.

She looks over her wound, it’s crusty and, she grimaces a bit, gooey. Moving her arm around, it still hurts but that tonic really helped. She only has a half a bottle left so she will have to be more careful.

Carefully she climbs down. It looks to be late evening, mild weather, the sun just set and the western sky is a deep purple.

She makes her way through the trees (stealth:22) and looks for the best way to leave the area. She knows heading straight west would lead into the Straka jungle, or the monster’s wasteland. She shakes her head even thinking of that place. The few books she read about it; Monsters of every type roam this area, many times large “families” of them. Many of them have been chased to this location instead of dying all together. No one has truly made their way in and survived, or even returned.

Memories flood back from a year ago when a large band of Gnolls tried to attack the City. Oddly enough they just stopped and left. Our three Regents must have done right by them and sent them on their way. Serenity looks fondly upon the three regents; they are strong, smart and powerful… and they are women. (Story Note: These are the three witches of Thorngate – see Chances campaign for tons more information.)

Serenity stands there getting her bearings, and making sure she is heading in the right direction. When surprisingly enough, she hears “halt, who goes there?” not 10 feet behind her (failed a stealth check). She can’t believe someone could sneak up on her, and that she was not stealthy herself.

She turns to see a Camerondale guard, sword out looking at her. He looks young, and seems to be a little spooked too, finding some attractive young woman sitting in the middle of the forest. The shadows of the disappearing light sprawl across the forest floor, making a bit hard to see things clearly.

“Just lost,” is all she got out. She puts her hands out in a peaceful nature, it is what she read would calm opponents down.

“Oh, ok,” he says getting a little relaxed, seeing that she doesn’t seem hostile. In a quick fluid motion, he was largely unprepared for, she sweeps her leg around (rolls 19) and takes the feet out from under the guard. He lands with a thud, his sword popping out of his hands. She instinctively kicks the weapon away.

“Sorry, nothing personal,” she says softly, and scampers off. But not before dropping a few crampons in her wake, between the weapon and the guard.

Angry, the guard jumps to his feet and heads for his weapon to make chase but only ended up putting his foot on the item she dropped (failed perception check, stepped on one). He howls in pain (2hp of damage), pulling back and again falling on his butt.

As the young woman races away, in between trees, she smirks. South it is then, she tells herself, now without any other choices.

She darts in between trees and when the forest opened up a bit, she took her time avoiding anything that could be a deterrent. After an hour or so the sounds of the city battle all fade away. She could now hear some crickets, a bird chirp and the wind rustle the leaves.

Making a decision to keep moving, despite her aching shoulder, getting as far away from Thorn Gate as possible is really the only thing to do.

After another hour or so, the soft rustling of the leaves is slowly replaced with some hearty laughter and talking in the distance. She slows down her pace and creeps up to the location. She can see the bonfire and people around it, eating, drinking and having a good time.

She looks over the area, 5 men, 2 women all sitting around a fire and… before she could think any further, she hears some rustling behind her (failed stealth, but made the perception check).

Serenity whirls around, drawing out her Khopesh sword, pointing it in the direction of the noise. A woman, wearing all but rags, carrying a dagger stops and pulls back. “whoa whoa, little one, blade need to be down,” she says kind of loud, most likely to alert the people at the fire.

It worked as a few of the men and women drew their weapons at the fire, Serenity could hear them. Damn damn, she tells herself knowing she got too close.

After a short standoff, the woman puts her dagger in her belt. “Listen, pretty one, you creepin’ our camp, have every right to be fronting.”

The young woman thinks for a moment, I couldn’t take out 2 drunk lowlifes, how would I take on anything more than that? Serenity nods, and then sheathes the weapon. “sorry,” she eeks out quietly, “you just gave me a start,” she finishes with an innocent look to this unwashed, robustly smelling woman.

She gets turned and walked out of the trees and to a waiting of men and women who are sheathing their weapons. Most eyebrows raised seeing the young woman, well armored and a large weapon on the side of the backpack.

“Found her creepin’ boss, she is quick to pull too,” the woman says in some broken common that is much more noticeable now.

A scruffy looking older man steps forward, hard to see him with the fire directly behind him. “So what would a young woman like yourself be doing sneaking around these parts?” From what she can see he smiles, “Refugee? Hungry? Thirsty?” he states trying to be diplomatic.

Serenity just shakes her head. Hopefully they will just interrogate her and then let her be on her way.

He nods his head, “come come, lets sit and talk for a while.” He steps to the young woman and puts his arm gingerly around her. “We can’t all be uncivil, am I right?”

The young woman nods as they walk towards the fire, “as long as you are not Camerondale scum…” she mutters under her breath.

The leader of this rag tag group, takes his arms off her shoulders and lets out a bellowing laugh, as most of the others. “Camerondale? Scum?” he repeats her, “I think we are going to be pretty good friends, we have no love for Camerondale here.”

Everyone sits, a few of the people still eyeing her up. She sits timidly on a makeshift tree stump that is not very comfortable. Serenity watches as the people are passing around a jug of what she can only imagine is some “shine” as she has read about. When it gets to her she politely refuses.

The leader looks over, “you don’t want to insult us now do you? Have some, please,” he says pointing at the jug she just passed.

She shakes her head and stands, and that alerted a few of the people around the campfire. The scruffy man’s eyes open a bit bigger as she unstraps one of her armor pieces and moves it to the side to unveil a nasty looking wound. Everyone sits back down and wrinkles their nose.

Serenity grabs the jug back, and slowly pours a little on the wound making her wince.

Everyone is looking around confused, but the leader of this group lets out a chuckle.

The man sitting next to her stands up and grabs the jug, “do not waste it on your weird fetishes” he blurts out obviously a bit angry.

The leader looks at the man and shakes his head, “no, actually she is wasting it the least,” he starts, looking back at the young woman with a thoughtful smile, “she is staving off infection of that nasty nasty wound.”

Taking the last bite of his food, he wipes his hands off the front of his shirt, reaches back and pulls out some burlap pants. Grabs his dagger and cuts it, opening it up so it was longer than it was wider.

He walks over to the now sitting Serenity who looks up at him.

“Take off the armor, lets get this rebound ok?” he says with a smirk.

She hesitates at first but feeling the throbbing pain kicking in, she nods her head and stands up. Takes off her armor, unveiling some skin tight under-armor simple top, like an assassin would do for their get-up.

The old thief tries not to react, but it was a sight to see, young firm, in shape body of a beautiful girl. The underarmor clung to her and her curves were very noticeable.

Serenity then unravels the original binding that was bloody and puss filled.

He squints, and chuckles. “You already did something to the wound, I’ve seen this before. It creates a puss like substance to protect it and help it heal,” he says with some amazement. He leans back a bit and looks down at the woman in front of him. Her flowing dirty blonde hair, recently bathed, glittering eyes, perfect skin and armored like a warrior. She was no vegabond, that is for sure, and how did this little one get such a nasty wound? Looks like an axe, he thinks to himself.

He tightly wraps the wound making her wince once or twice. Then looks at her in the eyes and can tell there is still some pain, lots of it. He beckons for the jug, and when it is handed to him he hands it to Serenity. “Drink little one, it will dull the pain.”

She looks at him and then the jug, grabs it and takes a deep drink.

Everyone cheers a bit and claps their hands.

She sits down coughing a bit from the shine, grabs her armor and is looking it over. Rummaging through her pack she pulls out some leather thread and needle. Begins to repair the damage to her pauldron of sorts.

The leader sits down, “whats your name beautiful?” he says glancing up at her from across the fire.

“uhh, I am, um, Karol,” she says looking at him briefly and then back down to the armor.

He frowns, and waits a moment. “Karol,” he says, almost more a statement than a question.

“Yeah, My name is Jeramiah Mallett,” he muses, and everyone in the group roars with laughter.

She stops and looks around, she heard that name before, but not in that form, but she is figuring he just gave her a fake name too. I will play along, she thinks to herself. “Nice to meet you Jeramiah,” she says smirking a bit.

Everyone dulls down to some chuckles and giggles.

“No, really, what is your name, you owe us that at the very least,” he says a bit more stern.

She debates it quickly in her mind and thinks, well I don’t know my real last name, and my first name is one my guardian gave me so, technically speaking I am not giving him my real name. She sighs thinking of how confusing she just made it. The shine starting to give her warmer cheeks, the exhaustion of the past days events are starting to wear on her.

“Serenity,” she says softly while threading the armor, “Serenity Blackrose.”

The group grows silent. The leader’s eyes are big and he pulls back. “Blackrose? That is one hell of a last name,” he says, while no one else is making a noise,just looking her over.

“Yes. I was adopted, and that is the name that I was given,” she says hoping this will make things more convoluted and maybe stop the questions.

He nods his head. “Well, I wish I could tell you the name of our little group, but we don’t have one. But I am Wilder, the captain of this crazy bunch,” he says with a bit of pride.

They all cheer a little.

“Enjoy our hospitality and if you want to run with us for a while, I welcome you. You have some wiles about you and I think we could benefit from each others company,” he says to the young woman.

At first it almost sounded like a proposition, but as she glanced to look at him, his expression was sincere enough. She just smiles and finishes up her repairs, as a few people are watching her work.

The gathering only goes on for another hour and most of the people retire to their bed roll. Serenity goes to the nearest tree, climbs it, gets in a good position on a branch and starts to relax.

Wilder glances up and raises his eyebrow. “She is really something, she knows her stuff and is well armed and equipped… in more ways then one” he continues in his mind, raising an eyebrow. “Blackrose, I don’t know anyone with that last name, and let alone brave enough to utter it,” he finishes plopping into his bedroll, clearing his mind and going to sleep.

End Episode One – Breath Mints