[A-RP] Shadow of the Forest : Impetus

[Baelinel-wyrmrest-accord]

{Welcome to the Impetus thread for Shadow of the Forest Alliance RP guild. Here, we’ll showcase some vignettes and short stories to reveal snippets of background and motivation for the organization’s characters. If you’d like to learn more, the guild and recruitment information lives in this thread.}

The War of Thorns, day three, south of Ameth’aran…

The impact of the arrow shoved her back a few steps and probably would have knocked her over if not for the tree at her back, the one that she caught herself against as she gasped in shocked pain. Rhoelyn Silverwing looked down, her eyes filling with tears that she ignored as the wound blossomed into red agony that stained her gown in yet another place. Between her first and second ribs, off to the side, the shaft and a fletching of black feathers protruded from her flesh.

She didn’t need the golden glow blanketing her vision to tell her it was nonlethal. A lung narrowly missed. Veins and arteries intact. She could focus past the pain for the moment, and so it was distinctly unimportant.

Not like the spleen-crushing blow Selandrin Morrowstar had just taken.

With the trunk supporting her, the priestess raised a glowing hand at the sentinel and watched with magic-rich senses as the organ repaired itself, felt the blood in the warrior’s chest find its way back to the veins as they stitched themselves whole. Done. Her gaze shifted to the next, and the next, and for a moment she allowed her attention to slip outward, taking a holistic view of the field of battle around her. It gave her the information she needed to choose the next spell and the two after that.

They all bore wounds; she only needed to see whose were most pressing, most grave. Triage. Whatever it took to keep them fighting, moving. Nothing more, and nothing less.

Once, that had been a hard lesson for an optimistic young healer to grasp.

Heal the wounds, sister, Rhoelyn could hear her old teacher’s admonition, not the scars. Lives are what you save with that extra energy. Things far more precious than appearances.

Today, it was easy. There were no prayers on her lips. Her voice had long since gone hoarse, and there was no time for sound, anyway. The healing came at the speed of thought, as fast as she could drag magic from the air and pull it into damaged bodies. For a day, now, it had been thus. Saving who she could. Walking away from too many who had fallen. Rhoelyn was numb with it, holding grief in her heart until there were no lives that would end if she indulged in it, staving off exhaustion with determination.

Huddled against the tree, hurting and bleeding herself, she could not do less, could not bear to let her weaknesses cost others their lives.

Light coalesced into a Shield around little Piki Nobwhistle as a troll tried to interrupt the gnomish mage’s casting. A quiet Renewal of the spirit and body rested on Oraalu to fortify him as he charged into another trio of orcs. A wide, glorious Prayer of Healing focused on Mattiu Fairchild that would catch his dagger-wielding sisters, Sera and Loren, as well. Saelis Silverleaf called for a barrier, and Rhoelyn obliged the night elven mage to enable her the time to finish casting a massive work that rained a wall of fire down over their enemies, sending them scurrying back.

It bought them a breath, and for one moment, there was a reprieve as the Horde unit paused to regroup.

The young priestess whimpered softly as pain pulsed like electric fire through her side, looking down at the arrow there and dreading its removal. The barb hadn’t pierced through, so she would have to shove it farther in and out the back before she could snap the tip off and remove it. A tear slipped free and slithered a slow streak down her blood-splattered cheek as she rested a shaking hand on the shaft.

“Rhoelyn.” A big hand covered hers around the arrow, and she looked up into Baelin Moonsong’s silver eyes. He was dour and bloody, older and wiser than he had been decades ago, when they’d been young, idle lovers. Handsome as always, with his bright, silver eyes and midnight blue hair, he still favored a small beard. But he was also aged by life as by battle and hardship, she thought, wondering if she looked the same way to him.

“I’ll help you. Hold on to me.”

The silver-haired priestess nodded, sniffling, and wrapped one arm around him, leaning her forehead on his leather chest armor. Her voice was nearly gone, a whisper and little more that he had to bend close to hear. “D-do it swiftly, Baelin. They will not hold for long…”

Nodding, he took over her grip on the arrow shaft and leaned in to her, pressing her back against the tree behind her. “Brace yourself, priestess,” he whispered, his brow furrowing before he shoved it through her back in a spurt of burgundy blood.

The little healer’s brief scream echoed through the forest, but it was one among so many that it got immediately lost.

Baelin’el Moonsong, Finel’ethala

[Gwyneth-wyrmrest-accord]

(( The second installment of Shadow of the Forest: Impetus is here! I’m up next. Hope you like it! ))

The Warsong orcs sung their song through axe on wood; the trees’ harmony echoed sad ballads of creaking and splintering and ended in a crescendo of bark on soil. A sound easy to hear, even over the whirring and buzzing of goblin made saw machines. The kaldorei woman sat on a tree branch, high above the camp. Her armor of dark green Ironwood bark and the dark grey and brown of leather steeped her in the canopy above and the glaives of Silverwing steel glinted starlight. It concealed her easily enough. Away from the dull eyes of the Horde below. She watched.

So much for a ceasefire… Or armistice…

Whatever they called it, these orcs and goblins didn’t get the order, or more likely they did not care .

But we do…

Three is all they deemed necessary to escort a caravan of saw buzzers from their lumber camp to the Mor’shan Rampart .

Three…

Gwy’neth felt her twin glaives on her hips and checked to make sure daggers sat discreetly in the boots that didn’t make a sound as she jumped down from branch to branch, then onto the green foliage that blanketed the forest floor. She followed, silent and unseen.

They are clumsy… . she mused.

She trailed them, those three, through the path leading past Forest Song. That was their second mistake: she could track them easily in the denseness of the leaves and brush but much more so out in the open. Their first was ever setting foot in Ashenvale.

…

A grunt and a crash to the ground, these orcs didn’t know how to fall. A bone broke, somewhere, but the Sentinel didn’t seem interested in that. A boot lay on the orcs writhing body, pressing into the chest so that he couldn’t squirm away. He looked up defiantly.

“Where are the others? SHOW YOURSELVES!” He looked around as best he could, waiting for something to emerge from the trees. Gwy’neth tilted her head, as if trying to understand. She bent down close to the orcs face; his hot breath bated under her weight. She leaned in more, her eyes trying to glean something from the orc’s. When the Sentinel was inches away from his face, she spoke in Orcish, “One.”

With one movement, the orcs throat laid bare and in another, the elf was gone.

…

Pinned against a tree, the panting orc tried to pry the dagger from the bark, but it seemed as if the dagger wouldn’t leave, or that the tree would not let go. She was panicked, one shoulder immovable unless she took her shoulder pad off, but she couldn’t get to the straps- the dagger kept her shoulder too close to the tree. It did not matter much. From the trees opposite the orc, Gwy’neth emerged, glaives drawn. The orc called out, but the voice did not carry. The leaves softened the echoes, the branches dragged the calls down.

“Two,” and the struggle was over. The orc’s body slumped; the dagger finally pulled from the bark.

…

She glowered. “What is this?” The orc woman stood the ground she stood on, but it was not her own. Heavy feet slid across the soil as she backed up, looking around panicked. The shadowed glen was dark, too dark for the orc to see properly in. Gwy’neth needed only to rush back and forth between the trees, snapping a branch here, rustling leaves there for the orc to frantically turn this way and that- too distracted to see the root on the floor. A yelp of surprise preceded the splash the orc’s body made when it fell into the small stream that found its way at the end of the fall.

The woman struggled to get up, the mud not giving the desperate lumberorc a spot to level out. By the time she crawled out onto the floor, she had exhausted her energy. She flopped onto the soil, turning over onto her back and using the last bit of strength to push herself against a tree. Her eyes shifted back and forth across the glen. Quiet and stillness were all she found. Several moments passed: several anxious moments. The warrior found her breath again and slowly stood, wiping mud from her face and body. A quick glance around to get an all clear was all it took for Gwy’neth to emerge from the trees. The orc turned back quickly to set off but found herself face-to-face with the elf.

A strong arm held the neck of the orc against the tree. She struggled to breath and talk. Gwy’neth looked into the black eyes of the Warsong that dangled slightly above her, searching. The orc attempted to speak again. The arm of the elf released a bit of pressure and as air filled the lungs of the orc, she sputtered, choking on it. After a few moments, she spoke. “Who are you?” Gwy’neth’s hard face barely moved as she replied, “The Shadow of the Forest.”

“Three.”

Gwy’neth Shadowbreaker, Commander