Post by Savoie Faire on Jan 26, 2012 5:42:09 GMT -5
[OOC] This tale is of a legendary figure in Cormyr, and while parts of it may be true, some are likely to have become distorted and others may be entirely fabricated. Only those who were there know which are which.[/OOC]
This is the tale as told by Dusty Starshine outside the Regal Griffon Inn in the summer or fall of 1374.
Some say the Ranger Vind was too wild to fit into normal elven society, others say he was too crude. The elves who once held their noses behind his back now praise his prowess and skill in arms, and forget their former disdain of the most famous of all the Wardens of the Hullack. But, of course, he is now a legend to which everyone wants his name attached.
It is known that Vind never took a wife. Indeed, his skill with the ladies is almost legendary in his utter failure to impress them. Some say this was due to his neverending quest to place his footprint on all the wild paths of Cormyr: his maps are indeed still highly prized by all, being by far the most complete and comprehensive of the surface lands and most of the under-lands of Cormyr. Others say his failure to bathe other than by accident was the cause of his solitary lifestyle. The truth of the matter is quite simple, though: he was already hopelessly in love.
Very little is known about his early years. He came into Cormyr, as many do, an adventurer. As his skill in arms and the arts of the forrester grew, so too did his reputation. Of his many aquaintences few were those he called friend. In various bands and adventuring companies he began his travels of Cormyr, and some time in the 1350's or 60's began his extensive mapping of the lands. He searched out every corner of the land, seeking danger, gaining knowledge. He guided many of todays heroes early in their careers, and vanquished uncounted foes in the wild and dark places.
By the year 1372 he was already one of the most famous people of the land, and he was known as one of the four 'Heroes of Redmist' with a statue erected in his honor in that city, along with Sir Aerlik, Lord Phelzaron, and Lady Glewein. These statues were razed during the Redmist Rebellion, but survivors of that time still remember the heroes who drove the demonic invaders back into their infernal pits, and speak the name 'Vind' with reverence.
But it was before this time, in the uncharted wilds of Cormyr, that he met his one true love. She was an elf with eyes the white-blue of ice and hair so fine and white he at first thought her to be partly drow, who had as of this time had very little contact with the surface world. She was an aetheral beauty. The kind of person who looked perfectly normal if one looked at her nose, ears, hands, or figure, but who took the breath away when the whole was seen.
He followed her secretly, telling himself it was to learn who or what she was, but the truth is that he could not have turned away: she had stolen his heart in his very first glimpse of her. She walked for a time in the wood, coming to a secret waterfall beside a pool where she turned and beconed to him. He was surprised that she had seen him, as so many of his enemies had died on his arrow never knowing they had been shot. But as she beconed he came, as a puppy on a leash, to her. There beside the pool they spoke as lovers will, for hours on end of nothing. And when they parted, Vind could not but find an excuse to return to the falls, seeking her out again and again, sometimes waiting for days at a time for her return.
But in the Autumn of that year she came to him with a great sadness in her eyes, and confessed her love for him. Overjoyed he spoke of their future, of children playing in the forests as they shared their love, but she only cried and said it could not be, leaving him there heartbroken.
Then came his winter of madness. Vind stormed through the encampments of humanoids, maniacly butchering orcs, goblins, gnolls, and anything else which posed even a slight threat to elven settlements. It may be that he was trying to kill himself, or it may be that in his frustration he was taking his rage out on whatever he could. Word of his reckless deeds came back to the towns by way of adventurers who had barely escaped with their lives after Vind lead them into horrendous danger time and time again.
It was after one of these wild attacks as he lay among his enemies on the edge of death that she returned to him. Weeping over his battered body she held him and a tear fell onto his chest. He came to with a start, reflexes leaping to the attack before his mind registered what knelt beside him. But he was weak and frail, and she easily restrained him. And with a kiss he fell asleep as humans do.
He awoke completely healed of his wounds in a bed of down and silk, in a palace of white stone with great vaulted windows through which chill air blew. No servitors attended him, no guards were posted by his door, and he was free to wander the immense halls of this strange castle. From the ledge of one of these windows he looked and below him, spread out as if on one of his maps, was the land of Cormyr!
The white castle stood on the slope of a cloud as a mountain fortress stands on the side of a hill. Immense in all it's proportions, it was a tiny speck against the bulk of the cloud. He explored the castle, and came into room after room, some empty, others containing wonders or furnishings of ordinary style such as wealthy folk use, but of huge size. And finally he came to the heart of the castle, and in the central vaulted chamber as large as an arena he found a dragon.
It was a dragon of silver, easily as large as the largest warship of Cormyr, and it lay curled on the floor of the empty hall. He called out to the dragon as if to a sleeping friend, reasoning that silver dragons were reputed to be allied with the goodly powers of the world and surely this one knew he had lain abed helpless for some time within it's home. Had it wished ill towards him there was no reason it should have allowed him to wake, and furthermore to leave his goods and adventuring gear beside his bed for him to find upon waking!
As he called the massive head lifted, and the eyelids opened. And he was struck to the heart by the sight of her eyes. "No!" he said, then again, "NO!" and he fled. But the castle, large as it was, had no hiding place. He finally stood before the massive doorless entrance looking down through the gauzy clouds at the lands below, his mind in conflict with his heart. At the sound of a slippered footstep he spun, sword drawn faster than mortal eye could follow, it's point leveled at the breast of his love who had slowly followed him. The tears on her cheeks told his heart one tale, his cold and calculating mind another.
"I could kill you. As you are now, or as a dragon, it won't matter," he told her.
"Then do it," she replied. "Do it now, and end this pain."
But his sword fell to the floor forgotten as he swept her into his arms.
After a time they spoke again. "Now you know why our love cannot be," she said, "But you cannot know the cost I paid when I told you so."
"I do," he answered, "Because it is the same pain I felt every day since last I saw you. As if my heart had been wrenched from my chest. As if half my being had been cut away. Until I met you I never knew I was alone, and since then I cannot forget, even for a second. I cannot count the times I wanted to say something to you, something funny, or profound, and turned to see you weren't there."
For a time they lived there, alone in their high place. Hours or days, weeks or months, really the time doesn't matter so much as the intensity of their togetherness. And Vind was happy possibly for the first time in his life. A happiness marred only by the knowledge that it couldn't last.
She came to him one day to tell him their time together must come to an end, "For great things are happening in the world, and I am told you must be a part of them. The lives of elves and men hang in the balance, and your sword must be there to save them."
"Forget them!" he shouted. "What have they ever done for me? It's always they who demand of me. When will I get what I deserve? I have done enough for elves and men. Forget them and let us live here, above them all, forgetting and forgotten by all elves and men!"
"Could you do that?" she asked. "Could you really abandon your kin knowing you might have saved them? Could you know that friends of many years died because you weren't there? Or would this knowing eat at you until you blamed me, until the sight of me galled you and the cries of your friends haunted your dreams?"
And so she became a dragon again, and carried him down from the clouds to the lands he knew so well. As they said goodbye she said, "Our fates are intertwined; we shall meet again before the end. Know always that my heart belongs to you."
The heart keeps no records of time as the years pass, and love interrupted against the will of lovers remains as powerful in years to come as the day they parted, but the two were, as she had promised, destined to meet again.
After many deeds of daring Vind was becoming legend. Thus it was natural for his friends to seek his aid when demons and devils began to appear in Redmist. In that time of horror one of his companions, Garristan Flomen, a wizard of great power, came to him. "I know how to seal the portals these infernals use, but there are too many. If we can find the master portal and close it the rest will close as well, but to cast the spell that will properly seal it we must have the proper spell components. All I lack is the tear of a good dragon."
"I know where we can find a good dragon," he answered.
Lord Phelzaron said, "Dragons aren't known to cry. How will you harvest a tear?"
"Let's have Frubo sing to her!" said Padrin, another aquaintence of theirs.
Although amused by the notion, Vind did not protest when they gathered up the reluctant Doomsinger, and with the spells of the wizards cast on them they flew into the sky, up to the castle perched on a cloud.
As if waiting for them, the dragon lay in her immense empty chamber in the heart of the castle. Garristan told the dragon of their need, and asked the dragon to listen to the Doomsinger in the hopes that his songs of dispair would elicit a tear.
Intrigued the dragon agreed. Or perhaps she did so to please Vind. But Frubo's songs of doom and dispair failed to cause her grief. Instead, knowing the goodness in the world and it's power to stand strong against fear and dread, the songs seemed to her to be rediculous. As Frubo's skill elicited dire melodies from his guitar, and his voice wailed in grief, she began to laugh!
This was not the result Frubo expected. As are many artists, he was sensitive. His songs evoked fear, dread, hopelessness; and although he had become accustomed to angry outbursts and snide ridicule from his audiences, to be laughed at was beyond tolerance! He redoubled his efforts, playing ever more dire melodies that raised the hair on the spines of his humanoid companions, but this only increased the mirth of the dragon, who now rolled helplessly in laughter.
Garristan, observing the ordeal closely, saw a teardrop form in the corner of the dragon's eye, and as she squeezed it tight in laughter he held a vial close and caught the drop as it fell. As he corked the vial he noticed the tear had become transformed into a tiny white gem the color of a salt crystal, but the hardness of a diamond. Having gathered what he needed he set out with many thanks to the dragon to return to the surface world to end the infernal menace which threatened Cormyr.
Phelzaron, ever keen to see into the souls of men, said to Vind, "For one who has come to see a friend after a long absence you have had very little to say." The momentary glimpse of Vind's face as he turned away was all the answer he got.
They returned to the land, returned Frubo to his stage in Isinhold, and went off into the King's Forest to find and seal the master portal, and later into Redmist to clear out the demons and devils, and to seal the portals they used there.
As fame enveloped him Vind grew more reclusive, having no use for sycophants and hangers-on who wished to increase their own status through his aquaintenceship. He retreated farther into the forests, seeking ever more dangerous and secluded places to hide from these social leeches. But in such places things of great evil tend to hide, and the mightiest battles of his life Vind fought secretly, with few trusted friends and allies. It is said his maps of the Stonelands and Tyrluk come from this time, and some say he penetrated deep into Farsea and below the delvings of Clan Oghrann as well.
If he was trying to kill himself, this time he succeeded. He had shown friends the place he wished to be buried some time before, but at the time they thought it would be centuries before he would occupy his chosen final home in a small secret meadow beside a waterfall. They brought his corpse there, prepared by elven priests, but only a few friends accompanied the funeral procession. A few friends, all of whom knew one another, and one stranger: an elven woman with silver-white hair and eyes of ice.
The Wardens now maintain the secrecy of that glade, and so it is that very few come to the unmarked grave of the mightiest ranger of Cormyr. But from time to time, say the Wardens, a Silver Dragon comes to the gravesite to leave behind a few handfuls of tiny white gems.
This is the tale as told by Dusty Starshine outside the Regal Griffon Inn in the summer or fall of 1374.
Some say the Ranger Vind was too wild to fit into normal elven society, others say he was too crude. The elves who once held their noses behind his back now praise his prowess and skill in arms, and forget their former disdain of the most famous of all the Wardens of the Hullack. But, of course, he is now a legend to which everyone wants his name attached.
It is known that Vind never took a wife. Indeed, his skill with the ladies is almost legendary in his utter failure to impress them. Some say this was due to his neverending quest to place his footprint on all the wild paths of Cormyr: his maps are indeed still highly prized by all, being by far the most complete and comprehensive of the surface lands and most of the under-lands of Cormyr. Others say his failure to bathe other than by accident was the cause of his solitary lifestyle. The truth of the matter is quite simple, though: he was already hopelessly in love.
Very little is known about his early years. He came into Cormyr, as many do, an adventurer. As his skill in arms and the arts of the forrester grew, so too did his reputation. Of his many aquaintences few were those he called friend. In various bands and adventuring companies he began his travels of Cormyr, and some time in the 1350's or 60's began his extensive mapping of the lands. He searched out every corner of the land, seeking danger, gaining knowledge. He guided many of todays heroes early in their careers, and vanquished uncounted foes in the wild and dark places.
By the year 1372 he was already one of the most famous people of the land, and he was known as one of the four 'Heroes of Redmist' with a statue erected in his honor in that city, along with Sir Aerlik, Lord Phelzaron, and Lady Glewein. These statues were razed during the Redmist Rebellion, but survivors of that time still remember the heroes who drove the demonic invaders back into their infernal pits, and speak the name 'Vind' with reverence.
But it was before this time, in the uncharted wilds of Cormyr, that he met his one true love. She was an elf with eyes the white-blue of ice and hair so fine and white he at first thought her to be partly drow, who had as of this time had very little contact with the surface world. She was an aetheral beauty. The kind of person who looked perfectly normal if one looked at her nose, ears, hands, or figure, but who took the breath away when the whole was seen.
He followed her secretly, telling himself it was to learn who or what she was, but the truth is that he could not have turned away: she had stolen his heart in his very first glimpse of her. She walked for a time in the wood, coming to a secret waterfall beside a pool where she turned and beconed to him. He was surprised that she had seen him, as so many of his enemies had died on his arrow never knowing they had been shot. But as she beconed he came, as a puppy on a leash, to her. There beside the pool they spoke as lovers will, for hours on end of nothing. And when they parted, Vind could not but find an excuse to return to the falls, seeking her out again and again, sometimes waiting for days at a time for her return.
But in the Autumn of that year she came to him with a great sadness in her eyes, and confessed her love for him. Overjoyed he spoke of their future, of children playing in the forests as they shared their love, but she only cried and said it could not be, leaving him there heartbroken.
Then came his winter of madness. Vind stormed through the encampments of humanoids, maniacly butchering orcs, goblins, gnolls, and anything else which posed even a slight threat to elven settlements. It may be that he was trying to kill himself, or it may be that in his frustration he was taking his rage out on whatever he could. Word of his reckless deeds came back to the towns by way of adventurers who had barely escaped with their lives after Vind lead them into horrendous danger time and time again.
It was after one of these wild attacks as he lay among his enemies on the edge of death that she returned to him. Weeping over his battered body she held him and a tear fell onto his chest. He came to with a start, reflexes leaping to the attack before his mind registered what knelt beside him. But he was weak and frail, and she easily restrained him. And with a kiss he fell asleep as humans do.
He awoke completely healed of his wounds in a bed of down and silk, in a palace of white stone with great vaulted windows through which chill air blew. No servitors attended him, no guards were posted by his door, and he was free to wander the immense halls of this strange castle. From the ledge of one of these windows he looked and below him, spread out as if on one of his maps, was the land of Cormyr!
The white castle stood on the slope of a cloud as a mountain fortress stands on the side of a hill. Immense in all it's proportions, it was a tiny speck against the bulk of the cloud. He explored the castle, and came into room after room, some empty, others containing wonders or furnishings of ordinary style such as wealthy folk use, but of huge size. And finally he came to the heart of the castle, and in the central vaulted chamber as large as an arena he found a dragon.
It was a dragon of silver, easily as large as the largest warship of Cormyr, and it lay curled on the floor of the empty hall. He called out to the dragon as if to a sleeping friend, reasoning that silver dragons were reputed to be allied with the goodly powers of the world and surely this one knew he had lain abed helpless for some time within it's home. Had it wished ill towards him there was no reason it should have allowed him to wake, and furthermore to leave his goods and adventuring gear beside his bed for him to find upon waking!
As he called the massive head lifted, and the eyelids opened. And he was struck to the heart by the sight of her eyes. "No!" he said, then again, "NO!" and he fled. But the castle, large as it was, had no hiding place. He finally stood before the massive doorless entrance looking down through the gauzy clouds at the lands below, his mind in conflict with his heart. At the sound of a slippered footstep he spun, sword drawn faster than mortal eye could follow, it's point leveled at the breast of his love who had slowly followed him. The tears on her cheeks told his heart one tale, his cold and calculating mind another.
"I could kill you. As you are now, or as a dragon, it won't matter," he told her.
"Then do it," she replied. "Do it now, and end this pain."
But his sword fell to the floor forgotten as he swept her into his arms.
After a time they spoke again. "Now you know why our love cannot be," she said, "But you cannot know the cost I paid when I told you so."
"I do," he answered, "Because it is the same pain I felt every day since last I saw you. As if my heart had been wrenched from my chest. As if half my being had been cut away. Until I met you I never knew I was alone, and since then I cannot forget, even for a second. I cannot count the times I wanted to say something to you, something funny, or profound, and turned to see you weren't there."
For a time they lived there, alone in their high place. Hours or days, weeks or months, really the time doesn't matter so much as the intensity of their togetherness. And Vind was happy possibly for the first time in his life. A happiness marred only by the knowledge that it couldn't last.
She came to him one day to tell him their time together must come to an end, "For great things are happening in the world, and I am told you must be a part of them. The lives of elves and men hang in the balance, and your sword must be there to save them."
"Forget them!" he shouted. "What have they ever done for me? It's always they who demand of me. When will I get what I deserve? I have done enough for elves and men. Forget them and let us live here, above them all, forgetting and forgotten by all elves and men!"
"Could you do that?" she asked. "Could you really abandon your kin knowing you might have saved them? Could you know that friends of many years died because you weren't there? Or would this knowing eat at you until you blamed me, until the sight of me galled you and the cries of your friends haunted your dreams?"
And so she became a dragon again, and carried him down from the clouds to the lands he knew so well. As they said goodbye she said, "Our fates are intertwined; we shall meet again before the end. Know always that my heart belongs to you."
The heart keeps no records of time as the years pass, and love interrupted against the will of lovers remains as powerful in years to come as the day they parted, but the two were, as she had promised, destined to meet again.
After many deeds of daring Vind was becoming legend. Thus it was natural for his friends to seek his aid when demons and devils began to appear in Redmist. In that time of horror one of his companions, Garristan Flomen, a wizard of great power, came to him. "I know how to seal the portals these infernals use, but there are too many. If we can find the master portal and close it the rest will close as well, but to cast the spell that will properly seal it we must have the proper spell components. All I lack is the tear of a good dragon."
"I know where we can find a good dragon," he answered.
Lord Phelzaron said, "Dragons aren't known to cry. How will you harvest a tear?"
"Let's have Frubo sing to her!" said Padrin, another aquaintence of theirs.
Although amused by the notion, Vind did not protest when they gathered up the reluctant Doomsinger, and with the spells of the wizards cast on them they flew into the sky, up to the castle perched on a cloud.
As if waiting for them, the dragon lay in her immense empty chamber in the heart of the castle. Garristan told the dragon of their need, and asked the dragon to listen to the Doomsinger in the hopes that his songs of dispair would elicit a tear.
Intrigued the dragon agreed. Or perhaps she did so to please Vind. But Frubo's songs of doom and dispair failed to cause her grief. Instead, knowing the goodness in the world and it's power to stand strong against fear and dread, the songs seemed to her to be rediculous. As Frubo's skill elicited dire melodies from his guitar, and his voice wailed in grief, she began to laugh!
This was not the result Frubo expected. As are many artists, he was sensitive. His songs evoked fear, dread, hopelessness; and although he had become accustomed to angry outbursts and snide ridicule from his audiences, to be laughed at was beyond tolerance! He redoubled his efforts, playing ever more dire melodies that raised the hair on the spines of his humanoid companions, but this only increased the mirth of the dragon, who now rolled helplessly in laughter.
Garristan, observing the ordeal closely, saw a teardrop form in the corner of the dragon's eye, and as she squeezed it tight in laughter he held a vial close and caught the drop as it fell. As he corked the vial he noticed the tear had become transformed into a tiny white gem the color of a salt crystal, but the hardness of a diamond. Having gathered what he needed he set out with many thanks to the dragon to return to the surface world to end the infernal menace which threatened Cormyr.
Phelzaron, ever keen to see into the souls of men, said to Vind, "For one who has come to see a friend after a long absence you have had very little to say." The momentary glimpse of Vind's face as he turned away was all the answer he got.
They returned to the land, returned Frubo to his stage in Isinhold, and went off into the King's Forest to find and seal the master portal, and later into Redmist to clear out the demons and devils, and to seal the portals they used there.
As fame enveloped him Vind grew more reclusive, having no use for sycophants and hangers-on who wished to increase their own status through his aquaintenceship. He retreated farther into the forests, seeking ever more dangerous and secluded places to hide from these social leeches. But in such places things of great evil tend to hide, and the mightiest battles of his life Vind fought secretly, with few trusted friends and allies. It is said his maps of the Stonelands and Tyrluk come from this time, and some say he penetrated deep into Farsea and below the delvings of Clan Oghrann as well.
If he was trying to kill himself, this time he succeeded. He had shown friends the place he wished to be buried some time before, but at the time they thought it would be centuries before he would occupy his chosen final home in a small secret meadow beside a waterfall. They brought his corpse there, prepared by elven priests, but only a few friends accompanied the funeral procession. A few friends, all of whom knew one another, and one stranger: an elven woman with silver-white hair and eyes of ice.
The Wardens now maintain the secrecy of that glade, and so it is that very few come to the unmarked grave of the mightiest ranger of Cormyr. But from time to time, say the Wardens, a Silver Dragon comes to the gravesite to leave behind a few handfuls of tiny white gems.