The Fletcher's Tale

It has taken me a long time to remember and confront my past. I was born in a small thorp on the edge of the Forgotten Forest by Old Weir. My parents were Dannob and Allea, they were farmers who sold vegetables and wool at market in Old Weir. One day, armed men in Vostewylde Alliance uniforms came to our town demanding to know more about a group who they claimed were responsible for the murder of guards patrolling the Innesbyr Road. They had with them a ranger from GPS, named Fendral Bogan, who was guiding them around the area. 

The leader of the group was a man whose name is best forgotten to history. He was ugly and evil. He knew no one in our thorp had any knowledge of those killings, but he was bored and vile. He killed the family in the farm next to ours and claimed they were hiding the murderers. He said we now had an opportunity to confess. My parents barely spoke the common tongue, and he mocked my father, before throwing him and my mother to the ground while his lackeys had them at swordpoint. He then turned to me and in front of everyone, had his way with me. I was eight. 

They killed my parents, and the noise brought Fendral Bogan in, who saw what had happened, cast some Ranger magic on the thugs, and held me close as he fled into the woods. I was in shock. The brutes recovered and chased after us, an arrow pierced Fendral’s side, but he kept running.

And then with their mocking voices still on our trail, we came upon the group of you, and that monster land shark emerged from the earth. The next thing I remembered, the evil man was dead. 

Nancy held one of my hands and Ironica the other, and the two halflings were so close to me in height and so gentle I felt safe as they led me to a cabin in the woods. I saw Bask for the first time and her cabin smelled like home. She had the same wildflowers drying over her hearth that my mother kept. I cried and cried. I knew my life was over. It was near Midwinter and when the day came and you had returned from the Feywild, Bask chided me like my mother would to help with the meal – she knew the routine and chores would help me. I stirred the venison stew and pushed deep down what had happened to me. At dinner, I sang the songs again, and sat in between Ironica and Nancy. With these three strong, powerful women, I felt safe again and that night I slept for the first time in many days. 

And so I lived a half life, pretending I was always Bask’s child and that my time in our thorp never happened. I invented people to populate my life. Bask was my mother and Nancy and Ironica were my aunts, they were away doing brave and wonderful things!

When Tallin appeared to us and Bask told us we had to flee, it unsettled me further, one home to the next. But Bask and Tallin now both spent time with me and I could pretend it was mother and father and we were traveling together. 

The mountain was unfamiliar to me, but we all adapted. The trouble came when I started to bleed. Everything I buried deeply came dangerously close to the surface. I rebelled against Bask and Tallin. I ran off and knew Bask would follow me as a squirrel or a marmot to look out for me. Finally I came back and told her not to follow me as a dumb animal. I told her she wasn’t my mother and I knew it. I ran off again and this time found danger in the mountain, and she had respected our space. A baby wyvern was learning how to hunt and swooped down, piercing me with its venomous stinger before it flew off. I went in and out of consciousness and when I came too, I was back home in the cave – Tallin had found me. 

From then on we confronted my demons. We talked about it, we worked on it, and we named the things in my past. It was a terrible time. Above all, I grew angry. We still had Fendral’s bow from our time in the Forgotten Forest and I taught myself how to string it. I fletched arrows and practiced. Tallin and Bask taught me what they could, and it became an outlet for me and my pain. I went everywhere with that bow and when I was sixteen, nearly a woman, Bask and Tallin decided to send me to the Southwood where they knew a tribe of wood elves lived, who could teach me further. 

I studied with them for five years and learned their ways. When I returned to the cave, I was a woman, and a terror with my bow. And so time passed. I grew restless and at times would travel to Firsburg or other locales to spend time with people my age. I would travel under the guise of a rural fletcher, selling exotic arrows. I grew friendly with some, but usually returned home within a month or so. When Kargi and Golun-dal showed up and we had our task set before us, it fell to me to work on your extraction. When Bask told me it was Nancy and Ironica I would be rescuing, I knew I could not fail. 

I returned to Firsburg and found an old lover of mine, someone I trusted, who agreed to work with us. Their name was Endet Uyi, and they pretended to be a fake son-of-somebody from the Lord’s Alliance, there to ensure their father in Waterdeep had a steady supply of Roger’s and sauvignon blanche. It was dangerous, but Endet was crucial in helping steal thralls from Old Weir, yourselves included. Endet also helped procure some of the scrolls needed to complete the undoing of thralldom. 

With the elders known to the town, it fell to me Endet and me to take you. I traveled there for the first time, nervous and afraid. I asked around to see the famous Misfit Six troubadours who had performed the legendary show of which the bards still sing. Nancy agreed to a reenactment at the Wandering Wolf. She gathered her companions and played for Endet and me, with all of you agreeing to join us in the back for drinks. You offered us Roger’s “with”, with sfos that is, as is the custom in Old Weir, but I said I had brought my own, claiming to also be one with the hisperin way of life. You were all delighted. Except my blue elixir held a rare mountain poison, developed by the Lady Tessa, to which I had built up a slow tolerance. Knocking you out quickly was the only way to make sure nothing was communicated back to your masters. We all toasted each others’ health and drank deeply. Within ten minutes we had piled your unconscious bodies into a cart that was waiting outside the back window. 

We fled into the night. 

That is all.