A frown graced the normally neutral face of Lar’yan the Scrivener as he stalked up the hill towards a clearing in the forest to the Southeast of Tlacopan. Storyteller, scribe, writer, historian, all of these words served to describe Lar’yan. He was something of an enigma in the Lustrare Valley, having arrived for the first time several centuries ago. He came and went periodically, but always returned to his weather-beaten house in the Southern end of the valley.
Where he originally came from, nobody knows. He was tall and slender, his long, pointed ears a sign of his aelf blood. Unlike many of the aelfs that came through Lustrare, Lar’yan was not pretentious, nor did he seem to be a great warrior or skilled archer or some supremely powerful wizard. He had long, black hair, streaked with white in places. His eyes shimmered ice blue most of the time, but shifted to a violet color when he was angry. Lar’yan usually dressed like a commoner, in loose-fitting brown trews and a faded green tunic.
Right now, however, he was dressed for a fight. Few in the valley had seen the archaic aelfen armor he was wearing. His breastplate, greaves, and pauldrons still bore the shimmer of quality steel. The scale mail tabard he wore under the breastplate was made from hundreds of small, blackened discs of leather. His shield, the heraldry worn with time and use, was an older version of the modern, round-topped leaf shields the Lumineth bore. The sigil adorning its face was hard to make out through the damage, but resembled a swooping hawk. He wore a faded cloak of forest green upon his back and a purple, silken bandana about his neck.
Lar’yan strode along the river with a purpose, a smile finally cracking his face as he approached his quarry: the ragged lean-to hut belonging to Jyrrud the Wizzgit, fortune-teller and mage. Lar’yan cast the grot a wry look as he approached.
For his part, Jyrrud seemed busy. He was scrabbling about his garden – if you could call it that – gathering herbs and mushrooms. The aged shaman didn’t even bother to look up as the aelf walked into the clearing.
“Whattya want, ya pointy-eared git?” the grot muttered irritably.
“I want some answers, Jyrrud,” the aelf replied. “A few weeks ago, when I asked you about the crown atop your head, you told me it was a perch for passing birds.”
“Yez.”
Frowning, the aelf crossed his arms over his chest and smirked. “Interesting. I did some asking around, and it seems you give out a lot of different answers to that question.”
“Do I?”
“You told Eremus that it was to keep frogs off of your head. Something about them mistaking your head for a lilypad?”
“Dey do dat,” the grot shot back.
Nodding, Lar’yan continued. “You told Gilda that the horns actually grew out of your head, and that you paid a jeweler to make, and I quote, ‘some bling’ for them, and he went overboard.”
“Heh, dat one was a classic.”
“When Markus asked about it, you made up a story about the Bad Moon and how the crown kept evil space magic from invading your mind.”
Wincing, Jyrrud glanced over his shoulder at the aelf. “Dat one’s actually true,” he muttered.
“And what about the story that it is a cursed relic you found that turned you into a grot? Or the one about how it is actually the ancient…”
“Oy, pointy-ears!” Jyrrud snapped irritably. “While I like da idea ov talkin’ bout all da stories I tole people, I’m kinda busy at da moment. I’m ‘spectin some ratha unpleasant compn’y soon!”
Lar’yan frowned and was about to snap off a retort when an odd look came over his face. A soft clicking sound came from the depths of Jyrrud’s hut. Before the grot could say anything, the aelf grabbed the shaman’s shoulder and threw both of them to the ground! A split-second later both flinched as a gout of super-heated warp-fire scorched the air above them! Rolling to his feet, Lar’yan patted out the flames on his cloak and drew an unusually plain-looking sword from a sheath at his belt.
As Jyrrud scrambled to his feet, he saw a pair of skaven, toting a strange bellows-like contraption that dripped fire, emerge from his hut. “Aw bugga, dey’re early!”
Before the rat-kin could trigger their flame-thrower again, Lar’yan’s sword swung in a glistening arc. It severed the hose connecting the nozzle to the tank, dousing the leading rat-man in burning liquid! Its companion threw down the tank and ran, but other skaven began to emerge from the forest about them.
“Oh, this is not good,” the aelf muttered.
“Eh, it ‘ent dat bad,” Jyrrud said as he brushed the dust from his robes. “’Ey, Thorn? Wanna tell dem rats ‘oo is really in charge ‘ere?”
A lumbering, towering shape emerged from the treeline. Its skin an almost glowing hue of purple, its hands holding a massive hammer, the head crafted – if you could call it that – from a gigantic stalagmite. Skaven recoiled at the sight, trying to understand how such a large creature could have hidden from them! A commotion at the other end of the clearing was soon revealed to be a trio of slimy, green-skinned troggoths with toothy grins. One of them had a rat’s tail hanging out of its mouth.
“Ey, boss?” One of them asked, looking at the enormous purple troggoth. “Rat-fings taste loik mud!”
“Yez, I know,” the purple troggoth said slowly. “But dey squish good!”
Grinning wickedly, the troggoths advanced on the surprised rat-kin…
