First Time Through (part 2 of 2)

Location: Attica (AEIOU)

Arianna said, "I was hoping we might be able to talk."

The dwarves whirled around. Elrohir shook his head. The head dwarf cut through the crowd of dwarves and stood before Arianna.

"We don't talk to Shaoctin!" he exclaimed. The rest of the dwarves cheered.

"But we are not Shaoctin," Arianna said calmly. "We are a group of Elves exploring what they called the Shao. If you look at us without all the soot and dirt on us, you would see that we aren't as dark-complected as the Shaoctin. If you will give me an opportunity, I believe I can explain most everything."

The head dwarf looked at her expectantly. "You really think we're going to believe that you are Elves and not Shaoctin? The Elves are too busy fighting amongst themselves on the sufrace. They couldn't have found the Shao. Besides, they could never open it without the sphere. And I have the sphere!!"

"You have the sphere?" Arianna blinked. "Why would you have it?"

"To keep the Elves from calling the Shaoctin," another dwarf said.

"So," Elrohir interjected, "the ones who attacked us on the surface were Elves? The ones fighting swords with projectiles?"

The head dwarf nodded, motioning Elrohir to join the two women. "The blessing of the Shaoctin," he said. "We were their allies on this world ..."

"THIS world??" Linwe asked. "What do you mean by that?"

"You guys really ARE new to this, aren't you?" the head dwarf said. "The portal, or shao, that you stepped through links worlds together. The Shaoctin controlled a vast interstellar empire through these portals."

The head dwarf motioned for the circle of dwarves to expand. "They are no threat to us, brothers. They simply happened here on accident." He turned to the three Elves and said, "My name is Prandix. I'm the leader of the Attica Dwarven League, the only free confederation of colonies on this planet."

"What happened?" Linwe asked. "It looked like a warzone above ground."

Prandix gave a brief history lesson. Fifty years ago, the Shaoctin disappeared. They didn't come to collect their annual tribute. After two months of not hearing from the Shaoctin, the three races of Elves began quarreling over who had the proper rights to the shao. The Wood Elves claimed the shao because it was in their forest. The Mountain Elves claimed the shao because they had been the primary contact with the Shaoctin through the shao. The Plains Elves boasted the most elite fighting army on Attica. They wanted to claim it for themselves for "security" purposes. Eventually war broke out between the three races. The forest was wiped out. The Wood Elves were hunted down and killed.

Ten years ago, the shao reactivated but no one came through. The Plains Elves and the Mountain Elves called a truce in their war over the artifact to see if it was even worth fighting over any more. The Mountain Elves' sages, who were keepers of the shao, tried to get the portal to work but failed. Without being able to activate the shao, the Plains Elves slaughtered the Mountain Elves' sages. War erupted and has continued until now.

"But what about you dwarves?" Arianna asked.

Prandix said, "We kept out of it mostly. The Shaoctin maintained their grip on Attica because they had many cells of dwarven assassins. Many among our League continue to train assassins in this way to keep the Elves going. Whenever a cease fire or truce is called, an assassin is sent out to make sure the fighting continues."

Elrohir sneered, "So we really ended up at the bottom of the barrel, didn't we?"

A couple of Dwarves stepped towards Elrohir, but Prandix backed them off. "Not so much," he said. "We don't condone their actions, but we understand the politics behind them. The Dwarves control the mining operations throughout the world. The Elves must purchase their materials from us. They can send each other to the afterlife for all we care. We're still the ones who really rule this planet."

Arianna asked cautiously, "But how can we get off this world? We can't go back to the surface and risk being killed in the battle's crossfire."

"It wouldn't work anyway," Prandix said. "You cannot activate the shao."

"So," Linwe asked, "we're stuck here?"

"Not such a bad thing," several of the Dwarves around them said.

Prandix held up his hand to silence the group. "You cannot activate the shao up there. The activation sphere isn't there. It's down here. The Elves can battle over possession of the shao all they want. They won't be able to make it work." He looked at the visitors, Elrohir especially. "You see, we hold the power in the situation. The shao is useless to the Elves."

"Tell them the rest, Prandix," a loud voice came down a connecting mine shaft. "Let our new friends know about our actions."

An ancient Dwarf emerged from the mine shaft. He was bent over and walked with a cane. He made his way slowly to the middle of the cavern and stood before Linwe and Arianna.

It pained Arianna to see the old dwarf slumped over so much. It seemed that he would topple to the ground by breathing wrong.

Prandix bowed reverently as the older Dwarf passed by him. The old Dwarf said, "The shao above ground is useless. The Elves are fighting over a ring that can do nothing for them."

"But they can use it to go to other worlds as we did," Arianna protested.

"They cannot," the old Dwarf replied. "It is a prototype. It only allows traffic coming in. There is no going out through it."

The old dwarf caught his breath again and continued, "It was part of a Shaoctin experiment that would bring two shao portals to each world. In Attica, the outgoing portal is underground. The Elves want nothing to do with our portion of the world. They leave it to us because they cannot get 'dirty'. That's a Dwarf's job."

The old dwarf coughed quite a bit. After the fit was over, he pointed to Prandix. "My son will make sure you get away from Attica. Our outgoing portal is only good for going to where the Shaoctin Imperical Castle had been. If that isn't where you came from, you'll have the opportunity to try again from there. From there you can go anywhere."

Prandix motioned for the Elves to follow him. He took them through a series of twisting and criss-crossing mine shafts. They finally entered a very large cavern with a shao ring in the middle.

Prandix instructed the Dwarf next to the shao sphere to activate the ring. He stood before the shao and invited the guests to join him. He said, "Here's hoping you get home. Always know that you have friends on Attica that will be available if you need help."

He stuck his hand out to Elrohir. Elrohir reluctantly took it and shook it firmly. "It's good to have friends through the portal."

"Not every place is so friendly," Prandix cautioned them. "There were very many places in turmoil when the Shaoctin were in control. With them gone, there's no telling what those places might be."

The shao shimmered and filled the cavern with a cool, unnatural light. The Elves stepped through the shao and found themselves back at the colony. The colonists ran out excitedly to meet them, but they stopped with a collective gasp to see only three emerge.

The questions of what, where and why kept battering the three survivors. Arianna withdrew the best she could. She had a mission that she had to complete. Failing to uphold a deathbed pledge was like killing the sick person yourself. Arianna had to talk to Marcus ...

First Time Through (part 1 of 2)

Location: Attica (AEIOU)

Before we get to the main heroes, we still need to tell the tale of the first trip through the portal. Shakaar and Nerina Meadowleaf took the lead for the mission. Knowing that Ireth Elensar, the ship's galley chef, was also a diviner, they asked for her wisdom in regards to a trek through the portal.

Her answer came back cryptic, as it does from all diviners. She said, "There will be great success and great tragedy from this device. We will gain our independence through it, but the price of independence will be high."

When asked about the scope of her prediction, she said, "As long as the gods want to give for a time is how long it is. A thousand years are like a day. A day is like a thousand years."

"Cryptic as usual," Shakaar mumbled to Nerina. "I think we should go anyway. Maybe this 'great tragedy' and 'great price' will be many years down the road. Let's see what the others say."

Shakaar and Nerina went to the rest of the camp. Standing in the courtyard of the recently finished colony hall, Nerina made a persuasive and impassioned speech about the usefulness of the portal. The crops had just finished being planted and the ship's rations were all but depleted. This portal might be able to bring about trade and new food sources.

After her plea, six others, including Ireth the diviner, were prepared to use the portal. The group of eight adventurers tried to anticipate every possible situation they might encounter.

With no progress having been made on deciphering the other Drow markings, great debate arose over the combination to be used first. Everything from economics to ancient Drow religion was used to come up with reasons to use individual codes. Finally, Shakaar and Nerina's daughter Analos came up with an idea that seemed fair and rational to all.

"While not an expert on Drow language or culture," she said, "I think maybe the most prudent course of action would be to take the combinations in order." She looked at the older Elvish sages, who nodded back to her. "We've discovered that each symbol is at most used one time in each combination. We've also established the order in which these symbols appear in the Drow alphabet. The only course of action that seems fair and logical is to visit each place in the alphabetical order the combination would have in a Drow dictionary."

Almost everyone agreed with the idea. The only major dissenter was Shakaar himself. He still advanced his idea of using the combinations that actually spelled Drow words. He was quickly overruled and outvoted. The first sequence had been chosen: AEIOU. Whatever they would find on the other side of the portal, they knew, would change the colony forever.

They dialed up the portal with the chosen combination. The group of eight stood bravely before the portal, ready for whatever waited. Ready for any possibility.

Except what they found. They appeared on the edge of a scorched, dented battlefield with two armies engaged in fierce combat. Noticing the activiation of the portal, both commanders sent troops to fight the new enemy.

Nerina and Analos were the first to be wounded in the attack. Ireth and Shakaar both tried to convince the attackers that they posed no threat, but they were killed by the sword.

The other four in the group were captured by the rival armies. The armies began fighting each other again over proper possession of the prisoners. The four escaped, but not without Talia being shot as she ran.

They made it to a nearby cave. Outside of the major battlefield, they could figure out what to do next. Talia had been shot in the leg. Without an herbalist or a healer, Talia's wound was crudely dressed. The dressing didn't stop the blood flow. Talia grew weaker and weaker as the blood left her body. Arianna, Linwe and Elrohir tried to keep Talia calm.

Talia and Arianna bonded through the entire ordeal. Arianna kept her talking. Talia talked on and on about Marcus and Dale. "Dale's not even a year old and he's going to lose his mother," Talia said over and over. Arianna did her best to keep Talia's spirits up, but there was little hop of help from the colony. There were no backup rescuers coming through the portal any time soon.

When things looked their absolute bleakest, Talia made Arianna promise to take care of Marcus and Dale. She said with her dying breath, "Hey, he might even learn to like Elves."

Talia passed into the afterlife peacefully enough. Arianna was shaken by her final words. Could Marcus truly be racist against Elves? He had always seemed to get along just find with Shakaar on many points. Talia was near death, though. She could have been completely out of her mind.

For another hour, nobody said anything. Elrohir broke the silence. "We can't just stay here and die of starvation. We have to warn the colony about the dangers here. We don't need the entire colony coming here to be slaughtered little by little. Let's see if there is another way out."

The three Elves, who typically didn't like to be underground, followed the inset of the cave until they found what they thought to be an old mine shaft descending many feet below them. Without torches and the sun going down behind them, they could just barely make out the bottom and the bucket that could be used to lower them into another adventure.

Elrohir turned to the ladies, "Anyone want to see what's down there?" Arianna was hesitant, but Linwe was more than ready for a change of scenery. She pulled her dagger from its scabbard on her shin and said, "I'll go down as long as you can keep it steady and don't drop me like the clumsy ogre you are at sea!"

Linwe climbed into the bucket. Elrohir lowered her slowly into the darkness. After a couple of minutes, the bucket hit the bottom. Linwe could see lights off in the distance in at least five directions.

Linwe was about to shout up to Elrohir and Arianna when a large pawlike hand closed over her mouth. Stunned by the quick movements, Linwe couldn't even scream when the paw left her mouth.

She found herself in a small cavern surrounded by dwarves. Their axes were in their hands, sensing a threat to their homes.

"What are you doing here?" a grizzled old dwarf asked gruffly. He looked closely at the points of her ears. "Shaoctin?" he asked. The rest of the dwarves drew in closer with their axes.

"I don't know what you mean," Linwe said. "Who are the Shaoctin?"

"You are Shaoctin," the dwarf said. "The scourge of many lands has returned. How many of you are there?"

After Linwe climbed out of the bucket, Elrohir pulled it back up and let Arianna down. When Arianna hit bottom, she saw a large, dark shadow walking away from her. She yanked on the rope and Elrohir pulled the bucket back to the surface.

Elrohir let the rope feet through the hold as he pulled it back up. He climbed into the bucket. He lowered himself down the hole. The bucket jerked unevenly as his bulk kept sending him into the side of the shaft. Noisily he made it to the bottom.

Arianna told him about the large shadow. Seeing no sign of Linwe, they decided to follow the shadow. Maybe it would take them to her. They found her, surrounded by dwarves in a large cavern. It didn't look like she had been invited to this particular tea party.

Elrohir heard the last statement of the head dwarf, "You are Shaoctin." Shaoctin. The word echoed in his brain. He had heard it before. He knew it wasn't a good thing, but couldn't remember why. "The scourge of many lands" could be any empire's tyrant. But there was something about the name. How he wished he'd listened to Ireth's ramblings.

The dwarves were getting restless and edgy with Linwe's lack of cooperation. Elrohir and Arianna were far too outnumbered to put up a fight against the dwarves. He looked to Arianna for advice.

"I don't think we can fight them," she said.

"We're outnumbered eight to one," Elrohir said. "With your lack of training in the dagger, it might as well be fifteen to one."

"Then let's try talking," Arianna said. She emerged from the shadow of the cavern's entrance. "Excuse me," she started, "I was hoping we might be able to talk."

TO BE CONTINUED ...

The Three Great Heroes

Location: Shao Island (EUWYZ)

As mentioned in the Preface to these stories, the older portion deals with the three great heroes. They have not been mentioned up to this point because they were born on the island after the colony was built. This is the story of their births and the childhood dreams that brought then together as the best of friends and a band of brothers.

It wasn't very long after the boat disappeared that Talia Torvalds and Amanda Telvar found out that they were pregnant. Their children would be the first to be born on the island. The hopes and dreams of survival were heightened as this news spread through the colony.

Marcus and Talia Torvalds had both been raised on farms south of Waterdeep. It seemed natural that they were chosen for the first colonial wave since crops would be needed in this new place for survival.

Bern Telvar was a halfling forestwalker. He was most at home in the dense forests northwest of Faerun. He could move quickly and quietly through even the most dense of forests. He was truly disappointed with the extremely small, sparse forest on the island.

His wife, Amanda, on the other hand, was grateful for the lack of forest. She was an herbalist. She studied the plants and other vegetation to find purposeful uses for them in life. While she and her husband lived on the edge of Faerun, she travelled extensively throughout the territory, studing all kinds of flora.

It quickly became a contest of wills in the colony. At one point, the colony almost split between those who believed Talia would deliver first and those who believed Amanda would deliver first. The tension in the colony grew to such an enormous strain that Talia and Amanda threatened to drown themselves in the sea if there was any further gossip about the pregnancies and deliveries.

In the end, Amanda delivered first. It was her third pregnancy so it came a bit easier for her than Talia, who was having her first. Tanya and Maria were excited to have their little brother, whom they named Chack. Talia delivered a few days later, another little boy whom they named Dale.

With both of the first children born out of the way, the colony proceeded to finish building the colony hall and decipher the Drow language enough to find a listing of fifty-six (56) combinations of the eight Drow characters in sequences of five at a time on what the directions called the "Shao sphere," a two-foot diameter sphere that controlled the portal. There were various other markings with the listing but they made no sense. In fact, most didn't even spell known Drow words. More investigation had to be done with the portal.

The first time they decided to activate the Shao, after they verified that it was a teleportation device, was a disaster (see the next story for more details). Eight went through the gate, only three returned. Talia Torvalds had been one of the dead. Arianna Meadowleaf, who was one of the survivors, had promised Talia, right before she died, to take care of Marcus and Dale.

Not long after, Marcus and Arianna were married. She quickly became pregnant. Two years later, Mackley was born. Marcus and Arianna raised Dale and Mackley as brothers. Arianna has always considered herself as Dale's mother and Dale considers her to be his true mother.

The three heroes are born! Their stories may now be told.

New Friends

Location: AEIWZ Zernff (Year of Light 144)

The stars shone brightly in the clear night sky. Gruff looked up at the stars in awe. Even though he was a fourth-generation "light dweller," the illumination of the night sky still held a certain awe for him.

Life on Zernff was wonderful as far as Gruff was concerned. As he reviewed his people's history, he still could not understand what would cause the first "light dwellers" to leave their underground tunnels.

Little did he know how small his world would be seem by the end of this night. Gruff was on his patrol shift when he saw a star shoot across the sky. Normally Gruff wouldn't think twice about a shooting star, but this one caught his attention because it turned. It looked like it was coming straight for the Bugbear camp.

As the star came closer, it got bigger. Instead of getting brighter as it got closer, it actually grew darker. After a few minutes of getting closer, larger and darker, Gruff could see that the shooting star was actually a plastic cube.

It was a plastic cube that he could see through. There were people inside! They weren't Bugbears, but they were definitely people.

Gruff blew his horn and grabbed his sword. These people came from out of the night sky. Gruff didn't know if they would be friendly. He wasn't taking any chances either.

As he watched the cube, he could hear the other Bugbear warriors coming toward him from their camp in the woods. One side of the cube opened as a large group of people came to the opening.

Four beings came out in flowing purple robes. They held swords in their hands that made Gruff's sword look like a butter knife. They had helmets on their heads that covered their faces. They stood in two lines facing each other.

Two more beings stepped out behind them. Their robes were blue. They had nothing covering their heads so Gruff could plainly see their faces. Both beings looked like tigers with golden fur and large stripes.

By the time these two stepped out of the cube, the rest of the Bugbear Guard was standing behind Gruff with their swords drawn. The two tiger figures took little notice of the Guards' swords.

The two tiger figures walked right up to Gruff and the rest of the Bugbear guards. The one of Gruff's left spoke up.

"You are Gruff, are you not?" he asked Gruff plainly.

Gruff looked puzzled. How did this tiger know him? He had never seen anyone like these two before. He looked toward the cube again and saw many other tigers walking around.

After a moment, Gruff finally answered, "I am Gruff. Who exactly are you?"

"I am Danzig, Duke of the Blasen," the tiger on the left said. "We've been watching your people for quite some time. We feel that we can help yuou become better hunters."

Gruff eyed the tigers wearily. He wasn't sure that they could trust these Blasen. Finally, he had his answer.

"We'll give it a chance," Gruff replied. "We're always interested in new hunting techniques."