Malfyre

I.

The Portmound guards gave us suspicious eyes
when Ihsan introduced us, and despite
his shining armor and his gallant poise,
and feral Laeroth’s nobility,
they were unmoved until they heard the name
of Malfyre, hidden heretofore behind
his friends. The unassuming halfling waved,
and suddenly the guards went pale with fear,
and let us in. We hid our wonderment.

Within that seedy town we questioned him:
“Have you been here before? What have you done
to earn such infamy?” 

    			             To which he said,
“Um, I don’t know. This place is new to me.”

We let the matter rest— his wily tricks
had helped us out before. So to a bar
we went, in hopes of hearing loosened tongues
speaking of Portmound’s Shade Society,
the murderous cult of Azdan: where they hid,
and what new evils they might be about.
It didn’t take us long. They boldly mixed
with citizens in every part of town,
and didn’t fear the law which they controlled.
In that dark bar we saw a hooded man
with hooded friends around a corner booth.
While we considered eavesdropping, we saw
Malfyre was gone. For presently he hid,
a shadow in the rafters over them.

He heard the hooded man say, “Elechyte
could summon up the Shade if she so chose:
his soul resides within her wedding ring.
So why must we attempt to raise old beasts,
who likely won’t obey us easily,
from underneath the world? It makes no sense.
The Shade could conquer anything he wished.”

“But Elechyte,” his neighbor said, “knows much
that we do not. Perhaps the time is wrong.
Have patience, dear Damante. Have you not
risen from lowly ranks to rule this town?”

Damante said, “And yet, despite my rank,
she keeps these secrets from me.”

					                 Then a voice
among them said, “I’ve heard that Elechyte
intends to kill the Shade, and take his place.”

Damante turned to Malfyre, who had spoken,
in robes he had by chance, and sitting now
beside them. “Who are you?” Damante asked.

“I’m just a lowly member, but I hear
some things that people dare not say to you.”

And this ignited heated conversation
which Malfyre used to subtly sneak away.

Now Laeroth was drinking at the bar
with someone he’d just met, who said his name
was Malfyre. “You’re the second one I know,”
said Laeroth. “Both halflings, too. That’s wild.”

The Malfyre of our party saw them then,
and made his way discreetly to the bar,
and looked without believing at the halfling.
“Kenton?” he said. The other looked at him;
his eyes went wide, and then he whispered, “Malfyre!”
And then they hugged, while we were all confused.
“I thought that you were dead,” said Malfyre. Then
“I thought that you were dead,” said Kenton. “So
I took your name to honor you.”

				                    “This guy,”
said Malfyre, “Taught me everything I know.
No greater pair of thieves had ever lived–
until the heist we botched, though not as bad
as we had thought, it seems. I should have known
that you would not be killed so easily.”

“I likewise underestimated you,”
said Kenton. So they fondly reminisced
until he asked what brought us to this town,
And Malfyre told him of our quest to stop
the Shade Society from further ills.
“There I can help,” said Kenton. “I’m involved
with them, but just to hurt them from within.
My reputation here is such that none
will dare to cross me, even if I act
a little bit peculiar. So for you
I’ll get some extra robes without arousing
suspicion. Give me ‘til tonight. We’ll meet
within the cemetery.”

			           “Is there fun
to have here in the meantime?” Malfyre asked.

“Well, knowing you, and how you like cool treasures,
there is a fun black market by the docks.”

“That’s where I’ll go,” said Malfyre. So he went,
and there he bought a galleon with funds
collected from our quests, and didn’t ask
how it came to that market. It was his,
regardless of its past. He dubbed it Darkfyre.
The seller asked, “You wish to be a pirate?”
“I am a pirate,” Malfyre said.

			                        Then night came
upon the cemetery where we met
with Kenton, who distributed vile robes
that we might blend with that accursed lot.
He led us to a mausoleum where
he placed a coin, both sides engraved with eyes.
The mausoleum opened to us then,
and down into its frigid depths we stepped.

Through corridors of stonework barely lit,
past cultists murmuring their cruel oaths,
we followed Kenton to a chamber door
which opened at his knock. Damante stood
and glared at us through Kenton’s explanation
that we were members of a sister branch:
of Qurrel, refugees from its destruction.

“I was a captain there,” Llewellyn said.

“Then I will meet with you,” Damante snarled,
“and you alone.” So in Llewellyn went.

Damante asked how Qurrel met its end.
“A monster,” said Llewellyn, “which we stirred
from slumber underground. But we could not
control it. Many fell beneath its legs,
its awful, endless legs; and others died
within its monstrous mandibles. Their screams
still ring within my ears. But I’m alive,
and won’t allow a similar fate here.”

“That’s outside your authority. Do you
presume to enter my domain unbidden
and tell me how to run my fellowship?”

“Oh, not at all. I only mean to give
the insight that I have, that you may lead
with all the information due to you.
And since I understand that you intend
to summon forth a monster (like we did),
you ought to know what happened. Furthermore,
I think that Elechyte does us disservice
by waiting still to resurrect the Shade.
That power could have altered Qurrel’s fate.
Her reticence to use her ring is strange.”

At this Damante drew his dagger fast
and at Llewellyn’s throat he placed its point,
and said, “Have you been spying on me, boy?
How dare you question Master Elechyte?
You’re bold to enter here, but you won’t leave.”

Llewellyn trembled, looking to the blade,
but noticed it was not a blade at all:
for at his throat Damante held a carrot.
And then Llewellyn saw a friendly face
winking within the shadows: Malfyre!

					                        Then
Damante saw the carrot in his hand,
and threw it to the floor in baffled rage,
and at Llewellyn looked with bestial eyes.
His nose expanded to a canine snout,
his fingers lengthened into fearsome claws,
his growing body bristled now with hair:
before Llewellyn loomed a killer wolf.

But somehow, too, his halfling friend grew tall:
on Laeroth’s strong shoulders he was perched!
The two combined to tower o’er Damante,
and leapt on him with powerful swift strikes
that brought the wolf to death before he’d pounced.

“We’ve got your back,” said Malfyre, grinning wide.


II.

So Kenton took Damante’s place as leader
of Portmound’s Shade Society. To us
he promised to suppress their evil will
and cleverly dismantle them. 

				                   Of course
he had opponents vying for his role,
Quezello chief among them, sorceress
who’d given much to that society:
not just her time and loyalty and skill,
but something even greater than her magic:
her sister, now contained within a gem
whose power she bequeathed to Neverdead,
Lord of the Nightspire. After all of this,
what right had this young halfling to succeed
Damante? He served no one but himself.
But his charisma was enough, it seemed,
to win the trust of all these Portmound fools.
Not all: there were some wiser ones (a few)
she formed into a faction under her,
ensuring that this halfling’s wrongful rule
was challenged from the start, while brewing plans
for violent insurrection soon enough.

When Kenton told us of this sore divide,
we thought to help him quell rebellion quick.
So Malfyre planned to infiltrate her office.
But as we planned inside the bar, we saw
a ratfolk, foreign to these parts, arrive.
He sat down at the bar and drank alone.
So Malfyre sat beside him and conversed.
“What is your name?” he asked. 

 				                      The ratfolk said,
“Jeq I am called, a warrior displaced
by werewolves warring in my land. I’ve come
to crush the werewolve's power where I can.
Assassination is my quest, for here
a werewolf rules the town. But quiet now!
I mustn’t be discovered.”

			                   Malfyre said,
“We killed that werewolf weeks ago.”

					                      “Oh my!
Then I’m without a purpose here, I guess.”

“There is still evil here, if that’s a quest
you’d like to undertake.”

			                 “Perhaps. Explain.”
So Malfyre told him of his plan to sneak
and foil Quezello’s plans for mutiny.
“A noble quest! Why yes! It suits me well.
I’ll go with you within the witch’s lair
and keep a lookout while you search the place.”

Quezello kept a camp outside of town
away from Kenton’s loyal cultists. There
Malfyre went with Jeq. They waited til
Quezello’s underlings had left, and then
Jeq kept his eyes on the perimeter
while Malfyre looked through documents and chests.
The ratfolk’s eyes were keen, but not enough
to see through spells Quezello cast. And she
invisibly approached, ignoring him,
and went directly to the halfling. Then
she said, “A friend of Malfyre’s, I suppose?”
–for Kenton went by that name still. Then she
appeared before him just so he could see
the sorceress, before he turned to stone:
he shrank down to a little statuette
while Jeq too slowly rushed to intervene.
Quezello grabbed his statue, cast a spell,
and disappeared as Jeq clung to her arm.

The world transformed before the ratfolk Jeq,
and suddenly he found himself within
strange twisting walls of darkness. Still he held
Quezello’s sleeve, and in her hand he saw
the tiny Malfyre statue. So he swiped
the statue from her hand before she knew
that he had come along with her. 

                                                         He ran,
and out the nearest window quickly climbed,
and barely saw the ground dark miles below.
Quezello screamed behind him in a rage.
Jeq gripped the tower walls with nimble claws,
and down its ancient surface, and around
he climbed, avoiding windows, which he thought
ignored all logic of design, as though
they were not built, but pierced through eldritch flesh,
like wounds upon a massive carcass. 

    					                     Then
within its walls he heard her voice again:
“He’s petrified. I’ll take the antidote
sourced from the basilisks which guard the gate,
and kept in vials of their blood. I’ll crush
all of them. You can kill the rat; not him.”

Jeq waited ‘til their footsteps left the room,
then climbed in through the window; followed her:
he could not let his friend remain a statue. 
Through corridors which branched like arteries
he crept behind Quezello, far enough
that she could not detect him, ‘til a door
between them opened. Out a cultist stepped,
blocking Jeq’s path. The ratfolk hid at once,
considered killing him, but stayed his hand,
waited for him to pass, and then resumed
trailing Quezello– much too far behind.
He took a turn which led him from her path,
then frantically retraced his steps until
he caught her scent, and chased it to the room
which held the antidote. 

      				          He saw her there,
blood on the floor amidst the shards of glass:
he was too late. The cure had been destroyed.

So Jeq resolved to take the halfling hence,
and find some other cure, some other place.
He climbed out through a window yet again,
and scampered down the tower from without
until he reached the moat around its base.
He dove into the darkness, and he swam
toward the iron gates. 

 			              But in the depths
were other creatures too: the basilisks,
the serpent sentries of the Spire. They writhed
within the water under him. He felt
a monstrous tail encircle him, and squeeze.
He plunged his dagger through its scales. Blood gushed
and poured into the moat. Jeq took the statue
and bathed it in the basilisk's black blood.
Malfyre returned, and once he saw the snakes,
he grabbed his magic carpet from his bag.
They climbed aboard, and flew into the sky.

“What a strange dream I had,” said Malfyre then.
“I saw all sorts of things inside the Spire:
Quezello, you– and what a chase you gave!
But also, in a cell, Miss Elechyte–
I must go back. I need to get her ring,
or it will bring great evil to the world.
I’ll drop you somewhere safe before I go.”

“You won’t,” said Jeq. “I’ve never had more fun!
If you’ll continue questing, so will I.”

So back into the Nightspire flew the friends,
where Malfyre knew the layout from his dream.
They sneaked into the prison, where they saw
Miss Elechyte alone inside her cell,
regal despite the clear indignity
which she had suffered here; and Malfyre thought
she couldn’t be as bad as he had heard,
despite the things she’d done– how could that be?
It didn’t matter now; he had a task.
Moral deliberation later. Now
he waited for some jailor to arrive.

At length there came a man who wore a cape
around the deathly pallor of his skin.
Elechyte looked, then shouted, “Neverdead!
Release me from this cell. I’ve work to do.”

Neverdead said, “Some rumors say that you
have treachery against the Shade in mind.”

“Idiots say such things. You know them false.”

“I do, and I admire the work you’ve done.
But if you do not hold our people’s faith,
you cannot lead them to the lengths we need.
I’m sorry, Elechyte. Give me the ring.”

A hatred flashed behind her eyes. But then
she reached her hand out through the iron bars.
Neverdead took her magic wedding ring.
He held it in his hand a moment, then
within his cloak he hid it with a grin,
and left Miss Elechyte within her cell.

Outside the tower, Malfyre rode with Jeq
upon the flying carpet once again.
“I feel a little bad for her,” said Malfyre,
“but boy, this wedding ring is pretty neat.”

“How long until he notices it’s gone?”
Jeq asked, and Malfyre shrugged. 

         			                        “Not long, I guess.
The only thing I’m really sad about
is I won’t see his face when he finds out.”