New Crow Time

New Crow Time 🐦‍⬛🦊🌟

Hey guys, I’ve got this weeks draft finished I just haven’t had a chance to edit it yet.

I’ll be getting the next part posted tonight after I’m off work. Thanks for the patience. (:

Welcome to Falconreach

After nearly an hour of walking and small talk, the trio came to a bridge crossing a large river. Just beyond the other side, the walls of Falconreach could just be seen over some trees. 

“This is the bridge of the hydra,” Twilly said cheerfully as he began crossing.

“Uh,” Velyn said, “why is it called that?”

“Because a hydra lives in the waters here.” Twilly responded.

“Oh,” Velyn said, tightening their grip on their sword in case it would be needed.

“Don’t worry Velyn,” Celestia said with a smile, “the hydra hasn’t been seen around these parts in a few years.”

“Ah, okay, cool,” Velyn said calmly, though their grip didn’t loosen on the hilt of their blade until the three of them were safely across the bridge. 

“So Twilly, you said you spend a lot of time in Falconreach?” Velyn asked.

“Yep!” Twilly responded, “I view this town as my home. There are a lot of adventurers that come through here that often need healing or a bit of advice and I enjoy helping them out where I can!”

“That’s really nice of you,” Velyn said, “I don’t know that I could see myself really staying in one place for too long. I like travel too much for that. What about you Priestess?”

Before Celestia could respond, the sound of bells ringing could be heard from the direction of the town. 

“Those are the alarm bells,” Twilly said, his pace quickening, “we should hurry.”

The three of them arrived at the edge of town ten minutes later where there were some people wearing silver and gold armor seemingly preparing for some sort of battle.

“Guardian Anna!” Twilly shouted, causing one of the figures to turn and look in their direction. 

“Twilly!” Anna shouted back, surprise in her voice, “Did you bring us reinforcements? Wait, is that Priestess Celestia?! What are you doing here ma’am? Falconreach is under siege from an undead army!”

Before Twilly or the Priestess could respond, Velyn cut in. 

“Undead? Tell me what’s going on, I’ll do what I can to help.”

“We haven’t seen an army like this since, well, forever honestly,” Anna responded, “We’ve been doing our best to hold them off but we’re getting pushed back with each wave they send. This gate is our last line of defense! Look, I don’t know who you are, but if you’re here to help, follow the path north to the front line!”

Velyn nodded at Anna, then to Celestia and Twilly they said, “It was nice meeting both of you,” before they sprinted northward toward where the guardian said the front line was.

Once Velyn reached the mishmash group of guardians, adventurers and even a few paladins they stopped for a moment to gauge who seemed to be in charge. There was one paladin who stood out form the rest, with short brown hair and a large golden axe. Everybody seemed to be giving him an added amount of respect so Velyn ran up to him.

“I’m Velyn, where can you use me sir?” They asked quickly.

The paladin turned and looked at them with a big smile on his face. 

“If you’re hungry for a fight with the undead, I could use you with me!” He said cheerfully.

Velyn’s response was to grin and nod. The two of them ran forward and crashed into the newest wave of animated skeletons that were charging toward the town. They slashed, sliced and smashed any enemy that came within their reach. As time progressed and more waves of enemies came, the number of people guarding the town slowly dwindled as they became injured and had to retreat. But the paladin and Velyn continued to fight, not stopping until the enemy numbers each wave dwindled and eventually ceased altogether. It took nearly an hour and at the end of it the two were left panting heavily and standing surrounded by broken bones.

The paladin once again grinned at Velyn and held a hand out, “I’m Artix.”

Velyn took his hand and returned the grin, “I’m Velyn, nice to meet you.”

Guardian Anna appeared, a couple other guardians with her.

“Did the two of you really destroy the army on your own?” She asked in bewilderment.

The two heroes looked around and smiled sheepishly, Velyn saying, “Yeah, I guess we did.”

“I’m impressed!” Anna said, “There may be a place for you in the guardians, stranger. But where did these undead come form? Ah, don’t worry about that, we’ll take care of things from here. The two of you should head into town and get some rest.”

Artix shook his head though and said, “I wish I could Guardian Anna, but I need to return to the Doomwood. Amityvale may need help.” Before receiving a response, Artix was already headed off in the direction the undead had come from.

Velyn shook their head with a smile on their face, “What a weird guy. Is there an inn that I could find in town?”

Anna nodded, directing a young looking boy with brown hair and what looked to be training armor to come over.

“This is Ash Dragonblade,” she said, “Ash this is Velyn. Please lead them to the inn Serenity is getting ready.”

With that, Anna and the other guardians went after Artix. Ash smiled up at Velyn, waving for them to follow behind him. 

“Come with me, I’ll show you to the new inn!” He said excitedly.

Velyn smiled and followed the boy into the town.

By the time the two of them had reached the inn, the exhaustion from the fight had set in and Velyn was barely conscious enough to comprehend the words being said to them.

Velyn awoke to the sound of knocking and a woman’s voice teasingly saying, “Wake up, lazy-bones, it’s time to save the world!”

Velyn stretched out a little bit but didn’t respond. The woman’s voice came again, “Come on, I made you a hero’s breakfast!”

Velyn groaned and sat up slowly, rubbing the sleep out of their eyes and looking around. They were in a single bed in a small room that seemed to have been thrown together quickly just for the purpose of giving Velyn a space to rest. As they looked toward the door they were met with a woman looking in at them. She had long blonde hair and emerald eyes, lips in a small smile. 

“Once you’re ready just come on out,” she said, “I’ve got a table set just for you in the common space.” 

Then the woman disappeared, closing the door as she left. Velyn sat up and realized they were still wearing the armor they had battled in earlier. Or was that the day before? They didn’t actually know how long they had been out for. Shaking their head, they stood and stretched a bit more before walking over to the door. Their sword was leaning against the wall beside the door, so they grabbed it and returned it to the sheath which was still on their waist.

I must’ve been really tired after all that fighting, they thought to themself as they exited the room. They were immediately met with thunderous applause and as they looked around at everybody that was clapping they figured at least half the town had to be there.

“Oh, uh, hi, I’m Velyn,” they said somewhat anxiously.

The woman that woke them up stepped forward and held her hand out to shake Velyn’s.

“I’m Serenity,” she said smiling, “the townsfolk just wanted to give their thanks in person for what you did.”

Ash excitedly cut in at this point, shouting, “it was so cool! I saw you out there, you had to have defeated at least a hundred of those skeletons!”

A man that looked to be in his forties with brown hair, a mustache and a neatly kept beard patted the boy on the shoulder and laughed, saying, “alright everyone we’ve given our thanks, let’s let them eat in peace.”

With that the man led the everyone out, leading Ash with a hand on his shoulder.

Still Not Active

Clearly. But I have been working on the campaign that I run every weekend for my family! It's a homebrewed version of the world of Lore from DragonFable. Things have been going pretty alright? But I still have no idea where I'm taking the story so I'm trying to work on all that stuff today. Even when I don't have the energy to play that game, I'm still so obsessed with the world. smh

Work Hard

Hey guys, sorry I've ben radio-silent for a few weeks. Work picked up drastically so I've been working 50+ hour weeks and I am tired. I haven't had much energy to sit down and write, but I'll try to get the next couple parts out soon. (: