Kunark

This is a short story based on the online roleplaying game Everquest II
___________

Peace has alluded me since I first landed on Kunark's rough shores. Even the ship ride from Antonica's docks to the continent was enough to jolt me awake every few minutes. The water is thicker, angrier around Kunark. Redder. Perhaps the land was spared the worst of the Cataclysms all those years ago, but it has been rent in other ways.

I had barely set foot on shore when I was petitioned by agents of Teren's Grasp – the remnant of what was once the illustrious High Elf colony of Firiona Vie. The populace, though resilient, quivers in fear; trapped between two powerful and ruthless empires. Soft-skin is endangered in Kunark, so the outpost has eagerly welcomed and employed the northerners who have been frequenting its docks as of late. Most certainly they have been too welcoming. There is more to allegiance than skin. I would know...

It did not take me long to learn the law of the land. It did not take me long to learn that in Kunark ideals have a way of being discreetly swept away for convenience's sake. In the moist, eerie jungle of Kunzar; in the rugged, spider-ridden plains of Kylong, innocence is not given haven. One does not leave Kunark without enemies. One does not leave without killing.

Still, Kunark has its appeals – especially for one such as I, tossed between so many worlds as I am. In the land of the lizards, old world fidelities are trivial. The Iksar, the Sarnak, even the Teren care little for the politics of the Shattered Lands. In the ruins of those ancient empires there is no Qeynosian; there is no Freeportian. Not even I, a Tier`Dal, am given a second glance. Not even in the City of Qeynos, to which I have sworn absolute loyalty, am I allotted such indifference.

But politics there are in Kunark, and I learned to the play their intricacies with the cunning for which my race is known. My Dark Elf heritage is not entirely lost to Marr. I found that the Sathirian Empire, though vast and commanding, is not without its dissenters. Indeed, many of its commoners speak of the capitol of Sebilis with disdain. Much like any peasant who is exploited by his protectors, these villagers' loyalty is circumstantial at best. And there is something else: Among the dizzying array of factions in Kunark, I found a people who call on Marr. They call themselves the Reet, and many are held captive by the soulless slave merchants of the empire. They are a clan of primitive frogloks of which I have not seen in all of Norrath. Indeed, I had only read about such a species in the tomes of the Concordium.

Oppression. Slavery of Mithaniel Marr's children. In the murky mist and gray lines of Kunark, there, against those injustices, perhaps I could take my stand and find my purpose in this wanton land. Maybe, with all the innocence lost in my unscrupulous dealings in Kunark, I can find redemption fighting for the cause of the frogloks and for the oppressed peoples on the fringes of the Sathirian Empire.

Maybe ideals can be found in Kunark. But perhaps they must take a back door.

Sebilis' Gates

This is a short story based on the online roleplaying game Everquest II
_________

The little guy never stood a chance. Four arrows now stuck out from where its decayed facial features used to be. What cursed, artificial “life” was left in it compelled its arm to give one last swing before lying still. A drawn out, gurgling croak somehow emitted from the creature's exposed and rotting vocal cords before finally falling silent.

I glanced back at our party's two female rangers and smirked. “I think we got him,” I said. “Though I think your aim is getting a bit lazy, Cerilynn. You seem to have missed the center of this one's pupil.” I shook my head in mock disappointment. She rolled her eyes and casually returned her notched arrow to her quiver and her bow to her shoulder. She waved me on, insisting that I continue through the dark corridors of the city. Dispatching of undead frogloks was not why we had come to Sebilis. But still, I could not help but make a bit of fun out of this grim business.

I narrowed my eyes and locked onto my next two targets. Two more undead froglok guards, deceitfully appearing devoid of any spacial awareness, stood just 60 meters away. One stuck its tongue through a hole is its jaw to slap a fly that had landed on its exposed bicep muscle. When it looked up, all it saw was the bright purple glow of my spell before it was smashed back into the wall in front of which it stood. His companion let loose a stuttering croak before hopping toward me, its spear leading the charge. I waited until the point of the weapon was only inches from my throat before I dropped my right shoulder and spun to the side, slamming the edge of my shield into the back of the creature's head as I completed my turn. Stunned, but still caught in its momentum, it hopped sideways into a wall.

I ran back from where I came just as the first froglok recovered from my spell and had began hopping into the fray. I rounded a corner and stopped, waiting for the two frogloks to catch up. As they came around the same corner, I sat down. Being the shell of creatures they were, they did not even give notice to my strange behavior — nor to the female Tier`Dal ranger who just emerged from the shadows. Two quick arrows were their wake up calls. The arrows hit with such force that both of them were slammed into the corridor's walls with a loud squish.

Persistent, they staggered toward me still. Just as one was about to chop into my skull, a dagger protruded violently from its gut, spraying some sort of putrid yellow fluid onto my armor. The dagger pulled out and the creature fell, revealing to me our halfling, rogue companion. A quick smirk was all he gave before ducking, spinning and back-slashing with his off-handed weapon into the right leg of the other froglok that was about to come down upon him. The creature fell down before me. I still sat, glancing into its lifeless eyes for several moments. Was anything left in there? Or was this truly only a shell? It tried to rise, but two more arrows slammed violently into the corpse, pinning it to the floor.

A faint breeze of air blew past my face as the undead froglok's head slumped. I could have sworn the creature smiled.

I stood up and made a show of wiping off my armor. The others lightly chuckled. There would be more stained armor before the day was done. Finished with the lifeless pawns of Sebilis, our goal was now the city's Mercantile District. There we would draw flowing blood; there we would fight an enemy afraid to die; and there we would disturb the comforts of the overconfident Sathirian Empire.