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Here ya go. A little friday treat. It's not done yet, but i may finish it some today or on Monday. This follows the stories in my Journal for those of you that haven't read them before. You will want to read them first. Anyways:

The Journeyman years.

The rangers of surefall have a very structured apprenticeship program. The first several years of life are spent learning the ways of the various woodland creatures and the forest. It is not uncommon to see tiny ranger and druid balls of dirt zipping through the forest floor, playing tag with the bears and the rabbits and squirrels. What looks like play to the untrained eye is all part of the program, letting the youngsters get acclimated and decide their role in life. Those with an affinity for magic are later placed in the druid track, the more martial ones get selected for ranger training. Every once in a while one of the children doesn’t really fit the life style, or sometimes we get an outsider, so the glade doesn’t become too isolated from the world.

At about the age of 6, the formal apprenticeship program begins. This consists of learning the spells and skills needed for glade life. . Things continue along this path until about the age of 12. At that time, a journeyman ranger is paired with a full ranger, to undertake a 1 year journey throughout the land of norrath. The rangers of the glade serve a variety of purposes, as messengers, trackers, resource collectors, and occasionally warriors in the various local bandit elimination efforts, and our battles with the undead minions that are currently laying siege to Kithocor. I like to think us rangers do our part.

My journeyman year started out much like any other ranger, at least on the surface. After classes were dismissed for the season, we all set about readying our equipment for the journey. They don’t tell you where you are going, or who with until the last minute, because part of the test is your level of preparedness, so a large part of the month leading up to the journey is spent agonizing over how many tunics to bring, or whether one should take a winter cloak or extra rain gear. This is fueled of course by horror stories passed down from returning journeymen, like the druid that had to wear the same pair of socks for a year, or the ranger that forgot his bowstring.

It was about a week before the pairing ceremony, when we are assigned our ranger mentor for the journey, and I was busy myself trying to decide which quiver to bring, when my right arm began to itch. Puzzled, I removed my bracer. Underneath, the skin looked bruised and pale, as though someone had been beating on my arm with a hammer. I looked at my left arm. The exact same thing.

Now I was really puzzled. I couldn’t recall banging my arms against anything, and they had looked fine this morning. The bracers were kind of new though, and I wasn’t finished breaking them in, so I shrugged it off. I removed both the bracers, intending to take a look at them later, and wrapped a bandage with a cool compress around the itch. I then went back to packing for the trip

Another hour or so passed. The itching began to worsen, but I tried to keep my mind off it. Call it ranger machismo, or what you will, but I was determined to keep ahead of the game. I had my week planned and I wasn’t about to let some little ailment derail them.

Then the burning started.
At this point, I was beginning to get a little worried. I removed the bandage and compress from my right arm, and to my horror saw little strips of skin peal off, with the surrounding skin a dark green. Panicking, I quickly began to cast a healing spell. The healing aura began to coalesce around my forearm. It started to take, then PAIN!!!!

Blackness…

I dream. The world passes below me, as if viewed from the tallest of mountains. Rivers, forests, all merged into a flowing pastel tapestry. I know I am dreaming, yet this dream feels more real than any I have had before. I can feel the wind. Smell the air. I look around. To the right, I can see a city. To the left, a large green wing.

My wing.

More blackness…

Slowly I come back to awareness. In the dim light of my sleep filled eyes, I recognize my surroundings. I am in the medical hut inside the druid guildhall. This is not a good sign.

Slowly, I sit up. My arms are bandaged again, as are my shoulders and shins. Definitely not a good sign. Before I can examine the matter further, the door opens, and in walks Guildmaster Trueshot and the chief druid healer Adept Trynna. They were smiling.

“Ah, I see our young patient has decided to join the land of the living once again!” Boomed Guildmaster Trueshot, in that quiet, yet authoritative voice that all Guildmasters seem to posses. “you gave us all quite a scare there. We weren’t sure Adept Trynna would be able to put you back together again”

Adept Trynna scoffed. “I keep telling you, I didn’t do nuthin. One minute, disaster, then enxt minute, he’s healed, but out like sleeping beauty. 2 whole weeks! I’ve never seen anything like it!”

2 weeks! My heart lurched into my stomach. That… That meant…

I guess my face must have revealed my fear, because Guildmaster Trueshot quickly spoke. “Now don’t you worry about your Journey. It’s all been taken care of, just as soon as they release you from prison here!”

Adept Trynna glowered at him for a moment, then smiled. She turned back to me. “Alright. Lets get those bandages off and see the damage.” She said as she began removing the ones on my arms.

None of us were prepared for what we saw.

Where before my fairly normal arm skin had been, now I had a large forest green band. It seemed to be made of a tad thicker material than the surrounding skin, but was warm to the touch and seamlessly melded into the rest of my arm. We soon discovered I had similar skin patches on my shins and shoulders. It seemed as if they had a shimmery, almost metallic cast to them. It reminded me of the color of the wing from my dream.

Guildmaster Trueshot was the first to speak. “Truly, a gift from your father” he said in a low voice. At the time, I was puzzled by his comment, not knowing then what I know now about my parental history.

Adept Trynna was fascinated by them. She spoke in a kind of far off voice while examining my left arm. “I… see. I think. Your arms were changing, that was the itching you mentioned in your sleep. There must be magic involved somehow, and your healing spell interfered with it and sent you into shock… There’s no spell residue though. Fascinating!”

For some reason she felt the need to keep pokeing my arm with some medical stick thingy. I could still feel it through the changed skin, and really, couldn’t tell the difference. But it was getting a tad bit old. I was about to say something when Guildmaster Trueshot spoke up. “Trynna, leave the boy alone and go pester the bears or something. They were looking bored last time I saw them.” Then he addressed me. “Go get changed and grab your gear, then meet me out front near the hills. There’s been a report of poachers in the area, and I could use some company whilst dispatching them.”

Eager to see the poachers get theirs, I quickly complied. Along the way to my quarters, I kept turning the events of the last 2 weeks over in my mind. Why would the guildmaster take me along on a simple poacher expedition?

My quarters were pretty much as I had left them, except my journeypack was now neatly arranged off to one side. The rest of the room was neat and orderly to a certain extent, my weapons racked on their hangers, Spell books and components arrayed on the shelf.

I looked with some chagrin at the mess on my desk. I had attempted to disassemble an old gnomish vanishing device that I had found during a shopping trip to Qeynos. It had not survived my attempts, and was now randomly emitting invisibility waves in short random bursts from the various remaining parts.

3000 years later I still haven’t got that thing to work right

Anyways, I pushed all that from my mind, strapped on my baldric, and raced out the door.

I caught up with Guildmaster Trueshot about halfway to the gnoll caves. He was busy one-shotting gnolls with a truly massive bow. I decided to join in. We worked our way towards the Karanas Pass, leaving a trail of destruction and toothless gnolls behind us. When we came to the ruins of the old guard tower, we decided to teak a break and eat some lunch. Guildmaster trueshot gestured to the ruins around us. “This tower used to be the first in a long chain of signal towers running all the way back to Freetown (as Freeport was known in those days). Most of them were destroyed during the sundering, but the ones on the western half of Antonica survived relatively intact for many years. No more though I fear. The Combine tribes are one the move again, and there are rumors of a blight to the east.” He paused. “Your father told me to watch for the gathering storm on the day he left. I fear now that I am beginning to understand what he meant.”

He tossed me a package. “Here. He wanted you to have this when you were older. He said I would know when the time is right.”

I unwrapped it.

Inside, I found a note, a large green tunic, and a heavy silver/platinum medallion with an engraving of a dragon on the front.

The note read:


To be continued...

You know this post is 12 months old, right? :)