Chapter One

Chapter One
    Battle armor gleaming in the starlight, Lady Dilliane hefted her sword, a long piece of worked steel which had been passed down her family from mother to daughter for generations.
    Dilliane’s face, with deep green eyes and long, flowing, gloden hair, was uncovered by any sort of helmet.  This revealed to any onlookers what she really was: an eladrin, a creature born of arcane magic.
    Dilliane’s armor glowed with arcane symbols.  Most spellcasters preferred robes as these did not lower the ease with which they could use their magic, but Dilliane had her armor specially made to enhance her magical potency.
    Lightning flowed from her sword, forming a shield around her.  The expression on her face changed from a peaceful elegance and dignity to one of anger and total destructivness.
    Dilliane pointed her sword towards her foe.  The cultist snarled an insult and let fly a knife, but that was simply blocked by the shield of Dilliane’s paladin companion.
    The paladin was a dragonborn, fierce look in his face.  The dragonborn’s skin was covered in green scales, and the head was shaped similarly to that of a dragon.
    Dilliane’s three other friends were still deep in the cave.  She wasn’t about to let them die, but the cultist was blocking her path to them.  “Milian, I need you to take him out!” she shouted, leaping through the air toward the cultist, her sword burning.
    Milian turned to Dilliane and nodded, moving his shield to cover him.  His sword emerged to the side and dove at the cultist, who then rolled to the side with knife readily in hand.
    As the cultist finished his roll and the Paladin began to turn to his side clumsily, he let that dagger fly, and it slammed into Milian’s shoulder.
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    “Lidda, are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
    The doppleganger grinned widely, then started strumming her lute.  “I’m knowing what you’re meaning, but I’m hoping that you aren’t dreaming.”  And then her form began to shift.
    The kobolds stared in awe at Lidda as fire flowed across her skin.  Usually, Lidda’s form was purely the lightest color of skin possible, a pure white, with pupiless eyes.  Unlike others of her kind, she wasn’t afraid to show her true form, for she was well known in these lands.
    None would dare cross her.  It’d upset those in need of entertainment.  Lidda’s music was pure and beautiful, and the kobolds began to sway side to side in harmony with it.
    Adran’s bow was in his hands before anyone could react, even before Brom’s dagger was in the first kobold’s back.  He reached into his quiver with his two longest fingers reaching out.  His hand brushed his curved and pointed elven ear, before diving down into the quiver and grabbing three arrows simultaneously.  Those arrows were almost instantly nocked, and they flew through the air.
    All three hit their targets.  In that very second, four kobolds fell to the ground, dead.  The largest one’s tongue lolled out, revealing that a piece of string was attached to it.
    It was a long, thing string, with the tiniest scroll any of the companions had ever seen rolled up at the end.  The scroll glowed with a faint arcane light.  “Dilliane would want this,” commented Brom.  “It’s obviouly of significant power, but why would it be attached to the tongue of a kobold cultist?”
    Adran cursed the cult and looked down at his human friend.  “Brom,” he whispered, “This kobold was trying to deliver a message to whomever it serves.
    “Obviously a dragon,” recalled Lidda.  The ancient legends speak of a link between all reptilian creatures, giving them the urge to serve dragons, and the path of dragon worship was follow most zealously by kobolds.  These kobolds cultivated entire societies arund single dragons, more and more terrifying and agressive as the dragon which the kobolds worshipped grew more powerful.
    “It is said,” the bard concluded, “that a cult of green-robed kobolds serves the ghost of Cyan Bloodbane.”
    Adran stared at the bard.  “Bloodbane?  But he was destroyed long ago, a thousand times in a thousand worlds.  It’s said among my people that the soul of Cyan was utterly obliviated in the process.”
    Lidda scowled, strumming her lute again and shifting her face to that of a young elf.  “Bah, you’re people’re wrong then.”                        The dark stare that Adran gave Lidda made her gulp slightly, for all knew and feared the temper of Adran, the ranger of the south.
    The doppleganger nervously strummed her lute, looked around, and then put it away.  “Let’s get to Dilliane.  If I know her, which I do, she’ll be either worried or fleeing to the feywild by now.”
    Or worse, she thought quietly, then shook the idea again.  The eladrin was perfectly capable of defending herself.  Not only did she have her magic, but she possessed a sizeable sword.  That sword had always freaked Lidda out; it was too big for her.  To big for a traveling bard who had lived a carefree life until now.
    Brom and Adran nodded in unison, and, in perfect harmony, moved to join Lidda.  “Which way did she go?” Brom asked, and Adran laughed mirthfully.
    “That way, of course.  Don’t you see the scorch marks on the ground?”  This drew a laugh from the whole trio as the companions made their way toward the exit from the cave, and toward their friends.
    Adran pricked his ears as the group made their way through a dark corridor.  He could hear shouting, and something burning, and the clash of sword against sword.  Somehow, Dilliane and Milian were in even more danger than Brom, Lidda, and Adran had been.
    “I can see that ye are troubled, elf, I can see.”
    Adran broke into a run, shouting, “Follow me!  Dilliane’s and Milian’s lives may depend upon it!”  Brom leaped through the air, his magical cloak speeding him silently on his way while Lidda struggled to keep up while simultaneously playing a flute-tune of haste.
    The trio rounded a corner and saw Milian locked in combat with a knife-wielding cultist while Dilliane threw fireballs into the fray.  Divine energy surged around Milian, and he invoked a prayer to his god, Kord, the Lord of Battle.
    The cultist simply flicked his wrist and sent the divine energy catapulting from around Milian to against the stone wall, then let a dagger enter his hand and cutting a bloody line across Milian’s lip.  A fireball collided with him, and he collapsed to the ground, his body scorched to a crisp.
    “Take that, bane of life.”  Milian sheathed his sword and placed his shield over his back.  Divine energy surrounded him once more, healing his wounds and those of his friends.  “Let’s get out of here.”
    The others moved to join Milian as he made his way out of the cave.

    The group traveled to a small town to spread the news that the cult had been rooted out and destroyed.  But when they reached the village, it was alight with flame.  The fires appeared to have started at the tavern and spread to the residential areas.  But now it was too late.  The companions could only watch as the town was reduced to ash.