Short Story: Blood

Hello friends, here's a short story I wrote as a D&D character backstory. You'll notice some terms that you may not be familiar with, and that's because I've borrowed them from the official D&D lore itself. Despite that, I hope you enjoy :)

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Arken wiped the sweat off her brow, gasping for breath. Several warriors lay groaning around her, their wooden swords smashed to splinters.

“Wonderful work again, apprentice,” the Swordmaster nodded. “If your progress continues, you may take the oaths and join in Bahamut’s service next spring.”

Arken bowed and turned away, concealing a smile. She walked out through the smooth stone temple doors. The air was hazy from the searing rays of the desert sun and white hot sand burned the soles of her bare feet. Arken yanked at the collar of her training tunic, sticky with sweat, and started making her way home.

As she passed the small clearing with a ramshackle podium in it that Appleshaw’s citizens generously called the town square, Arken heard an angry commotion. A large crowd had gathered around the podium where one of the Galaniir family’s henchmen, Markus, was unrolling an official-looking scroll. He was as wide as he was tall. The seams of his gilded robes threatened to burst from the constant pressure his belly applied to them. Markus’s beady eyes scanned the crowd, sneering. They had haggard faces, their eyes sunken and bloodshot. Arken could see the sharp outline of bones under their papery, sunburnt skin.

The nobleman on the podium cleared his throat for attention and waited for the whispering to quiet down. “The Galaniir family head, Lord Runaan, has decreed that to support the city’s crops and upkeep during the oncoming dry season, taxes will be raised for each resident of the outer ring.” Angry mutters broke out among the anguished crowd. “We will be collecting five additional copper pieces per resident of each household.” The man raised his voice. “Any who refuse to cooperate will be hanged! Long live Lord Runaan!”

As Markus stepped off the podium, a mob of angry, desperate peasants surged towards him, attempting to snatch the scroll out of his hand. Two orcs stepped forward, brandishing spears made of polished irons. They jabbed harshly at the crowd, piercing skin and shoving them away from Markus. A woman in the mob screamed, blood leaking down her face as one of the orcs shoved a dagger through her eye. Her desperate fingers pressed down on the wound. Within a few moments, the light faded from her eyes.

The lingering stench of death quietened the crowd. People exchanged uneasy glances and backed away from the guards. Markus scoffed and turned around, sauntering back to the judiciary building. The muttering crowd slowly dispersed, many limping and clutching torn skin and muscle.

Arken’s feet carried her home even as her mind churned over the bad news. All the joy and satisfaction of winning the morning apprentice spars drained from her body. Raised taxes? Again? She barely earned enough money cleaning the temple every weekend to feed herself and her sister, let alone pay increased taxes.

As Arken’s path took her to the outskirts of the city, the houses became more dilapidated. Shacks assembled with rotting wooden planks leaned against each other with dry straw roofs. Arken pulled open the door to one such house, stepping inside.

“You’re back!” her sister Leia screamed with delight. Her pudgy fist was shaping dirt into tiny figures. The pale tufts of her feathery wings were tipped with brown mud. Arken leaned down, smiled, and ruffled her sister’s hair.

“Making a mess again, Leia?”

“Made a mess! Made a dog!” Leia held up a misshapen clump of mud.

“Ah yes, a dog. Wonderful job.” Arken sighed and walked to the corner of the shack, prying up a loose floorboard. She scoured through the dirt, picking up the loose coins she had hidden beneath. She counted out five tarnished silver pieces, scratching away the buildup of dirt on their metallic surface. For the thousandth time, Arken wished that she lived in the city’s inner ring, or maybe even the middle. Wages there were high enough for Arken to pay a month’s rent with just one day of hard work. Her five silver pieces, earned over weeks, were barely enough to get them through this month, let alone to next spring. She would just have to find a way to make it work.

---

Arken trudged through the streets of Appleshaw, shoulders hunched. Her stomach cramped with hunger. Her arms trembled from the strain of wielding a sword with her steadily weakening body. As she passed by, people stared and whispered. Well, that wasn’t anything unusual. She and Leia attracted unwanted attention wherever they went, on account of their ancestry. Even when her wings were hidden, people identified them as Aasimar and gave them a wide berth. But why were there so many of them today? What were they whispering about? Arken paused and scanned the crowd suspiciously. Nobody met her eyes. She shook her head and continued walking, eager to get home and rest her starving, aching body.

Arken turned onto the dirt street where she lived. The streets were empty. No children running around, no men coming home from work, not even any chirping birds flitting through the trees. Arken reached for the doorknob of her shack but stopped just as her fingers brushed it. A chill ran down her spine. The air was heavy with the coppery tang of blood. Arken took a sharp breath and shoved the door open, sinking into a defensive stance.

The house was in shambles. The table and chairs had been smashed apart, wooden splinters embedded in the wall. Her grain and flour ration had been stomped on and scattered across the floor. Soot from their fireplace dusted every surface. But none of that mattered, because right by the far wall was a congealing puddle of blood. Desperate claw marks dragged a red trail towards the door.

Leia was nowhere to be seen.

Arken’s mouth contorted in a silent scream as she collapsed to her knees. Bile forced itself up her throat. Her lungs spasmed for air but she couldn’t breathe.

“Leia…” she whispered as her vision blurred and she fainted.

---

Dreams swam through Arken’s mind.

A large mansion constructed of polished stone and gold was wreathed in orange light. It struck Arken as vaguely familiar, although she couldn’t place where she had seen it before. As the vision got clearer, Arken realized that a howling inferno was devouring the mansion from the inside. The walls cracked, support beams groaning and giving way under the fury of the flames.

From the emberstorm emerged a hooded man clutching a bloodied dagger. He ambled toward Arken, unconcerned about the fire raging behind him.

Ah. A visitor. His voice rasped like the crunch of dead leaves and rotting wood. He pushed back his hood to reveal a bleached skull, its teeth pulled into a menacing grin. Twin orbs of fire blazed within his eye sockets.

“Wh...who are you?” Arken stammered. “Where’s Leia?”

Leia, Leia, Leia. He spun the dagger idly in one gloved hand. His teeth remained stretched into a smile, unmoving even when he spoke. I think you know where she is. Or where her body is, anyway.

“No!” she clenched her fists. “She’s not dead. Why would they–”

The skull hissed. You ask too many questions that you already know the answer to.

The blood drained from Arken’s face. “Tax. They killed her because I couldn’t pay the tax.” He did not confirm her theory, but the fire in his eyes blazed brighter for a moment.

Arken thought she would explode. Her body trembled with rage.

So, the figure leaned towards her. What will you do?

“I can do nothing,” Arken’s voice was bitter with hatred. “I’m just a peasant. The knights of Bahamut will bring this murder to justice.”

He threw back its head in laughter. Bahamut? You believe that fool’s justice?

“Do not dare insult Lord Bahamut! Who do you think you are, fiend?”

Why, those knights will slap a meagre fine of a few silver pieces on whichever of the Galaniir henchmen did this and then apologize for the trouble.

Arken opened her mouth to retort, white with anger. The words wouldn’t come. Deep down, she knew it was right. Hadn’t she seen it done countless times before? In the end, justice or not, nobody in the city could contest Runaan’s power.

Well. If you think Leia’s life is worth less than a few dirty pennies, I won’t disturb you any further. He turned to leave, drawing his hood back over his skull.

Arken’s body moved on its own. She grabbed the figure’s cloak and pulled him towards herself, screaming in his face. “Leia’s life is worth a HUNDRED of theirs. Do you understand? DO YOU?” In the back of her mind, she knew this mysterious figure could obliterate her without lifting a finger. Power radiated off him in searing waves. But she was past caring about her own life when she first found the puddle of blood on her floor.

Silence. Arken squeezed her eyes shut, waiting to be incinerated.

Prove it.

When she opened her eyes, he was gone.

---

Arken jerked upright, gasping for air. Her mind spun, remembering visions of the burning house and the hooded skeleton. She shook her head, ready to pass off the dream as a traumatic hallucination, when a metallic glint caught her eye. An iron blade was hilt-deep in the ground beside the puddle of Leia’s blood. On the blade, a crude outline of a grinning skull was carved.

The dagger seemed to beckon Arken closer, urging her to take it. As she lifted it up, turning it over in her palms, the tumult in her mind was burned away by cold fury. The figure-- who she now suspected was a powerful entity, perhaps even a god-- had told her what to do.

Arken walked out of the shack, the dagger clutched in one hand. While she lay dreaming, the sun had set, leaving the streets dark and silent. She made her way towards the center of the city where the shacks evolved from huts to houses to mansions. Her head was empty other than one recurring thought that gave her the strength to carry on. Prove it. Prove it. Prove it.

She stopped outside the gates of an ornate stone house. The small yard in front of the door was well-kept, with short grass and scattered bunches of wildflowers. Arken climbed up the stairs and kicked down the door.

Janai, one of the women in Runaan’s employ, rushed down the stairs, huffing indignantly. Arken’s vision turned red as she took in his fine silk bathrobe and slippers.

“Who are you?” She screamed shrilly. “I demand that you leave at once! I will-”

In one clean motion, Arken slashed the dagger across her neck. Blood spurted out from the wound, spraying across the walls. In her mind, Arken saw the skull again, grinning with pleasure. Good, he rasped. That’s one. He filled her mind with primordial runes and guttural chants, visions of people covered in gore and dancing around a white hot fire. Arken knelt on the floor, dipped her fingers in Janai’s blood, and began painting runes onto a clean patch of floor. Once satisfied, she kissed her dagger, tasting the sweet revenge she had wrought upon her sister’s tormentors. She rose, swaying, and headed back out the door, leaving the corpse to be discovered by the next unlucky visitor. There was no time to waste. She had work to do.

Arken spent the night in a hurricane of death and destruction. Her victims’ threats and cries fell on deaf ears. They were greed-driven pigs, undeserving of her mercy. With each murder, the grinning skull in her mind grew clearer. She slaughtered without hesitation, descending upon the noble men and women of ___ like an omen of death. All six of the Galaniir family’s stooges now lay in pools of their own blood, runes painted on their floors and walls. Their death felt like a cool balm on her wounded soul, but she knew it wasn’t enough. Not yet.

The sun peeked over the flat horizon. Arken stood in front of her next, greatest obstacle. Runaan’s mansion stood tall and proud, looking down upon the rest of the city. She took a deep breath, wiped her dagger on her filthy tunic, and stepped towards the door.

The mansion was silent. Arken’s heart thudded in her chest. She prowled around the mansion, eager to hunt down this final adversary. As she searched each room, panic clawed its way up her throat. Nobody was home.

She shoved open the door to a warm, wooden library. The walls held rows of scrolls and books, many in languages she could not read. The embers in the fireplace still glowed with warmth, but there were no other signs of life.

The floor. The skull’s voice hissed inside Arken’s head. He created a portal on the floor.

“Where did he go?” Arken demanded. Her knuckles grew white around the dagger.

Could be anywhere across the empire. He must be powerful, even for a sorcerer, to transport the entire family out at such short notice.

A howl ripped out of Arken’s chest. As she screamed for her loss and her failure, her Aasimar wings emerged from her shoulder blades. Where she previously had brilliant white feathers cascading down her back, there were now two large structures made of bone. Spectral wisps of blood-red energy twisted and curled around them.

Arken felt the pain and suffering erupt out of her in uncontrollable waves of power. Searing heat emanated around her, turning quickly into embers. Chaotic gouts of flame leapt around the library, catching on the delicate books and wooden shelves. The fire spread all around Arken, yet they did not burn her. She crawled out of the room and stumbled out the house. As she turned around, watching the flames grow, she realized that she recognized the scene. It was the same burning mansion she had seen in her vision.

The hooded skull materialized before her, now standing over seven feet tall.

You wish for revenge, child. He did not say it as a question, but as a fact. I am Bhaal. Some know me as the god of murder.

“You’re a monster,” Arken muttered, her emotions exhausted. She expected Bhaal to strike her down for such an insult, but he merely chuckled.

That may be so. But serve me, and Leia will have vengeance.

Arken closed her eyes, wondering how she had fallen so low in just one day. Last morning, she had been the star of her class, eager to join the paladins of Bahamut. She had a future, and a family. But that had all turned to ash in the fires of her fury.

No church will have you now, Bhaal said, reading her thoughts. You’re a criminal more vile than any other, a savage unleashing your anger on the nobility. If they find you, they will execute you without mercy and dump you in the same unmarked grave where they threw Leia.

Arken looked down at her clothes, soaked in blood and gore. Bhaal was right– there was no life for a monster like her.

She knelt on one knee, bowing her head. “Tell me what I must do.”