This is a bit of a story that I've had workings of muddle my brain for a bit. The setting is a Dungeons and Dragons based world (similar spells, gods, and creatures). The characters are mostly mine or my adaptations of friends' characters. All the writing is my own.

Altough the thick fog made it so the ship was still hidden from view, the men on land were frantically trying to board up what they could and grabbing any and all weapons they could find. The wind blew sourly through the small seaport town, reaching the base of the stone fort. Drafts carried the sea breeze up the walls, the sick stench carried with it causing several weaker stomached guards to lose it as their senses were assaulted. The strong defiling stench reached the top tower, the two guards posted greened at the oncoming waves.

Their captive, hunched over in a chair, laughed loud and defiant into her lap as they held down their lunches. She tossed her head back, a few silver strands of wayward hairs escaped their prison in the loose braid that wrapped over her shoulder and brushed the floor. Her stare was intense and her golden eyes bore into the skulls of the two guards, they dared not make contact with those orbs. Both were glad for the precautions taken against their prisoner. Delicate hands were bound behind her back, tied tightly to two small feathered wings, extra symbols had been marked on both the back and the palms of her hand preventing them from casting any spells. She sat, tied arm and leg to the chair, in the center of a chalk marked diagram on the floor; the markings glowed slightly and emitted a faint screaming.

Both guards stared at her uneasily from the other side of the room, tightening their grips on their halberds. Despite the wards and glyphs preventing and subduing this single woman from moving or doing anything, they were both still wary. They had been specifically told to not kill her, but they were both too scared and superstitious to incur the potential wrath of some other worldly creature. The high priest had told them that this woman was dangerous but provided a necessary key to their plans.

She laughed again, daring them to look at her.
"He is on his way here. You know that, you can feel it. I can smell it." Her grin sparkled in the fire flicker of the scones placed by the door, "He doesn't like how you've treated his envoy. He was just sending a friendly message with them. But you gutted them like they were monsters. Oh and he knows, and he is not happy." The grin widened when she saw them pale. "Oh, yes. But he is most displeased with how you treated me. You and your people thought that by capturing a high ordered priestess you could get information on the Order of the Chalice or even try to use me as leverage against your enemies church. I am here to say just how mistaken you are. You never thought that this lonely Aasimar with only two guards would have these sorts of connections. You never thought that this delicate woman would cause so much attention and trouble. You never asked why we came to your putrid village, you just assumed."

The guards looked terrified, she hadn't spoken or pleaded with them up until now and they had both assumed that the priests and mages had placed silencing spells on her as well. They trembled as heavy footsteps pounded up the stairwell behind the door.

"And now the Brimstone Squall sits in your harbor and Caernson of Devilsblood comes to get his wife."

The door flew open and one of the guards fainted. Three men walked into the tower room, stepping over the prone man on the floor. The other guard snapped to attention. The man in heavy armor stayed back as the other two, in thick rust red robes, approached the prisoner.

"So it seems the little sparrow we caught was none other than Idalia, the Fiend of Pelor. Oh she is worth even more dead now than before." Without turning he addressed the guards, one helping the other as he came to. "No doubt she tried to con you two into swaying but you both remained strong. Nerull will reward you both for your work. Now leave us." The armored man repeated the orders, and the guards couldn't react quick enough as they tripped over each other as they made their way out and down away from that small tower prison. The door slammed shut behind them, bouncing open slightly and gently returning closed.

The lead hooded figure pulled back his hood, revealing his face. His eyes seemed to have been removed and replaced with black mirrors, reflecting the astonishment back at their captive. There was no hair on his face to speak of, not even eyebrows or eye lashes, and his skin was pallid and corpsely, but not like that of the undead. When he spoke, centipedes and other horrors crawled out of his mouth and over his smooth features to disappear into the folds of his cloak.

"Idalia. Pelor will not come to rescue you today or any other day. Nor will his word or ways be accepted here. This town fears and respects the Chained God, we have seen to it. Nerull is aiding here as well, but is just another pawn to HIM. Nerull's followers revel in this opportunity."

Idalia felt deft fingers working at the ropes around her wrists and wings but nothing could stop the steam of tears from flowing down her face.

"I'm telling you this, not so you can share it with your followers, but rather because I know you will not tell them. Hopefully though your god can hear your final thoughts and will know the fate of his 'Fiend'. The Chained God strengthens, and we, his minions, have enough power to make hell erupt on earth. We already have two dozen of Tharizdun's gems in our grasp and will soon have many more. Now farewell Fiend of Pelor, I'll be sure to give my condolences to Caernson. Hahahahahaha." His companions turned away, back down the stairs, he followed them but not before stroking the back of the door. A large symbol burned into the wood as he shut it behind him.

"Get me out of the Circle!! Get me out of the circle!!" Idalia shouted as she frantically rubbed at the markings on her hands. An invisible force pushed the chair back out of the circle as the deft hands worked on the ties around her legs. The rune flashed quickly before it was blocked from view by stone. A thunderous explosion rocked the room and the blast caused parts of the hastily stone shaped barrier to crumble. Idalia was free, but quickly slipped into unconscious, her body thrown over a second form. The remainder of the barrier crumbled to rubble as pieces of the floor started to colapse.

The second form moved under the cleric, a Catfolk wriggled out from underneath.
"Mistress? Miss? Dahli???!" the young male pawed at her prone body hoping for a response. "Oh no... the Captain'll kill me if anything happened to her." He lifted her up gently, carrying her as he made his way past the smoldering rubble of what had been the door. He nimbly leaped the fifteen foot gap of missing staircase as he made his way to the street.

There was mayhem everywhere as townsfolk frantically fought monstrous pirates. The Catfolk stood there with the cleric in his arms as he scanned the streets for their captain.

"You better not drop her Half-tail, she's worth more than any treasure this world has." The smooth voice was right next to him and nearly startled him into dropping the Aasimar. Despite his training as a Shadowdancer he could never figure out how the captain continued to startle him like that. Strong, darkly tanned arms took the cleric from his second-mate.

"Sir, I think we need to get out of here. As fast as possible... and where is your jacket and hat?"

"Oh, I figured Derrik could wear them tonight. And I agree with you. We got what we came for. Get everyone together and back on the boat, we leave now." with that he took off towards the harbor.

Half-tail flicked his name sake, Derrik was a good choice for a double. He could have been the captain's human twin, he just lacked the Tiefling's forked ears and red-on-black eyes. Although he played captain tonight, the human held no rank; the Catfolk grinned wickedly before running off to round up the crew and return to the ship.

Very interesting. I love the world you have just given us a glimpse of. Some of the sentences could possibly be broken into tow sentences, but I think that might be more of a stylistic choice than anything. I love that you've already introduced several races, and that we're thrown right into the intrigue. You might want to consider having flashbacks later on, to flesh out who these people are and what they're all fighting for/against. But that's also a stylistic choice, I think.

Very good start!

This was really neat! I liked reading your story, and I love the fact that it is set in the D&D world. ^^

I was surprised to hear that she was a cleric of Pelor! It struck me as quite a twist. The whole situation is really intruiging... I wonder what's really going on in this place?

Also, you should read this article on Pelor. <.<
It made me laugh so hard, especially at my friend who plays as an angel of Pelor. She was mildly traumatized by this. xD

http://community.wizards.com/go/thre...e_Burning_Hate

fairywaif: Thank you. I do tend to create run-on sentences and the semicolon is my favorite punctuation. The next part is where I'm having trouble writing, I want to continue with the story but the characters want to have their back stories told and mack on eachother... *Rolls eyes* As for who they are fighting and why, that is explained in more depth in the next section. The Order of the Chalice get's brought into this and things get really messy. YAY!

Shin~The ladle monster!: Thank you very much! this is set before and into the current campaign I'm in but on the other side of the world with different characters. (I'm playing Idallia's little brother, a paladin who would rather go fishing). I wanted the intro to be a bit of a twist, a small village being attacked, a mysterious and angry woman bound in captive, and creepy dudes in robes. The way it's going to eventually work is that this village is one of several in the worldscape that have been taken over and submitted to the evil gods of Nerull and The Chained God (Tharizdun). This just happened to be a chance meeting for the two parties, the pirate wanted to unload goods on a town and sent out an envoy who got captured. As for the Cleric, Idallia's both my favorite and least favorite. She was the most hateful and bigoted racist ever, killing undead, unnatural and evil creatures on the spot, now she's a bit more directive with her hatred. Very similar to the Order of the Chalice. And she's married to a Tiefling pirate captain... oh sometimes I laugh at the situations I put her in.
I have read that article and it didn't really bother me, because I assume that people are not rigid structures and can bend and flow like we do naturally. So if a character (Good) goes out and randomly kills a whole caravan of merchant devils, it could be seen as evil because they attacked and killed merchants, but they could see their act as good, they just killed a bunch of devils. I've had to explain the actions of Idalia to DMs before so she wouldn't lose her alignment of NG-CG to something more NN or NE. She is a racist, so she thinks that she is doing good in her god's eyes by ridding the world of people the doesn't see fit to live.
(BTW I am not a racist, which is why she is so hard to play or write sometimes).

As long as you explain things I'm cool with it. :D I totally get the characters fighting thing though. Go with them, but only to the extent that it actually helps your story! If your way is better, go with that.

She woke up to the soothing rocking of the sea and the sounds of waves licking the side of the large boat. Rolling over fine linens and expensive silks to finally sit upright in the large bed she saw a figure slumped over in a chair, body half draped onto the bed. Exhaustion had taken him during his vigilant watch over her, she knew that much. Brushing red-auburn strands of hair back she could see the smoke and dust from the last night dusting his face, evident by his lack of stirring she noticed just how sleep deprived the man was. Instead of taking control of his ship and directing out of the troubled bay and into the even more troubled sea, he had sat vigil ensuring her health and safety.

Idalia knew that his crew had taken charge during the time while Caernson was away from the helm, but she trusted the first and second mate only as far as she could throw them. Halftail was actually rather easy to toss being a light catfolk, but Keterecht on the other hand, was near impossible to even lift. The bugbear of a first mate was conniving and the cleric never liked how he looked at her, she knew that Caernson would beyond destroy anyone who dared lay a hand on her but of all those on the ship she wasn't so certain that this one wouldn't try to invoke that wrath. If it wasn't for the uneasy truce between a majority of the ship and herself, the Fiend of Pelor would have had killed near everyone on the ship, had it burned and sunk.

The slender Aasimar, with angelic appearnces, was the bane to aberrations, demon-kind, devil-kin, unnatural races, undead, and all others who didn't fit into the paragon of her deity. It was this insatiable drive to destroy and rid the world of those who where 'blights under Pelor's rays' in her eyes that garnered her the title “Fiend”. To say she was a bigot with prejudices was like saying a dragon had only a handful of gems. And to see her living on a pirate ship with more racial misfits than a prison was astounding, but it was her innate hatred and distrust of everyone that let her survive for so long. There were a few who had bothered to get past her hard exterior to call her a friend, and those were gifted to know the loyal, witty, fun but difficult cleric. Those who didn't knew her only as a powerful, snide, hateful bigot. And there were fewer still who she called family, but in some twisted fate this devil born Teifling was one.

Cearnson was her exact opposite, and even though she had the celestial blood and he had the infernal, he was the lighter and more forgiving of the two. To him his entire crew was family and all were worth saving and he gave everybody a second, and sometimes third, chance. He had found that it was easier to catch gold with honey and mead rather than with vinegar and steel. But he was still a ruthless pirate of the sea; captain of the Brimstone Squall, a ship notorious for its deadly and monstrous crew. He pillaged and killed with a smile, bartered with wit and tact, and seemed to know everybody. The Teifling had patience too, the one virtue that allowed him to come out on top every time, and how he eventually got his wife to love him instead of kill him.

He stirred lightly in his sleep as she got out of bed and maneuvered him into it. Idalia knew that he wouldn't be asleep much longer as he was used to trying to work all watch shifts. Moving deftly across the gently rocking cabin she fit into one of the more “piratey” dresses he had gotten for her. Where her normal vestments had gone, she only had the idea that some merfolk was enjoying the heavy yellow cleric standards. The open back of the dress made it so her wings were free from constrant and the thigh-high slit gave her more movement than necessary on the sea. The dress itself seemed to resemble the waves and others seemed to listen to her more with the dress as if it affected her charisma.

The light smile she had woke with turned into a scowl when she couldn't immediately locate her morningstar. Taking in hand one of her husband's rapiers instead she walked out of her quarters onto the deck. With a tilt of her head and a quick raise of her hand she blocked out the sun's bright rays as she slowly adjusted her eyes to the change of light. Sounds of the busy bustle of a working ship abounded as all walks of creatures moved about maintaining the order of the boat. Despite their captain's lack of presence, they worked diligently under the eyes of the officers aboard. Idalia was quick to locate the catfolk standing on top deck giving orders out to some of the younger members. She had competent sea legs and deftly made her way towards the second mate.

“Halftail. I see that you are well after last night.” The remark came out frosty, never making eye contact the cleric looked out over the sparkling seas.

Halftail bowed slightly to her, he respected Idalia. He had seen what she was capable of and knew that she was trying to get along or at least tolerate those who worked around her. “Thanks to you Mistress, I am very well.” He was referring to the quick acting and spell weaving that saved both of them from the exploding glyph. The polite tones reflected his respect, always careful around her. She wasn't particularly explosive, but he didn't want any of her rage aimed at him; as far as he knew she seemed to get along fine with the catfolk and formians, some of the more natural races.

“Did Cearnson reward you yet for your services as of late?” the question actually came across as honest and heartfelt, despite the tones it was said in. This rendered him speechless, a rare occurrence for the second-mate. He shook his head no. “Well, I'll see to it that he does.” And with that she let the astounded pirate standing alone as she made her rounds of the ship.

“Did she just thank you?” a serpentine voice asked from above.

“I think she did...” Halftail beamed up at the draconian in the crow's nest.