A Land Far Away

Ah, another random, ranting addition to the Library from PW. Here's the back ground for my NWN2 PC, Nyka, a Halfling (what else?) from the deepest part of the Cloakwood, stuck far from home in TSM. How original? Actually, she is.

Nyka, unlike Millia, who i created from my RP gaming on The Vast PW server or Nyca, who was completely unique (She was con artist for lack of better description), Nyka is derived from one of my regular PnP games. In fact, in that setting, she's the only PC without Level adjustments in that party. She's not completely accurate stat by stat (Nyka's PnP chara was a Wis of 7. NWN2's is much brighter than that. still stunted INT but what eva.

I really enjoy playing Nyka here on TSM, i get my thirst for magic, Kawii and violence in equal measure and have a pretty odd idea for a goal... eventually. Anyway, enjoy the ramblings...

Note: Unlike my previous narrative, where the story bounced between Nyca and her conscience & past events growing up in Selgaunt in red, Nyka's rants are totally her own. No flashbacks. Just how i remember IG events... which might be accurate or just might be hosed up.

Wyverns….. WHY-Verns…. That sounds like a punch line for a joke, right? Like Gobbs of fun? Right?



Well for one tallie, it ended up being a poor man’s punch line. No, I take that back. Punched through the heart in fact, instead of a line. BAM! Thunk! 2 inches of arrow penetration and he was a deader. I swear I thought him say ‘Well this was a surprise” before he keeled over. Took him a while to actually die, too. I know yer dead when you loss yer head or nuts (Very sudden blood loss) but an arrow, in the heart? Takes a while. Right? Especially when the one trying to save you, really doesn’t know what’s she doing.



No. Take that back. Not very good at what she was trying to do. Really hard to save people, tallies or me-sized, when more arrows are coming your way. Really. Anyway, to cut to the chase, the tallie died on the operating table… that is, the table being rock, dirt, grass, why-vern blood and guts, gob blood and guts (Hey, when there’s of them and just little me, it takes me time to swing and kill ‘em, ya see? Where was i? Oh. Blood. Lotta it. Gotta help… get help. Wow…. He really did bleed out like a pig… oh NO! A kobbie! Running at me! ME! Swing! I cut the Kobbie IN HALF. His arms and head going that way, his legs going THATAWAY… pretty neat until his legs blew up. BLAM! Gut ropes everywhere. Another one, a Gobb, ran at me too…



His head went that away, his legs… well you get the picture. I get mean when I get in danger.



So here I am, looking at the soon to be stiff, looking him over trying to help him (but how? I dunno how to cure THAT! I know how to set bones and really, really minor ouchies… but I’m not that good at it. I kept at it… but by then he was white, the dirt was red, and I realized I needed help, bad. So when that little voice that I often choice to ignore screamed ‘Run Nee-kah! Run!’ I knew I should get running.



So I ran…


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I ran as fast as I could (and I run fast for me-sized!) back to the tallie place (A ‘Fort’ they call it. Lotta guards, lotta stone and wood. Tuff, not unlike home…



Trouble! Help! I babbled to the guards to no avail (Don’t think they like me for some reason). But another tallie offered to help (Actually I think he said he’d rather do something else but ended up helping anyway. He seemed nice if flustered (Not my fault you don’t speak Me or know enough to use your hands make gestures, get the point across…) Anyway, he talked an elf and he agreed to go (but not his lover. She looked like she wanted fun time instead. Elves. Always humping the trees or something…) and soon the three of us (at least I think 3. you never know with them crazy, tree humping elves) traveled back to where the tallie was.



I kept telling them that he was probably dog food by now. But nobody speaks Me so whut eva. It took time, of course. I’m not the greatest map maker and when you’re running, you usually don’t get a good chance to note land marks, see? Anyway, tallie helper did something I totally didn’t see. X. Magic in Me. Now, I love magic. My mother was a magic. Her sisters were magic. I pray and pray and pray to Lady Magic for magic. So when I see magic, I of course fall in love… for about 6 seconds. Then I carry on as nothing happened.



And so we kept moving off the road into the foot hills…


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We had to battle the gobs that I left up there (plus two pig dorks who squealed at as they threw javelins… and squealed when we gutted them good! (Orcs really smell bad when they dump their entrails and feces at the same time.) They carried the tallie back. At least until we were down in safer climes of the crags. The tallie got rocks for burial (Faster, quicker, safer. It wasn’t like the guy needed a ditch dug for him. He was dead!) And after The Man gave some words, we headed back towards River town. After all, I was hungry! So we headed home.



The Man started to talk to his friends at the wood bridge outside town, all hanging out at Slum Rock. If you don’t know, Slum Rock is some rock outside River Town, to the…… right! If you was facing the crags. It’s got hirogli… h… stuff chipped into the rock face. It’s supposed to be a tallie of those tallies who died in the hills. There’s lots of tick marks but… I couldn’t tell you what’s on it, really. I just don’t wanna be on the rock myself (I mean, tallies! Dying like Cherrie blossoms at cherry blossom eating night. Would you wanna be on that list?)…. But the real reason it’s called slum rock?



Yeap, slumming. Elves hang out there. Tallies hang out there. Dwarves. Friars. I mention Long Ears? Yeap! If you like to kiss, cuddle or otherwise rut under the Sky of Night, Slum Rock is the place to hump behind…

So anyway, as The Man was babbling some crap, I took off (I do that. Lots) to go pee. Nice tallie, The Man. In fact he called to me before I was outta sight. He called me a name, in the shit speaks of home (choth… chothd… what ever.)



He called me ‘The Sparrow’. I liked that. (Lots!)

BAHNE! BAHNE! That’s what that tallie lady told me who her god was. Bahne. She said he (she?) was a compassionate god... or something. Even invited me to discuss it more. I declined, I really had to pee. So I ran off to do just that. Good thing, too. She wasn’t really on the level with me (though I didn’t know that at the time). Heh. On the level with me…



When I came back, some of the tallies that I walked with to High Hold (up. I’ll explain in a bit) just resting outside the fort’s gates. You know, slumming like at Slum Rock. It seems the guards on duty at that time were ornery. Kept searching the passerby for ‘contraband’ or something. The tallies bitched and moaned but what ever. Then they got around to me…



Now, I HATE stuffy law types. Hate. Annoy. What ever. Which is funny, as I think this out and write it in my little scribbles (My school Teacher at the Lady of Lekus! Is making me write out my thoughts. Trying to ‘Civilize me, see’s great potential in mah head & heart’. Hehe.) I also work for the same guards (please don’t ask how THAT happened. I really don’t know). Funny how life is. The Cloakwood is sooooo far away…


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Now the guards were trying to figure me out. That’s ok. EVERYONE tries to figure me out. What’s so hard? I’m right-sized, I carry a big sword, and I own a pet rabbit. And…. Oh that. Yeah.



I collect eye balls.



NOW after getting into a scuffle (whut? You think I’m gonna LET that tallie guard look into my privates?) And pretty much hung up like a wet cat (Not. Cool.) They looked in my things (Oh, I bitched to high holy end), and found my ‘bag-o-alchemy’. (Whut?) Alchemy. I practice alchemy. They got a set up right in town in Rivermoot. Just gotta ask (Never do). Mind you I’m not that good yet (Practice! Practice!) But I’m learning. Kinda. I know how to find stuff for some herbs and little stuff (Mum’s always preaching Survival! Survival! Survival skills.) So I collect. This gets to the good part of the story…


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Now since that day I met ‘The Man’ (tallie with a cloak and a metal piece shaped like a jawless skull), we occasionally had reason to the hills (Read: 3 trips in 2 score days). Usually it was because someone hired The Man to escort them. Coin wasn’t always used but it was nice. Now, I always went because of other… reasons. Remember that Alchemy thing I like to do? Well, here’s a thought. Eyes to the soul. You ever hear that phrase? ‘The Eyes to the Soul?’ Good. Glad you knew that.



Well up in them hills are gobs. Gobbs, Kobbies and orc. Not many Orc in the South East, more Gobbs, some Kobbies. K? Well ALSO, I guess being raised by the Kobbies or Gobbs…. Are nests. WHY-vern nests. Nasty buggers with poison barbed tails (You know, that gave me an idea…), kinda like dragons but not. Anyway, Mean. Never been stung (lucky me!) but still dangerous even as younglings.



Which beings up the alchemy thing. I have no idea why I thought this (still don’t, all my experiments don’t work, the potion I gave to a cat killed it [Don’t Even. ASK. About. The. Tree hugger. My ass is still black and blue]) and… briefly, I grew a LOT of hair. It’s work in progress. And what exactly have I been alcheming? *smiles*



Why-vern eye balls.



They make great potions. I think. I just quite haven’t figured out the formula yet. Plus the good thing? (Well besides the fact that the mother Why-vern may have been irate because of me… oh wait…?) I still have plenty eyes to work with. I’ve gotten really good at killing those Why-Verns…


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Anywho, the guard looked in the bag, the Halfling still kicking in his partner’s grasp. And he barfed. BIG time. Probably would have gotten an award for the distance he got. But he let my bag go, dropped me and pretty much said every bad word in the book. But he didn’t throw the book at me. Not that I gave him a chance, mind you. I grabbed my treasures and ran like a bat out of the 9 hells (There’s nine, right?). I mean, I was PISSED. Nobody man-handles me and gets away with it! If I was his size I’d… I’d… well; I’d make him regret it! For! Sure!



So I ran a couple hundred yards, listening for pursuit (Nope!) and checked my personal effects. No losses, no steals (though my WHY-vern eyes where kinda…messy) and all was well. Well NOT well.



Ya see, a week or so later, I ran into some really high minded full of sh*t selves claiming to serve BAHNE! And they weren’t nice. Just hanging out with them made me creep out once I realized something. Well almost. I just knew, somehow that they were bad news. Just sure of that.



I mean, after all, Sparrows don’t land on sh*t. Period.

When I joined this school, I thought I was gonna be taught alllllllll about magic. Really. Taught to sling big massive spells of DEATH! Thundering spells of fear and ozone! Massive monsters to do my bidding! But no, the school isn’t like that at all. Or at least my classes aren’t. We (read: Me) were told to write about me and people like me. You know, Me sized, nature’s cruel joke about natural selection (big secret? Ya’ll on the endangered list. We’re on TOP of the food change, b*tches!) So I’m writing about my friends…

Me sized people stick together. We just do. Tallies and their wars, rape, pillage, sow, heal, fart and what not, complicate things. Dwarves drink and piss, in caves I think. Gnomes are ok, though I’m kinda leery around them. Elves smack of tree lovers, a euphemism for something I’d rather say but my teacher won’t let me even think at the moment. *WHACK!* OWWW! I growl and grumble but my teacher is a pain! She casts a spell and reads my thoughts (maybe that’s how she understands me where everyone else just… oh.. I dunno… gets migraines around me) and points to my goal.

Which at the moment, I forgot. Honest. *WHACK!* Whuuuut!? I just can’t win at this school…

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Anyway, about me sized. Other than my clan back in the Cloakwood, the forests of Silvery Moon and its outlying forts, bases, villages and armpits seem to teem with Me Sized. Of course, I include Gnomes and dwarves (we’re all short. Just don’t tell a dwarf I said that) in that just to make the numbers seem bigger but really I’ve met quite a few of my kin here. Some odd, some beloved. Take for example, ‘Flower’…

Flower of course isn’t. In fact she looks like she humped a hornet’s next when she was little… with her face. Really, really… well, it’s not nice to stare, I’m sure she gets uncomfortable when people do that and my heart breaks for her. But tallies being rapists, pillagers, sower’s, etc, they will look. And stare. And judge. But flower pays them no heed. What. So. Ever. I guess that’s why I like Flower so much…

Bu! On the other hand, is about the opposite of Flower that you can think of. Flower is joyous and vocal, Bu! Is quiet, and meek. Around everyone, she traps up. Maybe I’m missing something but something about me…. No, something about Lekus! Makes her nervous. Come to think of it, when I showed her my Lekus! Ball of glowing, a really minor form of Lekus but so huge to me and my fledgling powers, she got really quiet. I don’t know why. She’s not… from around here I guess. Maybe she’s not used to us ‘rustic-minded hicks’….

*shrugs* I guess I have lots to learn about people.

Now that’s not all I’ve heard of as far as Me-sized peoples. I heard legends of me-Sized, big tales (heh, big) famous tales, tales of infamy. To the west of here, several weeks travel in fact, lies the home of several famous Halflings in that region, from Triboar & Haven Hills to Red larch and Loudwater to the far east of there. Really exciting tales if you have the time to read (or in my case, have someone read those musty books to you!) and the desire to learn more. Brave fighters, epic thieves, heroic priests of All-Mother’s, and ballads of…. Balls? *shakes head* pretty sure she misunderstood that last passage, but what eva. Me sized will rule the world… eventually. Might need stilts or stairs first.

Anyway, I was told about some famous bear roaming the back wilds of The Long Road, with a bolt in his arse or some nonsense…

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And there you have it. Flower, who looks like she was used as a brickbat for wasps, Bu, who utterly melts into walls and fences when you do something Lekus and me. Buzz-cut, dirty, eye ball collecting (whut? You think I WON’T figure the secrets that Alh-Kemee will show?) and the ability to see eye-to-eye with a tallie….for about a minute tops. If I hold my breath, two… So many differences… but I care for both of them dearly.

Which brings us to the end of this paragraph. It took me 6 candles to write all this out (using quills and black, black ink… is really hard). I hope all this non-sense the teacher is making me do ends up paying off. I like got NO skin left on my knuckles to give at this rate so I can’t really afford to make any changes to how I live or what I write…