To forget and be forgotten....

[Ambaryerno]

Name: Aleric
Race: Human
Gender: Male
Class: Fighter
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral

The realm from which he came is so distant not even rumor of its name has reached the Sword Coast, and as Aleric stepped from the ship that brought him to Baldur's Gate he melted away into the crowds of the great city's streets.

The tale of what brought him so far from home Aleric has shared with no one. Once he was a soldier, a swordsman of modest skill among his peers, and served in a company alongside his closest friend. Aleric and Osred were so close they might have been brothers, born in the same town, and spending long days of spring and summer at work in their lord's fields. As they came of age they were brought into his service together. Each strove to outdo the other in the sort of rivalry enjoyed by closest kin, and though Osred was often the victor, each was made a better man for it.

But in one matter Aleric was the master. Since they were boys, the two maintained a close friendship with Sunngifu. She was a few years their younger and born on a farm not far from town, and Aleric and Osred competed as much for her favor as they did in all other things, but though Sunngifu gave her friendship to Osred her heart belonged to Aleric.

Years passed and the three grew to adulthood. Osred stood by and watched the love of Aleric and Sunngifu blossom, and bitter envy twisted his heart. Then the day came when Aleric asked for Sunngifu's hand in marriage and she accepted. Blinded by his joy, Aleric could not see the hatred festering in his friend's heart finally break loose.

That night, while Aleric was away serving in the Lord's household, Osred went to Sunngifu and tried to sway her heart one last time. When she again refused him, Osred was taken by madness and seized her. She cried out and tried to flee, but his strength was too great and he forced her under him. She wept as he ravished her, and as he finished cried out for help. To silence her, Osred took up his mace and bashed her head in before fleeing into the darkness. In his haste, he left his weapon behind.

Later that night Aleric went to Sunngifu's home when his duties were finished, unprepared for the grisly sight that awaited him. As he entered and found her lifeless body sprawled in a pool of cold blood Aleric was overcome by grief, and the cry of anguish that escaped his lips shook the land. He cradled her in his arms and wept into her blood-matted hair, before he found Osred's mace lying nearby. Cold wrath filled his heart as he took up the weapon in a grip so tight his knuckles turned white, and he burst from his slain love's side, screaming her name and cursing Osred as he charged along the road.

Aleric found him at an inn between the farm and the town. Blinded by rage, he smashed through the door, scattering patrons and tables alike as he forced a path between him and Osred, who was deep into his cups as he tried to wash away the knowledge of what he had done. When he came face to face with Aleric terror seized his heart, and he fell to his knees to plead for mercy. The words never left his lips as the mace crashed down upon his head. Aleric screamed fury as he brought the steel head down again and again on Osred's skull, splattering blood, bone and brain across the tavern. The patrons who remained fled in terror.

As his rage passed Aleric looked down on the still form and smashed face of Osred, and let the mace drop to the ground. Blood covered him from head to toe, and his face was raw from tears. He then turned and disappeared into the night before guards could be summoned.

Aleric left the town that very night, not even stopping long enough to say one last goodbye to his slain love. Many people had seen him strike down Osred, but there were no witnesses to Sunngifu's murder. He hid by day and traveled by night until he reached a place where he could take ship to leave his home far behind.

For ten years he traveled, moving from port to port until finally he arrived in Baldur's Gate, as far from the reach of his homeland as could be found. There he remains, bitterly shunning the company of others in memory of the empty place left in his heart.

[Ambaryerno]

For his first few weeks on the Sword Coast, Aleric has found little comfort, though he has discovered some solace in wondering the Trade Way and fighting the monsters to be found there. In challenging his sword arm he has managed to distract himself from his pain, to a point.

He spends his days now largely alone, shunning even the company of other warriors who might fight beside him. When he ventures near the communal fire he sets himself apart, tending to his gear in silence, brooding and remembering.

However recently his uneasy peace was disrupted. At night, a man masked and robed in white, whom he later heard another name as "Dustin," began poking at the fire outside Baldur's Gate. Aleric thought nothing of it, and merely sat in silence, troubled by a strange feeling of unease he later passed off as the nearby presence of a Tiefling called by others as "Caedo."

Suddenly, the fire exploded in a wave of raging Fire Elementals. Aleric, sitting by a hay bale near the road, scattered with the rest of the folk gathered about as the Elementals attacked. They were put down in short order, only for a second wave to emerge when Dustin once again began to prod at the fire. As reinforcements arrived, the Elementals were followed by Demons. With no option to withdraw, Aleric joined in the defense of the bridge and helped destroy several of the creatures before a Djinn, which had bound the demons to his service, appeared and spirited Dustin away.

Alarmed by the presence of a creature that could bind such powerful beings it its will, Aleric left the watch over the fire and its strange portal to others, and withdrew to the Elfsong.

[Ambaryerno]

As he continues to wander the Trade Way, Aleric has found the expense of maintaining both himself and his equipment along the Sword Coast increasingly expensive. He has managed a small income from same monsters he has challenged to keep his sword arm ready, but this meager coin is seldom enough for long.

With few other skills to fall back on, Aleric approached the bulletin board of Baldur's Gate, and left a notice:

Sword Arm for Hire....

[Ambaryerno]

Aleric's notice had not been left unanswered for long, and soon he met with his first client at the Elfsong tavern: A self-described "Wordsmith" named Selis. Although after ten years he had yet to run into anyone seeking him for Osred's murder, Aleric remained wary of revealing his identity and gave his name as Mehtar.

Selis sought a guide to accompany her on visits to areas around Baldur's Gate, and after a brief negotiation Aleric agreed to escort her during an exploration of the Cloakwood Mines. While Selis met with the mining company in town to discuss recovering ore, Aleric made his way to their agreed upon rendezvous at the communal camp outside the city. After preparing his equipment and donning his armor, Selis met him and exchanged the agreed-upon fee, and the two set off south along the Trade Way.

Aleric led her to the site of the old Temple of Bhaal, before turning into the Cloakwood. At the entrance to the mines they met with another adventurer named Krandal, who was interested in hunting monsters in the mines, and at Selis's invitation joined the party. The three proceeded down into the first level, easily fighting their way past the Bugbears that infested the upper levels.

The first real trouble came about when they arrived at the third level, and the Umber Hulks which drove the miners from the tunnels attacked them. Aleric quickly interposed himself between them and his charges, but as he fought at times he lost his senses entirely. In his dazed state he attacked both friend and foe, wounding both his companions severely until the episodes passed. He had felt such sensations before fighting the beasts alone, but had never before journeyed into the mines in the company of others. Krandal suggested some familiarity of the condition but could offer little real solution or explanation. Deeply embarrassed at attacking an ally, and with memories of the murder of his closest friend brought suddenly to mind, Aleric advised Selis and Krandal to remain well back of him when they encountered the beasts.

With wary eyes open for their Queen, which Aleric had seen at times in the bottom-most level of the mines, the three continued deeper into the tunnels while Selis searched for the ore the miners asked her to recover. Finally they reached the last chamber, where the mine's greatest danger lurked.

Aleric had fought the Beholder once before, but he was on his own, and the fight was a bloody one in which he only narrowly emerged victorious. But Selis was determined to see the expedition through to the end, so Aleric led them into battle. He carefully drew the last handful of Umber Hulks to where they could be individually slain, allowing them to focus their sole attention on the Beholder itself.

The battle was short but vicious, and even faced with all three of them at once the Beholder still inflicted great damage on its foes, but finally the beast was slain. Aleric, Selis and Krandal finished their search of the chamber and recovered what treasure there was to be had before returning to the surface. There they divided their spoils as agreed, before Krandal parted company with them.

Aleric and Selis returned to the camp, and there parted company. After spending a brief time at the communal fire to tend to his equipment, Aleric made his way into the city to sell his share of the recovered treasure, before returning to the Elfsong for a well-deserved drink.

[Ambaryerno]

After a day spent fighting the Orcs of the Wood of Sharp Teeth, Aleric returned to the Elfsong for a meal. He was just finishing when Selis arrived, seeking his aid again. Motioning for her to sit, she began to tell him of a unique problem she was in need of assistance for.

It would seem her beloved theater was infested. Upon pressing her further, Aleric was shocked when she revealed the source of her troubles was a coven of vampires that had taken up residence in the building, attacking her and her performers. Seeking to avoid involving her friends in her troubles, she turned to Aleric instead in hopes of finding aid. Selis required both protection from the creatures themselves, and a means of ridding her theater of their presence.

Intrigued by situation, and bored with testing his sword against the Orcs, Aleric agreed. After negotiating the fee, Aleric escorted Selis back to the White Mask, and began to explain in greater detail what she knew of the coven:

It appeared to be lead by a female named Lilly who, after an initial attack against Selis, politely warned her against fighting back. Selis herself was attacked when she entered the upstairs costume attic in search of a missing performer after noticing blood dripping from the ceiling, where she discovered the woman also fell victim to the vampires. After she regained consciousness from the ordeal and was confronted by Lilly, Selis ventured back upstairs, finding no trace of the missing woman or the blood. All that remained was an odd portrait depicting the performer bound to a chair with a bloody wound on her neck and shoulder. The vampires did not seem to be making a permanent residence in the building, but Lilly warned Selis she would see them again.

Aleric's attention was immediately caught by the fact that although the vampires appeared to move at will about the theater, all the attacks had thus far occurred in the attic. He also found the sudden appearance of the painting--which did not exist until after Lilly assaulted Selis--curious.

Approaching the mystery as he would any battle, Aleric began formulating strategy. Though Selis was reluctant to involve many more people in resolving the issue and despite a lack of regard for such holy men on his own account, he recognized that a Cleric or Paladin might be necessary once the time came to attack the coven. Although the creatures might simply have found the theater, which had been abandoned for some time, an ideal hiding place, Aleric found their presence in the city strange enough to require investigation. With the building itself being relatively new, his thoughts turned to whatever structure previously occupied the site.

Selis agreed to look into old deeds and titles to the land. Meanwhile, in part on Selis's recommendation, Aleric resolved to inquire with the priests of Lathander in Beregost into what he knew of the creatures and the mysterious painting they left behind. Perhaps the servants of the Morninglord might have some knowledge that could be of assistance in ridding the theater of its unwanted guests. He would also seek out the wizard Thalantyr to determine if it is possible some taint in the theater itself had drawn the creatures--several accidents had occurred during its construction, and perhaps some level of negative energy had been absorbed by the structure.

With their strategy in place, Aleric took up his position to guard the theater. It would certainly be an interesting few weeks.

[Ambaryerno]

Aleric stood on the stage at the White Mask Theater. It was dark inside; the lamps were extinguished, and the only illumination was the starlight streaming through the windows.

He held his sword loosely in one hand as he paced the stage, barefoot and stripped to the waist, covered in sweat. The long, blade gleamed coldly in the pale silver light. Its edge was sharp and well-tended, flowing in elegant symmetry to the graceful arc of the guard. A narrow fuller ran from near the tip to the base of the blade, smooth except for one word engraved into the surface: SUNNGIFU.

Aleric raised his sword in both hands into the roof guard, the hilts at his right shoulder and the blade pointed almost straight up, and started through a series of cuts and attacks. Each flowed smoothly, cleanly, and gracefully one into the other, turning on the balls of his feet as he stepped about the stage, changing directions, engaging unseen enemies standing in all directions, moving from one to another rapidly and fluidly. Sunngifu's blade was a flash of silver light in the darkness, the tip whistling through the air as it wheeled in an endless circle as it dropped in an overhead slash from right shoulder to left hip, and with a twist of his wrists and body flipped the blade around behind his head into a rising short-edge cut from his right hip to left shoulder, ending in the guard of the ox; the hilts by his ear, and the tip of his sword pointed out ahead of him.

For some time more he worked, his blade spinning deftly through cuts and thrusts, shifting from one guard to another, advancing, covering, retreating, vainly attempting to drive away the memories closing in around him.

Earlier he had listened as Selis went on at length of her husband, their founding of the White Mask, and his death. Aleric said little, only listening as she spoke. The tale of her loss struck him as surely as any blade, and brought his past vividly up in front of him again. He could feel Sunngifu's lifeless body again, as keenly as that night when he held her still, cold form in his arms. He could feel Osred's hot blood splatter across him as he smashed his treacherous face in again and again. He could feel the impotent, helpless fury coursing through him as his world shattered around him.

Aleric's work with the sword quickened, gaining in intensity as Sunngifu spun dizzyingly through the air, each movement of the sword perfectly in tune with his body in spite of the speed. Now at times he shifted into half-sword; one hand on the hilts and the other gripping the blade, shortening his cuts and speeding his attacks, rapid and powerful thrusts aimed at the gaps in his imaginary foes' armor, striking out with the pommel, hooking them and throwing them to the ground with the guard, swinging the sword with both hands on the blade as if the pommel were a mace. Each movement became faster and faster, until finally he stumbled and fell to his knees. Sunngifu rang as the sword dropped from his hands the stage floor.

He stayed there for some time, panting from the exertion of his drill and drenched in sweat, fighting to banish the memories from his thoughts as he knelt. The theater remained still and silent, no sign of Selis or any of the workers who stayed there, nor of Lilly and her coven. Aleric gazed silently at the floor for a long moment, then turned to his sword, staring at the name engraved into the surface of the blade. He reached out and took the sword, holding it aloft in both hands as he studied the careful efforts of the engraver's art.

Aleric closed his eyes and bowed his head, and touched his brow to the name etched into the blade, engraved into the steel as clearly as it was burned into his mind.

[Ambaryerno]

Aleric sat in a dark corner of the Burning Wizard, slowly nursing a drink. At times other patrons approached to involve him in some amicable discourse, but each time a withering warning glare sent them scurrying back to their original companions.

His frustration and impatience was mounting. It had been some time since Lilly made any overt threat or taken any action against Selis. In fact, there had scarcely been any sign of the vampire's presence or activities in the Mask at all since she revealed she had turned Selis's understudy Alison. The Masquerade had gone off largely free of incident; one drunk kept falling asleep needed to be evicted, and two idiots chose to rush on stage during Selis's individual performance. One of them came down with no more than a warning glare, but the other had to be physically dragged off stage again. The only other irritation was from a man named Lightbringer. Aleric had feared that Lilly might take advantage of the activity to make some move, and had a plan in place to secure the theater in the event of trouble, but fortunately this proved unnecessary.

But she was still there. Lilly and her coven might have been quiet, but he knew she would not be for long. What concerned him most was what they still didn't know: why Lilly had so much interest in the theater itself, and Selis in particular, and what it was she wanted; whether her master, Alaster, was connected with her activities; if there was a connection between her presence and the fight between DeGaulle and the Shadow Singer in the theater's equivalent on the Shadow Plane; and though the wizard Tiberius waved off his concerns, whether it had anything to do with the Shadow of the Aria's interest in the White Mask during its original construction.

The inaction was beginning to wear on him. He did not want to attempt striking out at Lilly without knowing more--from what little he know of Alaster, if he was indeed involved with her activities provoking him without being prepared would be incredibly dangerous--but so far the vampire had been in complete control of the situation. It was long past time for her to be put on the defensive.

Instead he had to wait, and their problems were exacerbated by a fire that all but gutted the White Mask. They had few concrete leads, other than the corpses of the rats conjured by shadow magic which were involved in its destruction, and a strangely prophetic article by The Taddler. A paladin named Kaden had caused an enormous uproar in Baldur's Gate with the posting of a bounty on the anonymous author, which complicated Aleric's own attempts to investigate in the chaos of random accusations and the Fist's attempts to restore order.

He drained the last of his drink and, seeking something to do to pass the time in idleness, pulled a sheathe of parchment from his pack and, after some quiet musing, began writing with the words:

Deployment and Application of a Lance of Five Men
And its relation to a Full Company and Army on the Battlefield

Central to all tactical applications of an army in battle is the Five Man Mixed Lance....

[Ambaryerno]

The harsh clash of steel split the air over the fields.

Aleric stepped out to the right and swung Sunngifu over his left shoulder into a hanging guard to cover his back as the shambling form opposing him brought down its own sword on the space his head occupied just a moment before. The instant he felt their blades make contact Aleric was moving again. He compassed his left foot back behind him, and pulled down hard on the pommel of his sword to whip the blade around into a falling long-edge cut from right shoulder to left hip.

Sunngifu's tip whistled through the air, and struck his opponent's sword with the distinct and clear ring of silver. Aleric did not wait for his opponent to react and immediately stepped further around to the right and rolled Sunngifu around in a high short-edged lateral cut at his target's left temple.

The attack was just a feint.

As soon as his opponent moved to defend, Aleric stepped to his left and swept his sword back around behind his head and dropped into a lateral cut aimed at the right hip. Again his opponent attempted to defend, and again Aleric reversed, bringing Sunngifu around in another lateral cut, this time at the left hip. For the third time his opponent reacted, and Aleric for the third time changed directions, and swept his sword around behind his head again and leveled a high lateral cut to the right temple.

This time his opponent was too slow to react, and Sunngifu's blade bit deeply, cleaving off the top of his opponent's skull and sending it spinning off into the tall grass nearby. Aleric used the momentum of his cut to compass and take up the Guard of the Ox, the hilts of his sword near the side of his head, with the point aimed at his opponent.

The man's lifeless eyes gazed balefully at him from deep within their rotted sockets; two red points of light gleaming in the shadows of a skull from which flesh hung in dessicated strips. Maggots crawled about in the corpse's flesh beneath the tattered remnants of clothing and armor. Here and there bare bone peeked out through ragged gaps in decomposing muscle tissue. Aleric's blow would have felled any normal man in an instant. The dead warrior facing him felt no pain, and with any other weapon he would need to take his opponent down one limb at a time.

Aleric stepped back with his left foot, dropped his hands to his hips, and Sunngifu's point to the ground. He and his opponent circled one another for a brief moment.

The dead man struck high.

Aleric snapped his sword up into the Crown Guard. Steel rang against silver as their weapons met. Instantly he was moving again, sidestepping right and throwing Sunngifu's pommel up and around to wheel his sword into a lateral short-edge cut to the dead man's left cheek. Sunngifu buried herself deeply into the point where the lower jaw fit into the skull. Bone fragments exploded from the wound, and the silver blade sheared through dead flesh and sinew, leaving the warrior's jaw hanging sickeningly from only one side of his rotted head as Sunngifu passed through.

There was a brief flash of white light as the blade met the dead man's cheek, and the two red points burning in the empty eye sockets immediately blinked out of existence. Aleric pulled his sword blade clear and dropped into the Guard of the Plow--sword hilts at his left hip with the point angled upward at his opponent's face--as the magic bonds that animated the corpse were severed, and the body collapsed into a pile of disarticulated bones and ragged, decomposing flesh and fabric.

Aleric quickly turned about looking for another threat, but silence hung over the Fields of the Dead. Relaxing from his guard position, he regarded Sunngifu with satisfaction before sliding her back into his scabbard and made his way back to town.

The Smith does indeed do good work.