Diablo 2: Prodigy

Diablo 2: Prodigy
by Lady Jasmine

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I've been asked as to what the order to read my stories in is:

1. Longing to be with you
2. Visions of You
3. Fallen
4. Prodigy

Apprentice is a silly short piece and is a steaming pile of crap. I don't recommend reading it if you were hoping it would be like my other stories.
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Chapter 1: One's own mission


Twas upon one starry eve
the dark-haired amazon prodigy was given life.
And was upon a dark day she announced
to never lay like anyone's wife.

She turned down the best prospects,
hoping for one more suited for her.
If she sees her future holding something great,
then I say 'tis her eyes that be in a blur.

How strange this act of
one of the top amazon defenders.
Perhaps she prefers her mate
to be of some distorted lackless gender?

Never shall she spread her legs
for a man who desires her so.
The softness of her breasts and womanhood,
not one man shall ever know.

She claims to keep her innocence
just to have her morals pleased.
But it could be something more indeed
like hiding an incurable disease?

Perhaps she fears not pleasing a man
and fears being tossed aside.
And that man shall take up another woman,
because even whores will allow him inside.

But if the lovely lady's virginity were sold,
she'd earn a fortune or more.
Being chaste will never earn you money, my dear,
so t'would be best you be a gloried whore.

You claim the loss of self-respect
be your greatest fear along with pride.
But, my striking one, you are wrong:
you fear letting a man inside.


You move to escape and
are desperate to hide!
Like a mystical magical forest
dying to keep all secrets inside.

What is it you hide from?
Are you scared of the pain?
There will be no hurt if you heed my words
and do the act again and again.

You claim yourself to be different,
do you belive thyself as complex?
You are not so because I know what are:
a wee lass scared of the stronger sex.

- "Coy Maiden" - Originally sung by one bard, until it spread through the lands and spawned several bastardized variations.

----

"Stronger sex...? Stronger sex? STRONGER sex?!!" Her voice grew louder as her offense to the song become more obvious with each repetition.

The men in the dilapidated tavern inched off their rotting bar stools and scooted away from the dark haired woman, slamming her fist on the bar and screeching her disdain in a voice that would sour the milk and the cow it came from. The furious woman wasn't fragile or fair—-thus considered ugly--but she was striking; she had a strength to her face and eyes that taunted men and dared only brave ones to look twice longingly.

In the confines of the Grand Escape tavern and inn recently erected in the now thriving desert city of Lut Gholein, a raven haired woman's hand lashed out and choked the mug's handle, threatening to obliterate it into splinters within the firm grip of her decidedly feminine hand.

One man dared to give the stink eye to the woman. Clearly he was irritated that her outburst stopped the song from repeating the final stanza faster and faster until only one drunkard remain singing. That was the game of the song and the woman simply ruined the fun.

A dark angry aura seemed to rise off of the woman as all but her neck remained perfectly still. Her head was turning slowly in a twitchy manner, her nerves torn raw from the drunken ditty. She haughtily stared down the man who dared to give her any attitude be it through one's voice or actions.

She had her own actions to accompany her displeasure which she would happily follow through with.

Minutes later, she left the bar. She couldn't help but smirk to herself as she walked down the dusty streets. Even when she was in the area of the legendary blacksmith's workplace she could still see the arms of a man frantically waving and screaming at the top of his lungs.

His form, though a dark silhouette against the red skyline of the desert city of the west, was impressive. It was a feat that he could even get air into his lungs given how much effort it had taken the woman to shove the rude bar patron up the fireplace chimney.

The rules of the amazon life was simple:
1. Honour and pride among you and your sisters
2. Courage in light and darkness.
3. Never disrespect the prodigal amazon.

As she tossed back her dark hair, Celesta still felt her fury boiling. Furious? Yes! Of course she was furious. She, the mighty Celesta of the Amazons, daughter of the revered Kaelith and student to the legendary Illeila was being laughed at. Imagine the nerve! All she could do was clenched her fists tightly; she was not used to this brand of rage and was unsure of what to do it.

She halted in her tracks, the dust rising up from her worn boots that were covered in a fine layer of dirt. According to Amazonian laws, offended sisters were given the right to exact their revenge or displeasure upon those who offend. Granted, the original author was no responsible for the song was not under or a follower of the Amazon ways... however, that fact alone would not spare him of Celesta's right to follow through with tradition and justice.

Celesta had heard the song many times. With each retelling she had heard though it became more and more offensive to her. The point of the song remained and it was beyond insulting! To suggest that females were the weaker sex and that Celesta had failed to find a mate as tradition dictated was unacceptable.

There was more to her tale, but she was beyond unwilling to find the stupid bard and explain herself. It however was not beyond her to find the bard for other reasons.

She knew she needed to find the bard, but she was unsure of how anyone was supposed to track someone down based on their name, Bayard. It wasn't much, but it was a start. She knew it was a well known bard, well-travelled too. And there were little hints in various other songs she had come across also composed by him that were indications of where he possibly originated from. The sentence structures were designed on questions to raise in cadence, which was common within the East. However... that still presented a problem: there were many parts to "the East." The dwellers of the east were either those of the nomadic descent—-such as the wanderers that plagued the ever-changing regions of the east, or of the mysterious mage clans. Either way, traveling to either part to investigate was currently out of the question.

However, there was the reference to a 'mystical magical forest' and 'secrets.' It could have been a reference to the forests that the Zann Esu have been known to haunt.

However, what if the song had been mutilated over time to include those cultural references or accents?

She needed more hints and for that she needed more bards who knew more of the bold bard's songs.

---

"If he keeps singing I will kill him myself," the red-haired druid hissed before diving in to his share of the suckling wild boar.

Bayard sighed and shook his head, "You have no culture, Rune."

Around the campfire, four people were gathered, tired but happily taking their fill in the divinely seasoned meat on the fire. They had been traveling without end for the past five days with still two more day's worth of walking ahead. Their spirits were a little low but Bayard's singing seemed to keep them in high spirits.

The bard hummed a rich note before Rune glared at him again. His icy stare stopped when a fragile light-brown haired woman raised her head from its resting place on a man's thigh.

"Why'd you stop singing?" Alys asked, sleepily.

The woman's voice in the air caused a small metal creature lying by the fire to stir. The midget metal golem——appropriately named Spikey thanks to the jagged protrusions all over its body—-rolled over in its resting state to lie on the earth, face down. The golem was the faithful companion and mistake of Ferrum so many weeks ago. And while Ferrum was well practiced enough to break down the golem and create a new one, he had become attached to the little thing.

Bayard smiled impishly at Rune before continuing singing his song.

The fragile woman leaned her head back on her beloved's thigh with a soft murmur of content. Ferrum's hand stroked her hair out of her face as she she pulled Ferrum's borrowed bright blue cloak tighter around her body.

It was a somewhat chilly autumn evening. It certainly was colder compared to the tropical climes that Alys had lived her the majority of her twenty years in. She had lived most of those years in servitude to her demented uncle, but finally those years were behind her and freedom had become a luxury she would now never tire from.

Alys was far off in another world, dreaming of wondrous things while her companions alternated the night watch, anxious of anything that was lurking in the deep dark night of the forest.

Shadows of their forms were casted on the majestic trees surrounding them. Rune found it quite hypnotic and had difficulty staying awake during his shift.

His eyes drifted over to Alys and Ferrum, sleeping in the embrace of each other. He felt a pang of jealousy as he was reminded of Nevia. He still missed her, but not a day went by that he didn't regret his actions. And so perhaps this is why he agreed to aid the young necromancer and Alys; it was penance.

It also astonished the druid how much Alys reminded him of Nevia to the point that he envisioned the blissful existence that Alys and Ferrum had would be what Rune and Nevia would have enjoyed had they not parted.

He still loved Nevia; it wasn't something that easy to shake off... but if anything, watching Ferrum and Alys made him realize how wrong he would have been for Nevia. As it happens, Rune was nothing like Ferrum; he was worse.

Rune turned his thoughts away from that darkness and wondered about an unlikely battle companion of his: Krysta. She was the cynical assassin and surprising friend of Nevia. Originally it has struck him as odd that a descendant of the mage-slaying clan had become friends with a mage, but it really wasn't his concern to decide who was an appropriate friend for Nevia.

His brow puckered; he was concerned for the assassin. After the showdown with the Enchantress, Krysta went missing. Rune had stayed with Ferrum and Alys in Kurast for a month to help with the huge responsibility of rebuilding. During that time he was hoping that the assassin would turn up unscathed. She didn't.

While Krysta was not necessarily his friend, she was Nevia's, and he felt a huge responsibility towards her well-being on behalf of Nevia.

A cough sounded, shaking him out of his thoughts. Alys was awake again. Her backside was pressed snuggly against Ferrum's body while the necromancer's arm was draped possessively around her stomach. Her brown eyes were open and watching him with a small smile.

"How are you?" she asked softly, lifting Ferrum's arm up slowly so she could leave his hold.

"I'm not too bad," he responded, watching as she slowly crawled over to him near the fire. She crossed her legs and folded her hands neatly. "You should rest."

She shook her head, her brown locks shaking. "I'll be all right."

"It's been a long day," Rune reasoned, patting her shoulder with a warm smile. "Tomorrow might even be longer."

Alys shook her head again. "I'll be all right... I'm more worried about him." She nodded towards Bayard and Rune raised his brow. "Can we trust him?"

Rune shrugged. "Probably not, but we have no choice. I can navigate the Zann Esu forests, but I don't know how to get there... Nevia always took care of that."

Alys nodded. During their many nights of travel, Rune had disclosed his story to her. She felt lucky that he trusted her with the truth, but it scared her as to what Rune had done to a friend. However, what scared her more was his loyalty to the woman he had first loved: Eterna.

Eterna... the woman spoken of in the bardic tale of Eternal Beauty's death. Bayard had sung it for her once when Rune was out getting supplies. It had brought tears to Alys' eyes to think of what sadness Rune must have felt and still feel. She had found herself wishing that a good person would one day appear in his life.

Maybe there was someone perfect out there for him. But, knowing Rune, he wasn't interested in looking.

"We'll get there, don't worry," Rune grimaced.

Alys nodded solemnly. Truthefully, she was scared. Ever since the fateful moment with the Enchantress she had been feeling so foreign inside her body that she eventually found herself able to cast lightning magicks without any prior knowledge of how to and without any effort.

It troubled Ferrum so much that he felt it was necessary to bring her to the Zann Esu mage clan and speak to the sorceresses there about her condition and what can be done to save her.

Alys chuckled. "Don't worry, I told him he can't sing that song again."

He nodded, relieved. "I don't get why all of his songs have to be about actual events."

Alys blinked, "Wait... you mean Coy Maiden is actually about someone?"

The orange-haired druid looked horrified. "He sung that for you?!"

"Um... yes."

He grimaced again. He had come to view Alys as a younger sister figure and it sometimes scared him how protective he felt about her. He was at the point of preferring to think of Alys as a virgin despite it was obvious of her affairs with Ferrum.

She chuckled as Rune stammered something about it being a horribly inappropriate song for her ears. "I am not that young."

"You're still young."

She shrugged. "Did I mention he sang "The tale of two sisters and the necromancer" to me?"

Rune nearly had an apoplectic fit. He was tempted to grab Ferrum by his blonde head and shake some sense into the necromancer for failing to protect Alys from the bawdy tales that Bayard was wiling to share.

"I should kill Bayard."

"I really hope you don't."

Alys and Rune turned to find the bard grinning, his head turned to them with his eyes glittering in the firelight. "Killing me means you deprive the world of even more magnificent songs!"

Rune groaned and turned his back to Bayard.

It was settled: Bayard is an asshole.

***

Rune unwittingly fell asleep, leaving Bayard on watch while Alys stayed up too, chatting with the older bard about their own lives.

"One day, I'm sure I will write a song about you," he admitted to the frail woman. "Your story astonishes me, truly."

She laughed, the sound reminiscent of a peal of bells, "And what will you call it?"

He smiled and shook his head, "I don't know."

"What about you? she suddenly asked.

"What about me?"

"Don't you have any songs about yourself?"

The bard burst out laughing. "I'm afraid my magnificence is too great to be captured in one song. "My story can only be captured in an 8-part story."

The bard was beyond arrogant but Alys still found it amusing. "And what, proytell, will this story be called?"

"Bayard: Ruler of the world!!"

Alys shook her head. "You don't think that's a bit much?"

"I suppose." He paused seriously and tapping his chin in thought. "Scion... I can settle for scion."

"Huh?"

Bayard smiled to himself, his weather-worn hands touching the lines on his forehead as he shook his head, "It's nothing, you should sleep, young one--"

"--But I'm not asleep..." Promptly, Alys blinked, yawning sleepily as she made her way over back to Ferrum to return to the warmth of his embrace. She promptly passed out without any struggle.

The bard tossed another dry branch into the fire but not before poking the pile several times. He glanced around the woods with a sigh. It was time to go to work. The night was aging and there was much work to be done.

His hands glowed with a gentle blue light as he silently gave the orders to his minions within the darkness to keep watch. His face was something reminiscent of "menacing" as his lips barely moved to formed the words.

Something out there in the pitch black forest was calling to him, threatening his existence. It stemmed from his past and would no doubt poison his future if he didn't find the key survivor to it all; the one person who decided the outcome.

He was pretty sure the key person would not be easy to find. The only way in fact to find anyone was to piss them off. He had heard stories of so many people who could possibly be the one he was looking for that he had concocted tales about all of them; some of those tales were true while some were the result of his sheer genius.

Eterna, was one he suspected, which had been his sole reason traveling to the Zann Esu valleys. He however was let down when he realized she was killed and fell prey to much evil. In respect to her memory and to call out the druid he had been seeking, he made certain to sing the "Eternal Beauty's Death" to eventually find leads on who the druid was.

However, it was unfortunate that Rune was not the one he was seeking. When he met Rune on that ship, he had felt much sorrow in his heart. Bayard could see how much Eterna had meant to Rune and how failing her still gnawed at his soul.

There were four more people out there though that still had yet to make an appearance. If the legends were true and the sage of the priests of Bul-Kathos were correct, then he needed to find them all and watch them carefully; it was his destiny, his absolute birthright. It was a cursed existence, but destined to be completed lest all life be unraveled before his eyes.

Considering the legend was the reason he hadn't heard from his uncle, the great Zensarig—-or Zeng for short--it must be true. His uncle, a fearsome man to meet on the battlefield, was not one to go into hiding or let his presence remain unknown. Perhaps something horrible had befallen him... but it was impossible to imagine anything in the world able to take him down except for maybe the monsters of legends, or Baal... or Diablo.

He needed to find those people the legend mentioned. It was unfortunate that not one clue to the location of the muse behiind "Coy Maiden" was found. The three other songs were a success and he was in fact on his way to find one of them among the Zann Esu mage clan.

The forgotten little golem suddenly stirred, jumping to his feet. His hulking frame turned to look at his master and Alys sleeping soundly before he turned to look up at Bayard expectantly.

The bard simply nodded at the golem and the metal creature seemed to understand him. He began marching quietly around the campsite, patrolling around the three sleeping forms, and occasionally kicking Rune's foot if he felt it got in the way.

Quietly, Bayard picked up his pack and made his way into the night, patting one of his minions on the head hidden behind a tree. They would not move unless there was a threat to its master, and Bayard was currently the most potentially threatening presence in the forest.


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Comments/criticism appreciated: ladyofjasmine@gmail.com

To be continued.