Bane After the Island

You’ll notice a common theme on my blog. I get really caught up in the characters my friends and I create for our weekly tabletop roleplaying sessions. I’ve been fortunate to be surrounded by amazing and creative geniuses, both in character concepts and roleplaying, for the last 20 years.

That fascination with these characters often drives me to write short stories of things that didn’t necessarily happen in our game or as I imagine how these characters might interact with one another “between chapters” or in an epilogue. This is one example from a campaign long ago where the surly assassin I was playing, named Bane, interacts with the power-hungry and evil(?) sorcerer Celceor, played brilliantly by my friend Dave Martin.

While I loved playing Bane, Celceor really got his hooks into our group and remains a figure of song and lore. I’ve even brought him into my Xenia campaign as a bitter, ageless, and supremely powerful archmage who inhabits a dimension-hopping tower.

I hope you enjoy this tale from 2009 where Bane and his friends are trying to uncover the plans of the insidious All Father and his followers to attack the town of Cauldron. Bane is attempting to infiltrate the living quarters of the corrupt sheriff to see what intel he can get on the All Father’s plan of attack.

His fingers moved with great alacrity as Bane defeated and disarmed the multitude of traps and wards that had been placed on the sheriff’s door. Despite the rudimentary nature of many of them, the avenger still took extraordinary care to ensure nary a click, slide or pop escaped any of the locks and hidden devices meant to keep him or any would-be assassin from entering the room. Not that it mattered though, the drunken guffaw from the portly man and his whore could be heard despite the best efforts of the thick oaken door to hold them back.

One could almost read the growing paranoia the sheriff harbored here on the fringe of the All Father-controlled lands as new obstacles were installed next to and at times on top of others.

 A tiny spigot no larger than the point of a quill sprung from the base of the door’s handle and spurt forth its deadly concoction. Bane knew it was there however and anticipated it – intentionally sprung it in fact. Quickly he produced the mailed gauntlet he stripped from one of the sheriff’s guards who lay lifelessly at his feet, mouth frozen agape in the scream that remained caged in his chest due to an expertly placed dagger that Bane slid between his third and fourth rib.

The acid hit the iron plate in the palm of the gauntlet and began voraciously dissolving the metal. Bane quickly tiled the palm toward the orifice, cleverly hidden to appear as a simple gap in the door’s vertical boards, where poisonous gas was meant to spew forth. He waited a moment as the acid worked, collapsing the delivery tube upon itself.

As he held the gauntlet in place with his left hand, his right was busily picking a trio of key locks that had to be opened in the correct order – outside, inside, middle. He allowed himself a slight chuckle at how deftly he was able to manipulate such complex examples of engineering. Truly the irony of it was undeniable when juxtaposed with how ham-handed he was trying to untie Natalia’s bodice that night in the loft of one of his family’s ostrich stables.

Only one trap remained on the door now. Bane reached into a black felt bag hidden in the folds of his cloak and produced the glass jar Celceor had sent him.

Celceor.

The gravity of it all hit him at that moment as he considered the magical item. True, Celceor was even now helping to prepare his people’s defenses from what was intended to be a surprise invasion by the All Father’s troops, but as with most all of the intelligence they had been able to gather since returning from the island, it was up to Bane and his network of avengers to ascertain the when, where and how – by subterfuge or force. Without that, Celceor and his people ran the risk of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Bane twirled the jar, considering it as he did. It certainly looked simple enough to him, no more special than any of the dozens of canning jars you’d find in any old cellar. When Bane had contacted Celceor for advice on how to defeat the last ward on the sheriff’s door, and do it completely silently, the elf was confident this simple jar would do the trick.

With a shrug, Bane carefully unscrewed the jar’s lid. He licked his lips as he prepared himself for this final hurdle. Slowly, he placed the open end of the jar over what appeared to be a knot in the door’s wood frame at about chest height.

The avenger closed his eyes and took a deep breath, silently saying a prayer to whatever gods would even listen to him anymore. He gripped the door’s iron handle and gently with his thumb depressed the lever.

Instantly, a blazing bolt of blue electricity fired in the jar. Despite himself, Bane jumped slightly at the startling explosion from the trap. His heart had tried desperately to escape his chest, but the avenger must be a master of oneself in order to move and hide unseen. As quickly as his heart rate has accelerated to its panicked state, Bane reined in back in.

With his free hand, he deftly slipped the lid of the jar between the door frame and the jar’s lip. Once the opening was covered, Bane pulled the jar back to his chest and hastily screwed the top back on.

Once again he held the jar at eye level and shook his head as a smirk crawled across his face. That damned elf may be one of the shadier individuals he had ever known, but he always came through, whether it be coming up with the Boot of Levitation to aide Bane in their intelligence-gathering cause or flat-out pulling the Company’s collective arses out of many a fire during combat. He allowed himself another moment to watch in amazement as the electricity noiselessly ricocheted around the jar like a crazed lightning bug.

Bane slipped the jar back into the felt bag, which instantly extinguished the light. Grabbing a corner of his cloak he rubbed the stubby needle of another disarmed trap that continued to drip a viscous, paralyzing substance. He then drew his light crossbow and transferred the goo to a bolt before loading it.

Listening at the door for a moment, he assured himself the drunkenness and rapture of the room’s two inhabitants had reached a level that would virtually ensure no one would notice his entrance.

Not that he was worried.

Bane dropped to his haunches and in one fluid movement cracked the door open, slipped inside, and closed it behind him. In the next instant, he was slipping through the shadows, melting into the background, virtually unseen to all but the keenest of eyes and senses.

At the opposite end of the room, the two figures writhed atop a magnificent four-post bed. Despite the cooler autumn air, they were bathed in sweat, no doubt the result of the copious amounts of wine that saturated their bodies.

There was a ruffle of the sheets as the woman shifted and climbed atop the sheriff. His flabby bulk made the position difficult, but she was a pro and knew how to handle such a situation for a man with money.

Leaning back she began rotating her hips, grinding her crotch into his at a steadily increasing pace. The sheriff’s plump hands came up, grabbing in vain for the woman’s ample breasts, which glistened with perspiration in the shafts of moonlight that penetrated the room’s closed and bolted shutters.

The whore walked the fingers of one hand over the pasty white mountain that was the sheriff’s belly and inserted two fingers into his mouth. He closed his eyes and began to suck greedily upon them. A sly grin began to spread across the face of the whore who, despite herself, was actually starting to enjoy herself. She found herself caressing her own body with her free hand as she began slowly building to climax.

Suddenly, white-hot pain exploded in the fingers she had put in the sheriff’s mouth. She yelped with an agony that, fortunately for her, was considerably dulled by her drunken state. Beneath her, the sheriff’s face was contorted in a mixture of shock and pain. His teeth were clamped down on her fingers like a bear trap on the leg of its victim. What’s more, her mate’s entire body had suddenly become as rigid as a ceiling beam.

She clamped her right hand down on the wrist of the trapped hand and tried to yank it free. Turning her heard toward the door, she started to yell for the guards but before the words could escape a small crossbow bolt hit her in the shoulder. The whore’s body instantly seized into a state similar to the sheriff’s.

“Shut up,” Bane murmured to himself as he slid the rest of the way out from under the sheriff’s bed. He stood up, sheathed his dagger after wiping the sheriff’s blood from it on a bedsheet, and then hid the crossbow somewhere under his cloak.

Bane gave the whore a shove and she toppled over across the bed to her right. He then leaned over the sheriff so that his face was only a few inches from it. “The blow I gave you will only paralyze you for a short time. You are not dead because I require information from you. If you tell me what I need to know, I will let you live. Blink your eyes twice if you understand.”

Although the obese man was indeed paralyzed, he still had the use of his eyes, which were wild with terror. His breath was short and came with some difficulty, and with each exhale, small bubbles of blood popped as rivulets of the crimson fluid continued to run from the whore’s fingers still trapped in his mouth. Nevertheless, the sheriff was able to gain control of his faculties enough to blink the requisite number of times to affirm he was listening - loud and clear.

“Good,” Bane said. “Your guards are dead and no one is going to come looking for your whore, so help most certainly is not coming. Your only hope of survival is your complete and utter cooperation.

“There is information I require and you can provide it. The attack on the jungle elves, it will be launched from here, yes?”

The sheriff grunted something unintelligible but unmistakably urgent.

The avenger sighed. “Blink, please. Remember? Twice for yes. Three times for no. Any more or any less and I cut off a toe.”

Instantly the terrified man blinked twice, grunted something excitedly, and then blinked twice again for good measure.

“Thank you,” Bane said softly. “But you see, I already knew that. What I don’t know is where the assault will begin? And when? How many soldiers? Where will the flank attacks come? My sources tell me the attack is imminent. Surely you have received plans and instructions from Cauldron.”

With two quick blinks, the man attempted to communicate something. When the questioning look screwed up onto Bane’s face, he began making a concerted effort to look twice to his left, back at Bane, then twice to his left, over and again.

Bane looked over in the direction the man indicated. “The nightstand?”

Two blinks. Grunt. Two blinks.

The avenger glided over to the other side of the bed and opened the single drawer in the nightstand. As he did so the sheriff began another series of emphatic grunts, to which Bane cast him a wry look. “Yes, I know there is a false bottom in the drawer, you idiot. I mean, really, it couldn’t be more obvious. At least you made an attempt to be clever with the wards on the door.”

He lifted up the bottom of the drawer to reveal a stack of parchments. He licked his lips as his eyes eagerly danced across the multiple figures, drawings, instructions, and sequences for the attack.

Nodding his head slowly he said to the sheriff. “Yes, this will do nicely.” Looking over to the pathetic man, nude, unkempt, and with a paralyzed whore draped across his lap, he frowned. “I’d ask you if these were falsified, but honestly…” he said with a gesture toward the man.

Bane knelt down next to the bed and laid the sheets of parchment out in a row on the floor. Reaching into his cloak he produced an apple-sized glass ball and, bringing it to his lips, whispered a word in a foreign tongue. A soft pink glow manifested in the heart of the orb, bathing the avenger’s face in its light.

 “I’ve got it,” Bane said, addressing the glowing orb.

“Excellent!” came the voice on the other end. “Point the scrying orb toward the documents one by one and they will be transmitted to me.”

Bane turned the ball around so the part he spoke into faced the documents and slowly began moving it from top to bottom just a few inches over each one.

“We have it,” the voice came from the orb. “Thank you, Bane. My people are indebted to you.”

Bane turned the ball over so it once again faced him. “I’m having way too much fun to thank me, Celceor,” he said with a smirk. “Besides, we all have our reasons for wanting to drive that rat bastard the All Father and his followers into the sea.”

The mage looked contemplatively at the rogue for a long moment. “Agreed. Although I’m not certain why this has become a personal vendetta of yours. We all appreciated the network of spies and avengers you have managed to create – and quickly – but there are those of us who think you are stretching yourself too thin.”

Bane managed another smirk, noticing how the elf phrased that last part to not include himself among those carrying any concern over him. “Too much is at risk to entrust it to someone else.”

“There’s always Nick,” Celceor countered. “I’m afraid he hasn’t found much adventure in the northern states.”

“I know, Celceor,” Bane said, waving him off. “He’ll find plenty of excitement on your doorstop soon enough if these plans are to be believed.” He was anxious to change the subject. “What of Fafnir? And Werkle?”

 “I’m ready to fight. Bring on the All Father and all his legions. I shall drive them before me!” came an unmistakable growl. The bulky barbarian Fafnir suddenly appeared over the elf’s shoulder.

“Fafnir was just appraising me of the situation with the southern tribes. Care to share, Fafnir?” Celceor said casually, handing the orb over.

Deep lines of concern bundled together on the plainsman’s brow. “They will fight,” Fafnir said proudly, with a curt nod of his head. “But only if provoked. They’ll cede no ground, but I’m afraid any discussion of the tribes partaking in the southern flank of an assault on Cauldron is out of the question.”

“For now,” he added solemnly.

Bane frowned. That was not what they wanted to hear, but as Fafnir advised, what they expected to hear. “And Werkle?”

“No word yet,” Celceor replied. “But if you are in need of some good news, I have received a dispatch from Eggo and it appears Wryan is back in health. The antidote we were able to secure has indeed worked and even now she prepares to march on Khan.”

Bane nodded. “Good. Once we drive the All Father back from your homeland, I think Nick should head back to Saltmarsh to assist with security. If he can get past their guards and security measures, it’s possible the All Father’s agents can too.”

“Well if that happens, we have learned another draught of the antidote has been secured,” Fafnir commented from somewhere out of the picture.

A look of confusion grew on Bane’s face. “Really? How?”

Celceor shrugged. “Some cast-off retinue of the Silver Blades. I suspect it is more luck than anything. From what little we have learned, they are a collection of misfits who are trying to make a name for themselves.”

With a look of distinct distaste, the elf added. “There is a decidedly portly spellcaster who travels among them that claims to have ridden a gold dragon.” He shook his head bitterly.

Bane chuckled. “Well, you don’t need my around to tell you that’s a bluff.”

Suddenly there was the sound of someone coughing coming from the bed.

“Speaking of the portly and unsavory, the sheriff is regaining his faculties. I have to go, guys.”

 “You didn’t eliminate him?” Celceor asked, a mixture of disbelief and disapproval on his face.

Bane shrugged. “I gave him my word I would not if he cooperated.”

Celceor shook his head, too upset by this revelation, as he handed the orb to Fafnir.

“Be careful, Bane. Get back here as soon as you can,” the barbarian said with earnest.

The avenger only nodded, then spoke the word to deactivate the device before stashing it away again. He then carefully collected the papers and returned them to the nightstand, slid the false bottom back in place, and shut the drawer.

In the bed the sheriff continued to cough. He had regained enough feeling to spit out the whore’s fingers and was now gagging from all the blood he has swallowed. “Help me,” he managed to croak.

“Oh, you’ll be just fine,” Bane returned. “I only momentarily paralyzed you and your wench. In time you will both regain feeling.”

He walked to the shuttered window, and unbarred and opened it. Outside was a two-story drop straight down to a dark alley.

“I overheard you talking to the elf. They will expect the All Father’s attack now. When the All Father realizes it, he’s going to suspect I was the leak! What should I tell them?” the man asked, his voice little more than a rasp but still thick with alarm.

Bane swung one leg out the window and paused, considering the sheriff’s predicament. With a shrug, he produced the magical jar Celceor had given him that contained the still-lively lighting bolt. He loosed the lid by three quick turns and then lobbed it toward the bed.

“Tell them nothing.”

As he dropped to the ground, there was a massive explosion from the sheriff’s room, and smoke, thick with the acrid smell of burnt flesh began wafting out the window.

Somewhere in the distance, an alarm bell began ringing.