Chapter Two

It's been a looong time since I updated, sorry! Real life has been kicking my ass lately, and I was hoping to get the new version of the game before writing any more. Sadly it's not going to be out until the end of November. Hopefully I wouldn't need to change big plots in my story due to it, I also know almost nothing about the Forgotten Realms as I haven't read any of the books relating to them in years. Anything I get mangled please, please tell me!

Quick fact that I don't know if it'll be able to get in the story or no; since humans are 'adults' at 15 and half elves are 'adult's at 20, I've decided that Kora is the same as a 16-18 year old human. Guess that makes Immy the mature one of the girls?

' ' '

Kora had been reading stories since she had been first taught letters. Stories of demons and heroes, even a few of those romance novels Imoen had gotten off merchants once she'd hit puberty. In not one of those stories had anyone talked about just how leather felt when one was walking in the rain. Or that fairy dragons got prissy when wet and refused to do anything but sleep in its owner's pack. Kora made a mental note to someday rectify that, perhaps once she finally found a place the quarter elf would write something about traveling for actual people who weren't dumb enough to think killing wolves was fun. To make matters even worse both young women were hopelessly lost and were only following a road because they had stumbled upon it and roads had to go somewhere.

If Gorion had been there- Kora bite off that thought as soon as it came to her head. She didn't want to deal with her loss yet, not until she could do so alone. "Are you sure you don't know where this road goes? You lived out of Candlekeep before."

"It's not like eleven year olds are keen on woodcraft Kora! Just think of it as a grand adventure with treasure and endless knowledge at the end to be shared between two good friends!"

"I'd rather have a hot meal," Kora stopped at the sounds of something up ahead. She made a motion towards Imoen to keep her bow at the ready and creeped forward towards the noise. As they got closer the noises turned into yelling, and as they turned a corner the owners of the yelling turned out to be two people. Kora watched them for a while, she hadn't seen them with the tall armored figure, but that didn't mean that she wanted to trust them. As the brown haired woman watched the taller one started to kick at the smaller figure while screaming something about voices.

"Er.. hello?" Kora said tentatively as she took a couple steps closer to get a better look at the people. Both whirled around to face her, hands going for weapons as the two men stared at her, for now Kora could see that they were both grown men, Halfling and human which wasn't that strange. No the strange part was the twitching and face tattoos of the human and the fact that the Halfling was giving her a impression that he would have killed her right there, if it hadn't been too much of a bother. "Er… hi.. I was um…"

"We were attacked in the forest and need to find our way to the nearest town! Can you help us? We'll help you with whatever you need help with!" Kora somehow managed to keep herself from hitting Imoen as the girl all but bounced past the quarter elf; Imoen had never learned the fact that you didn't make promises to people.

The Halfling smiled, which just made him look even scarier in Kora's opinion. "Well we might have a healing potion on us, right ma- mister wizard?"

"Yes! We can give ya this healing potion as a token of good will! No need to pay us back, of course if-"

Kora held up one hand and let out a long breath. "Look, I'll help within reason. No help summoning demons, no sex, and there is no way I'm drinking anything to find out what it is." Both men blinked at her, the halfing's eyebrow raising up while the tattooed man just looked confused.

"My type is actually grown up girl. No, we need help with an ogre in the west."

"HE STOLE MY BELT! It keeps the feeted dragons away! We must get it back!" The tattooed man screamed and clenched at Imoen's arm. The auburn haired girl gently patted him on the head and gave Kora a look that most clearly said that Imoen thought they should just take off running.

"Shut up! Gods can't a man have any peace in the forest! I swear if it weren't for-" Here the Halfling cut himself off and turned back towards Kora. "Look, here's the deal. You help us with the damned ogre and you get half the loot. If you prove yourself we might even take you to Nashkel and share that reward with you."

"Nashkel? What's going on there?" Kora asked as she raked her brain for all the information she knew of the village. It had a mine, and was considered part of Amn, right? Why would anyone think something important was going on there?

"Have ye lost yer wits girl? Ya haven't noticed the iron shortage at all?"

"Wait, what? Since when?" Both men gave Kora a look that suggested that she was the insane one. For the first time since she had left Candlekeep Kora felt anger at Gorion, how dare he have dragged her out into the world without telling her anything that was going on in it? How dare he die on her without telling her anything. Tears started to form and Kora bit them back, she would not cry over him as two strangers watched. "Look.. we.. haven't been out in the world long. Could you just.. tell us everything about this iron shortage as we walk?" Her voice almost sounded normal, or at least the two didn't care enough about her to ask what was wrong.

' ' '

"Why I do love my brand new belt! It's just so… belt like!"

"Yep, yep. You sure do have a great belt! And this will never work," Imoen mumbled the last part just loud enough so Kora could hear her. The quarter elf nodded faintly in reply, but kept on walking around while talking loudly about her brand new belt. Ogres weren't the smartest creatures in the realms, but how dumb would one have to be to go for the 'trap'?

"Belt? Give me belt!" A voice roared out at Kora, she jumped and turned to face down the creature charging towards her. The quarter elf looked up, and up, and up in order to see its face; she had known that the creatures were around ten feet, but seeing the yellowish green figure bearing down was a whole other thing from reading about it.

"This may have been a bad idea."

"YOU THINK? RUN!" Both of the women whirled around and began pelting back the way that they had been walking from. The ogre yelled out in rage and began to follow, his heavy footsteps pounding in Kora's ears as she tried to run faster, her throat was already feeling ragged from running and she didn't know how much further she could make it. "Guys? GUYS?!"

"Stop yer yapping and help us girl!" Kora turned her head just in time to see Montaron make a slash at the ogre's foot tendons and dance out of the way as the monster attempted to crush the Halfling into the ground. Xzar giggled as he skipped around the girls and threw out some sort of draining spell, Imoen had already recovered and was shooting off arrows. "Will someone just get the damned thing in the heart already?"

Kora forced her legs to move, she run towards the ogre drawing her sword out of its sheath. Silvermoon leaped from her shoulder and poked the ogre about the head with his tail, his blows seemed to just annoy the creature but it was enough for Kora to get close without being detected. The quarter elf swung her blade as hard as she could at the ogre, the blade sank in deep but as the quarter elf attempted to left it back up for another blow the blade broke. The ogre's fist hit her in the chest a moment later, sending the dark haired woman flying a couple feet.

The quarter elf coughed as she tried to force wind back into her lungs, her ribs hurt and she really hoped that they weren't broken. Imoen was screaming at her to get up though the ogre seemed happy enough trying to smash Montaron under its feet. Kora shakily got to her feet, each movement was sending pain through her chest but the dark haired girl ignored it as best as she could as she stared at her sword. She only knew two spells and neither seemed all that useful for the moment. But she couldn't go charging into battle with a broken sword!

"I don't have a weapon!" The quarter elf screamed at the other three before throwing the hilt of her sword at the ogre in order to try and get the monster's attention away from Silvermoon hovering near it. "What do I do?"

"Ya have a dagger, don't you? Use it ye daft bitch!" Kora's fingers went for the small weapon at her belt and bit her lip. The dagger had been a birthday gift from Fuller, he's had way too much fun making up stories about the great battles that it had been in but Kora knew that daggers were the tools of assassins or very desperate, even if it had been enchanted. Wait, how had the one story about his grandfather gone?

"Keep his distracted," the quarter elf commended before diving to the left of the ogre. Silvermoon went for the ogre's eye on that side, causing it to turn so as not to be blinded. Kora moved in for the kill, her dagger slamming out into the ogre's back right at the kidney. Thanking whatever Gods were watching that she'd been forced to go through the anatomy books she slammed the dagger in again and dragged it through the ogre's back, trying to ignore the now screams of pain coming from the creature. Her hand was covered with blood and more was gushing out onto her. She should have been terrified or grossed but for some reason wasn't, in fact Kora didn't feel anything close to disgust as she ripped through the bigger blood vessels of the back just to make sure that the ogre wouldn't be attacking anymore. The yellowish creature made one last gurgling noise and fell to the ground, Kora stepped back and admired her handiwork.

"Ugh. That is just sick," Imoen gagged as she took a look. "Did you have to cut it so much?" Xzar instantly started to strip the ogre of its belts, rings, and a couple of body parts all while singing a song to himself in a high pitched voice while Montaron circled the body.

"That was fun! Stupid slow thing!" Silvermoon chirped as he landed on Kora's shoulder again. The fairy dragon was preening at his success and Kora was glad to see that he hadn't been touched during the fight. She used her clean hand to pet his scales earning a small purr of joy before trying to find something, anything to clean up all of the blood that was covering her right side and maybe even a potion to help with the pain. "Can we do it again soon?"

"I hope not until I get another sword." Kora made herself stop watching Xzar doing... whatever it was that he was doing to the entrails. "And clean clothing. And a trip to the temple I think." It hurt to breath, the quarter elf attempted to just take shallow breaths but it didn't help with the discomfort at all.

"AH HA! Take that ogre! Fear the mighty Imoen and her mighty bow!" The auburn haired girl shouted as she raised the weapon in the air. "Fear us in our mightiness!" She grabbed ahold of Kora and began to spin around, the quarter elf hissed in pain as her ribs protested. "Ah, oops sorry Kora! Kinda forgot myself there! Here, take my healing potion!"

"It's alright," Kora wheezed out and she fought back the food threatening to rise up from her stomach. "I'll just find a healer once we get to town. How hard could it be to walk that far?" Montaron laughed out loud at that statement.

"I've never seen any of the elf bloods able to walk a mile with a hurt toe, yer going to be begging for that potion in half an' hour." The dark haired girl scowled at Montaron, who smirked back and shrugged. "Go ahead and snarl at me girl."

Four hours later Kora was wondering if one could die from sheer pain as she staggered into Beregost. Imoen kept trying to foist off her own healing potion to the quarter elf but Kora refused every single time. She knew it was stupid, but at the same time there was no way that she would prove the Halfling right in his assumption of her. She would not complain and she was not going to ask for any help in getting to the town, though she wasn't too unhappy about collapsing onto a crate as soon as they stopped. "Ok, nearest temple please."

"I'll find one! Ooooh, they might have a discount on eyeballs today!" Xzar took off running towards the town's square; people scattering away as soon as they caught sight of him barreling towards them. "HEY WHO KNOWS WHERE A TEMPLE IS?"

"Impressive, ya might be useful for more than ogre bait after all," Montaron threw a rock at Xzar; the mage dodged the missile and ran towards yet another group of people. "Ya have the money for healing or do we need to spread out the loot here?"

"I should have enough," Kora wasn't sure how much it cost to be healed. She had always gotten her major wounds handled quickly by the nearest cleric at Candlekeep for free (or perhaps Gorion had paid them without her knowing?) and the thought of going into an unknown temple with clerics Kora hadn't known for years was almost terrifying. Was she supposed to haggle over the price if it was too steep, or would the priests throw her out for blasphemy? What would she say upon entering the temple? Yet again Kora thought of Gorion and wished that he was there with her. 'Father, did you think I'd have a chance to learn these things before you died? Or was it just your hope that I'd never leave Candlekeep?'

"I HAVE IT!" Xzar broke the quarter elf out of her muses with his yell. "This kind sir or lady told me that the temple is THAT way!" The tattooed man pointed in one direction, then another before the man whom he had been talking to point back to the first direction. "Yes! There is a temple there for us to be healed, a temple with singing ladies singing happy songs. But we can always ignore the happy songs." He frowned at the thought, "Or perhaps not. I think that I'll wait outside, away from the songs."

"Errr… that sounds alright to me," Kora allowed Imoen to help her stand up from the crate before stumbling off towards the temple.

"Right! Smile everyone! This is like the beginning of a grand adventure!"

"Someday I'm going to put my blade through your neck wizard, see if that makes you less annoying!"