Sen Duatha, the festival of souls. Preparations for the yearly send off of the dead were going on all around Pie the goblin as he walked through the streets of the town of Brennor. Strings of flowers woven into colorful banners, hand painted signs and simple artwork depicting lights rising into the sky both day and night scenes. His arms were laden with his own supplies, for the room he had rented to have a party for his friends. The sun was being dragged toward the horizon and was just beginning to paint the evening sky orange.
He was so excited he would have taken the stairs two at a time, but the town was primarily humans and other tall races, so his short goblin legs had to stretch for each individual stairs. He entered the room and set the decorations on the table. He had already gotten the food and the drinks, plates piled high with meat, and cheeses, fruits and other savory treats, delectable desserts like cakes and these amazing chocolate covered treats. He'd gotten a barrel of honey mead that Miss Nyxia would be sure to love, and some bottles of wine for the others.
He drew the shape of a small door in the air, and then pulled on the glowing handle that appeared, opening the tiny door into FuwaFuwa's hollowed out tree trunk in the Fey marches. Inside was a trove of jams, preserved berries and fruits, all kinds of spices and seasonings. FuwaFuwas little brown face appeared in the opening.
"Hi friend! Can you help me find that bottle of Ettersilk wine? I'm pretty sure we had one." The little brown chinchilla darted back into the depths of the large hollow tree trunk and the sound of jars clanking went on for a few moments before the little familiars curved tail was wiggling toward the entrance as she walked backwards dragging a bottle with her tiny teeth latched into its wax covered cork.
"Oooh That's the one! Good job! Here I'll take it the rest of the way." A big grin cracked the goblins face as he pulled the wind bottle from the cross dimensional space. Silver silky strands swirled in the pale pink wine. When opened they would form a filter and the fey wine inside would take on the most amazing light and airy taste.
He set the bottle on the table and turned to the decorations. Without being asked Meela the sylph slipped in through the open window, sunlight and a slight gust of wind shifting and whirling to make up her somewhat feminine body, with a little dust devil that wrapped around her like a dress. She drifted around the room hanging the streamers in a somewhat haphazard but naturally pretty pattern.
Pie drew another bigger door in the air, and when he grabbed the glowing handle that appeared and opened that door, a magical forest of green and purple leaved trees lay on the other side. A campsite of spurts lie in immediate view. He leaned his head in and looked around ,spying one of his friends.
"You guys want to help me with something? There's a bunch of that honey mead you like in it as a reward…" He called out. The figure in front of him nodded and scampered off calling to his friends. This time he waved as some small dwarves with magical dancing hair emerged, setting their shovels aside before coming through. They had silver and gold cups hanging from their loincloths, the only clothing they wore. Pie motioned to some canvases and some painting supplies he had purchased in the market.
"You want to help me paint some lights floating into the sky? It would really help make this festival magical for my friends."
The Khorred dwarves nodded and set about their task without a word. Their hair whipping about as they grabbed canvasses and paints, and both hands and hair held brushes and began painting with both. Their brushes flicked with great speed and skill no matter if they were held in small fists, or deft manes. Pie watched for a few moments as some of the paintings began taking shape, and nodded in satisfaction as the dwarves talent for precision in digging and building began producing very promising results.
Pie stepped back to check the overall progress grinned in delight as everything was coming together. Only one thing remained, the lanterns. He wanted to make those himself, personal gifts for his friends to be set free later in the evening. He took the flat paper lanterns and began drawing on them, important things to the person they were for. On Mister Lurog's he added an anvil, and put a large orc hand holding a small druids hand, vines creeping around her wrist. On Miss Ashla's He drew a unicorns head and a broach that he had seen her wearing recently and touching fondly, knowing it could only have come from her favorite orc. Miss Nyxia's got a hammock and a harp, and a shy smiling face of a pretty monk woman. On Malachi's he drew the very chonky Sir Reginald Fluffernutter McWhiskerpants III, Esq and a magic wand and some meteorites floating. On Mis Ami's he drew the lovely little Fiona's smiling face, and a whip cracking. On Miss Vihni's he drew two matronly hands holding open a book showing some fighty dance moves, and a picture of Miss Nyxia with her braided hair undone, all lush and lovely. On Mister Morgans he drew a collection of daggers including a bone one, and a masked face that hinted at a secret shadowy identity. Finally, on his own he drew the faces of all his friends together and smiling, with even his own smiling face in the middle, happy to be surrounded by all his friends.
He was finishing one of Miss Ashla's furry ears when the smell of dank vegetation and sour earth filled hid nostrils. Before he could turn he felt the pressure of someone behind him, and felt a hand on each of his shoulders. Wet hands, dripping with swamp water that now also swirled around his mostly bare feet. Without looking he knew a green skinned woman with webbed hands and long tangled kelp like hair was behind him.
"Having a party Little Bite? And you didn't invite me? " Her lyrical voice was a stark contrast to the smell of mold and stale water that surrounded her and rose from the pool of slimy fetid water that spread around her for several paces. "Am i not your friend? Have I not chosen not to eat you on several occasions? I even came when asked to help you with those nasty wolves and Aurochs? I tried pulling them down for you, and I was scratched by their claws for my aid."
Pie took a deep breath to steady his thoughts. "Hi Miss Lily! I wasn't NOT inviting you, this party is for my group and some others just decided to help. I think we've got everything covered so ..." The swamp nixie snorted behind one of his big ears.
"Fine. Maybe I'll just help myself to one of those dwarves as a snack before I leave." The Nixie behind him sank into the puddle in the floor, and moments later her poodle spread out and bubbled up under one of the painting dwarves. His short legs began sinking as the green womans arms began tugging at his waist. Pie hopped up from his chair and ran over.
"Miss Lily! Stop that! Those are my friends and they are NOT food!" He tried to pry her hands from the dwarf, whose hair was whipping about still holding a brush laden with paint, sending drops flying onto other paintings, causing a ruckus among the other Khorred as the swamp water drenched the bottoms of the paintings, the black water soaking upwards and ruining the canvases. Pie kept tugging on her arms, his own feet sinking into the water and feeling the slimy mud of her swap slip between his toes. Finally her grip was loosened and the scared dwarf wordlessly scampered away with a look of terror on its face. Pie lost his balance as his feet slipped in the mud as Miss Lily disappeared back under, and he stumbled back, falling when his short legs came into contact with the floor of the tavern.
He collided with another Khorred dwarf and its palette went flying into the air, where it landed in Miss Meelas Skirt, the dust devil vortex spinning it and splattering paint everywhere. It splashed across the floor, walls and ceiling, onto the tabletop with the food, and all over the angry bewildered dwarves and their painstaking creations. Meela shook her sylph body made of air currents and rays of sunlight hard to get the foreign object out of her skirt and that sent the rest of it that was swirling around inside her splashing over everything again. Her fervor to get the foreign pigments out of her ripped many of the streamers from their holdings on the walls and left them dangling in disarray.
Miss Lily's swamp puddle slowly slipped away into the floor, a faint laughter ringing out as she abandoned her pursuit of a fresh meal. Pie sighed, and lit a candle, he waited for the flame to catch and light as the stomping of the angry dwarves grew behind him. Focusing on the candles dancing flame, he asked for help, hoping a fire sprite could come and help dry things out. After a few moments he was about to turn away in failure, sprites didn't always gather when deep in a city like this. However the flame danced and then grew to twice its size and from behind the candle the flame wreathed head of a Salamander emerged as it stepped onto the table.
"Qually! Yay! Can you help dry things out while I try to clean up and calm everyone down? " The bright orange lizard nodded it's small head as the what from its body washed over Pie. "Thanks buddy!" He turned to Miss Meela to see about fixing the streamers but as he approached she was hovering and smoothing her skirt currents. He was pointing to the streamers and about to ask her to help fix them when she swooped down and scooped him up, pulling him into her swirling vortex. The current of he air pushed him up, sending his cloak and his hair flying wildly in the warm air current.
"Miss Meela! I need to get down!" He called out as he was caught up nearly weightless inside her floating whirlwind. A giggle escaped his lips as the warm air swirled around him, drying out his mud covered toes and his soaked trousers. "Hee hee, Miss Meela, stoooop! We need to fix those streamers! They're all wrecked now!" He called out but the air tickling him sent him into another fit of giggles as he floated about 4 feet off the ground gently spinning in her elemental embrace.
His mirth ended rather abruptly as the gentle spinning view rotated around and he could see the disarray of still ruined paintings drying out in Qually's radiant presence. Beyond the paint splattered and mud and water soaked canvases the dwarves had given up in frustration and were tapping into the honey Mead, the cups at their waist now employed as they started drinking and dancing around to shake of the frustration of having their work ruined. But that wasn't the worst thing he saw. On the table, next to the platters for food and wine bottles were his lanterns. Like the food and wine, they too were spattered with blobs of paint, and drops of black stained water that had faded to just stains in Qually's aura of heat. But as he watched the corner of a lantern curled up, yellowing and blackening as a flame from the heat formed and began lapping at it's edge.
His lanterns were on fire.
Pie scrambled against the air current holding him up. "Miss Meela I need to get down! I need to get over there!" He couldn't wait though, his desperation at losing the hour or so of work that had gone into personalizing each of the lamps making him flail out, clawing through the vortex to spill out onto the table, sending the heaping platters of food flying. Meela's voiceless wind ratcheted up a note, perhaps in pain and she dashed around the room once, then twice, banners, food, paint and brushes all flying as she angrily dashed out the window and into the night.
The lanterns were spun about as the flames licked at them more, catching and spreading in the increased airflow. Pie cried out as he reached for the nearest one, but it was too late the paper curled in on itself a black crumpled mess before it broke apart as the cinders floated up, joining the other lamps as they too all flashed out of existence once exposed to the open flames. Pie lost his balance and the table tipped with him and toppled sideways to land at a skewed angle as he fell to the floor. The frustrated dwarves stopped in their angry revelry to look at the goblin as he rolled to sit, his eyes wide at the carnage now filling the room. The remnants of his good intentions for a magical experience for his friends. Sensing the abrupt change in mood they patted his shoulder as they opened the door back to their magical forest, and filled their cups on the way out, dancing as they returned to their fey home.
Pie sat alone, save for Qually who climbed into his lap and purred happily deep in his lizard throat. His yellow and red eyes stared in wide horror at the now destroyed room. Banners and streamers hung tangled and at odd angles from the walls, half finished ruined canvas paintings and supplies littered the floor, joined by empty dishes with spilled food contents haphazardly dashed about. The barrel of honey mead lay on its side the lid cracked slightly open and a steady stream of the amber liquid spilling out and forming a large spreading puddle. Directly in front of him were the sooty ashes of what were once the lanterns, now nothing more than some black stains and ashy dust.
His horror changed to disappointment and he could feel his chest tighten and the pressure in his brow as tears began forming at the corner of his eyes. A loud sniffle pulled at his nose as he surveyed this massive failure. All his plans, his hard saved money that hadn't gone into scribbling notes and formula into his spell book, all wasted and gone. How could he invite anyone to this giant failure of a mess. A single tear slid down his cheek and he felt his eyes swimming as more threatened to join the one that had escaped. It was all a mess and this opportunity wouldn't come again. His dam was about to burst when he heard the door open behind him. He couldn't look, and he felt like he was about to break.
Some heavy but lithe footsteps and then a comforting big grey-blue hand settled on his shoulder and Miss Nyxias large head and lush har spilled over beside him.
"Why you be inside making such mess, Pie? You can be cleaning this all later."
He turned his head to see everyone in the doorway, each holding a plain white paper lantern ready to be sent up in the festival. They were smiling and beconing him to come outside. Though several of their eyes were slowly widening at the state of the room. But Miss Nyxia's closeness and her smooth soft voice and the sweet smell of Honey that lingered caught his attention and held it.
"Come toss these lights into the sky with us will ya?"
Hand on his back, pushing him gently, it wasn't a question, and as he was turned by the 8 foot tall goliaths strong hand to face the others, a few more tears slipped free but his eyes were drying and his smile was splitting his face and tugging hi cheeks almost painfully. He could only manage a nod, still choked up by emotion, though its nature was shifting toward gleeful happiness. Miss Nixya was still talking.
"Maybe convince one 'o them friends ta get ours to go up higher than all the rest. I want ta have mine reach the furthest toward the heavens. You can do that, git yer friends to help and make mine the best 'o all of 'em? I want it to be …"
She kept talking but Pie was swept up in emotion as they walked out into the night all around them lights lazily drifting into the sky tens, hundreds, maybe even thousands of people sending the souls of the recently dead up high, or remembering those that had already passed. He was here with his precious friends, Miss Ashla's honest smile, Miss Vihni's shy support, Lurog's honest encouragement, Mister Morgan's shifty but bright gaze, Miss Ami's sweet sincerity, Miss Nyxia's honeyed voice, Mister Malachi's mischievous grin. Together, with all of his friends gathered here for one purpose.
Mister Lurog coughed to clear his throat, The orc standing 8 feet tall, the only one of them that could look the goliath in the eyes. Looking down to the rest of them. He held his lantern up Pie quickly called for a fire sprite, hoping one would answer from one of the many lanterns. Almost instantly, a tiny little spite made of flame danced out and understood without words that they wished to have the lanterns lit. It sparkled an whirled from lantern to lantern until they were all lit, before flitting off with an almost imperceptible giggle. The companions stood together, emotion playing on each face as they rose their lanterns and slowly let go, the paper slowly and lazily drifting upwards, joining the throng of lights in the sky. Lurog spoke, in a voice unusually choked with emotion.
"Kalevi, we send you on a-ahead. Rise until you reach the sun you hold so dear."
In sincere memory of Dave aka Mister Kalevi, a wonderful friend who despite the constant pain of a terminal illness and debilitating depression chose to spend his time, indeed some of his last time, playing the game that he loved and laughing with pals. You will be missed my friend.
He was so excited he would have taken the stairs two at a time, but the town was primarily humans and other tall races, so his short goblin legs had to stretch for each individual stairs. He entered the room and set the decorations on the table. He had already gotten the food and the drinks, plates piled high with meat, and cheeses, fruits and other savory treats, delectable desserts like cakes and these amazing chocolate covered treats. He'd gotten a barrel of honey mead that Miss Nyxia would be sure to love, and some bottles of wine for the others.
He drew the shape of a small door in the air, and then pulled on the glowing handle that appeared, opening the tiny door into FuwaFuwa's hollowed out tree trunk in the Fey marches. Inside was a trove of jams, preserved berries and fruits, all kinds of spices and seasonings. FuwaFuwas little brown face appeared in the opening.
"Hi friend! Can you help me find that bottle of Ettersilk wine? I'm pretty sure we had one." The little brown chinchilla darted back into the depths of the large hollow tree trunk and the sound of jars clanking went on for a few moments before the little familiars curved tail was wiggling toward the entrance as she walked backwards dragging a bottle with her tiny teeth latched into its wax covered cork.
"Oooh That's the one! Good job! Here I'll take it the rest of the way." A big grin cracked the goblins face as he pulled the wind bottle from the cross dimensional space. Silver silky strands swirled in the pale pink wine. When opened they would form a filter and the fey wine inside would take on the most amazing light and airy taste.
He set the bottle on the table and turned to the decorations. Without being asked Meela the sylph slipped in through the open window, sunlight and a slight gust of wind shifting and whirling to make up her somewhat feminine body, with a little dust devil that wrapped around her like a dress. She drifted around the room hanging the streamers in a somewhat haphazard but naturally pretty pattern.
Pie drew another bigger door in the air, and when he grabbed the glowing handle that appeared and opened that door, a magical forest of green and purple leaved trees lay on the other side. A campsite of spurts lie in immediate view. He leaned his head in and looked around ,spying one of his friends.
"You guys want to help me with something? There's a bunch of that honey mead you like in it as a reward…" He called out. The figure in front of him nodded and scampered off calling to his friends. This time he waved as some small dwarves with magical dancing hair emerged, setting their shovels aside before coming through. They had silver and gold cups hanging from their loincloths, the only clothing they wore. Pie motioned to some canvases and some painting supplies he had purchased in the market.
"You want to help me paint some lights floating into the sky? It would really help make this festival magical for my friends."
The Khorred dwarves nodded and set about their task without a word. Their hair whipping about as they grabbed canvasses and paints, and both hands and hair held brushes and began painting with both. Their brushes flicked with great speed and skill no matter if they were held in small fists, or deft manes. Pie watched for a few moments as some of the paintings began taking shape, and nodded in satisfaction as the dwarves talent for precision in digging and building began producing very promising results.
Pie stepped back to check the overall progress grinned in delight as everything was coming together. Only one thing remained, the lanterns. He wanted to make those himself, personal gifts for his friends to be set free later in the evening. He took the flat paper lanterns and began drawing on them, important things to the person they were for. On Mister Lurog's he added an anvil, and put a large orc hand holding a small druids hand, vines creeping around her wrist. On Miss Ashla's He drew a unicorns head and a broach that he had seen her wearing recently and touching fondly, knowing it could only have come from her favorite orc. Miss Nyxia's got a hammock and a harp, and a shy smiling face of a pretty monk woman. On Malachi's he drew the very chonky Sir Reginald Fluffernutter McWhiskerpants III, Esq and a magic wand and some meteorites floating. On Mis Ami's he drew the lovely little Fiona's smiling face, and a whip cracking. On Miss Vihni's he drew two matronly hands holding open a book showing some fighty dance moves, and a picture of Miss Nyxia with her braided hair undone, all lush and lovely. On Mister Morgans he drew a collection of daggers including a bone one, and a masked face that hinted at a secret shadowy identity. Finally, on his own he drew the faces of all his friends together and smiling, with even his own smiling face in the middle, happy to be surrounded by all his friends.
He was finishing one of Miss Ashla's furry ears when the smell of dank vegetation and sour earth filled hid nostrils. Before he could turn he felt the pressure of someone behind him, and felt a hand on each of his shoulders. Wet hands, dripping with swamp water that now also swirled around his mostly bare feet. Without looking he knew a green skinned woman with webbed hands and long tangled kelp like hair was behind him.
"Having a party Little Bite? And you didn't invite me? " Her lyrical voice was a stark contrast to the smell of mold and stale water that surrounded her and rose from the pool of slimy fetid water that spread around her for several paces. "Am i not your friend? Have I not chosen not to eat you on several occasions? I even came when asked to help you with those nasty wolves and Aurochs? I tried pulling them down for you, and I was scratched by their claws for my aid."
Pie took a deep breath to steady his thoughts. "Hi Miss Lily! I wasn't NOT inviting you, this party is for my group and some others just decided to help. I think we've got everything covered so ..." The swamp nixie snorted behind one of his big ears.
"Fine. Maybe I'll just help myself to one of those dwarves as a snack before I leave." The Nixie behind him sank into the puddle in the floor, and moments later her poodle spread out and bubbled up under one of the painting dwarves. His short legs began sinking as the green womans arms began tugging at his waist. Pie hopped up from his chair and ran over.
"Miss Lily! Stop that! Those are my friends and they are NOT food!" He tried to pry her hands from the dwarf, whose hair was whipping about still holding a brush laden with paint, sending drops flying onto other paintings, causing a ruckus among the other Khorred as the swamp water drenched the bottoms of the paintings, the black water soaking upwards and ruining the canvases. Pie kept tugging on her arms, his own feet sinking into the water and feeling the slimy mud of her swap slip between his toes. Finally her grip was loosened and the scared dwarf wordlessly scampered away with a look of terror on its face. Pie lost his balance as his feet slipped in the mud as Miss Lily disappeared back under, and he stumbled back, falling when his short legs came into contact with the floor of the tavern.
He collided with another Khorred dwarf and its palette went flying into the air, where it landed in Miss Meelas Skirt, the dust devil vortex spinning it and splattering paint everywhere. It splashed across the floor, walls and ceiling, onto the tabletop with the food, and all over the angry bewildered dwarves and their painstaking creations. Meela shook her sylph body made of air currents and rays of sunlight hard to get the foreign object out of her skirt and that sent the rest of it that was swirling around inside her splashing over everything again. Her fervor to get the foreign pigments out of her ripped many of the streamers from their holdings on the walls and left them dangling in disarray.
Miss Lily's swamp puddle slowly slipped away into the floor, a faint laughter ringing out as she abandoned her pursuit of a fresh meal. Pie sighed, and lit a candle, he waited for the flame to catch and light as the stomping of the angry dwarves grew behind him. Focusing on the candles dancing flame, he asked for help, hoping a fire sprite could come and help dry things out. After a few moments he was about to turn away in failure, sprites didn't always gather when deep in a city like this. However the flame danced and then grew to twice its size and from behind the candle the flame wreathed head of a Salamander emerged as it stepped onto the table.
"Qually! Yay! Can you help dry things out while I try to clean up and calm everyone down? " The bright orange lizard nodded it's small head as the what from its body washed over Pie. "Thanks buddy!" He turned to Miss Meela to see about fixing the streamers but as he approached she was hovering and smoothing her skirt currents. He was pointing to the streamers and about to ask her to help fix them when she swooped down and scooped him up, pulling him into her swirling vortex. The current of he air pushed him up, sending his cloak and his hair flying wildly in the warm air current.
"Miss Meela! I need to get down!" He called out as he was caught up nearly weightless inside her floating whirlwind. A giggle escaped his lips as the warm air swirled around him, drying out his mud covered toes and his soaked trousers. "Hee hee, Miss Meela, stoooop! We need to fix those streamers! They're all wrecked now!" He called out but the air tickling him sent him into another fit of giggles as he floated about 4 feet off the ground gently spinning in her elemental embrace.
His mirth ended rather abruptly as the gentle spinning view rotated around and he could see the disarray of still ruined paintings drying out in Qually's radiant presence. Beyond the paint splattered and mud and water soaked canvases the dwarves had given up in frustration and were tapping into the honey Mead, the cups at their waist now employed as they started drinking and dancing around to shake of the frustration of having their work ruined. But that wasn't the worst thing he saw. On the table, next to the platters for food and wine bottles were his lanterns. Like the food and wine, they too were spattered with blobs of paint, and drops of black stained water that had faded to just stains in Qually's aura of heat. But as he watched the corner of a lantern curled up, yellowing and blackening as a flame from the heat formed and began lapping at it's edge.
His lanterns were on fire.
Pie scrambled against the air current holding him up. "Miss Meela I need to get down! I need to get over there!" He couldn't wait though, his desperation at losing the hour or so of work that had gone into personalizing each of the lamps making him flail out, clawing through the vortex to spill out onto the table, sending the heaping platters of food flying. Meela's voiceless wind ratcheted up a note, perhaps in pain and she dashed around the room once, then twice, banners, food, paint and brushes all flying as she angrily dashed out the window and into the night.
The lanterns were spun about as the flames licked at them more, catching and spreading in the increased airflow. Pie cried out as he reached for the nearest one, but it was too late the paper curled in on itself a black crumpled mess before it broke apart as the cinders floated up, joining the other lamps as they too all flashed out of existence once exposed to the open flames. Pie lost his balance and the table tipped with him and toppled sideways to land at a skewed angle as he fell to the floor. The frustrated dwarves stopped in their angry revelry to look at the goblin as he rolled to sit, his eyes wide at the carnage now filling the room. The remnants of his good intentions for a magical experience for his friends. Sensing the abrupt change in mood they patted his shoulder as they opened the door back to their magical forest, and filled their cups on the way out, dancing as they returned to their fey home.
Pie sat alone, save for Qually who climbed into his lap and purred happily deep in his lizard throat. His yellow and red eyes stared in wide horror at the now destroyed room. Banners and streamers hung tangled and at odd angles from the walls, half finished ruined canvas paintings and supplies littered the floor, joined by empty dishes with spilled food contents haphazardly dashed about. The barrel of honey mead lay on its side the lid cracked slightly open and a steady stream of the amber liquid spilling out and forming a large spreading puddle. Directly in front of him were the sooty ashes of what were once the lanterns, now nothing more than some black stains and ashy dust.
His horror changed to disappointment and he could feel his chest tighten and the pressure in his brow as tears began forming at the corner of his eyes. A loud sniffle pulled at his nose as he surveyed this massive failure. All his plans, his hard saved money that hadn't gone into scribbling notes and formula into his spell book, all wasted and gone. How could he invite anyone to this giant failure of a mess. A single tear slid down his cheek and he felt his eyes swimming as more threatened to join the one that had escaped. It was all a mess and this opportunity wouldn't come again. His dam was about to burst when he heard the door open behind him. He couldn't look, and he felt like he was about to break.
Some heavy but lithe footsteps and then a comforting big grey-blue hand settled on his shoulder and Miss Nyxias large head and lush har spilled over beside him.
"Why you be inside making such mess, Pie? You can be cleaning this all later."
He turned his head to see everyone in the doorway, each holding a plain white paper lantern ready to be sent up in the festival. They were smiling and beconing him to come outside. Though several of their eyes were slowly widening at the state of the room. But Miss Nyxia's closeness and her smooth soft voice and the sweet smell of Honey that lingered caught his attention and held it.
"Come toss these lights into the sky with us will ya?"
Hand on his back, pushing him gently, it wasn't a question, and as he was turned by the 8 foot tall goliaths strong hand to face the others, a few more tears slipped free but his eyes were drying and his smile was splitting his face and tugging hi cheeks almost painfully. He could only manage a nod, still choked up by emotion, though its nature was shifting toward gleeful happiness. Miss Nixya was still talking.
"Maybe convince one 'o them friends ta get ours to go up higher than all the rest. I want ta have mine reach the furthest toward the heavens. You can do that, git yer friends to help and make mine the best 'o all of 'em? I want it to be …"
She kept talking but Pie was swept up in emotion as they walked out into the night all around them lights lazily drifting into the sky tens, hundreds, maybe even thousands of people sending the souls of the recently dead up high, or remembering those that had already passed. He was here with his precious friends, Miss Ashla's honest smile, Miss Vihni's shy support, Lurog's honest encouragement, Mister Morgan's shifty but bright gaze, Miss Ami's sweet sincerity, Miss Nyxia's honeyed voice, Mister Malachi's mischievous grin. Together, with all of his friends gathered here for one purpose.
Mister Lurog coughed to clear his throat, The orc standing 8 feet tall, the only one of them that could look the goliath in the eyes. Looking down to the rest of them. He held his lantern up Pie quickly called for a fire sprite, hoping one would answer from one of the many lanterns. Almost instantly, a tiny little spite made of flame danced out and understood without words that they wished to have the lanterns lit. It sparkled an whirled from lantern to lantern until they were all lit, before flitting off with an almost imperceptible giggle. The companions stood together, emotion playing on each face as they rose their lanterns and slowly let go, the paper slowly and lazily drifting upwards, joining the throng of lights in the sky. Lurog spoke, in a voice unusually choked with emotion.
"Kalevi, we send you on a-ahead. Rise until you reach the sun you hold so dear."
In sincere memory of Dave aka Mister Kalevi, a wonderful friend who despite the constant pain of a terminal illness and debilitating depression chose to spend his time, indeed some of his last time, playing the game that he loved and laughing with pals. You will be missed my friend.
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