“Stop!” I shouted, panting for breath. My head was swimming from too many ales.
My target was steadily outpacing me. For such short legs, they could really put on the speed. I would soon lose them at this rate.
I can help you, slithered a voice in my mind. I can help you, but not for free. There is a price…
“Done!” I yelled, jumping over some crates the thief tumbled into my path. “Whatever it is, I agree.”
Instinctually, my hand went for the whip at my side. That odd whip that had turned up in my things one night after returning from some… ugh… entertainment. How was this going to help me?
Whirling it over my head, I again yelled. “I said stop!”
The whip cracked and an explosive boom filled the alley. A bolt streaked from the whip’s tip and detonated at the thief’s back and … well things went fuzzy.
When I got my bearings about me again, the thief lay crumpled against a stone wall. Their ears were bleeding. They might have been dead. I didn’t stay to find out. Grabbing the bag they’d stolen, I left before someone came to check on the noise. Exuberant laughter filled my head.
I tossed the bag on the Bossman’s desk, mumbled something about “I got it back” and made myself scarce. By morning light, I was one of the first on the road out of Port Bova. I knew I was in way over my head and needed to get away for a while to figure out what I’d done. It had been a while, but I hoped Aunt Ivis would still be excited to see me. I hadn’t been to Quillpond in years, but it seemed the perfect place to make sense of all of… this.
That was over 6 months ago. Now I spend much of my days helping out around The Singing Stag, Aunt Ivis acts like not a moment has passed since my last visit. Blessings of being an elf I guess. A proper wizard lives in Quillpond and I’ve spent more than a few long nights chatting with him about my situation. Seems I might have made a deal with … something. Something powerful. Be careful what you wish for, I guess. Especially when drunk and desperate. I just assumed it was a drunk hallucination. Nope, I certainly made a deal with something and have the whip to remind me.
Did I mention it talks? The whip I mean. That was the voice from that night.
Well, sorta. It talks to me. Like, in my mind. It’s sentient. Gaston, the wizard I mentioned, says that’s normal. Normal!? He actually encourages me to talk to it, to get to know it. I guess that makes sense, we’re in it for the long haul, I should know my new … companion?
Its name is “Destroyer of Ended Dreams” but oddly likes to be called “Mercy” instead. What a combo. It has really strong opinions about people cheating death or their fate. No clue how it knows when someone’s doing that, but it certainly lets me know. And then sort of spurs me into action. Luckily, our sense of right and wrong seems to match up pretty well, so we don’t fight about that too much. And boy does it hate undead. Gets kind of ranty about it to be honest. Gaston thinks that might have something to do with its origin.
Oh yeah, they’re called Hexblades. Even when they’re not blades at all. Gaston didn’t have a good reason for why that was.
I wouldn’t say me and Mercy are friends, but we have a working relationship at the moment. I wish it would be a little more forthcoming about who I made this deal with, but so far that’s about the only thing it won’t talk about.
All in all, Mercy has been a good thing so far. It’s a great teacher, though maybe I should be more concerned about what it’s teaching me.