Orianna’s Realisation

(Approximate story word count: 800 words. Estimated reading time: 8 minutes. CW: death)

After a gruelling battle against an ambushing pack of fae spiders, the group attempted to continue marching towards the stronghold in an effort to find out what is going within Gracklstugh. With Juliet pushing herself beyond her limits with her combat style, the journey was soon interrupted by the need to rest, as she had slowly fallen to be travelling at half the speed of the party.

Seb sniffed around the area, using the refined senses of an Undermountain dwelling kobold to seek out somewhere to make a safe camp. A small area surrounded by stones was found, looking almost like a campsite made ready for anyward travellers, the guides setting up camp whilst an order of watches was determined.

Seb would go first, followed by Lorelei, finishing with Orianna.

The time passed between first and second watch without much issue, leading to Orianna being awoken by Lorelei with the hope of having something happen, something exciting, not another nail breaking thank you very much.

Orianna stood at the edge of the campsite, flitting about on her heels as she kept a watchful eye on everything. Ready to strike, waiting for the right moment to launch into action, letting her true combat prowess show…

…please?

Something had to happen soon, she was sure of it. This was a dangerous location, with all sorts of nasty creatures lying in wait to attack, she would even take a Piercer right now!

With nothing seeming to be on the horizon, Orianna took out her weapons to give them a bit of tender loving care. Running a whetstone along the grooves of the blades gently, bringing them back to a gleaming edge, singing a merry tune as she did.

Until she felt a shoe fly by her head.

Juliet, who really did need the sleep right now, told her to pack it in. Orianna apologised before finishing off her work and hoping it had passed some amount of time.

That only took fifteen minutes?!

The boredom was starting to get to the fighter, who then decided to go for a walk to try to help the time pass faster. There was not much point going further along the tunnel so she decided to retrace her steps, hoping that it would at least stimulate her mind a bit.

Everything sort of looked the same as it was when they passed through before.

Wait.

No.

That body is new.

They were not here when we passed through, and whatever killed them did some pretty nasty damage. It was a stab wound which seemed to have carved through them entirely, not that they were particularly well armoured to begin with, the leather of their armour having seen better days.

In fact the weapon they were carrying was worse for wear too, a beaten up scimitar that not even a good sharpening session would fix. They did not even have many possessions beyond that.

Someone needed to know.

Orianna dashed back to camp and woke up the first person she saw, which was Seb. The kobold was disoriented but soon came round and followed Orianna along in the tunnel, eventually reaching the body. 

Seb admitted to stabbing them, saying he was attacked first, brushing it off as it was nothing.

Nothing?

A person died alone in the middle of the Underdark. No one was around to pass on the news. Nothing that could be seen to identify a close friend or relative.

Is this what death truly is?

Orianna had spent years proving her worth in fighting pits, excelling in combat was the only thing she had known was real to her…

…but people always got back up.

Or there was always someone around to put a healing spell out there.

In a sort of fugue state of insecurity, Orianna gathered some dust and dirt from around the area to put on top of the body, pushing it to the side slightly. There was no way to give them a proper burial here, but she needed to do something.

She stared at the lifeless body of this nameless bandit a bit while longer, hearing some of Eirina’s last words echoing in her mind.

Fighting was all she had known, and she charged into the Underdark because of a bad breakup, hoping that it would be able to clear her head or help her move on. Instead she had to come face-to-face with a harsh truth of life.

Not everyone gets back up.

A lot of the time, people are going to stay dead.

Not everyone has healers around to patch them back up.

Especially not her anymore.

Orianna and Seb walked back to camp as everyone was slowly rousing from their sleep and getting ready for the day. Some tried to ask Orianna what she had seen but she walked silently back to her bedroll and sat there for a bit in silent contemplation.

The pain of losing Eirina was starting to fade.

The realisation of how the world works had begun to set in.

Inspiration

Wholesome. Heavy. Wholesome. Heavy.

This seems to be the cycle I keep myself in with Orianna stories. Where one slice-of-life story is born, another must be created that develops Orianna’s character further or brings new insight to her backstory.

And in a way, I feel this is a natural progression of her character. Take a look at Orianna’s AC above, along with her saving throws. Pretty resistant, yeah?

Except in two of her main mental stats: Intelligence and Wisdom. She is not a smart or worldly girl, and she hides this through her armour, loud personality, and prowess in combat. Canonically Orianna is also one of my younger characters, at only nineteen years of age. 

She still has a lot of maturing to do and it seems fitting that after the amount of mistakes she has made, life is forcibly catching up with her through being exposed to things in the Underdark.

Despite this being short I like the message it delivers in such a short amount of time, and that I attempted it without using dialogue directly, styling it more as an inner monologue than anything else.