Sojourn - Chapter Seven
Jul. 3rd, 2023 07:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kalinara posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
i_read_whatSo last time, we met Dove Falconhand, who managed to annoy the shit out of me by being a terrible friend. Fred's cool though.
So this time, we're rejoining Drizzt. We're told that this is taking place on the same morning that Dove, and party, left for Maldobar. Drizzt is on the hunt. FOR JUSTICE!
We're told that he takes two precautions before tracking the murderer: he takes a broken plowshare (which is very heavy), and he calls his cat girlfriend. I don't really think doing something you almost always do really counts as a "precaution, but you do you.
Ulgulu wants to be found, so this is an easy hunt: slow and steady. And Drizzt sporadically hears a faint buzzing, which tells him that he'd done right in collecting "the cumbersome item". Hm, someone's got a plan.
A cliff is an obstacle, but fortunately Drizzt finds a narrow trail. It means that he doesn't have to leave the plowshare behind.
That feeling did nothing to quench the simmering fires in Drizzt’s lavender eyes, though, which burned clearly from under the low-pulled cowl of his oversized gnoll cloak. If the sight of the ravine looming just to the side unnerved the drow, he needed only to remember the farmers. A short while later, when Drizzt heard the expected buzzing noise from somewhere lower on the narrow trail, he only smiled.
I added this excerpt for "simmering fires in [his] lavender eyes". It's been a while since I read any Janny Wurts and I'm missing the flowery language.
Eventually, Tephanis attacks. He gets a good hit on Drizzt, which Drizzt accepts as "this first strike [has] been necessary for his ultimate victory".
So what's he doing?
Again Drizzt put his back to the wall, monitoring the buzzing approach. Just as the sprite came around the corner, Drizzt jumped out onto the narrow path, his scimitar at the ready. The draw’s other hand was less conspicuous and held steady a metal object, ready to tilt it out to block the opening.
The speeding sprite cut back in toward the wall, easily able, as Drizzt realized, to avoid the scimitar. But in his narrow focus on his target, the sprite failed to notice Drizzt’s other hand.
Drizzt hardly registered the sprite’s movements, but the sudden “Bong!” and the sharp vibrations in his hand as the creature smacked into the plowshare brought a satisfied grin to his lips. He let the plowshare drop and scooped up the unconscious sprite by the throat, holding it clear of the ground. Guenhwyvar bounded around the bend about the same time the sprite shook the dizziness from his sharp-featured head, his long and pointed ears nearly flopping right over the other side of his head with each movement.
BONG.
That's pretty good. So Drizzt questions Tephanis. Tephanis openly credits/blames Ulgulu for the attack, but Drizzt can only catch some of the words. He does catch "wanting...dinner" which he finds understandably ominous.
So what do you do with a sprite? Cat-like, Guen isn't volunteering any solutions. While Drizzt thinks about it, Tephanis slashes at Drizzt's wrist. This is portrayed as cocky, but really, what else is a captured sprite supposed to do?
Drizzt still has Tephanis by the collar, so, angry, he slams Tephanis into a wall and throws him off a cliff.
No, seriously:
The sprite struck back, digging a deeper cut into Drizzt’s forearm. Finally Drizzt chose a tactic that Tephanis could not counter, one that took the sprite’s advantage away. He slammed Tephanis into the wall, then tossed the stunned creature off the cliff.
...I don't really know how I feel about that. Obviously, Tephanis is dangerous. But...I don't know...
Oh well. Drizzt continues tracking. He hears goblins in a cave and...okay...this makes me skeptical:
Drizzt again fought with his decision to avenge the farmers’ deaths. He would have preferred a more civilized justice, a lawful court, but what was he to do? He certainly could not go to the human villagers with his suspicions, nor to anyone else.
Drizzt isn't wrong about his reception of course, but why on Earth, or Toril, would a guy whose formative experience is MENZOBERRANZAN even think about a lawful solution? We SAW what "justice" is like there. And while MAYBE you could say that he learned something at Blingdenstone, that's a bit of a stretch.
Drizzt overall is a pretty consistently characterized guy, but every once in a while, the character slips a bit too far into what I'd call conventional morality. Wherein he sounds a bit too much like what someone in OUR society would expect a wise and good character to be, without taking into account the framework that Drizzt has. Icewind Dale's Drizzt, sure, I could see him being willing to consider the idea of an organized justice system. But the recent refugee? No.
Ultimately though, Drizzt is really fucking angry and it's calling to that dark/hunter side of himself. Fair.
Initially, Drizzt considers sitting and watching, to get a better idea of his enemy. He knows it's more powerful than goblins. But...well...dead kids get him mad. Again, fair. On the plus side, he still has Tephanis's dagger for duel wielding. How big IS that fucker?
He walks straight in (confusing Guen, who probably expected her partner to be sensible.)
We shift scenes to Tephanis:
Tephanis felt cool air brushing by his face and thought for a moment that he was enjoying some pleasant dream. The sprite came out of his delusion quickly, though, and realized that he was fast approaching the ground. Fortunately, Tephanis was not far from the cliff. He send his hands and feet spinning rapidly enough to produce a constant humming sound and clawed and kicked at the cliff in an effort to slow his descent. In the meantime, he began the incantations to a levitation spell, possibly the only thing that could save him.
See, this is why I'm not really on board with the "throw him off a cliff while out cold" method of killing. If you're going to do that kind of thing, have the anatomical fortitude to do an old fashioned coup de grace.
Tephanis cartoons himself to the ground and is unhurt. He considers warning Ulgulu, but then realizes the only path up is the one where Drizzt is on. Tephanis decides discretion is the better part of valor.
Anyway, back to Drizzt. He's happy to kill his way through the goblins. Then:
In the middle of the inner room, the drow saw his enemy. Scarlet-skinned and giant-sized, the barghest waited with crossed arms and a wicked, confident grin.
Drizzt threw the dagger and charged right in behind it. That throw saved the drow’s life, for when the dagger passed harmlessly through his enemy’s body, Drizzt recognized the trap. He came in anyway, unable to break his momentum, and his scimitar entered the image without finding anything tangible to cut into.
Of course, Drizzt's instincts "immediately" tell him he got set up. Ulgulu is levitating above, and comes down. Woo, fight scene!
Again, I don't recap fight scenes in general. Suffice to say, it's pretty exciting Drizzt and Guen vs. Ulgulu and Kempfana. We're told Drizzt's scimitar is weak because of his time on the surface. But he does still have his other tricks: globes of darkness for all.
Guen fights Ulgulu, Drizzt fights Kempfana. He accuses them of killing the Thistledowns. Kempfana doesn't answer, but uses an extradimensional door to make things difficult for Drizzt, who ends up dropping the scimitar.
Eventually, Kempfana does say that Ulgulu killed the farmers, but he intends to kill Drizzt himself for his powers. Admittedly, given that their usual fare is half assed NPC commoners, Drizzt probably would be a tasty tasty meal.
Drizzt is quick but tiny, and Kempfana manages to crack some ribs as he scoops drizzt up. Drizzt had managed to reclaim his scimitar though, and ends up shoving it down Kempfana's throat. Fun!
Drizzt is exhausted and very injured, but he thinks of the boy and continues. Guen and Ulgulu fight. Ulgulu eventually gets the upper hand though, trapping the kitty near a deep gorge. Ulgulu is using his size to force Guen off. Drizzt appears then and banishes Guen. We're told she wouldn't NORMALLY desert him, but she sees his angle. She's gone, and Ulgulu falls. He can't levitate in wolf form. He shapeshifts, but hits the ground before he finishes. Splat.
Time for Drizzt to pass out. He does and when he wakes up, he sees Ulgulu on the ground. He also hears a very angry hill giant. Probably not the best time to fight. He scoops up Guen's figurine and leaves.
So this time, we're rejoining Drizzt. We're told that this is taking place on the same morning that Dove, and party, left for Maldobar. Drizzt is on the hunt. FOR JUSTICE!
We're told that he takes two precautions before tracking the murderer: he takes a broken plowshare (which is very heavy), and he calls his cat girlfriend. I don't really think doing something you almost always do really counts as a "precaution, but you do you.
Ulgulu wants to be found, so this is an easy hunt: slow and steady. And Drizzt sporadically hears a faint buzzing, which tells him that he'd done right in collecting "the cumbersome item". Hm, someone's got a plan.
A cliff is an obstacle, but fortunately Drizzt finds a narrow trail. It means that he doesn't have to leave the plowshare behind.
That feeling did nothing to quench the simmering fires in Drizzt’s lavender eyes, though, which burned clearly from under the low-pulled cowl of his oversized gnoll cloak. If the sight of the ravine looming just to the side unnerved the drow, he needed only to remember the farmers. A short while later, when Drizzt heard the expected buzzing noise from somewhere lower on the narrow trail, he only smiled.
I added this excerpt for "simmering fires in [his] lavender eyes". It's been a while since I read any Janny Wurts and I'm missing the flowery language.
Eventually, Tephanis attacks. He gets a good hit on Drizzt, which Drizzt accepts as "this first strike [has] been necessary for his ultimate victory".
So what's he doing?
Again Drizzt put his back to the wall, monitoring the buzzing approach. Just as the sprite came around the corner, Drizzt jumped out onto the narrow path, his scimitar at the ready. The draw’s other hand was less conspicuous and held steady a metal object, ready to tilt it out to block the opening.
The speeding sprite cut back in toward the wall, easily able, as Drizzt realized, to avoid the scimitar. But in his narrow focus on his target, the sprite failed to notice Drizzt’s other hand.
Drizzt hardly registered the sprite’s movements, but the sudden “Bong!” and the sharp vibrations in his hand as the creature smacked into the plowshare brought a satisfied grin to his lips. He let the plowshare drop and scooped up the unconscious sprite by the throat, holding it clear of the ground. Guenhwyvar bounded around the bend about the same time the sprite shook the dizziness from his sharp-featured head, his long and pointed ears nearly flopping right over the other side of his head with each movement.
BONG.
That's pretty good. So Drizzt questions Tephanis. Tephanis openly credits/blames Ulgulu for the attack, but Drizzt can only catch some of the words. He does catch "wanting...dinner" which he finds understandably ominous.
So what do you do with a sprite? Cat-like, Guen isn't volunteering any solutions. While Drizzt thinks about it, Tephanis slashes at Drizzt's wrist. This is portrayed as cocky, but really, what else is a captured sprite supposed to do?
Drizzt still has Tephanis by the collar, so, angry, he slams Tephanis into a wall and throws him off a cliff.
No, seriously:
The sprite struck back, digging a deeper cut into Drizzt’s forearm. Finally Drizzt chose a tactic that Tephanis could not counter, one that took the sprite’s advantage away. He slammed Tephanis into the wall, then tossed the stunned creature off the cliff.
...I don't really know how I feel about that. Obviously, Tephanis is dangerous. But...I don't know...
Oh well. Drizzt continues tracking. He hears goblins in a cave and...okay...this makes me skeptical:
Drizzt again fought with his decision to avenge the farmers’ deaths. He would have preferred a more civilized justice, a lawful court, but what was he to do? He certainly could not go to the human villagers with his suspicions, nor to anyone else.
Drizzt isn't wrong about his reception of course, but why on Earth, or Toril, would a guy whose formative experience is MENZOBERRANZAN even think about a lawful solution? We SAW what "justice" is like there. And while MAYBE you could say that he learned something at Blingdenstone, that's a bit of a stretch.
Drizzt overall is a pretty consistently characterized guy, but every once in a while, the character slips a bit too far into what I'd call conventional morality. Wherein he sounds a bit too much like what someone in OUR society would expect a wise and good character to be, without taking into account the framework that Drizzt has. Icewind Dale's Drizzt, sure, I could see him being willing to consider the idea of an organized justice system. But the recent refugee? No.
Ultimately though, Drizzt is really fucking angry and it's calling to that dark/hunter side of himself. Fair.
Initially, Drizzt considers sitting and watching, to get a better idea of his enemy. He knows it's more powerful than goblins. But...well...dead kids get him mad. Again, fair. On the plus side, he still has Tephanis's dagger for duel wielding. How big IS that fucker?
He walks straight in (confusing Guen, who probably expected her partner to be sensible.)
We shift scenes to Tephanis:
Tephanis felt cool air brushing by his face and thought for a moment that he was enjoying some pleasant dream. The sprite came out of his delusion quickly, though, and realized that he was fast approaching the ground. Fortunately, Tephanis was not far from the cliff. He send his hands and feet spinning rapidly enough to produce a constant humming sound and clawed and kicked at the cliff in an effort to slow his descent. In the meantime, he began the incantations to a levitation spell, possibly the only thing that could save him.
See, this is why I'm not really on board with the "throw him off a cliff while out cold" method of killing. If you're going to do that kind of thing, have the anatomical fortitude to do an old fashioned coup de grace.
Tephanis cartoons himself to the ground and is unhurt. He considers warning Ulgulu, but then realizes the only path up is the one where Drizzt is on. Tephanis decides discretion is the better part of valor.
Anyway, back to Drizzt. He's happy to kill his way through the goblins. Then:
In the middle of the inner room, the drow saw his enemy. Scarlet-skinned and giant-sized, the barghest waited with crossed arms and a wicked, confident grin.
Drizzt threw the dagger and charged right in behind it. That throw saved the drow’s life, for when the dagger passed harmlessly through his enemy’s body, Drizzt recognized the trap. He came in anyway, unable to break his momentum, and his scimitar entered the image without finding anything tangible to cut into.
Of course, Drizzt's instincts "immediately" tell him he got set up. Ulgulu is levitating above, and comes down. Woo, fight scene!
Again, I don't recap fight scenes in general. Suffice to say, it's pretty exciting Drizzt and Guen vs. Ulgulu and Kempfana. We're told Drizzt's scimitar is weak because of his time on the surface. But he does still have his other tricks: globes of darkness for all.
Guen fights Ulgulu, Drizzt fights Kempfana. He accuses them of killing the Thistledowns. Kempfana doesn't answer, but uses an extradimensional door to make things difficult for Drizzt, who ends up dropping the scimitar.
Eventually, Kempfana does say that Ulgulu killed the farmers, but he intends to kill Drizzt himself for his powers. Admittedly, given that their usual fare is half assed NPC commoners, Drizzt probably would be a tasty tasty meal.
Drizzt is quick but tiny, and Kempfana manages to crack some ribs as he scoops drizzt up. Drizzt had managed to reclaim his scimitar though, and ends up shoving it down Kempfana's throat. Fun!
Drizzt is exhausted and very injured, but he thinks of the boy and continues. Guen and Ulgulu fight. Ulgulu eventually gets the upper hand though, trapping the kitty near a deep gorge. Ulgulu is using his size to force Guen off. Drizzt appears then and banishes Guen. We're told she wouldn't NORMALLY desert him, but she sees his angle. She's gone, and Ulgulu falls. He can't levitate in wolf form. He shapeshifts, but hits the ground before he finishes. Splat.
Time for Drizzt to pass out. He does and when he wakes up, he sees Ulgulu on the ground. He also hears a very angry hill giant. Probably not the best time to fight. He scoops up Guen's figurine and leaves.