Caland's Journey (intro)
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Winterhawk99
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Caland's Journey (intro)

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Caland's Journey

The mural depicted Corellon Larethian flying through the sky towards the setting sun in the west with a blissful, yet serious expression on his face. The god’s image was superimposed upon a daytime crescent moon, Corellon’s symbol. It was the only painted artwork in the monastery, covering the ceiling of the Dome. Such drab names, Caland thought with a smile. So many of the monks here see no poetry: only duty and religion to show their adoration, but never art. Perhaps in my own mind I will call this building The Gentle Glide.

“Khato,” He spoke the translation aloud in the Tongue of Air. He closed his eyes and savored the whistling whisper of the language, always so close to his heart. “The Gentle Glide,” he translated.

He was alone in the empty, echoing building as he looked up at the face of the god. Corellon’s eyes were painted pure white, radiating his divinity. It made it impossible to tell if his gaze was directed westward, to the sun (perhaps anticipating his destination), or downward, at whoever was looking up at him (perhaps amused at the dealings of mortals). Caland enjoyed the pun immensely and wished, once again, that he could have met the artist.

Looking through one of the six support pillars holding the Dome up, Caland was surprised and amused to see it was mid-morning. Prayer and staring at the mural had made him lose track of time, thinking it was late.

The grass around the building looked neatly trimmed, but really the clerics of Rillifane at the monastery had adjusted the growth to a uniform rate. A path in a style borrowed from Kara-Tur rock gardens led away from the Dome to the East Dormitory, a large, rectangular building favoring the same flowing Elven stonework of the Dome.

Everything was beautiful in a simple way, but Caland felt a need to leave. There was an itch in his mind, telling him the Seldarine had a use for him. His destiny was elsewhere. The itch had been growing for the last few months, and he had begun his preparations to leave. The last thing to do now was to speak to the high-priestess of Corellon at the Administration Office. It wasn’t necessary, since Caland was a follower of the Aerdrie Faenya aspect of the triple goddess Angharradh, the patron goddess of the winged elves. Still, he felt the calling to worship the other members of the Seldarine due to the elven blood running through his veins.

The young elf (young for his race; not many people would consider one of eighty years to be a youth) stretched as he stood up, then walked out towards the Central Courtyard west of the East Dormitory. He tried to avoid using his wings for anything other than play in his free time; it seemed like cheating to use so great a gift that no one else at the monastery had. Thinking of this, he was hit by a small wave of pity for his friends.

One of the teachers was instructing a class in basic unarmed combat under the guardian treant looming over the courtyard. Caland recognized the teacher as Marmont, a stranger who claimed to be a grugach from another world. He certainly looked exotic enough; he was less than half Caland’s height, and he had a feral hint in his dark eyes. Marmont was far from spiritual and seemed to have given up on learning about himself and finding an inner peace. Cal wasn’t sure if this was typical of grugach elves, or if it was just Marmont, but he tried to remain polite around the rather foul-mouthed foreign braggart. His exploits were quite amusing, to hear about, too.

Caland walked around him, under the treant. You could move if you wanted to, Brother of the Earth. Why do you choose to remain under the gawking stares of us students? It might have been his imagination, but it almost seemed like the light wind turned the “head” of the massive, sentient oak down to look at him. Caland continued on to the Administration Office.

He paused at the door, gathering his breath and his courage. He stepped in, hoping the windows would keep his claustrophobia to a minimum.

The sensei stood and bowed to him. “Hello, Caland Greiwalie of the Skypeaks Mountains.”

Caland returned the bow, bending lower at the waist. “Hello, Sensei Kelrine Twomoon of the Twomoon Monastery.”

Caland concentrated on the sensei to avoid looking at the walls cooping him into the building. Kelrine was one of the fabled Sun Elves from Evermeet, but she wore a modified version of the monastery’s female gi rather than showing off her heritage with cloth styled in her homeland. Nobody knew how old the high priestess was, but she was rumored to be around six hundred years old, the only sign of her age was a look of infinite wisdom in her eyes.

“Come, let us speak outside. It is a lovely day for a walk in the Gardens.”

“Yes, sensei,” Caland answered. She was doing this for him, but she would never be so rude as to mention his claustrophobia.

They walked back out the door Caland entered and around the building to the back, where the Gardens grew with little help from the elves. The willows and moss hushed sounds and birdcalls, giving the place a more mystical and religious feel than any constructed temple could.

The Twomoon Monastery was built in a glacier-carved valley; everything was lush green with a surreal view of jagged peaks pushing their immense mass close enough to almost touch, if Caland closed his eyes and looked at afterimage in his retina. Most of the monastery was on a flat outcropping on the side of the mountain, but the gardens were set further up, where the land was uneven. The land was rocky, but green seemed to cover all the rocks. A glacier-fed stream gave off leaf-muted splashes just out of sight.

They stopped walking when they came to a raised pool about a wingspan across where rainwater had collected in a recess on a moss-covered rock. Trees did not surround this pool, nor did large boulders, leaving the view of the sky as clear as could be achieved in the terrain. This pool was used as a place of worship of the Sehanine Moonbow aspect of Angharradh. Did the elves of old create this place, or was it created for them by the movings of the earth? Too many records were lost after the dragons destroyed the monastery half a millennium ago. Caland shook his head at the surreal history of the monastery.

“Caland, Sehanine gave me a vision last night,” Kelrine said from the opposite side of the pool, watching his reflection on the still surface of the water. Sehanine Moonbow: the lady of dreams, the moon, and far journeys. It tied into the situation well. “You were among a group of at least twenty elite elven warriors chasing a monster into a demi-plane where it could change what currently is to fit its will. The group of you arrived on wings of force upon a courtyard to an ancient building. All that existed was the courtyard and the ruin, rising up to the east and warping overhead, its windows dark in the desert-red sandstone. Bursts of flame occasionally signaled from a high window, advertising the location of the beast. Beyond the courtyard was reality, wrapping around you like a painting on the inside of a jar. There was no way back. The only option was duty; seek out the beast and end its life after the atrocities it committed in the Prime Material.”

Kelrine’s face was unreadable as she stared at his reflection.

“You entered the building with no fear of the walls or ceiling tightening their noose around your flight. Walking down the corridor, your numbers were diminished. The monster was causing lives to end not by destruction, but by being forgotten as if they never existed. None in the war party realized they were gone; none even realized there were ever more than fifteen, then ten, then five soldiers giving chase to the beast. When you finally faced the beast itself, you were alone with a sense of loss beyond words, but you could not remember why you felt this way.

“In the final room the stone had changed from the sharp-shadowed reds and browns of a desert ruin into the grays and blues of a starlit city of metal and stone, all according to the mad mind of the monster. Outside the windows a cityscape could be seen. Civilization was everywhere, but the roads and towers were empty of life. The monster itself was before you, lying on the ground helpless. As it had used its will to change the dreamscape, it changed itself now, turning into an innocent child. It purged its mind of all hatred and madness, the ultimate escape, but at the greatest loss possible: sacrificing its identity.

“I only saw the dream; it is for you to interpret this time.”

He did not know where to start. It seemed like a random dream, but she would not have spoken if it was. “Thank you, sensei.”

“You are welcome, Caland.”

For a moment he thought he saw fear flicker through the reflection of her eyes. With the large eyes of the avariel, it was nearly impossible for Caland to hide his emotions, but the sensei always seemed able to mask any she felt. This was an oddity.

After a brief blessing, the two returned to the shade for a moment, enjoying the life in the trees, mountains, and sky. This is what Caland would miss most after he was gone.

The moment passed and they returned to the main compound. Caland retrieved his fanny pack from the roof of the East Dormitory and launched into the air, flying south out of the compound.


I must have some purpose. I can feel it in my soul. After a dozen days travel southeast through the Anauroch Desert, Caland was out of water, and the last oasis was a day’s travel back. He sat in the cool, midnight sand, staring up at the stars. As the water had dwindled, his determination grew. All that remained to do was pray for guidance, so he knelt and began.

Perhaps a half-hour later a flickering light played on his eyelids. Too early for dawn, he opened his eyes curiously so see a swirl of yellow and turquoise lights in the air before him. It seemed to have no pattern, but as he watched, it seemed to turn into an unfamiliar face of a female elf for a moment before changing back to random movements of light. He stood and approached, thinking his prayer was answered. The lights shifted and converged into a single, bright point, then moved out into an ellipsoid, holding the view of another place within. He reached out to touch it, but other than a brief warmth, his hand passed through and felt the warm, humid air on the other side. He jumped through...

...and landed on stone, a little sand falling from his shoes. Glancing around, he was on a raised pedestal surrounded by a forest. There was a house to the north and another to the west, with a road running by. A human woman and a small child stood outside the western house, so he approached.

She looked up and smiled at him. “Warkom. Ahr yu nu haer?” It sounded like the common tongue of the humans to the south-west of the monastery, but he only knew a few variations of Elven and Auran.

“I am sorry, good lady, but I do not know that language,” He said it high Elven, hoping she would understand.

Luckily, she nodded and responded fluently, to his surprise. “I did not recognize you, so I assumed you are new here. Welcome to the world of Sierra Na.”

A different world! So his destiny was here. Caland introduced himself to the two and she introduced them to him. It turned out they and most of the other people around also were not from this world, like him. Alistra let him have some water, which he drank appreciatively while getting to know her and Jack. The closer he came to them, the more he pitied them for having no wings, but there was little he could do for that. He set out to replace what he drank from a well along the road to the northeast, and that is when he met Ellidy.

She was a young elf and looked just like his dead sister Kylennia, but with red hair and no wings. After speaking with her a bit, he found her voice was also different, but his heart still hurt by looking at her. I have to protect her. She spoke of a city to the south, populated by something similar to small dragons, and she was about to make a trip that way, offering for him to go with. He agreed, or course, but then they ran across a band of gnolls.

The avariel approach to combat is to fight fiercely to the death, leaving no enemy standing. It was a way hard-learned after combating the white dragon and giants to avoid extinction on Faerûn. Caland threw himself into the fray... and died.

But he found himself back where he started, on the pedestal near Alistra’s house. He stood up and rushed back to the south to aid Ellidy any way he could. He found her hard-pressed against the gnolls, and he joined in, quickly being cut down once more.

And once more he was back at the pedestal. Ellidy must have fled from the gnolls, for she was approaching from the south road. This is my destiny, then. The Seldarine brought me back while defending her. She must be very special to them, so they assigned me as protector. When he tried to explain to her that she was the Child of the Gods, she refused to acknowledge it. Very well. I will guard her until she finds her destiny, whether or not she believes it herself.

And with that, he attempted to stay near Ellidy wherever she was. He took up a roost in the watchtower in the village where she lived, keeping watch for any danger approaching.


The days passed, and he could not watch her at all times. He needed to find food for himself. He met Melocia and Swan, two grey elves, both from the world of Oerth, on his travels. Similar things happened when traveling with them, where he would find himself alive after he should have been dead. His belief in Ellidy began to falter.

Every time he was around his wingless friends, he pitied them for being stuck on the ground. The “fly” spell was pathetically limited, so he began devising a plan for making artificial wings with the help of Melocia. He started collecting any feathers that came off while he groomed his wings.

Another avariel arrived on Sierra Na. Ilthara was a girl from the world of Unorwi, the place Ellidy came from. Caland was immediately moved by her beauty. Her raven-black hair cascaded down between wings feathered in black. Her face was pale beauty, light-boned and delicate, holding the large, emotional eyes of an avariel. It had been over thirty years since he was around his own kind. He wanted to spend every minute with her asking questions, but both of them had things to do, and they went their separate ways.

One day he met up with Ilthara, Theodosia Damane (a human monk from Faerûn), Murin (a dwarven mage of some sort), and Melocia near Morzelmore. A human woman named Metra appeared and began asking questions. She claimed to be from Sierra Na, but this seemed impossible because no other native humans had been found. She seemed to be a messenger, perhaps from a divine being, and she told those gathered that people were harvested from other worlds because Sierra Na is on the archetype Prime Material plane. If it was empty of races here, then those races would not exist elsewhere either. Is this my destiny? Just to stay here and do nothing? It fit, but he was afraid of it. This would mean Ellidy was not his destiny, and all he was doing until now did not matter.

It took a long time to swallow that, but he immediately had other things to occupy his attention. A few days later a force of giants traveled near the shimmer, startling everyone nearby, including Caland, Murin, Melocia, Ilthara, Theodosia, and Marie, a young mage with a disposition very similar to Melocia. The giants threw rocks to get the group’s attention, but it was assumed to be an attack, so they were dispatched. Caland was perhaps a little over-eager to kill them, because giants were the second most common cause of early death of Avariel on Faerûn, with the leading cause being white dragons.

A larger giant approached and scolded them for attacking, then said the giants were moving because some undead displaced them. There were groups of animals also fleeing from the undead. A large, pregnant dire tiger was infected with an undead disease, and she died, entrusting her cubs to those gathered. Theodosia and Caland both decided to give their cubs to an intelligent tiger that frequented the area often, and the others decided to keep their cubs.


The techniques he learned in the Twomoon Monastery were designed for elves, but none took his wings into account. He spent some time with Theodosia, practicing the techniques from the Stone and Branch to compliment his own, and to try to find some that worked with his wings. He also became a friend of the order of Kry’s Fist in Morzelmore, because the dragonkin had wings, although a dragonkin’s build is far from that of an elf. Between these and some things he was discovering on his own, he began to piece together a new martial art form for avariel.

He was practicing with Theodosia one day when a younger dragonkin approached them, asking for their help finding an old, human magic school near the volcano in the Hadara Mountains. Caland was a little worried about it; fire singes feathers. Zarpho, the dragonkin, had asked nicely, however, so Caland and Theodosia escorted her along, and they made it past the dragons without much harm.

They came to what looked like a house inside a tree, so they walked in and were immediately attacked by flying books. Caland’s claustrophobia began to put a tight grip on him as he stood inside, but between the walls being bark and the ceiling being high enough, he was still able to function.

They found a trapdoor in the floor and jumped in. Squeezing into the hole pushed the claustrophobia up to a higher level, and the hallway within seemed to twist and move closer. Theodosia and Zarpho were saying something, but he could barely hear them. He usually could, with intense concentration, only understand a fraction of a conversation in the common tongue; he was in no condition to try now. Caland clutched out and found Theodosia’s sleeve, and he latched onto it. Something safe and familiar.

“Close your eyes and think of open skies, Caland,” She said in elven, her voice seeming to be directed at him, piercing the panic. That does not work so well when the only wind is from the breath of the first three people to come here in centuries, stirring up dust with footsteps that echo against the walls. He tried it anyways, and it helped him relax enough to release his grip on Theodosia’s sleeve and go back outside.

Zarpho sounded unhappy that they weren’t exploring the ruins with her, but she went on alone anyways.

About two weeks later, Sanser approached and said Zarpho hadn’t been seen since she left to explore some ruins, about the time she came to them earlier. Caland decided it was his responsibility, since he helped lead her to the house in the first place. He flew back to the house and, before he stepped in, drugged himself on incense he bought from the Kry’s Fist store.

It worked. He had no fear of the walls or ceiling; only a numbing blank part in his mind where it should be. He hopped down the trapdoor and began to explore. There were a few golems scattered around that attacked him, which seemed odd; shouldn’t Zarpho have taken care of them?

At a curve in a hallway he found a room with three circles on the floor. Zarpho was lying near one, and what looked like a twisted, demonic blue dragon paced inside the circle. It must be an Abishai, one of the devils that serves Tiamat. He snuck in and checked Zarpho for signs of life. She had none, so he put her body in his magic bag. He then turned on the devil and killed it. Another soon appeared in its spot, so he snuffed out one of the candles on the circle.

Instead of sending the thing back to its original plane, other monsters like it began appearing in the circle. He was soon overwhelmed, and he had to retreat.

He left the house and laid Zarpho out carefully on the ground. Caland had a scroll for raising the dead, which he used. Her soul decided to come back, and her eyes slowly opened as she sat up. Caland gave her a hug and helped her to her feet. They then flew back to Morzelmore.


Story written by Micteu
CTP team member
http://www.harvestmoonconsortium.com
Chief cook and bottle washer for Harvest Moon

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