Jezalin Drask

Jezalin got up from the bench to the many protests of her companions. Stay! shouted Bannion, her boyhood friend and companion, we have more wine that my father has paid for. Jezalin, her head already full of the wine, was in no mood to spend the morrow in bed so she bade her companions farewell and made her excuses to leave.

Her father had trusted her with more responsibility than she dared imagine. The shipements of flour and tack would help her people through the harsh fall and well into the winter. Many elves thought that such arrangements were paramount to begging, but Jezalin knew better. It was the new fashion, the new way of doing things and it would mean that her people could focus on the crafts they already did so well. Her eyes suddenly focused and she realized that she had made good time since leaving the Blue Moon, but she had traveled far to close to the Tombwoods. As reality came suddenly back to her, she heard movement in the shadows around. and suddenly six filth sodden humans materialized from the shadows. "What do you want" she called, suddenly going cold and wishing that she had at least brought Adenan's shortsword with her. "We's only wishn' to make the acquaintance of a lady" said the smallish man with cooked teeth; and with that he made a gesture and the other five started to surround her. She knew that she was about to pay for her foolishness in walking so close to the woods this late at night, and as her attention once again slipped from her she did not see the man that had grasped her shoulders firmly, making any attempt at flight a pure fantasy. Suddenly the last thought was violently wrenched from her as another of the men had put a knee to her midriff. The odd thought of the suddenness of the attack was thrashed from her mind as her lower back erupted in flame from a brutal strike. All her thought as well as the air in her lungs left her, and she found herself gasping on the pebbled lane, her body was being brutalized, yet her mind was rasping that something was not right. These men seemed to have little interest in ransom, or even in searching her for treasure; instead they seemed to be more interested in the brutality they struck upon her.
As she sought to work out the puzzle of this attack even while her body was being abused she heard a muffled crunch, like that of a dull cleaver that did not break a bone cleanly but merely broke it by the force of its strike. And before she had time to wonder she saw the jaw of one of her assailants explode in a mass of blood and ruined flesh from the force of a thrown hammer. And as she sat up she saw that a woodsy elf, a nimble halfling, a righteous half elf and a noble human had come to her aid. Before she could call to them her elation at their rescue a grey fog enveloped her and her consciousness was lost to the sounds of battle.