Thorny points menaced Jirelle from all directions. Her buckler and dagger turned them away for what felt like the hundredth time in half as many steps. Sadly, these were not enemy blades, which she would have preferred by far. Those she could beat, parry, catch, disarm, and finally answer with her own winning thrusts. Not so these hanging, coiling vines and branches. So lazy, yet so stubborn! Where was the energy, the impassioned back-and-forth between skilled players? This wasn’t daring play, but pure drudgery.
Of course, even if the trees did rise to the challenge, she was hardly prepared to meet them in a duel. Not an impressive one, at any rate. A swordless lunge lacked a certain something.
Blasted belaborin’, an old shipmate might’ve said. Damnable detour!
With those thoughts, she gave the thicket a moment of undeserved, unrequired mercy and turned on her companion instead. The rebuke she’d swallowed several times over finally made its escape. “You realize I may never forgive you for this?” she said, only half-joking.
Sajan was probably less penetrable than the jungle. The monk appeared indifferent to the grabbing flora and buzzing flies. Not even the yellow paint on his shaved head ran in the humidity. Still, Jirelle’s comment managed to hoist his brow a bit.
“Charging inland was not my idea,” he reminded her.
No, his idea had been to make peace with their losses. Adapt and carry on while the impertinent thieves carried off their shiny treasures. By the time he’d relented and joined in the pursuit, the criminals had a fair head start. The aiuvarin swashbuckler and qi-fueled monk rivaled one another in swiftness, but not even they could chase a winged quarry up waterfalls. Hence their current climb through choking roots and broadleaves.
But before all that… well, yes. Maybe if she had taken Sajan’s advice to ignore them, the creatures swarming the riverboat like seagulls might have, in fact, lost interest. Instead, she became defensive when the nosy things started hopping and flapping around the party’s gear. Sajan had retained his characteristic focus, gently accusing Jirelle of attaching too much importance to her possessions. It was possible he had a point. In trying to drive the thieves away, she had only fanned their interest. Curious picking and prodding became bold, giggling pilfery. Jirelle could appreciate a bit of provocative showmanship… when she was the one onstage. The role of an inactive audience didn’t suit her, let alone that of a helpless victim.
“Well, it’s clear I value my sword more than you value yours,” she sniffed before pressing on.
“Possibly,” he said as he padded quietly behind her. “Although you shouldn’t mistake my calm for indifference. I do feel frustration; I just deny it control. In time it diminishes, like an unfed fire.”
“Then I’m merely… feeding… my frustration?” Jirelle gasped, wrestling with the green creepers. They clung to her ankles and threaded through her slashed sleeves. Surely, she’d stumbled into an actual snakes’ nest! Thank the Lucky Drunk she’d left her cape behind.
“Which do you value greater?” the monk continued, arms relaxed behind him as if this were a beachside stroll. “Your favorite sword or the commission that awaits us?”
“Rather difficult to protect that nervous venture-captain without our weapons.” Jirelle paused before a particularly solid knot of branches blocking their way. She sighed. “Or to cut through these bloody tangles.”
“Hmm,” Sajan purred through a ghost of a grin. Clearly, he sensed another opportunity to impart some sage wisdom—or what his companions had taken to calling “Sajan advice.”
Jirelle decided to head off another lecture. “I suppose you want to move with the forest rather than against it. Glide across the top, perhaps?” That couldn’t be too terribly dissimilar to a masts-and-rigging balancing act, come to think of it. Climbing aloft might not be a bad idea.
Sajan considered this, too, then surprised her by shaking his head and stepping up to the natural barrier. She motioned for him to be her guest. He planted his feet in a wide, low stance and cupped his fingers like claws. His breath went in and out with a blur of motion too fast to follow. Sharp cracks rang in Jirelle’s ears, but only after the twisting arms of wood exploded away, splinters flying. Soon the debris settled; the path was clear. The monk turned and offered a bow, meaning both you’re welcome and after you.
Jirelle smirked at the showiness, but he couldn’t fool her. Swagger was her style, not his. His approach was direct, practical, and purposeful… not to mention effective. Clearly losing a favored weapon hadn’t hindered him to the extent it had her.
“Why don’t you go first?” she said with strained sweetness.
“Again, this particular detour was not my idea.”
“So it wasn’t. Then when we find our swords, I suppose you won’t be claiming yours?”
There was that hint of a smile. “Touché, madam.”
Jirelle laughed.
Soon they breached the worst of it and hastened their pace. A gap in the foliage and the undergrowth exposed dewy sky, and the jungle noise gave way to a low, distant rumble. They had returned to the river above the cataracts, which they’d overshot. This was only a small tributary to their vessel’s waterway.
“Must drop off ‘round the bend there,” Jirelle said, pointing left along a rocky bank. She searched right. The river wandered down from a purple fog of mountains. The landscape was peaceful, still, undisturbed. She doubted the thieves had fled any further inland, but they were nowhere to be seen. Might they have doubled back to the main river, followed it back to sea? That made sense. All while Sajan and she stumbled through the forest.
Blasted belaborin’!
A strange, spicy odor tickled her nostrils then, tempting a sneeze.
“Oh dear,” she heard her companion say, and found him staring almost sheepishly at his open hands, slick with something moist. A little apprehensively, Jirelle sniffed her own and recoiled quickly, eyes watering. Even her buckler wafted a hot stink.
“Monkey tree oil!” she gagged. “Must’ve run afoul of it back there. Better wash it off before it draws every predator in half a league.”
Sajan chuckled, apparently impressed that the forest had fought back.
The river’s current wasn’t too strong or deep and the water not at all cold, but its bed was slippery with moss and stones. They picked their way to the middle to give any oil on their feet a good rinsing. Then they scrubbed their forearms. Jirelle was just about to suggest they immerse themselves completely, for good measure, when a wet sound reached her over the rumbling downstream, a splashing that hadn’t come from them. Sajan went alert, too.
They realized they now had a better view around the bend. White spray indicated the tributary’s drop-off, but it was split by a wedge of moss-blanketed boulders. The sound had come from the tiny creatures crowding that wedge. They leaped into it from the water like flying fish bouncing off a ship’s hull, then flapped around like yellow bats, only to dive and start the process over again.
Jirelle and Sajan had found the thieves!
“Why are they acting like that?” the monk wondered softly.
These annoying, aquatic, fin-headed gremlins usually kept to the sea and the coast, but Jirelle assumed they’d been drawn in by the riverboat. Now the bright green, almost glowing boulders distracted them. Why didn’t interest her, because there were their weapons, her rapier and the monk’s temple sword, momentarily forgotten among the rocks.
Sajan must have sensed her coiling like a spring. “Remember what happened last time.”
“I know. If they think I want it…”
“Yes. And we’re too exposed here. Too slow. Better to slip around.”
He began to do just that, then looked back with an expectant stare. Are you coming?
There came a sickening metallic scratch. Downstream, Jirelle’s rapier was slipping, soon to fall into the spray and probably down the falls. Sajan’s expression was one of pity, but she felt her own resolve form into a confident smile. She decided her companion had had the right idea before when he cut through the trees.
The direct approach.
Her first few strides were indeed slow. Grounded. But soon she picked up speed and momentum, feeling lighter and lighter. Her feet touched shallower and shallower, recovering faster and faster, until they were completely free of the water, slapping the surface rapidly as she raced across it.
Sajan’s strangled grunt of surprise was extremely gratifying.
Jirelle strides across the surface of the water in this illustration from Pathfinder Player Core 2 by Alexander Nanitchkov.
Jirelle bent forward, focused only on reaching her property before it disappeared or the gremlins grabbed it again. A timely somersault carried her off the water and over her sword; her hand closed inside the guard. Landing gracefully on the wedge of boulders, she flourished the blade with an extravagant bow of her own.
Sajan nodded back, his head tilting only slightly toward her: Impressive!
Satisfied, Jirelle figured it was high time they rejoined their riverboat party. If that venture-captain’s fear of vengeful Aspis agents proved warranted, it wouldn’t do to miss out on the fun—or the commission.
There was no need to menace the gremlins, whose strange fascination with the boulders broke under Jirelle’s demonstration. They scattered and dove down the cascading steps of the falls. Jirelle wished them good riddance and stooped to recover the monk’s sickle blade from the rocks—which moved.
She froze. Looking closer, she realized the moss under her feet wasn’t just moss, but a scaly hide lit like a lantern from within. The heavy weight underneath shifted again, then began to rise. A long neck emerged, dripping from the stream. A face like a horse’s skull turned to inspect its passenger, sharp teeth flared hungrily
Jirelle’s dismount was far less graceful. She backpedaled upstream, kicking big splashes this time, until Sajan was by her side again. The river monster, even larger than it had seemed, greeted them with a crocodilian hiss. It lashed its tail and gave off a stronger greenish glow than before. Jirelle was glad they had their weapons back, though she had the horrible notion she was about to understand those gremlins’ dangerous enthrallment.
Damnable detour!
About the Author
Andrew Bud Adams learned to dungeon crawl before he learned to walk (and he has yet to learn to water sprint). When not pestering family and friends to play yet another tabletop adventure, he bides his time teaching college English, painting miniatures, and writing stories. His work has appeared in the Paizo Blog, in short story anthologies, and in the Malifaux universe by Wyrd Miniatures.
About Iconic Encounters
Iconic Encounters is a series of web-based flash fiction set in the worlds of Pathfinder and Starfinder. Each short story provides a glimpse into the life and personality of one of the games’ iconic characters, showing the myriad stories of adventure and excitement players can tell with the Pathfinder and Starfinder roleplaying games.
Jirelle and Sajan’s classes—the swashbuckler and monk—appear in Pathfinder Player Core 2, which remasters eight Pathfinder Second Edition classes and presents a vast array of existing and new character options for members of all classes, including the Water Sprint feat employed so deftly by Jirelle in this story. Pathfinder Player Core 2 is available for preorder now, and will release in hardcover, special edition hardcover, retailer exclusive sketch variant hardcover, and PDF on August 1, 2024, and in pocket edition softcover in October.
Read more at this site