A D&D Story With Edgar Allen Poe Vibes

What was originally assumed to be simply blood for hire had quickly and inevitably escalated into an ordeal. See, the man who was the presumed target of the tribe of assassins was a traitor to his kingdom. Therefore, he was to be taken alive, before being ceremoniously executed by the eyes of the people in his homeland. Though the tribe had ultimately succeeded, in the minds of many they had still lost. The most severe of those thoughts came from the dragonborn known by the name Cyndergaurd.

Though she had decades on her human counterparts, by the lifespan scale of her kind Cyndergaurd was still only a child. That is, if she still had a ‘kind’. It was that curse! Her father's curse, passed down only to her blood- not to her sisters’- that caused her to be banished and estranged from the dragonborn tribe her family had belonged to for generations. The curse, she had always told herself, was hardly bothersome to anyone else but her. The only effects were The Voices, and occasionally hallucinations. But if she was the only being who could hear and see them, why did anyone else care? She hardly ever obeyed when The Voices told her to stab people, she reasoned. But her tribe had banished her as soon as the curse showed itself in her mannerisms, leaving her for dead in the mountains. Clerics and exorcists had never been able to rid her father of the curse, and just before Cynderguard was born he had gone insane because of it, attacking and killing members of his tribe, of his family. Cynderguard found comfort in telling herself that despite being exiled by her family, there was no proof that she would end up like her father.

Despite that inherited curse, another tribe, a human tribe, took her in and introduced her to their nomadic ways. They taught her the art of assassination and the manipulation of life. She had been at every murder and every execution since she was a toddler- each one giving her curse a greater power over her young, broken mind.

One such execution is where Cynderguard stood now, facing the opposite direction of everyone else present. Her back was to the gallows. She had witnessed enough executions that even without looking she knew exactly what was presently happening. The scene was clear in her mind’s eye: the dark oak wood of the gallows, the thick woven rope of the noose as it swayed softly in the salty ocean breeze, the Jivvin- the Executioner- standing ready as the traitor looked on stoically with empty eyes at something on the horizon only he could see.

After years of dealing with the disturbed dragonborn, Cynderguard’s friends (or rather those who had been tasked with looking after the young one) had learned that these events fed her demons and insisted that she not watch as the traitor- hardly worth being called a man- met his fate.

However, inside Cynderguard, a battle with her curse raged.

“Turn and look.” The Voice, which had never been her own, came to her mind suddenly.

“No, I'd really rather not.” Cyndergard replied out loud, earning a few questioning glances from the surrounding townsfolk.

“Turn and look!” The Voice commanded forcefully.

Cynderguard had learned a long time ago that fighting with The Voice was futile. Despite herself, she turned. Her young eyes fell upon the gallows, just as the traitor’s hanging body stilled. But, strung up from the gallows was not the traitor. To her eyes it was herself. Of course, it was only the curse playing with her mind. That awful curse! Still, the sight filled her with a paralyzing horror so completely that she collapsed with a weak scream. Startled, two humans in her tribe lifted her limp body from the cobblestone ground and took her to a well to revive her with water. The chill of the liquid pulled Cynderguard back into consciousness with a start, gasping in fear.

Gently, discreetly, the older of the pair of humans cast a spell on the child that would calm her emotions for a brief time.

Inside Cynderguard's head, the contradicting, overwhelming voices ceased, and inside her chest, her heart rate slowed to a normal pace. She looked into the troubled eyes of the humans above her, her soft, childish features empty of emotion.

“Now tell us, Cynderguard,” the younger human urged softly, “what is it?”

The Dragonborn slowly drew breath.

“The Voice made me turn. I tried not to, but it won. When I turned, hanging in the traitor's place was… me” she said, simply, the effects of the spell soothing her mind.

The humans shared eye contact for a moment, knowing that this was a product of the curse.

“We told you not to watch-” they muttered. Her caretakers grew tired of her delusions, of her incurable demons. Many times, they had thought of casting her out, ridding themselves of this burden they had been forced to endure due to the actions of strangers. But it was against the religion of their creed to abandon those in need and, to some degree, her human tribe felt sorry for the youngling. They forced themselves to be patient with the troubled child because, the way they saw it, she’d been through enough without being exiled by another family.

Cynderguard’s shoulders sagged as the spell began to wear off.

“I'm going to pick you up now…” one of the humans said hesitantly. The Dragonborn child was inconveniently independent. Any other moment she would have refused, but feeling wholly weak, she nodded, accepting the help.

Now cradled in her caretaker’s arms, Cyndergaurd closed her eyes and buried her face in their shoulder. Though the humans tried to block her view of the gallows, the girl- by twisted accident- caught a glimpse. This time, however, it was not her small frame hanging there. Nobody was. But the traitor of a man- who was supposed to be dead- stood there. In her eyes he was quite alive- and staring right at her.