Ruari Athir “Spring Star Protection” (in Elvish) is a high elf of one-hundred eighteen years young. He is stunningly beautiful. Pale, with dark hair, and eyes of lavender. Ruari was born to Kerath Jarellon and Ka Onaldu; both nobles of Troutbeck and well-respected leaders of Troutbeck’s elves.
Nearly twenty years ago, while Troutbeck was being attacked by warbands of Orcs, Kerath sent Ruari away to Lis-Al Onna, a well-protected Elven island stronghold, to continue his wizard’s studies. Away from his parents, his life of obedience and sobriety was over. In his new life on Lis-Al Onna, he would sing the prayers of the Laughing god, Olidammara, in hopes of joy, whimsy, and mischief.
Rauri’s new roguish outlook led him to many new delights on the island of Lis-Al Onna. He practiced a trade of teaching swordplay, and found himself with his own beautiful pupil, the timid, young, and lovely elf princess Koehali (“Earth Shadow” in Common).
Convinced by the clerics of Olidammara that he should embrace his joys, Rauri spent his time seducing Koehali, and on an evening after instruction in her tower, Rauri decided to deliver the coup de grâce of his seduction. He un-corked a bottle of thousand-year-old wine he stole from the royal cellars and intoxicated the princess Koehali with his bright lavender eyes, sweet words, sly tongue, and more wine than Koehali had ever imbibed in a single night.
Their passion had reached a fevered pitch, and Rauri, naked, was disrobing the young princess Koehali. On his knees, eyeing his prize, he whispered “now for a little trick the dockworkers taught me” and he began to peel off Koehali’s final undergarments.
The moment he touched her most private lace, a pair of large, male, imposing lips appeared on the garment directly on the alter he wished to worship. The lips moved, and spoke in a booming tone, repeating the words: “HALT, FOUL INTRUDER! YOU HAVE BETRAYED THE TRUST OF LORD KOEHLAS! HALT, FOUL INTRUDER! YOU HAVE BETRAYED THE TRUST OF LORD KOEHLAS!”
“Oh no!” exclaimed the princess Koehali. “My father put a magic mouth on my panties!”
The young lovers heard the guards banging on the door, about to break up their party.
“DEAR OLIDAMMARA! Why didn’t you tell me your father was so protective over you?!?” begged Rauri.
“What did you expect?!? I’m only twenty-five!” Koehali said, blushing.
“TWENTY-FIVE! You said you were a centenarian!” demanded Rauri, yelling over the shouting panties.
“I was joking! You really believed I was over a hundred?” Koehali was becoming red with frustration.
Rauri, still tipsy, was ignoring her, and couldn’t help but notice the similarities between the magic mouth -version of her father’s lips and Koehali’s. He snapped out of it, and scrambled to don his most crucial garb: His Courtier’s Outfit, rapier, dagger, and longbow. Two guards burst through the door with axes.
One of the guards pointed and said, “That’s it for you, little Rouri. Lord Koehlas will have your head!”
Without time to find his beltpouch, Rauri smashed the nearby oriel window, took a deep breath, and leapt to the cold ocean below.
Rauri found himself surprisingly sober from the cold water; his heart pounding with excitement from nearly falling to his death and freezing in the ocean. The tide pulled him near a small grotto under a bridge, near the docks. He crawled ashore, and with a grin of a gambler on a lucky streak, looked on the tower he jumped from, barely making out the silhouette of the guards eyeing for him in the water below.
A dusty old gnome, in cleric’s vestments tapped him on the shoulder, and said, “By Fharlanghn’s path! He works fast! It wasn’t but a moment ago that I asked Him for His guidance on my travel to Troutbeck, and here you are, rapier and all! Does He always make you swim to help people?”
“He? Oh, yes, ahem, Fharlanghn. Sometimes, sure. Troutbeck, eh?” Rouri pondered: perhaps this would be a good time to jump ship, or so to speak, and say goodbye to Lis-Al Onna and the bounty on his head, and revisit his family home.
“Yes. I am here to guide you to Troutbeck, ah…”
“Gazu Zilzu of Jorpip. But you can call me Sandifoot, or just ‘Sandy’. People call me that on account of my always moving from one place to the next, sharing the blessings of Fharlanghn. It’s my old boots, you see, they’ve holes in ’em and my feet, they’re always covered in dirt,” said the increasingly humorous old gnome.
“If you have to spell it out…” said Rouri.
“No-one was spelling anything, you daft beautiful little…least of all the word ‘it’, as if I’d have trouble with a word as simple as that,” argued Sandy, with his tongue literally inside his cheek.
In a moment, Rouri and his fast friend, Sandy, were on a modest boat back to Troutback, to revisit his home after nineteen years. Rouri considered whether his father would be angry at his never having progressed in learning magic, his disobedience, or his roguish behavior. “My father’s path is not mine — Fharlanghn’s road will be my life’s guide.”
