Commander Braghaman Larethian

Stuck Inside

The fire was working at keeping back the chill in the air. Outside, rain could be heard tapping against the windows and the rooftop. Looking through the glass, the two youngsters sigh dramatically at how uninviting the weather outside was. 

“I’m bored,” Banagan said, leaning his head against the glass. “Why can’t we go outside?”

“Because it’s too wet,” Korissa answered matter-of-factly. “We’d get all muddy if we did.”

“I don’t care,” Banny grumped. 

“What would you do if you could go outside?” Braghaman asked as he sat in front of the fireplace, reading through a stack of papers that had been delivered to him earlier in the day.

“I’d play,” Banny answered defiantly. 

“Doing what?”

”I’d have an adventure.”

”What kind of adventure would you go looking for?”

“I’d take my mace and my armor and I’d go patrol the streets in town.”

“I want to go, too,” Kori chimed in. She turned away from the window and went to sit down on the couch next to the paladin.

“Okay,” Bragh said with a smile, setting the papers down on the table in front of him. “What would you do then?”

“I’d borrow one of mommy’s sticks. With her permission, of course,” she added with a serious nod. 

“You mean one of her staffs?”

“Yeah. Then I’d go and help parole town.”

“It’s patrol,” Banny corrected as he walked back into the room and sat down on the floor next to the hearth.

“Right. Patrol.”

“I’m sure Darkshire would be well protected then,” Bragh said gravely. “What would you two do first?”

“We could go look at the blacksmith,” Kori offered. 

“Yeah. And that’s close to town hall. Something is always happening there.”

“Okay,” Bragh began as he shifted on the couch to get comfortable, grinning slightly as he did. “You’ve gone to the blacksmith. While you’re looking around to make sure everything is safe, you see a skeleton stumbling towards the back of the building. What do you do now?”

“I go running after it!” Banny answered loudly. 

“But it’s bigger than us. And there could be more of them. Shouldn’t we get help?”

“You’re right. I yell out ‘There’s a skeleton over here,” then I’d start to follow it so that we can tell the guards where it went.”

“Me, too!”

“Okay,” Bragh said. “But when you yelled out, the skeleton heard you, too. Now it’s walking slowly towards you. What do you do now?”

“I hold my mace up and get ready to hit it in the knee.”

“I hold up mommy’s stick, uhh her staff, and start saying the spells like mommy does.”

“You can’t do that. You don’t know how to do spells.”

“I can too if I want!”

“Dad!” Banny cried out in frustration. “Tell her she can’t.”

“Well we’re just pretending,” Bragh answered calmly. “We’ll let her do it this time.”

“Fine. Then I’m going to zap the skeleton with the Light.”

“The Light doesn’t zap,” Kori said. “That’s lightning.”

“If you can say spells, them I can zap,” Banny said, putting his hands on his hips.

“Okay,” Braghaman interrupted. “Kori, you’ve started a spell and Banny, you’re zapping it. The skeleton is stunned.”

“What does that mean?” Kori asked.

“It’s stopped for a moment,” Banny answered. “Now’s our chance!”

Braghaman grinned as the two children began plotting how to take on the skeleton. Hearing a noise behind him, he glanced over his shoulder to see Niviene leaning against the doorway with a mug of coffee in her hand and a smile on her face as she watched. 

“Okay. The skeleton is stunned,” Bragh continued. “What do you do next?”