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| − | [ST] Despite the merrily burning fire, the house where Elk and Otter have taken refuge is bone-chillingly cold. Tendrils of the yellowish fog that chased them within occasionally dart inside, flailing for a moment, before retreating.
| + | Delete. |
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| − | [ST] "At least we've got plenty of wood," Elk comments, throwing another piece on the flames. His leg has been clumsily wrapped and splinted, and sticks awkwardly out before him.
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| − | [Otter] "Yeah," Otter agrees moodily. "And we have the furniture if we run out." She sits with her arms wrapped around her knees. She didn't believe what he said about them, but the words still hurt.
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| − | [ST] "I guess it can't stay out there forever, right?" Elk grimaces and pokes at the guttering fire. "Miruna will find us soon."
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| − | [Otter] "Maybe," Otter says, scowling into the flames. "The fog's still out there."
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| − | [ST] "Yeah. Chokes on Mirth seemed to know what it was..." Elk's hands tremble. He seems strangely diminished somehow, withered by the power of the fog. "She must know how to kill it-"
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| − | [ST] A bloodcurdling shriek emerges from outside, accompanied by... a flash of light, stabbing through the tightly shuttered windows and casting brief patterns of sharp shadow before fading. It is as if the sun had emerged from out of the shrouded sky for a split second.
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| − | [ST] "What?"
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| − | [Otter] A light gleams in Otter's eyes. "I wonder.." she says thoughtfully, removing a piece of wood from the fire. Fire still burns merrily from one end. Her head twists around at the sound. "What?"
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| − | [Otter] "Hold this," she instructs Elk, and shoves the flaming bit of wood into his arms.She scrambles to her feet and runs to the door.
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| − | [ST] Another flash, and another. The hideous shrieking continues.
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| − | [ST] Elk takes the wood, his trembling causing the light to shake crazily as Otter races to the door.
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| − | [Otter] It's the work of a few moments to remove the barricade. Otter's hands feel clumsy, stiff. Cold, she thinks in spite of the cosy warmth of the room. She wasn't afraid. At all. At last, she pulls the wooden door open, ready to slam it shut again.
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| − | [ST] Otter can be forgiven for a moment of confusion - the scene outside is a lot to take in. The horrifying chill of the fog still lingers, but it has greatly diminished. Odd clumps of the vile yellow mist still clump here and there, hugging the walls or lying against the ground and quivering, but even as she watches, these strands fade into nothing.
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| − | [ST] A small, twisted thing like a mummified fetus lies on the cobblestones, a knife protruding from its side - the core of the Entropic Fog. But Otter notes this for only a second, for she is awash in a golden light, and standing on the eaves of the very house she inhabits is a figure shaped like a man, yet not a man. An empty golden circle, the sign of the Wretched, burns on his brow.
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| − | [Otter] Otter stands staring. Her eyes are wide and her mouth gapes open like a fool for seconds before she snaps it up. It's hard to even see colors in the weird sunlight. "Did you kill it?" she asks- almost demands. Her voice is high and nervous. Then she gathers her wits. It was an Anathema, after all. "Or did you make it-"
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| − | [Otter] She fights a glance to the side, where the withered *thing* with a knife in it had rested. She was certain if she took her eyes off the Wretched for an instant, he would be gone.
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| − | [ST] "Stay inside," the figure says. Its voice is masculine, and seems to resonate strangely, as if rising to meet her from the bottom of a very deep well. "This is my concern."
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| − | [ST] And then, with a sudden movement, he bounds away, almost faster than the eye can follow. Otter sees him leap from rooftop to rooftop, making scarcely a sound with each landing, disturbing not a single tile, and then he is out of sight.
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| − | [ST] "What the hell was that?" Elk calls from behind her.
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| − | [Otter] It had been the wrong thing to say. It provoked all Otter's worst instincts. She glares after the Anathema. "The fog tried to eat us, it IS our concern," she mutters darkly. Then she turns to Elk, and the excitement that had been buried beneath a fog of - caution- bubbles up.
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| − | [Otter] "It was Anathema!" she squeaks. "A Wretched! I'm almost sure it killed the fog."
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| − | [ST] "A Wretched..." Elk totters to his feet, swaying unsteadily. He has to reach out to brace himself against the wall so he doesn't drop the torch. "The anathema that destroyed Madame Pearl's was a Wretched as well. I was there... we... we have to get out of here, now!"
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| − | [Otter] "Do you think it lives in Icehome? I wonder if that's why they sounded the alarm!"
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| − | [Otter] She goes to his side to put an arm around him, biting her lip at how slowly he moved. "Shouldn't we find Miruna and Annar?" she asks a little more tenatively.
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| − | [ST] "I hope not... everyone thought it left after the last incident. But it might be. Come on, if we hurry, we can still catch up with the others." He limps a few steps awkwardly. "They might need our help."
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| − | [ST] Elk leans heavily against Otter for a few steps. The pace is excruciatingly slow.
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| − | [Otter] She nods. If it lived in Icehome, there would be time to handle the Anathema later. "Right. Let's find them." She guides them carefully around the fog-thing.
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| − | [ST] The dried husk on the cobbles looks even more pathetic and withered than it did only moments before. Even as the Once Dead skirt around it, it crumples inward, becoming nothing but flakes of black ash.
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| − | -----
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| − | [ST] Miruna and Annar catch up to Chokes on Mirth, the Carrion Crow, as she leans against the mouth of an alley, breathing heavily. At the sound of their footsteps, her head darts up, and she casts a suspicious glance behind them.
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| − | [ST] "The fog?" Her voice does not shake, but comes as close as it ever does. "It is still coming?"
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| − | [Miruna] Miruna nods, catching her arm as he continues running past. "Keep running." He pulls her along until her feet are moving, then lets go, panting in his armor.
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| − | [Miruna] Annar follows behind. He'd have been left behind many a man, but nothing about Miruna wast fast except for his hands.
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| − | [ST] Chokes on Mirth staggers along, her breathing harsh and pained, but a fear that borders on the religious drives her onward. The Tear-Eaters, worshippers of the dead and walkers of the valleys of shadow, fear little, but the Fog that Slays is warned against from the moment that they are children on their mothers' backs.
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| − | [Miruna] He glances at the windows of the buildings they were running past, hoping to see a flicker of firelight through the shutters. Someone had said that the fog hated fire.
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| − | [ST] Miruna's search is in vain. The shutters are tightly closed, the doors latched - if fire burns within, it is well hidden. And then, there is a flash of golden light, and a piercing shriek rises somewhere behind them.
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| − | [Miruna] They had to get inside. He chooses the biggest house nearby - might be more stock in the kitchen. He points an arm out as he makes for it, panting too hard to yell. They wouldn't understand him any better anyway. He doesn't slow, just lowers a shoulder, and crashes into the front door.
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| − | [ST] And then he spots it - a telltale flicker of light, a shutter slightly warped by the weather so that it's open perhaps an inch. The door beside it is no less sturdy than the others, but at least breaking through it will gurantee results. The door lock snaps as he crashes against it, and it flies open to smash against the far wall with a crash.
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| − | [ST] "What the FUCK?" A woman's head appears over the back of a couch placed before the fire, her bare shoulders visible as she fumbles about. A moment later, a man's head rises as well, red with exertion and shock.
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| − | [Miruna] "Get to the fire!" he yells. He doesn't have the time or energy to speak slowly enough for anyone who didn't know him well to understand him. He stumbles into the room, as far as the couch, and manages to stop himself without bowling it over. Might have had something to do with all that weight holding it steady,
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| − | [Miruna] Still, he gives them a jolt.
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| − | [ST] "Oh I'll get to the fire, all right!" The woman lunges off the couch, naked, dragging a fur with her, to reach for the fireplace poker. "I'm gonna put your fucking face in it, you-"
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| − | [ST] "Dear," the man on the couch says mildly, his eyes travelling over the weapons that the newcomers possess. "Perhaps we should-"
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| − | [ST] "Shut up!"
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| − | [Miruna] His hand flashes out, catching her shoulder. "Get the door." He yells, knowing the others would deal with that. "Not here for you." He slaps his chest plate with his other hand. Hopefully they'd heard of him - he didn't have time to get out his Ravens for them. "Wheres the kitchen?" is eyes were still sloightlyy wild. It had been a hard run, with death on his heels.
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| − | [ST] The woman cocks her arm back to strike, but perhaps something in Miruna's eyes convinces her otherwise. She gives a resigned grunt as Annar slams the door behind him and bolts it. "Listen, I know it's Calibration, but this isn't the Realm, and you're not Dragon-Blooded. You can't break in to any house you want and demand sex-"
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| − | [ST] "Do not flatter yourself, Greenfielder cow," Chokes on Mirth wheezes.
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| − | [ST] "The kitchen's through that door there," the man adds mildly.
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| − | [Miruna] He nods, lets go, with only s light push, and then hurries through the hall. Annar dealt with people better than he did. Well, people that didn't need to die. He stamps through the door the man had pointed to, hoping to find that they'd stocked up on cooking oil. that would be simplest.
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| − | [ST] "What the hell do you want in the kitchen?" the voice rings out as Miruna rifles through the few possessions there. It's not a kitchen to speak of, but then most Haslanti households don't have one. With a squat wood-burning stove in the corner and an actual set of cabinets, this one is fairly luxurious. Miruna searches through them wildly for the oil, dislodging expensive spices and
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| − | [ST] other oddments, only to find the oil where most Haslanti keep it - in a pail by the stove.
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| − | [ST] "Just stay calm, Ella," the man advises. "If they were going to harm us, they would have already, I'm sure."
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| − | [Miruna] He grabs the oil. Not as much as he'd hoped, but it would go up fast. Wood took forever to light, especially the thicker logs that would burn long enough to keep the fog at bay till morning. "Get the wood out, make a line." He glanced out a window. they seemed to have time. They'd have a wall of fire to greet that stuff, if they moved fast enough. So thats what they'd do.
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| − | [ST] Ella is reduced to staring in astonishment as these strangers raid the firebox, tossing the thickest logs into the street as a bulwark against the fire. Smaller logs follow, and then Chokes on Mirth begins breaking up some of the furniture to thicken the fuel.
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| − | [ST] Soon, the cooking oil is added to the mix and the barrier blazes up, kindling quickly, throwing a barrier of fire across the street where the fog should come. Thick, acrid smoke winds up into the sky.
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| − | [ST] It provides a good beacon for Otter and Elk as they try to make their way back to the others.
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| − | [ST] "This is ridiculous," Ella protests, now wrapped tightly in a bear fur. "I will be repaid for this destroyed property! You call yourselves agents of the government?"
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| − | [ST] "Saving our life from WHAT?" the woman says, refusing to back down. "Prosperity?"
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| − | [Miruna] He waves his arm at the wall of flames, or really the empty road past it. "There's a fog there, that eats people." He leans in closer as he talks. Its coming.
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| − | [Miruna] He steps closer to her, instinctively intimidating with size. "We're saving your life."
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| − | [Otter] "The fog is dead!" Otter yells out to Miruna as soon as she can see him, squinting, among the fire. "It looked like a withered dried-up little baby!"
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| − | [Otter] She moves slowly still, for Elk leaned heavily on her.
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| − | [Otter] Elk is panting, still leaning against her. "It's dead," she continues cheerily. "So you can put out the fires. They're not necessary at all."
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| − | [Miruna] He whirls. "You're sure? You're alive?" He asks the second with slightly more guilt. "Annar." He waves vaguely. They both looked hurt, especiallly the boy.
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| − | [ST] "There's no time, Miruna," Elk gasps, his face white. "We have to get to the Citadel, give the warning. Miruna... it's back. The Anathema. Otter saw it."
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| − | [Otter] Otter looks thoughtful. She turns to frown at the Citadel. "They're the ones who rang them bells, weren't they?"
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| − | [Miruna] The rest of the blood drains from his face, well except for that whats on it. "Put that fire out, before it burns down the city" he yells over his shoulder, already striding off.
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| − | [ST] "The bell," Elk points out. "Our bell. None of the rest have gone off. All the city needs to know about this."
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| − | [Otter] "Wait," Otter calls to Miruna. She hesitates long enough for Annar to come and take Elk, saying critical things about her splint she didn't have time to listen to. She runs to catch up with Miruna and grabs his sleeve. "Wait," she insists, panting a little. "The Anathema told me to stay inside. I don't think he's the one who did this- whatever" this" is. He killed the fog, and he told me to stay inside, and
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| − | [Otter] that this was "his" concern."
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| − | [Otter] Otter still sounds a bit miffed by that. "There's something important going on we don't know about."
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| − | [Miruna] He shrugs. "There always is, think they ever tell us much?" He shakes her off "Anathema can't mean good. He's here, that alone means we must make for the Citadel."
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| − | [Otter] She bites her lip and nods. "I'll go with you," she says with an edge to her voice. "I'm the only one who saw him!"
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| − | [ST] Crow arrives a few minutes later, her face hard. She doesn't say anything as she joins up with the party. Annar remains behind to reset Elk's leg, which he judges as in danger of going septic without proper treatment, while Ella and her husband are left to douse the fire, complaining all the while.
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| − | [Miruna] He nods. She'd survived this long, and gotten Elk out. He'd thought them both dead when he tripped and she stopped to help. He hadn't seen it until he was far past and the fog was already rolling over them.
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| − | [ST] The Citadel sits atop a hill atop a hill, its vast marble curtain walls shielding the buildings of the Haslanti government - the treasury, the Great Hall, the Longhouse where the Council of Oligarchs meets to discuss government business. As the Once Dead draw near, they find its marble walls deserted.
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| − | [ST] The gates are tightly closed, the portcullis lowered, but no guards attend them.
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| − | [ST] Off to one side, jutting awkwardly out from the wall, is the guardhouse, where the warning bells for all the city's militia - and the Once Dead - are located. From this distance, the guardhouse's broad double doors clearly stand open. The Once Dead stand within a broad, deserted square, before a weathered stone monolith marking the date of the League's formation.
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| − | [Otter] Otter runs to the guardhouse and pokes her head through the door. "Helllooo?" she calls uncertainly.
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| − | [Miruna] Miruna clangs his mace loudly on the portcullis, careful not to damage any of the edges.
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| − | [ST] Chokes on Mirth wanders up behind the other two, looking out cautiously over the city as she does so. Her nostrils suddenly flare. "More fog over the city, look." True to what she has said, several more of the yellow columns rise over Icehome below, but they are fortunately distant for the moment.
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| − | [ST] Otter stares into a small, high-ceilinged anteroom, featuring little more than a table and several chairs. One is overturned. Mugs stand unattended on the table, and wooden cards are spread out on its surface. The floor is sticky with blood, but there are no bodies to be seen. A door on the opposite end of the chamber is slightly ajar.
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| − | [ST] Otter takes another step into the room, calling again, and then a trick of the light reveals something to her eye.
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| − | [ST] Directly in front of her, not a handspan from her face, is a filament, perhaps as thick as one of her fingers and almost completely transparent. Her eyes open, and adjust, and she spots more of them, crisscrossing the room in a complex lattice. A web.
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| − | [Otter] Otter walks back in her own tracks. She waves to Miruna frantically, but soundlessly.
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| − | [Miruna] He stalks over. "Something else wrong?" he mutters, the closest he can come to speaking quietly.
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| − | [Otter] "I think the guardsmen were eaten by spiders," she says in an urgent undertone.
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| − | [Otter] "There's blood on the floor, and thick ..spiderwebs, I guess- almost invisible."
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| − | [ST] In the sky above, the massive oblong block of stone appears again. Flashes of golden light dance across its surface. In the guardroom itself, nothing stirs, though now that Otter mentions it, Miruna can see the webs as well. He might never have noticed if he didn't know they were there.
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| − | [Otter] She takes in a deep breath. "See that door?" she points through the webs. "I think that's our way in."
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| − | [Miruna] He growls wordlessly. "Pluck the strands?" He didn't think they'd have a chance at climbing the wall, and the more he saw, the more he was sure they needed to get in.
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| − | [Otter] "I think that's a bad idea," Otter says. "We need to go through."
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| − | [Otter] She said it fatalistically, with some misgivings; she ate well as Chief's Daughter, and Chief's niece, and presumptive Chief-of-Chiefs, and was plump as tribespeople ever became.
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| − | [Otter] She lifts her chin. "It won't get easier for waiting," she tells Miruna, and plunges into the room, turning sideways to avoid strand. It waved slightly in front of her nose.
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| − | [Otter] "It just occurred to me..." she says slowly, standing in the center of the room. "Maybe the web would have burned."
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| − | [ST] Almost as soon as Otter says it, she becomes aware that a strand she did not see has brushed against her arm. It sticks to her flesh immediately, burning slightly, and she immediately, instinctually pulls away, running into another, and another, and another. Soon, webs festoon her arms, her legs, her torso, and she is pinned. Despite its fragile-looking nature, the web is very strong.
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| − | [ST] A soft chuckle sounds from the adjoining room. There is a strange, hurried skittering sound, like hailstones bouncing off a tiled roof.
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| − | [Otter] Otter shrieks. "Let me go! Let me go! I'll burn you alive!"
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| − | [Miruna] "Shit." Not too late now. He glances for a torch - there had to be one somewhere in the guardhouse, or outside it. It would burn her a bit, but looks weren't everything.
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| − | [ST] Miruna's glance shows him a torch in a sconce over by the table - it has burned out, but there is still some fuel there. Of course, the problem is getting to it across the network of webs which Otter finds herself trapped in.
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| − | [ST] The door opens slowly, and it comes through, a thing most unlike a spider, and yet horrific in its own way.
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| − | [ST] It has the shape of a hairless woman grotesquely pregnant, pallid flesh bulging and split at the abdomen, its face withered and mummified. Dark, blind sockets yawn above a rotting nose, withered lips, sharp, bright teeth. From the tear in its belly peer another pair of eyes, glowing and hideous, and a twisted face.
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| − | [ST] The thing moves forward on bare feet, but its step produces the odd skittering sound that Otter heard earlier, as if something of the spider is in its nature, if not its form. It walks among the strands of its web effortlessly - they do not touch it, whipping and shifting of their own accord to yawn away from it. It approaches the snared Otter with plodding certainty.
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| − | [Otter] Otter flails hopelessly, trying to pull away from it.
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| − | [Miruna] He pulls out his shield and steps to the door, swinging his mace across into the room as hard as he could. The momentum would have to pull the webs away, or Otter was dead. at least this way if he couldn't get throught he web only his mace would be stuck.
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| − | [ST] Miruna's furious assault shreds pieces of the web left and right, though it from time to time threatens to tear the mace out of his hand. He advances one step towards the trapped Otter, and then another, and another, invisible shreds falling around him, but it's slow going, and he doesn't quite make it to her.
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| − | [ST] Unlimbering her greatsword, Chokes on Mirth advances alongside Miruna. Sweat runs down her face from her mounting exhaustion as she lays about her with the massive blade, hacking at the tendrils of web before her.
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| − | [Miruna] He grunts with the exertion, but keeps his arm sweeping away, back and forth, close to a metronome as the web's binding will let him. He breaks through to Otter finally.
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| − | [ST] Chokes on Mirth advances alongside him, hacking away at the stray parts of the web. Looking at the tightly bound Otter, she carefully works her blade against the binding strands of web.
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| − | [ST] The creature croons, stepping foward effortlessly through the web to stand next to Otter. One cold hand reaches up, stroking her cheek, leaving behind a smear of blood, but the creature walks past her, extending its arms. There is a crackling sound, and fingers elongate and sharpen, becoming chitinous claws.
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| − | [ST] The creature hisses, bringing its claws up, and then darts through the entangling webs to descend upon Miruna in a blur of claws.
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| − | [Otter] Otter's flailing becomes a wordless shriek of fear and anger.
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| − | [ST] Even as Miruna's blood splatters the floor, the bound Otter sees the thing's belly split as two tiny pairs of claws force it open from within. A misshapen head emerges, fixing her with its bright eyes.
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| − | [Miruna] He brings his shield up, but trailing web slows it just enough.
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| − | [Otter] Otter cringes away as the woman's stomach gapes open wider as her...child comes out. Her struggling increases in force and panic. Did she hear a soft giggle? A bulbous, misshapen head pokes out of the woman's womb; it opens its mouth and snaps at her.
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| − | [Otter] She twists and with the only shred of rationality that remains to her, she turns so that her back is presented, where the white cords are thickest. She can feel the monster mashing its teeth at the bonds in its frustrated desire to eat her.
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| − | [ST] With a shriek, the thing barrels from the belly of its twisted mother. Miruna and Chokes on Mirth see it in horrific detail. The thing springs as if launched, loosely tethered to its mother by a rotting umbilicus. In midair, its head seems to fold over, revealing a circular maw like a lamprey's, lined with grinding teeth.
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| − | [Otter] Otter screams as it latches onto her, as much from horror as pain.
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| − | [ST] Otter's move was a wise one - as the creature latches onto her, gnawing, it gets a mouthful of web, which slows even its busy teeth for a moment - but only a moment. Otter feels a horrible, burning pain in her back as it chews away contentedly, still connected to its mother.
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| − | [Miruna] He yells with horror, a deep, booming warcry. And then tries to kill it. Years with the Once dead had given him specific instincts.
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| − | [Miruna] His mace flashes out, trying to drive the mother back, her and her spawn, keeping his swings compact and overhand, to avoid snagging on new web.
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| − | [Miruna] Blood flies back, on his backswings. Well and good. It burns at his face slightly, and his grin widens, manic and afraid.
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| − | [ST] Miruna's assault drives the creature back. The widow gives a high, keening wail, blood and pus dripping from her empty eye sockets like tears. A particularly hard blow snaps the bone of the creature's upper leg with a sharp crack, but the injury slows it only slightly.
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| − | [ST] As Miruna batters the creature back, Chokes on Mirth slips around the trapped Otter to target the thing on her back. She weighs the blow carefully, trying to judge where to aim to hit without hurting Otter. Then, with a shout, she turns, swinging her blade downward at the umbilicus binding the mother and "child."
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| − | [ST] As the cord severs, the child and mother alike scream in pain. The rotten thing jumps on the floor, spraying black ichor, and Otter feels the relentless grip of the thing on her back lessen slightly.
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| − | [ST] The widow, angered by Miruna's assault, steps sideways, reaching into the clumps of web around her. Her taloned fingers twine in them, grasping, cutting selectively. Blood from her eyes slops over her chin, and a dry, wheezing laugh emerges as she twists like a dancer. At the end of her motion, her fingers drift open, and she releases the strands of web directly at Miruna like a
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| − | [ST] fisherwoman casting a net.
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| − | | |
| − | [ST] The transparent tendrils settle around Miruna, binding him like the bolos that some of the Outwall tribes used. Soon his arms are brought close to his chest, his mace heavily snared. The creature's wheezing laughter fills the room.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Otter] "No!" Otter shouts. "You stupid old woman!"
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Otter] Her arms are clasped tight to her sides, but even so all her thrashing have brought the tips of her fingers in contact with the hilt of her dagger. She kicks her legs, and the dagger slides out of its sheath into her fingers. "Hah!" she shouts, and twists her, hacking and the web-stuff that bound her hands.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Otter] She grinds her teeth in frustration as she fails to get the leverage necessary to exert any strenght against it.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [ST] The tendrils snap as the sharp edge of the knife finds them. Otter struggles free, pieces falling around her. The rotten thing clinging to her falls from her back, hitting the ground with a plop. It mewls softly.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Otter] She stomps on it disgustedly. Her stomach roils when she sees it narrowly evade her feet.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Miruna] Miruna struggles, levering his mace back and forth, ignoring as its flanges dig into his thigh. He curses bitterly, as his tongue can still move.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Miruna] With a jerk he parts the webs holding his mace in. Less holding his arms to his sides, he pushes his arms out until the webs part.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [ST] "Time to end this," Chokes on Mirth, the Carrion Crow, says. She darts forward, weaving between hanging strands of web as she races towards the widow. She hefts her greatsword above her head with both hands, twisting in a tight circle, using the momentum to chop down at the creature's torso.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [ST] The widow dances back as the blade strikes the ground in front of her, kicking up a spray of sparks. Then, she rushes in at the opening Mirth leaves, claws stabbing for the woman's face.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Miruna] He bangs the mace against the edge of his shield, sending chips of wood flying from it.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [ST] Mirth dodges back, battering aside the blow with her sword, but she's not quite fast enough - she suffers a deep cut across her left cheek. The skin parts like a curtain, revealing bloody meat beneath, but it could have been much worse.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Otter] Free at last, Otter hesitates, choosing between targets. She curses herself for having left behind her javelins. The fetus growls at her, chewing on the leather of her boot, with a wordless gasp of disgust, Otter goes after him.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Otter] She stomps on the trailing bit of umbilicul cord, and as the fetus lunged away like a dog on the end of a leash, she covered her nose with one hand and stabs down.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [ST] Otter's dagger takes the hideous little thing directly through the head. It screams once, briefly, a yelping squeal, and then shudders and falls silent, gore pooling beneath it.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [ST] Across the chamber, the widow screams and doubles over, as if wracked by physical pain.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Otter] Otter smirks, drawing out her dagger.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Miruna] He bangs his shield again, working himself up, and then strides forward, his mace weaving to a striking position over his head, as he avoids the worst of the web tangles still dangling from the ceiling. Three steps then a chop, at the back of the neck of the doubled woman.
| |
| − | He follows through, and then turns it to a backhand, bringing his shield out wide to counterbalance the swinging mace.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [ST] More blood sprays as Miruna chops away, but the widow skitters out of the way of most of the damage, her eyes flashing balefully.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [ST] As she evades Miruna's strike and he leaves himself open, the widow lunges, lowering her head to ram it into his stomach. As he doubles over, she lunges up his form, talons clawing at his face.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Miruna] She burrows to his stomach, but the shield's edge catches her in the side as he pulls it back to him, throwing her attacks off.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Miruna] He manages to shove it off of him, lurching back. He shakes his head, lanky hair flailing about, grinning at her.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Otter] Otter circles around the Widow; her task is made more complicated by her suspicion of the dangling webs; she wouldn't make a fool of herself twice. When she is confident there are no webs between herself and the Widow, she charges with a yell, digging her dagger into the creature's shoulder.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [ST] Despite Otter's valiant efforts, the creature still has some fight in it - at the last moment, it gives an ungainly lurch, staggering out of the way of her questing blade. Mirth follows her in, blade flashing as she aims a vicious horizontal cut at the creature.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Miruna] he presses forward with his shield, slamming it into her again, batting her arms away as he swing his mace in behind, a heavy blow, aimed for where her turned shoulder would be if he caught her arm with his shield.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [ST] Miruna's vicious assault drives the thing down. There is the sound of hideously crunching bone as he batters away, caving in the shoulder, and an instant later, the skull.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [ST] The widow gives one last warbling wail, trailing off into a horrifc glottal noise as Miruna batters its face off. It falls slilent and limp, slumping against the floor.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Miruna] The back edge of his shield knocks her arms to the side, and the macehead follows through perfectly, crunching into the point of her shoulder, caving it in and tossing her body to the floor. He was after it in an instant, flailing down to make the battle sure. But he had won with the shield. He yells that to her broken head as he hacks it again.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [ST] "Make sure it is finished." Chokes on Mirth says. She raises a hand, absently, to touch her wounded face.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Otter] Otter watches from the sidelines, nose wrinkled. As she assures herself it's gone, she walks carefully to the door and pokes her head through it.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [ST] Otter has to avoid several more webs, but they seem at this point to have grown more brittle, more visible, and at the same time more insubstantial. She moves through them without much difficulty. The next room features a row of levers, used for tripping the alarm bells across the city. The one closest to the door is marked TOMB, and is covered with blood, along with the floor around it.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [ST] There are no bodies to be seen until a drop of blood hits her cheek and she thinks to look up. Half a dozen shrouded forms are webbed into the corners of the high ceiling.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Miruna] He uses his bootheel to make sure the fetus is properly dead, crushing it to the floor, then follows the others. He is slowing down now, as the wounds he had taken begin to catch up to him. The fog had sapped him, and now the wounds on his thigh from when his mace had dug in as he was bound were burning. Still, he lived, and that was reward enough for the nights work.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Miruna] He entered the room, grinning still.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Otter] She retreats, covering her mouth again.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Otter] She bumps up against Miruna and points. "We dealt with the source of the alarm," she manages, before she runs outside and vomits in the snow.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [ST] As she runs out, Otter barely notices Mirth trying to treat the cut on her face, and failing. Fresh blood bubbles out of torn flesh, and she curses.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [ST] Otter empties her stomach in the streets outside, right in sight of where the Haslanti Constitution was signed, the air cold on her back. The thing in the sky still hangs there, chased with golden light. As Otter sicks up in the snow, there is a thunderous crack, and a piece of the thing breaks away, tumbling down into the lower city.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Miruna] He glances up at them. "They did their jobs" he says heavy and slurred. He strides to the other levels, and uses his mace as a bar to pull the rest down at once. he had no care for the extra mess he created. They were already bloody enough, and it wasn't his job to clean them.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [ST] As Miruna pulls the levers, a cacophony of bells rings out over the city. Otter can hear them the most clearly, but so can Mirth, and Miruna, and well, everyone. And so it was that the Battle of Calibration began, and the militia and heroes of the Haslanti League emerged to battle the stragglers of the Underworld.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [ST] It would be a long, bloody night yet, but for the moment, for a few of the Once Dead, it was over.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Otter] Otter watches the piece fall as he rings the bells, waiting for fires. She was too far to hear screams. Her pile of stick steams gently in the cold night air.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Otter] She staggered back inside and almost vomits again at the smell. "Should we tell the Citadel still?"
| |
| − | | |
| − | [ST] "They must know now," Mirth points out. Her clumsily-stitched face bleeds in a ghastly way.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Otter] "I don't think the Anathema did this," Otter says stubbornly. "He seemed to...react to it."
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Otter] "If we're to deal with demons, too, the Citadel should know."
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Otter] She didn't want anyone to think she were soft on Anathema. Even if the Wretched had, perhaps, saved her life.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [ST] "Are you sure that is what you saw?" Mirth shrugs. "The Fog that Slays is known to cloud minds even as it forever withers the body."
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Otter] "I'm not- I'm not some idiot! You're the one who ran like a frightened lamb," she adds spitefully.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Miruna] Miruna looks at her. "Elk said it might have been the Anathema from the brothel. Can you describe it more closely." If she had hallucinated it, the descritions wouldn't match, surely.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Miruna] He glances at Mirth. "We go to the Citadel, for orders."
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Otter] "It was a Wretched. It was a man, and it...glowed. There was the circle of the Wretched on its forehead." Then she added anxiously, " 'forever withers the body'"?
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Miruna] He frowns, the same, but not much to go on. "Did it have a weapon?"
| |
| − | | |
| − | [ST] "Aye," Mirth answers, stirring herself with difficulty and a nod at Miruna. "When the fog takes enough from a man, it saps his strength and stamina forever. His body is permanently weakened."
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Otter] "There was a knife in the fog-thing." She looks chilled at Mirth's words. "That's not so," she says with no conviction, remembering Elk, oddly shrunken.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [ST] "To question me on this is to name yourself a fool," Mirth says, unperturbed. "I grew up among the Tear Eaters. They do not fear the dead, and they embrace those things that walk in the shadows. But the Fog that Slays even they name a bane."
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Miruna] He nods. "It sounds like the same one. We tell them." He jerks his head back, in the general direction of the Citadel walls behind him.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Otter] "I'll find a way to fix him," Otter mutters under her breath, shoving her hands in her fur pockets. Superstitious outlanders.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [ST] As the Once Dead emerge, they find the Citadel walls now awash with activity. Figures race back and forth, shouting, and the portcullis opens to reveal a column of troops, armored with ornamental breastplates and spears. As they emerge, their eyes fall upon the Once Dead, bloody and battered.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [ST] "Halt!" their leader, a one eyed man with a graying black beard, shouts. "Who goes there? Why have you come to the citadel?"
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Otter] Otter glares at him blackly, drawing herself up self-importantly. "We are here," she says, "with an urgent report. And to sound the alarm," she adds, gesturing to the scurrying back and forth as if she herself had ordered it.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [ST] "And who are you, to make such a report?" the man asks, his eyes following the glowing things still falling from the sky, and the golden lightning arcing across the surface of the stone slab.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Miruna] Miruna steps forward. They should know him, by his armor. He raises the bloody head of the demon, hacked from her body using a flange of his mace as a makeshift saw. It is a bloody mass, but what structure left is demonic. "We face evils tonight, boys. But they can be SLAIN" he roars.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [ST] "What the-" the man steps back. "The Painted- but that must mean that you're... you came all the way up here from the Tomb?"
| |
| − | | |
| − | [ST] The troops seem somewhat embolded by Miruna's claim, although the sight of the thing clearly discomfits more than a few of them.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Otter] "Yes!" Otter says, rushing to fill the gap left by Miruna's gesture. "We're Once Dead. We were called by the dead men in there." She points to the signal tower.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [ST] A murmur runs through the crowd at the display. "Once Dead-" "Crazy bastards-" "That demon, they killed it-" "-aybe they really are blessed-" "Or devils!" "But either way, they're on our side-"
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Miruna] "We came, through the city, and fought horrors. This demon had taken the gatehouse, to try and stop us from responding, from fighting to save our city. But IT IS DEAD and we can march on the bastards, and clean them from our streets." he gestures with the head to punctuate his words.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [ST] The troops give a roaring cheer, raising weapons into the air. The bearded man nods slowly and firmly.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [ST] "Very well. Shera, Montrose. Take the Once Dead in to make their report. The rest of you - after me! We'll show these monsters that they picked the wrong damned city!"
| |
| − | | |
| − | [ST] The named soldiers, an extremely tall and homely woman and a short, dark-headed man, fall out of ranks as the others race forward across the square.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [ST] "With us," Shera says, giving a slight bow. "We are honored."
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Otter] Otter smiles, pleased.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Miruna] He grins as the troops surge past, waiting for the press to ease to make his way to the gate. "They will hold them" he tells Otter.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Otter] She grins at him. "Please lead the way," she tells Shera, with a gracious nod.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Miruna] its a wide smile now, nothing like the fierce baring of teeth in battle. It pulls at his scar, another ache to match the painful cuts elsewhere, but pain is pain, and always there soon enough.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [ST] Shera leads the Once Dead beneath the marble curtain wall and across a square much like the one on the other side of the wall. A narrow, switchback stair, easily defended, runs up the side of a hill. In their winded condition, the Once Dead find it none too pleasant, but after a short time, Shera leads them out onto the top of the hill. The beehive-shaped treasury sits to one side, and
| |
| − | | |
| − | [ST] across from it the Hall of the Oligarchs, the Pantheon of the Ennead, the building housing the Hearth Fire... but it is away from these and towards the Longhouse, a long, low building of white marble, that Shera leads them.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Otter] Otter holds her head high and struggles not to gawk at the comparative riches displayed here.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [ST] A word to the guards at the double doors, and they are thrown open. The Once Dead are ushered within, where they see that the marble is but a sheathing - within, the building is humble wood, the floors covered with furs. Soon the Once Dead are led down a hallway and left in a small room that is half parlour, half hunting den. Furs cover the floor and the wooden benches upon which the Once
| |
| − | | |
| − | [ST] Dead sit. A fire burns brightly in a hearth.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [ST] "Wait here a moment," Shera says. "I will summon someone to whom you may report." Then, closing the door behind her, she is gone.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Otter] With a sigh, Otter leans back against the wall, stretching her feet in front of her. Her wound ached damnably.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Miruna] "Get someone to see after our wounds" he calls after the woman. He glances over at the others. They all seemed hurt. "We have time, elts see to our weapons."
| |
| − | | |
| − | [ST] Mirth sits silently, fingers tracing the scarification on the unwounded side of her face absently. Doubtless, it was rare for one of the Tear Eaters to sit here - no emissary had come from them to the League for as long as anyone could remember.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Miruna] He follows his words, laying the bloody mace on the table, and beginning to clean it with a fur from the floor, the least expensive looking one he could see. He starts in with a sharpening stone before anyone comes back.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Otter] Otter gets bored and begins to wander about the room soon enough.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Miruna] The scraping of him sharpening his weapon fills the otherwise quiet room, rasp, rasp, rasp, rasp . . .
| |
| − | | |
| − | [ST] A few minutes later, the door opens, and a pair of figures enter. First, a woman, clearly advanced in age, but walking smoothly and firmly. Her face is wrinkled, but wise, and her dark eyes are still piercing. The man who follows her is much younger, perhaps fifty. His leather clothing jingles with charms and fetishes.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [ST] "Welcome, guests," the woman says formally. "Please, partake of our hospitality."
| |
| − | | |
| − | [ST] "Ondar, they are injured," she adds. "Please tend to them while we speak."
| |
| − | | |
| − | [ST] The man nods and moves across the room, quickly becoming nearly invisible. He begins to work on Mirth first, clucking softly at the Tear-Eater tattoos on her face.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Otter] Otter collapses back onto the bench, but she watches the woman closely nevertheless. The confidence of her bespoke of high rank, and the some inkling of the duty that her aunt had hammered into her makes her alert and wary. What she learned of the Haslanti could later be returned to her tribe.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Miruna] He puts his sharpening stone away, slowly. "Well met. Has someone taken full control of the defense?"
| |
| − | | |
| − | [ST] Mirth grunts softly as a heated needle and thread pass through her flesh.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [ST] "Well met, Once Dead," the woman answers. "I am Ivory Smile. I welcome you to our home. May Father Winter view you with mercy, and may the Owl give you wise counsel." She laughs. "Or perhaps it is wise counsel you bring to me?" At Miruna's question, she nods. "The city will be mobilizing now, thanks to your efforts. You have prevented an even greater evil than the one that has already
| |
| − | | |
| − | [ST] befallen us, and for that the League owes you a debt of gratitude."
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Otter] Otter smiles and nods her head, thoughts racing. She would not let this woman Ivory Smile know who she was. It occurred to her that Ivory Smile spoke as though Miruna had done it all alone, and that irritated her, but she kept it off her face.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Miruna] He nods, it was his due. "We saw many lights drifting down over the city. If these things came from that, there are many more, and wide spread."
| |
| − | | |
| − | [ST] Ivory Smile nods gravely. "Yes. Surely our sentries will be alert now. We have become too complacent, perhaps. We did not expect a foe, even during Calibration, to strike at our heart first. Alarm spread too slowly. But now... I am confident our forces will drive these things from the city."
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Otter] "What about the Anathema?" Otter blurts out. "He was in the city. Elk said he had been before."
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Miruna] He grins. "As am I." Haslanti were tough. "Perhaps there should have been another alarm point. The demons were either lucky, or they targeted that one well." He grimaces. "We were lucky the guard got to the Tomb's level at all. He died on it."
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Miruna] He remembers the vision he had had at the party, long ago now. The woman saying she would burn Icehome down around them. He didn't want to speak of it now, but it dampened his confidence.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [ST] She nods. "Changes must be made, of course. Learning can be painful." She turns only then to regard Otter with her piercing gaze. "But what is this talk of an Anathema? Again, so soon after the last?"
| |
| − | | |
| − | [ST] Ondar nudges Otter forward. He works to close the wound on her back, the needle burning her sharply as he stitches it up.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Otter] Otter grits her teeth. It hurt! But words tumble out of her neverhteless. "It was a Wretched. He killed a slaying fog, said it was his concern, and told me to go back inside. He was glowing."
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Otter] She glares at Mirth, who had spoken as though she were snow-addled.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Miruna] He nods heavily. "She describes the same one I saw in the earlier incident."
| |
| − | | |
| − | [ST] Ivory Smile nods, although her face betrays little. "His concern? I should think such a creature summoned it. Calibration, it is said, is the time when their powers are strongest, and they can call up howling demons from hell itself."
| |
| − | | |
| − | [ST] "Still, if accurate, these reports are troubling. Particularly if it is the same Anathema. It caused enough chaos last time."
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Otter] "I don't think he summoned it," Otter says, watching her face. "He killed it after all. I wonder if he lives in Icehome.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [ST] "If so, that would be unfortunate. We would have to deal with the creature one way or another." Otter can't read much on the woman's face, but there's definitely deception there. Perhaps she knows more than she's letting on.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Otter] She dips her head, concealing her own thoughts. "I suppose so."
| |
| − | | |
| − | [ST] "Is there anything more?" Ondar works at Miruna's wounds stoically.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Otter] Otter glances at Miunra. "That's all I can think of," she says, almost daring the Painted Knight to speak of what they had seen. The woman among the ruins.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Miruna] He picks at his lip. "There was nothing else worth speaking of." he doesn't sound especially convincing.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Miruna] Not that he is lying, but that there is something he would feel a fool to mention.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [ST] "Very well." She rises, giving the slightest of nods, and a curious glance at Miruna. "If you are certain..."
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Miruna] He hunches his shoulders, not used to feeling the fool. "We had a vision, earlier in the night. A woman, evil woman, promised to burn the city. I only mention it, well . ." he trails off waving his hand vaguely to indicate the situation.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [ST] "A vision? A dream?" She pauses, weighing it. "A dire omen indeed."
| |
| − | | |
| − | [ST] "Who was this woman?"
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Miruna] He shakes hiss head roughly. "Not a dream, not as I know them. A trick of the Calibration, more like."
| |
| − | | |
| − | [ST] "Calibration is not to be trusted," she says reassuringly. "Else the children born during it would not be cursed. But it is troubling even so. Tell me more, if there be more to tell."
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Otter] "It was a blond woman. She said she had been betrayed and...and there was a circle of the Blasphemous on her forehead. She said she burnt the city for revenge."
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Otter] "I do not think revenge brought her any comfort," she adds, almost thoughtfully.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Miruna] He shrugs, still embarrassed, adding "She was half dead, maybe all dead - ragged, starved and angry."
| |
| − | | |
| − | [ST] "Betrayed? The Anathema? Their very nature is betrayal," Ivory Smile shakes her head. "Very odd. But even our honest dreams are confusing, complex, but brief glimpses of a larger picture. So much more true, then, for a Calibration vision. Perhaps it was only a warning, or a vision of a future that will never be, or a past that never was."
| |
| − | | |
| − | [ST] Some of the confidence has left her voice.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [ST] "I will consult with the Dreamseers about this. You should all be proud of what you have done tonight."
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Miruna] He nods again. "Need us to go back out?" He ached all over, and his cuts were still raw if very neatly sewn. But the city would still be worse off without him.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [ST] "You have done enough, but there remains work still to be done. Let your bodies and your consciences be your guides. For now, I have duties I must attend to. Thank you, Once Dead. Well met."
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Otter] Otter bows her head, politely. "Well met."
| |
| − | | |
| − | [ST] WIth that, she turns to leave, closing the door softly behind her. Ondar finishes his work up only a few moments later, as if on cue, and departs behind her.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Miruna] He grimaces. "We should go out." The city fought for its life, and in his mind he saw it burning again. He wouldn't let it.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Otter] "I have to get back to Elk," she agrees, adding her anxiety to his.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [ST] "I will fight," Mirth adds, rising.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Otter] Otter is no longer listening to her; she is scampering down the out the door and out the hall to where she had left her wounded beloved.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Miruna] Miruna pushes himself up, slower and older, but he follows soon enough, with Chokes on Mirth at his back. He smiles slightly and slaps her shoulder. "A good day for warpaint, eh?"
| |
| − | | |
| − | [ST] She does not smile. She is not the type to smile. But she does raise an eyebrow in a way that could almost register amusement. "Indeed."
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| − | | |
| − | [Miruna] The birds he'd painted were still there, absurdly enough, cheeky and bright. He supposed instinct had preserved her face over the rest of her body.
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| − | | |
| − | [Miruna] He barks a laugh at her reply. "Lets go see where we're needed." He strides on.
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| − | | |
| − | [ST] And fight the Once Dead do, along with the rest of the Icehome forces, the guards of the Citadel, the militia, shrouded figures who must belong to the Ears of the North, and even common citizens. As day wears on into night and into morning again, the citizens of Icehome do battle with the Underworld. In the Old Market, a line of shrieking hungry ghosts is cornered and destroyed under
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| − | | |
| − | [ST] Miruna's command. Airboats laden with firedust grenades swoop low to strike at knots of Entropic Fog, while soldiers below to put out the fires caused by near misses.
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| − | | |
| − | [ST] The great slab in the sky above trembles, and shakes, and drops tiny pieces of itself on the city before vanishing entirely. That seems to be the turning point. As the hours grind on, the Icehome forces gradually corner, isolate, and destroy the shrieking things that infest their city.
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| − | | |
| − | [ST] A few escape, slipping away into the mist-shrouded region near Dock Four, but most are destroyed after hours of battle, and by the time the Unconquered Sun appears in the sky once more, signalling the end of Calibration, the city is free again.
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| − | | |
| − | [ST] Otter has searched for Elk the entire time.
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| − | | |
| − | [ST] Arriving back at the house where she left him, she had been told by the irate owners that the Once Dead had already left for the Tomb. And once she arrived there, she learned Elk and the scale were fighting in the Old Market. And once she arrived there...
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| − | | |
| − | [ST] And so, she returns to the Tomb as the battle winds down, sore, tired, having done her part, but having failed to find the one she wanted. Laughing Jek sits in a patch of shadow, juggling several pale stones. A bandage swathes his upper arm. He calls out in greeting when he sees her approaching.
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| − | | |
| − | [Otter] She recognizes him with a palpable sense of relief. She waves to him and jogs closer. SHe would have run, but hasn't the wind for it. "I hope you are not much wounded," she says with stilted courtesy, indicating his arm. She is bursting to get to the matter of import, but holds on grimly to her manners.
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| − | | |
| − | [ST] "Hey, Otter!" as she gets closer, she sees that the objects he juggles are actually perfectly formed pearls. "Wanna be rich?" He tosses one to her, but the moment it leaves his patch of shadow, it burns away to mist in midair.
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| − | | |
| − | [ST] "Grave goods," he says, and shakes his head. "These bastards didn't even leave decent booty. And it's only a scratch, fortunately."
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| − | | |
| − | [ST] "You look like hell."
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| − | | |
| − | [Otter] "I feel like hell," she agrees glumly. She watches his juggling. "Have you seen Elk?" she blurts out; it's impossible to mistake her desperation. "I left him to watch the fires, but I've found no hide or hair from him since. And he was wounded."
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| − | | |
| − | [Otter] Her eyes go to the covered corpses that lined the Tomb. Fear nibbles at the edges of her heart.
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| − | | |
| − | [ST] "I have seen Elk," he says. "He looked bad too." He follows the direction of her gaze. "But not that bad. All in all, our scale got off really light. Just lost Smiling Sulluh, and he was a jerk anyway."
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| − | | |
| − | [ST] "Third Scale took pretty heavy losses though. Second Scale too."
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| − | | |
| − | [Otter] "I'm sorry to hear that," Otter says, breathing a sigh of relief. "But where IS he?"
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| − | | |
| − | [ST] "He left for his house an hour or so ago. It's... ahh... it's over on the edge of the Market district. I guess I can give you the directions."
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| − | | |
| − | [Otter] "Thank you!" she hugged him impulsively, careful of his wounded arm.
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| − | | |
| − | [ST] He stops juggling, and the stones fall around him, skipping across the cobbles. One rolls into the light and fizzles out as Jek relays the instructions.
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| − | | |
| − | [ST] "Don't thank me," he says, thinking: Elk sure won't.
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| − | | |
| − | [Otter] She grins cheerily at him and races off as if she'd slept all evening and part of the morning. Her pace soon evens, but even then, it's the confident, measured stride of a hunter certain of her quarry.
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| − | | |
| − | [ST] Jek watches her run away with a glance that would normally be admiring, but is now just halfhearted. He's too tired to properly ogle a woman's ass, and that's too tired in general, he decides. He reaches down to grab one of the pearls and hucks it after her, watching it fizzle away.
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| − | | |
| − | [ST] "Jek," he tells himself softly, "You *are* a son of a bitch."
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| − | | |
| − | [ST] Otter makes her way through the streets with little difficulty - even though Calibration is over, most people are still in their homes after the chaos of the previous night, and the fires and bodies have been cleared from the streets.
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| − | | |
| − | [ST] She reaches the address Jek told her with little difficulty. It's not the nicest of neighborhoods, but it's fancy enough. Elk lives beneath a wooden arcade which keeps the streets free of snow but casts them into shadow. She finds herself standing before his door almost before she knows it.
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| − | | |
| − | [Otter] She decides not to knock if she could help it; he'd be tired enough without her pounding at him. She pushes lightly against the door, testing to see if it were barred.
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| − | | |
| − | [ST] The door opens easily - he really must have been tired, or he would have locked it. The room beyond is lit by a guttering fire. It's full of his possessions - a low couch, a carefully unrolled tapestry, and random charms and oddities. A stove sits in the corner, silent, and a flight of steps climbs to the second floor.
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| − | | |
| − | [ST] She hears nothing but the sound, somewhere above, of someone snoring softly.
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| − | | |
| − | [Otter] She walks in carefully and shuts the door behind it. Quietly, so as not to wake him, she ascends the stairs. She wouldn't wake him, but she would at least see him safe and alive. Her fingers itched to run through his hair.
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| − | | |
| − | [ST] At two rooms, Elk's house is fancy enough, probably fancier than any resident of the Outwall is used to. Otter makes her way up the stairs and emerges directly in Elk's bedroom, a small room with a tightly shuttered window and the kind of big feather bed Elk's people would probably find distasteful.
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| − | | |
| − | [ST] He sleeps in it, oblivious to the world, his splinted leg sticking off one side of the bed in an ungainly fashion. Curled up next to him, her face pressed into his neck, is a sleeping woman with a nest of blond curls atop her head. Otter vaguely recognizes her from the Calibration festival the Once Dead were having.
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| − | | |
| − | [Otter] Otter freezes at the top of the stairs. Her fingers grip the rail so tight her fingers are white. Her first cowardly impulse is to run and hide and pretend she had never seen it. But was she not the daughter of her mother, and heir to Fox and Bear both?
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| − | | |
| − | [Otter] She is filled with icy calm. She should have anticipated this, this falling into decadent city ways. He had not even sought after her to see if she was hurt; the wound on her back iches. She lifts her chin. There was no reason to not to lend dignity to the proceedings. She walks calmly back down the stairs and out the doors.
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| − | | |
| − | [Otter] Then she turns, and when it is shut behind her she bangs on it with both fists. More than Elk would have reason for cursing her that morning.
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| − | | |
| − | [ST] The clamorous knocking continues for a long, long time until Otter hears cursing from within and the padding of feet on the stairs. The door is suddenly and violently yanked open to reveal the woman, wearing a long shirt and a pair of pants that must belong to Elk. Her blond curls fall in disarray. Otter notices now that the woman is older than she, perhaps nearing thirty, and of course,
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| − | | |
| − | [ST] not nearly as pretty.
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| − | | |
| − | [ST] "Whaddya want?" she snaps.
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| − | | |
| − | [Otter] Otter masters an undignified impulse to grab her and toss her out on the street. "I am here to speak to Elk," she says with cool dignity.
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| − | | |
| − | [ST] "He's asleep. Had a rough night. So did I." She licks her lips, betraying the slightest bit of nervousness.
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| − | | |
| − | [Otter] "Then please wake him," Otter says, her eyes narrowed.
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| − | | |
| − | [ST] "I-" Rabbit looks the other woman down for a moment, as if gauging her, then heads upstairs "Just a minute," she calls back
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| − | | |
| − | [ST] A few moments later, a solid stumping announces Elk's arrival. He makes his way to the door with the aid of a cane, his face white and drawn. Rabbit stands behind him, eyes flickering between the two.
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| − | | |
| − | [ST] "Otter," he says. "I see you found where I live. I'm glad you're all right."
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| − | | |
| − | [Otter] Otter had entered the house and paces restlessly around."Are you?" the hurt little question slips out before she snaps her lips tight against it. She glances around and finds a chair. "You should sit down," she says cooly. She takes a seat herself. She fixes Rabbit with a steady look. "You mean leave," she says, glancing away just as if the Once Dead had been a servant.
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| − | | |
| − | [ST] "Like hell I should-" Rabbit begins, but Elk stays her with an upraised hand as he stumps over to sit down across from Otter.
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| − | | |
| − | [ST] "Oh, I see how it is," Rabbit says. "I'm good enough for you at night, but then-"
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| − | | |
| − | [ST] "It's not like that," he says. "I just don't want anyone to get murdered in my home. I'll talk to you later."
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| − | | |
| − | [ST] Grumbling, she heads upstairs, and a remarkably short time later has left, slamming the door behind her.
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| − | | |
| − | [Otter] Otter fixes him with the same cool - blank - look, as if waiting for him to explain himself. In truth, she had little idea how to begin; she had gotten this far on leashed anger and hurt. She wishes she had some tea; her aunt had always drunk tea in the most intimidating way.
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| − | | |
| − | [ST] "What?" He asks, innocently enough. "Are you going to say anything?"
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| − | | |
| − | [Otter] That stings her. It was if he were trying to hurt her. "You did not tell me about her."
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| − | | |
| − | [ST] "She's a comrade," he says simply.
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| − | | |
| − | [Otter] If she had a mug of tea, she could launch it at his head. "Do you sleep with all your comrades?" she asks, but stiffly, trying to conceal her hurt.
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| − | | |
| − | [ST] "No. Not her either, usually." He scratches at the back of his neck. "Last night was an except- why am I explaining myself to you?"
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| − | | |
| − | [Otter] Her eyes catch the light. Fox's eyes, the other tribes said. "Are we not betrothed?" The words spill out before she can recall them. "Yet you did not even trouble yourself to seek me out, either to discover if I had fallen, or-" she bites down on the last brittle words. "I looked for you all through Calibration." Tears prick her eyes, but she holds them back with anger.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [ST] "We're not betrothed, damn it!" He snaps, slamming a fist down on a table. "It was never my choice! And I'm sorry you looked for me. I'm sorry you came here. I'm sorry you joined the Once Dead for my sake. I'm sorry you searched for me, but glad you survived. I have nothing against you, but I feel nothing for you. Don't you understand that?"
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| − | | |
| − | [Otter] "Why?" she whispers in a pained rasp, and now the tears do fall. She had always known, but she had thought, by holding him tight, and loving him, that she could change it. "What's wrong with me?"
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| − | | |
| − | [Otter] She scrubs at her cheeks angrily with the heel of her hand. Better to ask what was wrong with him, she knew, than to appear so weak. "Why did you run away? Would it be so awful, being married to me?"
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| − | | |
| − | [ST] "There's nothing wrong with-" He looks down, clearly flustered. "I could have told you this all along, but you wouldn't listen. You never listen. You never asked me what I wanted, you just decided."
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| − | | |
| − | [ST] "Well, those days are over. You won't be deciding for me any more. You could still leave. They might still let you go."
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| − | | |
| − | [Otter] Not deciding for him? He rejected her as chief as well. Well, she would prove him wrong, then. "I'm not leaving. " She rises from her chair. In a fit of childish temper, she kicks it hard against the wall and scowls blackly when it doesn't break.
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| − | | |
| − | [Otter] "I'll see you at the Tomb," she tells him, bleak and cold, on her way out the house.
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| − | | |
| − | [ST] "You'll be sorry. I'm only telling you for your own good, please..." his voice softens slightly. "I'm not worth this." He looks after her helplessly as she goes.
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| − | | |
| − | [Otter] "What makes you think I'm doing it for you?" she shouts back at him through the door, hard and brittle.
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| − | | |
| − | [ST] He doesn't answer.
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| − | | |
| − | [Otter] From its hiding place in her hood, Otter's pet squirrel grows fat from the quarreling.
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| − | | |
| − | [Otter] Maybe, Otter thinks as she storms off, she would go find Laughing Jek.
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