Finale - Sorrel Falls as Kantas Rises
Dec 9, 2021 22:19:16 GMT
Jamie J, Anthony, and 5 more like this
Post by stephena on Dec 9, 2021 22:19:16 GMT
It wasn’t the worst day in Sorrel’s life, but it was in the top five.
The Call
When the word went out about Jangston or whoever it was, Nessa bought her the news along with her bow and rapier.
“This is the beast that killed a creature called Faust that I have heard in your prayers,” the cleric said as she knelt with the breakfast tray and turned her eyes away to avoid seeing Sorrel eat.
Sorrel wiped the blood from her lips in disgust and stared at her weapons.
“But if it rises inside me I cannot control it yet, if ever,” she whispered.
“You cannot let it change you, or it has won,” Nessa scraped the small pieces of raw flesh from the cell floor. “Sorrel Darkfire would be there to avenge her friend. Tell you comrades. Warn them. And avoid direct combat. You are not stupid.”
The Feywild
And so she stepped through the portal at Fort Ettin into the Feywild on the instruction of an elegant spring eladrin Imryll. Her team, she noted, comprised the barbarian Ivan – she felt a moment of relief at the sight of him as she’d seen him front and centre in every charge – as well as the shopkeeper Celina, who she assumed was there with supplies, Wee Mad Haimish, a ferocious halfling with an unfathomable accent, and a slim, pale warrior called Silvia whose eyes reflected the suffering in Sorrel’s heart. Before she could approach Silvia, however, she realised she was in trouble.
Imryll dealt out crystals and identified a cave entrance, but the path was blocked by a squad of rapidly approaching Modrons, tentacles reaching forward as they closed too rapidly for Sorrel to string and arm her bow. She drew her rapier, blessed her enchanted armour, let her old buckler fall into place and trusted to her evasive training to avoid damage as she thrust her blade forward in a classically executed mandritto attack.
A tentacle lashed out, slipped past her buckler and landed a blow. For a second she almost laughed. It was barely a scratch. This was the dreaded Jack? This was all he had?
And then the darkness welled up from within, grasping at her soul with claws as sharp as needles and she fell into its gaping maw and IT WANTS TO EAT AND IT NEEDS BLOOD AND HER SWORD IS SINGING AS SHE SLICES THROUGH THE AIR.
But she cannot let it own her.
IT IS OLDER THAN CREATION, BORN INTO ICY REALMS OF ANCIENT HORRORS, AND DRIVEN BY RAGE AND RAVENOUS HUNGER AS IT CUTS WITH HER BLADE AT THE ENEMY IN ITS NEED FOR BLOOD TO FEAST.
She wrestles for control of her own muscles, her sword uncertain, the taste of blood on her lips that must be her own because as she slides the blade home in a battle of will against flesh she sees the Modron fall apart into a pile of gears and levers. It is metal, not skin and blood and muscle and bone.
IT WILL HAVE BLOOD.
She sees the last Modron fall.
IT WILL HAVE BLOOD.
Her comrades stare at her. She can feel her sword arm twitching. She can smell blood. Silvia’s blood. Celina’s blood. She can sense it on the wind.
IT WILL HAVE BLOOD.
Silvia is beside her, veins pulsing, flesh warm, FOOD…
Manacles of iron clamp around her wrists.
IT WILL HAVE BLOOD.
Her arms cannot move. She struggles to raise her sword. Silvia’s flesh is soft and inviting.
Imryll’s song of banishment is carried on the wind as it sings her name and she tumbles into the night that opens above her until...
She stood on a pin point in an eternal void that was everywhere and nowhere all at once in the dead silence of the absence of time when a light blossomed beneath her feet and a white line shot forward, an atom thick, which she followed as it billowed out into sheets of glittering crystal spreading on either side like an impossible glistening floor she ran across until it snapped suddenly and sharply up at right angles into an infinite wall then cracked and fell and she was on the edge of a cube of sheer glass faces, the corners perfectly set at 90 degrees and a shard split off at right angles to the cube’s three dimensions and split again and again, at 90 degrees each time, out and in on itself as she ran and ran to keep up with the new folding of reality into endless honeycombs of all that has been and could have been and will be and might be and she saw the arrow as it pierced the folds where awful darkness and silence reigns and angry breakers roar as they beat on the towering heights of the far distant shore and on the edge of the sand she danced by the light of the moon and the spirit was lost and the pain soothed away and then Imryll’s voice was singing and she fell into the swirling pool of colours she had never seen but had always known until suddenly.
She was on the grass by the cave. Her comrades were moving towards its mouth. Silvia took her hand and said: ‘come.’
Sorrel walked dumbly towards the mouth of the cave, aware that the rest of the party were studiously avoiding her gaze. But Silvia had saved her, of that she was certain, and Silvia was hurt. She summoned healing magic from Autumn’s Warmth and the healer’s school then reached deep into the traces of her Fey blood for the song of aescerat argentum.
The air tumbled briefly around her, and the fey spirit whispered in her ear ‘o sister thou art changed…’
“It is a war I will win,” she said grimly. “But sister - aurum involare, I invoke thee and by muri tempi et intervallia do call upon thee as once before by the blood and the book and the service caelum ardeat.”
The fey spirit laughed like willows in the breeze. “After all these years, sister, it is perhaps you who needs protection. But our blood is true, and our pact still holds.”
As Imryll gave Silvia a crystal to block the machine the panther was there, as it had always been there, and it paced towards Silvia, sniffing the ground at her feet and holding a low growl in its throat as it circled around her like a sleek midnight watchdog.
Sorrel strung her bow and hoped for the best.
The Cave
Within seconds it had all gone wrong. Cecilia had been turned into a goat, Haimish was gradually petrifying, Silvia was waiting by the vast, pulsing machine for Imryll to arrive with the second crystal to ensure its destruction and Sorrel was hiding to avoid taking damage again. Silvia wouldn’t be there and a bow… she shivered.
So it was Ivan who fought Langstack. Alone.
He was mighty like a warrior from ancient legend, standing in the vast cavern, lit by the crackling energy of the machine, his great sword crashing into Stacklong with unfeasible power and skill. Every blow struck home and no matter what the weird creature threw at him, Ivan withstood it.
There will be epic poems written about this day, Sorrel thought.
The creature, whirling up his tentacles with fury to full height,
He rushed against Ivan and smote with all his might.
With skill and blade Ivan right deftly turned the blow.
The magic, yet turned, came yet too nigh;
It missed his helm, but gashed his thigh:
The creature raised a joyful cry to see the red blood flow.
Ivan reeled, and on his mighty sword he leaned one breathing-space;
Then, like a wild-cat mad with wounds, sprang right at Jangston’s face.
Through teeth, and skull, and helmet so fierce a thrust he sped,
The good sword stood a hand-breadth out behind the creature's head.
That sort of thing.
But Silvia. Silvia had to be protected and the creature was moving towards her. In desperation, Sorrel fired at the infernal machinery standing against the walls, shattering its casing and causing great gouts of magic fire to erupt from within and
Everyone vanished and reappeared twenty feet to the right.
Ivan’s blows rained down and Jangstak seemed uncertain for a moment. Then Imryll appeared, disappeared, reappeared beside the machine and Silvia plunged her crystal in as Imryll cried out and the party hauled their stones forth and hurled them to the floor and…
The Party
The bar at Fort Ettin was packed and rowdy. Sorrel all but hid in the corner, alone at a table, sipping something thrust into her hand. Songs were sung, speeches made and gifts were given but she sat in darkness and heard nothing.
Then Silvia sat beside her.
“Would you like to go somewhere quiet?”
Sorrel smiled gratefully. She stood up and followed her wherever she was leading her for Silvia’s magic had saved her life and soul.
The Call
When the word went out about Jangston or whoever it was, Nessa bought her the news along with her bow and rapier.
“This is the beast that killed a creature called Faust that I have heard in your prayers,” the cleric said as she knelt with the breakfast tray and turned her eyes away to avoid seeing Sorrel eat.
Sorrel wiped the blood from her lips in disgust and stared at her weapons.
“But if it rises inside me I cannot control it yet, if ever,” she whispered.
“You cannot let it change you, or it has won,” Nessa scraped the small pieces of raw flesh from the cell floor. “Sorrel Darkfire would be there to avenge her friend. Tell you comrades. Warn them. And avoid direct combat. You are not stupid.”
The Feywild
And so she stepped through the portal at Fort Ettin into the Feywild on the instruction of an elegant spring eladrin Imryll. Her team, she noted, comprised the barbarian Ivan – she felt a moment of relief at the sight of him as she’d seen him front and centre in every charge – as well as the shopkeeper Celina, who she assumed was there with supplies, Wee Mad Haimish, a ferocious halfling with an unfathomable accent, and a slim, pale warrior called Silvia whose eyes reflected the suffering in Sorrel’s heart. Before she could approach Silvia, however, she realised she was in trouble.
Imryll dealt out crystals and identified a cave entrance, but the path was blocked by a squad of rapidly approaching Modrons, tentacles reaching forward as they closed too rapidly for Sorrel to string and arm her bow. She drew her rapier, blessed her enchanted armour, let her old buckler fall into place and trusted to her evasive training to avoid damage as she thrust her blade forward in a classically executed mandritto attack.
A tentacle lashed out, slipped past her buckler and landed a blow. For a second she almost laughed. It was barely a scratch. This was the dreaded Jack? This was all he had?
And then the darkness welled up from within, grasping at her soul with claws as sharp as needles and she fell into its gaping maw and IT WANTS TO EAT AND IT NEEDS BLOOD AND HER SWORD IS SINGING AS SHE SLICES THROUGH THE AIR.
But she cannot let it own her.
IT IS OLDER THAN CREATION, BORN INTO ICY REALMS OF ANCIENT HORRORS, AND DRIVEN BY RAGE AND RAVENOUS HUNGER AS IT CUTS WITH HER BLADE AT THE ENEMY IN ITS NEED FOR BLOOD TO FEAST.
She wrestles for control of her own muscles, her sword uncertain, the taste of blood on her lips that must be her own because as she slides the blade home in a battle of will against flesh she sees the Modron fall apart into a pile of gears and levers. It is metal, not skin and blood and muscle and bone.
IT WILL HAVE BLOOD.
She sees the last Modron fall.
IT WILL HAVE BLOOD.
Her comrades stare at her. She can feel her sword arm twitching. She can smell blood. Silvia’s blood. Celina’s blood. She can sense it on the wind.
IT WILL HAVE BLOOD.
Silvia is beside her, veins pulsing, flesh warm, FOOD…
Manacles of iron clamp around her wrists.
IT WILL HAVE BLOOD.
Her arms cannot move. She struggles to raise her sword. Silvia’s flesh is soft and inviting.
Imryll’s song of banishment is carried on the wind as it sings her name and she tumbles into the night that opens above her until...
She stood on a pin point in an eternal void that was everywhere and nowhere all at once in the dead silence of the absence of time when a light blossomed beneath her feet and a white line shot forward, an atom thick, which she followed as it billowed out into sheets of glittering crystal spreading on either side like an impossible glistening floor she ran across until it snapped suddenly and sharply up at right angles into an infinite wall then cracked and fell and she was on the edge of a cube of sheer glass faces, the corners perfectly set at 90 degrees and a shard split off at right angles to the cube’s three dimensions and split again and again, at 90 degrees each time, out and in on itself as she ran and ran to keep up with the new folding of reality into endless honeycombs of all that has been and could have been and will be and might be and she saw the arrow as it pierced the folds where awful darkness and silence reigns and angry breakers roar as they beat on the towering heights of the far distant shore and on the edge of the sand she danced by the light of the moon and the spirit was lost and the pain soothed away and then Imryll’s voice was singing and she fell into the swirling pool of colours she had never seen but had always known until suddenly.
She was on the grass by the cave. Her comrades were moving towards its mouth. Silvia took her hand and said: ‘come.’
Sorrel walked dumbly towards the mouth of the cave, aware that the rest of the party were studiously avoiding her gaze. But Silvia had saved her, of that she was certain, and Silvia was hurt. She summoned healing magic from Autumn’s Warmth and the healer’s school then reached deep into the traces of her Fey blood for the song of aescerat argentum.
The air tumbled briefly around her, and the fey spirit whispered in her ear ‘o sister thou art changed…’
“It is a war I will win,” she said grimly. “But sister - aurum involare, I invoke thee and by muri tempi et intervallia do call upon thee as once before by the blood and the book and the service caelum ardeat.”
The fey spirit laughed like willows in the breeze. “After all these years, sister, it is perhaps you who needs protection. But our blood is true, and our pact still holds.”
As Imryll gave Silvia a crystal to block the machine the panther was there, as it had always been there, and it paced towards Silvia, sniffing the ground at her feet and holding a low growl in its throat as it circled around her like a sleek midnight watchdog.
Sorrel strung her bow and hoped for the best.
The Cave
Within seconds it had all gone wrong. Cecilia had been turned into a goat, Haimish was gradually petrifying, Silvia was waiting by the vast, pulsing machine for Imryll to arrive with the second crystal to ensure its destruction and Sorrel was hiding to avoid taking damage again. Silvia wouldn’t be there and a bow… she shivered.
So it was Ivan who fought Langstack. Alone.
He was mighty like a warrior from ancient legend, standing in the vast cavern, lit by the crackling energy of the machine, his great sword crashing into Stacklong with unfeasible power and skill. Every blow struck home and no matter what the weird creature threw at him, Ivan withstood it.
There will be epic poems written about this day, Sorrel thought.
The creature, whirling up his tentacles with fury to full height,
He rushed against Ivan and smote with all his might.
With skill and blade Ivan right deftly turned the blow.
The magic, yet turned, came yet too nigh;
It missed his helm, but gashed his thigh:
The creature raised a joyful cry to see the red blood flow.
Ivan reeled, and on his mighty sword he leaned one breathing-space;
Then, like a wild-cat mad with wounds, sprang right at Jangston’s face.
Through teeth, and skull, and helmet so fierce a thrust he sped,
The good sword stood a hand-breadth out behind the creature's head.
That sort of thing.
But Silvia. Silvia had to be protected and the creature was moving towards her. In desperation, Sorrel fired at the infernal machinery standing against the walls, shattering its casing and causing great gouts of magic fire to erupt from within and
Everyone vanished and reappeared twenty feet to the right.
Ivan’s blows rained down and Jangstak seemed uncertain for a moment. Then Imryll appeared, disappeared, reappeared beside the machine and Silvia plunged her crystal in as Imryll cried out and the party hauled their stones forth and hurled them to the floor and…
The Party
The bar at Fort Ettin was packed and rowdy. Sorrel all but hid in the corner, alone at a table, sipping something thrust into her hand. Songs were sung, speeches made and gifts were given but she sat in darkness and heard nothing.
Then Silvia sat beside her.
“Would you like to go somewhere quiet?”
Sorrel smiled gratefully. She stood up and followed her wherever she was leading her for Silvia’s magic had saved her life and soul.
