S13 Finale Tremors - Sorrel - 5/12/2023
Dec 6, 2023 19:45:13 GMT
Velania Kalugina, Andy D, and 1 more like this
Post by stephena on Dec 6, 2023 19:45:13 GMT
Darkness lay heavy on the house – a small cottage in an unremarkable street. The air settled as it does in houses where hearts were broken. And though the silence was as deep as the night, a certain kind of ear might have picked up the faint rustle of phantom listeners standing in the quiet of the moonlight, thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair that goes down to the empty hall.
The sound of a key grinding a seldom used lock rippled through the lonely rooms as the door creaked slowly open.
Sorrel stepped as lightly as if she was stalking a lion cub, moving noiselessly into Sylvia’s kitchen and lowering herself gently into her favourite chair.
She stared at the stove for some time, her chin resting on her hands, her eyes sharp and focussed. Eventually, after the house had settled back into its weighty silence, she spoke.
“I thought of you tonight when they told us Voss had died,” she said softly. “It took me right back to the moment they read your name out on the scorched earth outside Fort Ettin. I nearly fell to floor again, but…” she trailed off as her voice cracked and tears welled in her eyes.
Suddenly, unexpectedly, she laughed. “You would have despaired of me in that strange messy battle,” she shook her head. “It was another one of those Daring Heights Saves the World adventures. The dwarves at Vortsthold – I’d never been, I wonder if you ever went? Anyway, they were having trouble with a Mind Flayer problem.”
She broke off and shivered. “You know how I hate those things. Heads like ambitious squids and those infestation tadpoles crawling through people’s brains… like the midnight offspring of some mad stunted god, issuing them forth as a final act of revenge on the world just before it died.”
The pause wasn’t long and was broken by a snigger. “Anyway, so we all steamed over, absolute mayhem, an army of the things marching on these immense gates, another one descending from skies, some foul cross between a mind flayer and a red dragon leading them all and, worst of the lot, this slimy purple neolithid tunnelling under the city. So of course that was the team I was on. Me, Glint, Derthadd, Heret, Itzal and Celina plus a bunch of zombie dwarfs. You kind of had to be there…”
Sorrel smiled, pushed her chair back, walked to the low cellar door, opened it and pulled out a dusty bottle of Moonshae Isles whisky. She went to the usual cupboard, pulled out her glass and poured a generous shot, then corked the bottle and slid it back into the old wooden rack. She took a slug as she settled back down and let its warmth flood through her.
“So anyway, the worm turns out to be digging some vast chamber large enough to collapse the city above us, the dwarves start panicking – not the undead ones, obviously – and this engineer called Yucca tells us to stop the slimeball. I think – so, peel it off the wall? Distract it? Lock it in another dimension? But I’m a girl who trusts what she knows so I haul off and pepper the thing with arrows. Nice placing though I say so myself.
“Then all Hell breaks loose. We’re chucking everything we’ve got at the thing, it’s given up on digging and heading over to have a quiet word, there’s some kind of fuckery that seems to be infesting the walls so that they keep closing in and it’s all turning to shit faster than a line of Raumathar infantry in full retreat when Heret and his horse get swallowed up the advancing architecture. So I summon 16 giant badgers...”
There’s a strange, low growling noise filling the room, and the casual listener might take a while to identify it as laughter. Sorrel had to put her glass down and hold her left side as she practically convulsed in her chair.
“I mean, it made sense at the time. What can I tell you? Didn’t work. They were dead within about 15 seconds. Poor old badgers.”
Her laughter died away slowly.
“After that it got quite nasty. Heret was possessed by something… something that reminded me of the Hunger Spirit. I did what I could, with the help of the Goddess, in her holy name, and he seemed to snap out of it. We were taking some nasty blows and it was barely scratched. Derthaad was swallowed…” she paused and counted on her fingers. “Well, at least twice. I think Celina nearly died maybe three times. Itzal stayed standing – she is fast that one – and Glint… well Glint was laying down some impressive spell slinging. My favourite was turning Heret into a dragon, but that came after my second dumb move – my dumbest move. I need to explain…”
She pushed her chair back, finished the whisky and stood up slowly. “When Derthaad came out of the things guts for the second time I saw this weird thing, like it wasn’t flesh, it was made of earth. It had no real hide, no viscera, just soil. So I thought, well, nothing we’re doing is having any effect. What always defeats the mountain? The river. So I conjured 30 gallons of water inside the beast.”
She briefly held onto the table as her laughter died away. “Again, it made sense at the time. Though not to Derthaad, who was in the worm’s gullet again. We have this sending pin between us so we can think to each other… new thing, I’ve picked it up since you… went… and he’s like ‘Sorrel, I’m drowning already by the way.’”
She chuckled again. “You have to imagine it in his voice, slightly outraged. It was funny. Though maybe more in retrospect. Thankfully we had a retrospect. For some reason – either we’d conveyed our displeasure sufficiently aggressively or there was some blah blah wizard shit going on because it started to take the hits. Heret was a dragon by this time, good old Glint, and he was tearing into it so I clasped the moonlight and bound it round an arrow and sent a bolt of Selúne’s finest radiance into its throat. Seemed to do the trick.”
She pulled on the long metal pump handle and, after a few hearty ups and downs, managed to conjure enough of a flow to rinse the glass. She wiped it dry on a scrap of cloth and placed it reverently back in its place.
“Then we booked it out of there and found we’d pulled it off somehow. The squid were defeated. The Heights massive weren’t looking too special sadly. Everyone seemed to have taken quite the pasting. Keros I couldn’t see, but they said he’d had his mind wiped. I hear he’s recovering. Voss on the other hand…”
She rested her hands on the back of her chair.
“I never knew Voss personally, only by reputation,” she sighed. “But that crew were saving lives, doing the real work. And it reminded me of you.”
She stood in silence for a long time, staring at the stove, picturing Sylvia there inventing some new concoction that would turn out to be Sorrel’s new favourite food.
“I still can’t really believe you’ve gone…” she whispered into the nothing that didn’t stand there.
On the stair, the listeners craned forward, hearkening in an air stirred and shaken by the lonely warrior’s story.
And she felt in her heart their strangeness, even though they did not stir, nor enter this world of the living, just touched it with their hearts.
Sorrel let herself out and the key ground in the lock again. From outside came the sound of bit and bridle, of horse’s flank and well shod hoof echoing through the shadowiness of the still house.
They heard her foot upon the stirrup and the sound of iron on stone.
Then the silence surged softly backward when the plunging hoofs were gone.
The sound of a key grinding a seldom used lock rippled through the lonely rooms as the door creaked slowly open.
Sorrel stepped as lightly as if she was stalking a lion cub, moving noiselessly into Sylvia’s kitchen and lowering herself gently into her favourite chair.
She stared at the stove for some time, her chin resting on her hands, her eyes sharp and focussed. Eventually, after the house had settled back into its weighty silence, she spoke.
“I thought of you tonight when they told us Voss had died,” she said softly. “It took me right back to the moment they read your name out on the scorched earth outside Fort Ettin. I nearly fell to floor again, but…” she trailed off as her voice cracked and tears welled in her eyes.
Suddenly, unexpectedly, she laughed. “You would have despaired of me in that strange messy battle,” she shook her head. “It was another one of those Daring Heights Saves the World adventures. The dwarves at Vortsthold – I’d never been, I wonder if you ever went? Anyway, they were having trouble with a Mind Flayer problem.”
She broke off and shivered. “You know how I hate those things. Heads like ambitious squids and those infestation tadpoles crawling through people’s brains… like the midnight offspring of some mad stunted god, issuing them forth as a final act of revenge on the world just before it died.”
The pause wasn’t long and was broken by a snigger. “Anyway, so we all steamed over, absolute mayhem, an army of the things marching on these immense gates, another one descending from skies, some foul cross between a mind flayer and a red dragon leading them all and, worst of the lot, this slimy purple neolithid tunnelling under the city. So of course that was the team I was on. Me, Glint, Derthadd, Heret, Itzal and Celina plus a bunch of zombie dwarfs. You kind of had to be there…”
Sorrel smiled, pushed her chair back, walked to the low cellar door, opened it and pulled out a dusty bottle of Moonshae Isles whisky. She went to the usual cupboard, pulled out her glass and poured a generous shot, then corked the bottle and slid it back into the old wooden rack. She took a slug as she settled back down and let its warmth flood through her.
“So anyway, the worm turns out to be digging some vast chamber large enough to collapse the city above us, the dwarves start panicking – not the undead ones, obviously – and this engineer called Yucca tells us to stop the slimeball. I think – so, peel it off the wall? Distract it? Lock it in another dimension? But I’m a girl who trusts what she knows so I haul off and pepper the thing with arrows. Nice placing though I say so myself.
“Then all Hell breaks loose. We’re chucking everything we’ve got at the thing, it’s given up on digging and heading over to have a quiet word, there’s some kind of fuckery that seems to be infesting the walls so that they keep closing in and it’s all turning to shit faster than a line of Raumathar infantry in full retreat when Heret and his horse get swallowed up the advancing architecture. So I summon 16 giant badgers...”
There’s a strange, low growling noise filling the room, and the casual listener might take a while to identify it as laughter. Sorrel had to put her glass down and hold her left side as she practically convulsed in her chair.
“I mean, it made sense at the time. What can I tell you? Didn’t work. They were dead within about 15 seconds. Poor old badgers.”
Her laughter died away slowly.
“After that it got quite nasty. Heret was possessed by something… something that reminded me of the Hunger Spirit. I did what I could, with the help of the Goddess, in her holy name, and he seemed to snap out of it. We were taking some nasty blows and it was barely scratched. Derthaad was swallowed…” she paused and counted on her fingers. “Well, at least twice. I think Celina nearly died maybe three times. Itzal stayed standing – she is fast that one – and Glint… well Glint was laying down some impressive spell slinging. My favourite was turning Heret into a dragon, but that came after my second dumb move – my dumbest move. I need to explain…”
She pushed her chair back, finished the whisky and stood up slowly. “When Derthaad came out of the things guts for the second time I saw this weird thing, like it wasn’t flesh, it was made of earth. It had no real hide, no viscera, just soil. So I thought, well, nothing we’re doing is having any effect. What always defeats the mountain? The river. So I conjured 30 gallons of water inside the beast.”
She briefly held onto the table as her laughter died away. “Again, it made sense at the time. Though not to Derthaad, who was in the worm’s gullet again. We have this sending pin between us so we can think to each other… new thing, I’ve picked it up since you… went… and he’s like ‘Sorrel, I’m drowning already by the way.’”
She chuckled again. “You have to imagine it in his voice, slightly outraged. It was funny. Though maybe more in retrospect. Thankfully we had a retrospect. For some reason – either we’d conveyed our displeasure sufficiently aggressively or there was some blah blah wizard shit going on because it started to take the hits. Heret was a dragon by this time, good old Glint, and he was tearing into it so I clasped the moonlight and bound it round an arrow and sent a bolt of Selúne’s finest radiance into its throat. Seemed to do the trick.”
She pulled on the long metal pump handle and, after a few hearty ups and downs, managed to conjure enough of a flow to rinse the glass. She wiped it dry on a scrap of cloth and placed it reverently back in its place.
“Then we booked it out of there and found we’d pulled it off somehow. The squid were defeated. The Heights massive weren’t looking too special sadly. Everyone seemed to have taken quite the pasting. Keros I couldn’t see, but they said he’d had his mind wiped. I hear he’s recovering. Voss on the other hand…”
She rested her hands on the back of her chair.
“I never knew Voss personally, only by reputation,” she sighed. “But that crew were saving lives, doing the real work. And it reminded me of you.”
She stood in silence for a long time, staring at the stove, picturing Sylvia there inventing some new concoction that would turn out to be Sorrel’s new favourite food.
“I still can’t really believe you’ve gone…” she whispered into the nothing that didn’t stand there.
On the stair, the listeners craned forward, hearkening in an air stirred and shaken by the lonely warrior’s story.
And she felt in her heart their strangeness, even though they did not stir, nor enter this world of the living, just touched it with their hearts.
Sorrel let herself out and the key ground in the lock again. From outside came the sound of bit and bridle, of horse’s flank and well shod hoof echoing through the shadowiness of the still house.
They heard her foot upon the stirrup and the sound of iron on stone.
Then the silence surged softly backward when the plunging hoofs were gone.