Vanya's Journals, Chapter 29: The CavernsThe journal continues in its flowing elvish script on the next page, so you know Vanya couldn't have died. At the same time, you're somewhat skeptical as to whether or not someone could've survived such a drop, and curious as to how she managed it. Air flew past me with the sensation of wind, as I fell faster, faster... Fifty feet passes by quickly; I hardly had time to tightly close my eyes and take a breath.
Water enveloped me as I arrowed into the depths, plunging deeper, deeper... I'd landed in the cavern lake. I began to swim upwards, arm over arm, kicking my feet, looking above at the fires flickering above the surface, drawing nearer, nearer as the pressure about me lessened...
I finally broke the surface, choking and gasping for breath as the roaring of flames assaulted my ears. I didn't know how much water I'd swallowed, but it was enough to make me feel even sicker than before. As my head and stomach swam, I glanced about at the otherworldly scenery reflected towards me off the water from the distant shore: giant mushrooms lit ablaze, smoking pieces crumbling and falling to the ground. All around me floated bits of charred wood and fungi; flecks of ash filled the air, some still smoldering with a red glow as they floated past me over the gentle waves.
With a determined effort, I propelled myself forwards through the polluted, lukewarm water, one arm at time, weakly kicking my feet as the shoreline approached. My mind was a haze... looking back, I don't really know what drove me on.
The earth greeted me slowly, and I felt land beneath my aching arms. Stumbling forwards, I fell to my knees upon the welcome cavern floor, coughing and choking as I tried to clear my lungs. It took me a while to stop, and left me feeling even sicker. I ended up vomiting water, wiping my hair back clumsily over my head to keep it out of the way.
In the end, I fell asleep right where I was... passed out from exhaustion at the edge of the cavern lake.
~~~
My dreams were troubled and repetitive... Talvi and Urist stood before my sister and I; Talvi stabbed me with openworked daggers, while Urist riddled my moaning sister with bullets. Behind them, Joseph's face smiled mockingly, dancing just beyond shadows.
I stood up suddenly, looking about and panting with terror. As I realized where I was, and what had transpired, my fright gave way to grief, and I began to cry for my sister's death.
Crying is a strange thing... It's an expression of emotion, and yet it doesn't require anyone nearby for it to accomplish its purpose. At that moment, I couldn't think of anyone who could comfort me, anyway. The only ones I would've gone to were Urist and Talvi... and both of them had turned on me. The two people I considered my best friends had betrayed me... and I'd lost my sister. I'd almost lost my life... and right then, I wished I had. The anguish ripping through my heart was unequaled by any pain I'd ever felt. I'd never lost someone I'd cared about before... If Talvi
had stabbed me to death, as I'd dreamed, it would've been a kindness.
Images of my sister's face face flashed in front of my eyes in the dim firelight... That confused, bewildered look she'd had as she'd considered what I was saying...
"Salaia..." I cried. I clenched my fist, whispering, "Oh, Salaia..." I'd been
so close. I'd gotten her to question who she was – to question whether she really belonged to Ballpoint. In spirit, I'd gotten her back...
In my mind, I saw the bullet hit her chest as she tried to speak; I saw two shots fired into her forehead even as she struggled to stand...
"I HATE YOU!" I shrieked suddenly, screaming into the darkness. "I
HATE YOU, URIST!" A fresh torrent of tears cascaded down my face, and I fell forwards weakly, clawing my fingers into the dense cave moss as I wept. To think I'd loved him. To think the one I loved could betray me like he had... it was too much to bear. "You should've known," I muttered brokenly. Then, louder, "You should've known it was her!" I clawed my fingertips deeper into the mossy floor, and my breath quickened with rage. "YOU SHOULD'VE KNOWN!!"
The gentle sound of lapping waves and crackling of fires answered me, and I could hear the faint echo of my own voice:
"You should've known..." I collapsed weakly onto my side, holding my knees.
"I
loved you," I whispered. "I loved you, and you betrayed me. You
betrayed me, and you'd said you loved me, too." I wiped a tear from my nose. "You
lied."
The accusation seemed to echo in my mind, and it somehow depressed me even further. I didn't
want to hate Urist... I wanted to love him. He'd been the first one I'd really felt something for... even if it had all been for nothing.
I felt broken.
I lay there for quite a while, hugging my knees close to me and shivering. It wasn't until I heard the faint echo of Ugeth's roar that I felt compelled to move. "
Onino-imio queca," I swore quietly, getting to my feet and wiping my tears away. I knew that if Ugeth returned, he would set me ablaze, just as he'd done to the mushrooms, and that thought seemed to fuel my efforts. Putting one foot after the other, I walked between the towercap and fungiwood mushrooms that loomed far above, seeking shelter in the cavern wall. The smoke stung my eyes and specks of ash clung to my damp clothes, but I was thankful for the flames. Without them, I would've been blind. The cavern seemed to glow red and yellow, the lights flickering wildly about as it drew air towards it through the caverns.
After a search, I finally found what I was looking for: a small, natural tunnel in the cavern wall. Although I had to stoop to enter it, it wasn’t long before I’d tucked myself away just inside.
My sister's face seemed to haunt me as I tried to fall asleep. After a while, I took my hand in my own, imagining it was hers... Somehow, it was a comfort to my tired mind, and at long last, I floated away into a world of troubled dreams.
~~~
I awoke sometime later, and found the massive cavern to be eerily silent and still. The fires outside had mostly died down. After wandering about for a little while, I managed to find some wild plump helmets. The little purple-tinted mushrooms weren't nearly as large or appetizing as the cultivated ones from Spearbreakers' farm, but they were still edible. The lake water, though dirty, tasted fresh to my parched lips. After gathering up a good deal of the wild mushrooms, I sat down to eat what amounted to a very meager meal.
As I chewed, I looked through what possessions I had. Jack Magnus's woolen cap, though damp, hadn't fallen from my head. I still had my vampiric daggers, too, reminding me of so many people I'd come to care about. Then there was the little gorlak doll, tucked away in a pouch at my waist. I took it out and looked at it for a moment, and the thought appeared: had the little pigtailed girl had a sister?
Shaking my head, I placed it aside and picked up a few more plump helmets from my little pile, but they tasted bitter on my tongue. I'd never wondered before whether the girl I'd murdered had a sister or not. Now, after losing a sister of my own... I could imagine the anguish she would've been in to learn her sister was dead. No, not even dead, just... missing. She wouldn't even have known whether her sister was still alive – it was a different kind of torture entirely.
With a sigh, I picked up the little doll and placed it back in one of my pouches, and as I did, I realized I was still wearing Mr Frog's portal bracelet. A wave of hope and relief washed over me, and I got quickly to my feet, removing the bracelet and pushing the little button... but nothing happened. Whether the water had ruined it, or it had only had enough charge for one use, I didn't know. I put it dejectedly back on my wrist and continued my little breakfast.
It didn't make sense, somehow. I'd lost my sister once before, or so I'd believed. I'd truly believed my sister was dead, when Wari told me, and yet that fact didn't make losing her now any easier. Maybe I'd held some subconscious hope that Wari was lying, and my sister
was alive. Then again, maybe somehow I'd known in my heart that she wasn’t actually dead.
The world felt so empty with her gone.
I felt empty.
After I'd finished eating, I began gathering supplies. I filled one of the two pouches at my belt with water and sealed it carefully. I filled the other pouch with plump helmets, and tucked the little gorlak doll carefully into my belt. Some things I never wanted to forget, no matter how painful they were. Other things, like my sister's death... forgetting it would have made my life so much easier.
Unlike a dwarf, I couldn't see in the dark, so I hunted until I found a piece of fungiwood to serve as a torch, lighting it with the embers of a fallen towercap. Once I'd overcome a few final qualms, I turned, and with a heavy step, I began my journey towards the surface.
~~~
My original destination was "up"... a little vague, but the fact that I didn't know the way back to Spearbreakers was a weight that never left my mind. I thought that if I could just reach the surface, I'd eventually be able to find the fortress... but as I progressed higher, farther through the caves, I realized I could
never return. Talvi would simply try to kill me again, and she'd probably get away with it, too. The dwarven code of ethics was against killing other dwarves, but a dwarf that killed someone of another species could simply say that someone had coerced them into it. If the attacker said their victim was an enemy, other dwarves would consider it completely acceptable.
The climb was slow, and inconsistent. At times I found myself perched atop steep ledges, high above open chasms... other times I found myself crossing flat expanses, empty but for webs and giant mushrooms. Early on, suicide was always on my mind... but I couldn't bring myself to starve, or drown, or even jump off a cliff. I hated that I couldn't control my survival instincts.
Although I never had much trouble with food, water quickly became an issue. Whenever I passed even the smallest stream, I always stopped to refill both my pouches, and the dagger-carved towercap flask I'd made.
"Day" and "night" mean nothing when you're underground. My schedule was simple: walk, eat, sleep, repeat. I never knew how much I slept, and I'll never know just how many days I spent underground... but it felt like an eternity. When you have things on your mind you'd rather ignore, that eternity becomes a hell all its own. Every other dream was a nightmare, and every waking moment, Urist and Salaia consumed my thoughts. I knew I'd never see either of them ever again, but for some reason, I wanted to see Urist one last time. Part of me wanted to punish him, to hurt him in the way he'd done to me... but another part of me was ashamed of those thoughts. And then, a little corner of my mind wanted to see him again, just to
see him. I questioned whether liking him was betrayal to my sister, and I didn't have an answer... My heart was torn. My tears were frequent.
Once, I thought I heard him calling for me through the caverns...
Vanya... Vanya... but it was only a trick of the caves, or possibly my ears. To keep from attracting predators, I tried to stay completely silent... and the only sounds I ever heard were the shifting of air currents, the dripping of water, and my own quiet footsteps.
Sometimes it was all too easy to believe that Spearbreakers had been just a dream, and that I'd
always lived in the caverns... that I'd never lost my sister, and that there had never been a "Urist" or a "Mr Frog"... At times like that, I clutched the little gorlak doll tightly in my hand and knew it'd all been real. I vowed that someday, somehow, I'd make up for what I'd done to its onetime owner.
One word spurred my feet onwards:
Parasol. It was all I had left. It was the only place that I could really make a difference. It was the only place that I knew I'd be accepted.
Finally, one night, I heard the sound of thunder echoing towards me. It took me a bit to realize what it was, but when I did, I dropped my dwindling supply of wood, rushing towards it in excitement through the tunnels. I soon found myself at the mouth of a cave, looking out by torchlight at blood-red rain falling on an already macabre landscape.
I'd finally escaped the caverns.
I'd never seen anything so beautiful.
~~~
The next morning, I began walking in the sunlight, for the first time since I'd arrived at Spearbreakers, so many years before. The landscape was familiar... ten miles away to the east, past the rolling blood plains that stretched far to the north, the Amber Barb mountain range loomed. To the west were the Jungles of Binding, where Spearbreakers was, and when I climbed a hill, I could see the shimmering waters of the Amethyst Ocean a couple miles to the southwest.
Not knowing where else to go, I started towards the Amber Barb, meaning to head as far from Spearbreakers as possible. I didn't want to go back... not even to see Mr Frog, or even Wari again, though I'd come to think of her as my best friend.
Though the landscape was familiar, it didn't make the scenery any less grotesque, and it still sent shivers up my spine. Dried, sticky blood was coating absolutely everything. Dead trees poked their blackened, twigless trunks up from the ground like skeletal hands clutching for a victim, bloodstained vultures resting on their rotting branches. The sky was gray but for scattered, dark red clouds floating high above. After the morning blood-mist fog cleared, I could see for miles... and unfortunately, so could everyone else.
I'd hardly been walking more than a few hours before I heard the first sound of life. "HALT, SOLDIER!" someone yelled, and I spun around to see a six-man squad jogging towards me, wearing gray uniforms...
Ballpoint gray. They carried guns, and could easily outrun me if they tried; I knew right away that fleeing was pointless.
They slowed as they reached me, keeping their guns trained on me as they suspiciously examined my Ballpoint hybrid suit. I kept my arms up in the air in the "see? No weapons" gesture Mr Frog had taught me. "I'm unarmed!" I told them, hearing my voice shake. My thoughts strayed to the daggers at my hips, and almost grimaced – I knew they'd notice. "I'm not going to hurt anyone."
"Name, soldier? Rank?" the leader asked me, smoking a cigar out of the corner of his mouth. "That's some odd getup you've got there..." He had a buzz cut and a close-shaved goatee, even though he was a dwarf.
For a second, I felt relieved they weren't attacking, and tried to think up some name to tell them, but that didn't last long. One of the soldiers whispered in the commander's ear, and his expression changed.
"Vanya?" he asked, tilting his head in surprise. He made my name sound like an accusation, as if he'd called me a murderer. "She's Vanya Carena?" He glanced towards one of his soldiers. "Leroy, pull it up, let's see."
My eyes danced nervously between them as I watched, holding my body stiff and motionless.
Leroy tapped on a PEA for a moment and held it up to the commander, who shook his head with a smirk. "Can't believe we found her," he muttered, looking back at me. "Vanya Carena..." he chuckled. "Sorry, girl, but you're tagged 'K.O.S.' in the records. You know what that means?"
I shook my head, though I had a very, very bad feeling about it.
"It means 'Kill on Sight'", he said loudly, taking a puff from his cigar. He reloaded his weapon with a dramatic flourish and aimed it at my head, shaking his own with a smile. "Sorry, girl," he laughed.
"No, wait!" I screamed, panicking. "Please, wait!!"
My pleading was interrupted by a sight that’s remained etched in my mind ever since... All about us, the earth erupted violently, clods of reddish dirt flying in all directions. By the time it had fallen to the ground, three of the soldiers were already dead, blood gushing from the headless stumps of their necks as they crumpled aside, as lifelessly as ragdolls.
"Aw,
FUCK!!!" the commander shouted, emptying his assault rifle into the nearest creatures with a terrified, warlike yell.
It was with horror that I realized: Orodogoth had been right. The creatures were just as he'd described: eyeless, alien monsters with a toothy, three-part mouth at the end of a headless neck-stalk. Their upper arms were like scythes; their lower arms like claws; their four long legs arching into large, menacing spikes.
He'd called them "scythods".
They swarmed around me, clicking with their mouths as their feet stabbed into the earth. One or two of them fell to the Ballpoint fusillade, but the attack had disoriented the soldiers, who were firing desperately in all directions.
"Don't kill me!!" one shouted, throwing down his weapon and falling to his knees. Moments later a spiked arm stabbed into his chest, lifting him up into the air, yelling with pain until the beast crushed his skull against the ground.
In the same instant, another sliced its scythe-arm across a soldier's throat. Her head rolled to the ground, and others sliced away the arms and legs of the falling corpse.
At last, only the commander himself remained of his squad. The tallest of the creatures stomped forwards, clicking loudly with its teeth, and snatched the assault rifle from his grasp with a clawed hand. The dwarf looked up at the towering creature in terror, and tried to draw his sword, but the scythod leader grabbed him by the throat and lifted him, kicking and screaming, from the ground. It seemed to take a sort of sick, sadistic pleasure in dismembering one limb after the next, while the commander writhed, screaming in agony. As the scythod lifted its foreleg up to stab him through the chest, I turned away, covering my eyes. I couldn't watch.
The commander's dying scream echoed in my ears.
And finally, the only one left was me...
☆
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Topic: [34.11] Spearbreakers - It shudders and begins to move (Read 2279811 times)