I finally managed to get on with writing up the next bit of Turn 92. Unfortunately, I lost most of the images associated with this part of the turn, so it's mostly just text.
It was early in the morning that they set out from the ruins of Channeltwigs. None of them desired to spend any longer in the half-destroyed castle than they needed to, and so they were underway almost as soon as the sun arose. They had stayed only long enough to cache the weapons and armour they could not take with them, and to erect a handful of crude memorials to the dead – simple wooden beams with the fallen soldiers’ names scratched into them, thrust into the ashy soil where the pyre had stood.
The group did not need to travel far. Even at a modest pace, with Sizet limping badly and half-supported, half-carried by her comrades, it took them merely a day or two of travel before they reached the hamlet Lord Crewcanyons had deemed their next destination. It was a small hamlet, near to the border of the Tundra of Heroes and ringed by the ancient stone of abandoned or sparsely populated monasteries.
The roads that greeted them were deserted, barren of any sign of life. Bodies and half-bodies lay about here and there, left to rot where they had fallen; corpses of all ages, from infant to elder. The carrion crows, so often seen amidst such scenes of death, seemed entirely absent despite the feast laid out for them. The reason for such absence became clear at a closer look: about a few of the bodies, these ones blistered and swollen with decay, the feathered forms of dead crows lay. The signs of a thrall-attack.
While the terrible scene would have unsettled them in brighter times, the stresses of the past days had partially inured the group to such sights. A few averted their eyes; others stared grimly ahead, gazes affixed on the mead-hall at the centre of the settlement. Gasin and his inner circle alone seemed immune, though Dubmith paused a moment to gently murmur a prayer for the unfortunate souls that lay in ruin around them and Gasin mutely bowed his head in sympathy.
“This place is dead.” Hathur’s solemn voice broke him from his thoughts, ringing slightly in his ear. “They couldn't have survived a thrall attack like this. We should lea—”
But here Gasin rounded upon her with a furious blaze in his eyes, something between a hiss and a snarl bubbling up in his throat. His features writhed with sudden, savage fury at her half-finished declaration, strong enough that Hathur found herself stepping back in the face of his sudden change of mien. Long teeth bared, he strode forward until he was almost nose-to-nose with her, one hand gripping the hilt of his sword with such force that it physically tremored.
“Search every house,” Gasin commanded, his voice gaining a sharp, commanding edge that would brook no disagreement. “If there is even a chance of another soul living, we must seize it! Now! Now, Void take you!”
Hathur exchanged a glance with Mori, her disbelief and shock plain on her face, but she acquiesced to the inquisitor’s orders with a taut nod, striding over to the nearest house’s door to tear it from its hinge with a single blow. Her compatriots followed suit, breaking away in twos and threes to begin the long task of searching for survivors.
Every house bore the same scene – a few shreds of tattered cloth or metal, and the broken, often decayed forms of its former occupants. A handful of times there came the sound of stirring movement, seeking to reignite their hopes, only for it to be no more than a rodent or other tiny creature shifting about in the ruins. Slowly, as each door was opened and the grisly scenes observed, the group’s work began to slow, and then to stop entirely.
“Not one soul in this place still lives, master Crewcanyons.” Hathur’s expression was stoic as she returned from her latest search, though the tension in her stance betrayed her wariness. “Neither thrall, nor human.”
“You...” Gasin murmured to himself, bowing his head in contrition. The savage fury had drained from his body as each house yielded the same results, replaced by a terrible weight and exhaustion that drew the colour from his skin. “You spoke well earlier, lady Craftedmirrored, and I ask your forgiveness for my choler.”
“Of course.” Hathur’s voice was level and sincere, though she could not help but wonder at the reason for his sudden flare of fury. Gasin gave her a heavy nod in reply, before turning to face the rest of the gathered group as they stood before the mead-hall.
“I had hoped that this would not come to pass, but it seems my hopes were unfounded. We came too late to save these souls,” He closed his eyes, bowing his head so that his eyes were shrouded. “And so we must press on, that their deaths might be avenged.”
“Wait.” Thadar suddenly cocked her head to the side, scarred features contorting slightly. She raised a stubby finger in warning, her teeth baring themselves. “Do you smell that?”
Gasin slowed his pace, straining his senses to catch whatever scent Thadar had. There was the snow and wet grass, so common to the lands of Omon Obin; the scent of soaked wooden timbers and thatching that dominated many hamlets in the rainy season; and then – his nose wrinkled sharply as he suddenly caught what Thadar had sensed. It was a scent all too familiar to him: the faint stench of iron and rot and waste, leaking out from the door of the hall in a putrid cocktail.
“…Stand by me, Thadar,” Gasin murmured, fingers falling to his sword-hilt as he began to advance toward the door it came from. “There is something wrong here.”
By the look on his scarred comrade’s face, she concurred. Thadar drew up beside Gasin with her axe already raised to the shoulder and her eyes locked firmly on the door. If any thralls burst out of it to strike, her axe would be their first and last sight. Unprompted, Mori took up station by the other side of the door, war hammer gripped tightly in her gauntlets. Wordlessly, she looked up toward Gasin, who gave a short shake of his head in reply, half raising a finger in a gesture for patience; he pushed slightly against the door, and it swung inwards without a sound.
The inside of the hall soon revealed the source of the smell: four or five bodies in various states of decay, lying sprawled across the earthen floor in pools and smears of blood – some dried and flaking, some fresh and wet. Almost all of them bore the signs of blunt injury to the head or neck, and rather more alarmingly, each one bore the blisters and weeping sores common to those taken by the Obin Blight. Most alarming of all was the figure at the centre of the bodies: a young man of perhaps thirty seasons, kneeling amidst the carnage with his head bowed onto his chest.
Almost unconsciously, Gasin dropped a hand to his sword. While the survivor bore no obvious signs of the Blight’s touch, he had seen for himself how its poison could lurk beneath the mask of innocence. Warily, he signalled Mori and Thadar to come in behind him, ignoring the indrawn hisses of breath behind him in favour of advancing toward the surviving man.
“What happened here?” He asked, loudly and firmly. The man did not respond – indeed, he did not seem to hear Gasin’s question at all, remaining with his eyes fixed upon the ground and his head downturned. It was only when Gasin stepped forward to touch his shoulder that he showed any sign of life: one hand flashed forward to lock around his wrist; the survivor drawing in a shuddering breath as his head snapped up to fix the inquisitor with a red-rimmed eye. It was wide, unfocused, almost crazed with terror and wild fury – for a half-second Gasin feared to feel a dagger strike against his armour, but the fear faded as soon as it came; some semblance of focus came back to the man’s features, and his body shuddered with an unsteady breath as it did.
“Y…you’re alive…”
“We are.” Gasin confirmed. He tried again, voice softening slightly this time. “What happened here?”
“They… the thralls…” He gestured to one of the bodies, lying face down on the earthen floor with the back of its head stove in. Though its face was half-obscured by the dirt, Gasin could see the blisters around its cheek and one exposed eye. “They… they –”
“They attacked you.” Gasin’s voice was soft, sympathetic. He laid a light hand against the young man’s shoulders, feeling him jerk slightly under the touch of his glove. “Did this terrible deed.”
A weak nod. The man tried to raise a hand and point to something, but a furious coughing fit bent him almost double. He groaned in pain, one hand raising to touch against his chest; sweat was running in rivulets from his brow, despite the coolness of the room. His red-rimmed eyes blinked blearily at Gasin, struggling to keep focused. Dubmith strode forward, pushing past the bigger form of Thadar to rest a hand against the man’s forehead, taking in his form with a practiced gaze. She shot her lord a sharp, almost unsettled look.
“He’s burning up, lord Crewcanyons.” Dubmith’s tone was as sharp as her glare, fingers twitching restlessly. “Definitely wounded. I’ll need to –”
She was cut off mid-sentence as he staggered to his feet, lurching unsteadily backwards as he rose before catching himself again the wall.
“Crew… Crw’cny…”
He gave Gasin a faraway, puzzled look, stood swaying for a moment, and then fell the length of his height face-first to the floor without so much as a whisper.
The following minutes were a blur. Dubmith took charge the moment she saw Gencesh fall, barking orders at the others of their group. Hathur and Luki carried him at her direction, laying him down in a relatively clean section of the mead hall’s cellar, as far away from the gore above as they could manage. Gasin himself had chosen to stay at the top of the stairs, jaw tightly set and his eyes fixed on the open doors; he had firmly, if politely, refused to enter the cellar itself. Thadar had immediately joined him at the stairtop, under the pretext of helping him guard the hall against any threats that might be drawn by the scent of spilt blood.
Down in the cellar the man was laid out on Luki’s roughspun cloak, face discoloured and his eyes closed; a single burning torch in a wall-bracket threw jittering patterns of light across the walls and stone flooring. Dubmith was busy cutting the stained remnants of his clothing off, breath hissing between her clenched teeth at the wounds she uncovered with each motion. A thin cloth covered his lower half, though it was visibly dark where drops of blood and some evil-smelling liquid had fallen onto it. Luki was busy soaking another cloth in water from Dubmith’s waterskin, gently pressing it against Gencesh’s burning forehead; Mori and Hathur stood off to the side, weapons in hand and figures tense.
“What’s wrong with him?” Hathur asked, eyes flicking toward Gencesh’s prone figure.
“He’s a mess of wounds – mostly not deep ones, but they’re almost all infected.” She carefully laid another of the foul-smelling cloths on one of the deeper gashes, pausing momentarily to pull a stiffened section of fabric away from his right arm. “That’d account for the pallor, and the fever. He’s lost a fair amount of blood, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s dehydrated – that’d explain the collapse. I’ve tried to get some water into him, but his jaws aren’t budging an inch.”
Hathur felt her own jaw tighten sharply. “What do you need us to do?”
“Get some more water – use the snow outside if you have to. I’ll need it to try and keep his temperature down, and it’ll let me try and brew up something for the infections.” Her right eye twitched sharply as she cut away another section of bloodstained leather from Gencesh’s form, exposing a fresh set of wounds it had previously hidden. “I need to concentrate. Luki, you stay; the rest of you, go back upstairs and help lord Crewcanyons.”
Thadar looked left and right, before nodding brusquely toward the stairs. “You heard her. Someone get some water boiling; that fireplace up top should still work. You two,” She pointed toward Mori and Hathur with the head of her axe. “Get those goddamn bodies out of the main hall. Rest of you, come with me. Need to get a guard up already…”
Mori bristled slightly at being commanded in such a fashion, and Hathur stepped forward looking as though she wished to argue, but a sharp glare from Dubmith stopped them in both in their tracks. A long, tense moment passed as the two groups stared them down, before Luki let out a low sigh and nodded toward the stairs.
“Leave it, Mori,” She murmured lowly. “We’ve got work to do.”
The following hours crawled by days. Removing the dead from the hall had been short work with the number of hands available; the wood available was presently too damp from the snow and rain to make a proper pyre, and so they laid bodies of the former inhabitants outside for the moment in rows three wide. The residue of the battle had been cleaned as best as they could manage, using scraps of cloth and a few empty woollen bags as makeshift mops and containers for the blood and smaller pieces of viscera; they would be burned with their owners, once Thadar and Hathur returned with suitable firewood.
Leaning heavily against one of the walls, Gasin resisted the urge to pace about the room. His mind kept drifting to the cellar and the scenes that had greeted them, dredging up dark memories to the surface of his mind, setting his head to pounding. His skin itched furiously, heat building up in his chest as those treacherous thoughts flitted in the front of his mind.
Blood. Darkness. The sensation of cold steel lancing through his shoulder, strong fingers wrapping around his neck. Pain, and more pain. Screaming.Gasin almost growled as he pushed away from the wall, the inquisitor trying to think of something else to do. His eyes flicked back and forth across the group – Mori, standing guard with war hammer in hand off near the shattered wreck of the doors; Sizet, seated on a chest off in the corner and deeply engrossed in a book she’d salvaged from somewhere. He shook his head to himself. To interrupt Mori for the sake of idle chatter would be a violation of simple sense, with the risk of thralls lurking around out there; to do the same with Sizet would be the height of ill manners.
He was resigning himself to simply facing that sense of frustration when the sound of footsteps behind him provided a welcome respite. He turned to find Luki advancing up the stairs, her leather gauntlets still wet with water and other liquids. She must have seen the question written on his features before he even asked it, for she greeted him with a nod and indicated the cellar with a slight motion of the head.
“Lady Claspedcastles’ asking for you, master Crewcanyons. She says he’s awake –”
Gasin did not wait a moment after that, sweeping past Luki with his cloak in full sail. His abrupt manner and suddenly tense posture took the archer by surprise, cutting herself off mid-sentence to follow him back down into the murk. Another torch had been lit by either her or Dubmith, banishing some more of the murk from the cellar – while it was still dim enough to leave his skin crawling with instinctual gooseflesh and prickles of heat, he could at least make out the forms of his comrade and the wounded man she was watching over.
“He’s awake and stable for now, master Crewcanyons.” Dubmith didn’t bother looking up to greet him, already knowing what he was going to ask.
“Have you been able to discern anything of him, lady Claspedcastles?”
She nodded. “His name is Gencesh - a potter and trader of this hamlet. Little more than that – he keeps slipping in and out of consciousness. I don’t know how long he’ll remain awake this time.”
Gencesh looked up. Some of the pallor had left his face, and his eyes were coming back into focus. His mouth quirked at the edges, trying to stir.
“He’s done that multiple times.” Dubmith informed him, keeping a wary eye on his freshly bound wounds. “Keeps trying to say something. ”
Gasin leaned in close, cocking his head to the side to better pick up whatever he was trying to say.
“Can you hear me?”
“I hear you.” Gencesh’s voice was a faint thread of sound, barely above a rasp.
Gasin leaned down, turning his head toward the wounded man. “You are safe. Among friends. Speak slowly. Whisper. What happened?”
“They came at us from the west side of the hamlet – out from the fields.” Gasin didn’t need to ask who “they” were – the carnage above had been answer enough. Dubmith dabbed carefully at several of the half-clotted cuts on his shoulder and chest with a cloth soaked in another of her remedies. “They were in the houses before any of us knew what was happening. I… I didn’t see them get in there – get at the rest of us. But we all heard the screams. The sounds.”
He broke off for a moment, coughing. Dubmith drew a small, stoppered phial from her backpack and quickly removed the cork before carefully tilting back Gencesh’s head. She poured the contents of the phial down his throat in one smooth movement, not taking the earthenware phial away from Gencesh’s lips until she was sure he’d swallowed it. He bared his teeth, grimacing.
“Gods above, that tasted foul.”
“It’s to help with the pain. It’ll work fast, but you’ll be feeling drowsy soon.” The sable-robed woman fixed Gasin with a granite-hard stare, voice gaining a sharp note of warning. “Do not excite him, understood? You’ll have a few minutes before it kicks in, but then he’ll need to sleep.”
Gasin nodded in understanding. Though nominally subordinate to him, he knew well of her vehement refusal to compromise on the health of her patients. No amount of cajoling or orders would shift her when she came to such a mood, and so he returned his focus to Gencesh with a renewed sense of urgency.
“Few of us managed to barricade ourselves in.” He rasped, nodding weakly toward the higher level of the great hall. “Kept the thralls out for a while. You could hear ‘em at night, hands battering at the doors, scratching at the walls. Went silent after… maybe a week.”
Gasin nodded, leaning in closer. “How many of you were there?”
“A dozen of us,” He wheezed, wincing slightly as he spoke. “Me, a few of the nobles, the guards, Atir… and… and the old man. He called himself a scholar, was travelling north ‘a here. Said… said he’d dealt with these cursed things before.”
“What happened?”
“We went outside.” His words were little more than a whisper. “Something had ripped almost all of them apart. Maybe two still alive and intact. Bits of the others, scattered about like meat-scraps. And then… and then…
“Atir.” His words were little more than a whisper. “Atir got sick. Don’t know when. Might’ve been then when we went out, tried to scavenge whatever the thralls hadn’t trampled or et. Might’ve been before. We argued – the captain said it was just a fever, the old man that it was the thrall-plague. Said there was one way to deal with it.”
Gencesh shook his head weakly, a mirthless smile creeping across his face. “He wouldn’t have it. Not even a word. Told him he could take his chances with the thralls, if that was his attitude.”
“What happened?” Gasin’s voice was urgent, laden with anticipation.
“Th’ doors.” Gencesh groaned. “The old man vanished – left in the night. Must’ve left a door open. Thralls got in that night, killed three of us before we could drive them off. It’d have been all of us if she weren’t there, she took so many of them down. But there, or before, she got bit.”
Gencesh drew in a deep, shuddering breath, trying to steady himself before continuing. “She was strong. Lasted for days. But she turned, and then she turned the rest. Bit ‘em in their sleep, or when they tried to get up. Killed ‘em, if they was lucky. And then –” He halted, shaking. He gulped back a breath, his next words little more than a whisper. “I saw her coming for me. Killed her. Killed the others. Had to… had to...”
Gencesh’s voice trailed off, growing weaker. His head lolled back on a boneless neck. “He’ll pay. By every one of the gods, he’ll pay.”
Dubmith placed a gentle hand on his shoulder, easing him back against the makeshift bedding as his voice began to tail off. She carefully trickled a second phial down his throat before fixing Gasin with an intense stare. “He’s going to be out for at least a day. All too likely more, with what I’ll need to do here. Our pursuit will have to wait.”
“And there is no way you may speed his wakening, lady Dubmith?”
The sharp look she gave him was answer enough. Gasin could recognise a losing argument when he saw one, and so he settled for nodding heavily and beginning to walk back up the stairs to re-join the rest of the group above.
“We must rest here for another few days,” Gasin announced without preamble, cutting off the half-formed questions on their lips. “While our new comrade recovers from his wounds.”
Mori let out a growl of frustration, her fingers tightening on the battered leather grip of her war hammer. “So we’re letting that bastard get away?”
“No, lady Festivereigns,” Gasin reached inside the folds of his robes and carefully withdrew the journal of Kosoth, cracking it open to a marked page. “It merely means we must resort to
other means of discerning his whereabouts.”
“And what would these means be?” Mori grumbled, fixing him with her usual half-glare. Her eyes shifted to take in the book in his hands. “And what is that?”
Gasin turned the book around to face them, letting them see its contents: long, spidery writing in an unfamiliar hand, interspersed with unfamiliar runic markings and idle scribblings, as a man might make out of idleness or practice.
“’That’ is the journal of one of the Sage’s… compatriots, acquired shortly before our very first meeting.” Gasin frowned slightly as he pointed to the writing on the page. “But the traitor saw fit to write in some cipher that I haven’t yet made head nor tail of, outside of precious few passages – and
those are so oblique as to be of little use.”
Nrvrwk utik xo ftq Rdktc lg ocz Ugqc Hiptuvncsbm. Xli dvyza rkc orsnyyra ki. Lxxd odahpan zlnmf vjg Zxywz Atwuwl mpyples hvs vriky, uhx qebk among wkh Jkkvlurq’y uxwp-kaxtnw wuzspaye. Ndj emkl ijo zc gpvoe. M nv dy Ure ucrhqsu, mh oaag enqfhudmdrr.
L qwal lcyu gyonjnnd qk bss Ycdh Sxrqhlzqt ewzeetyggx bswj bxmokc ixlc kvvkoe yg ihpi. Uj rvuqh zoux hlvjm lpw bdeu eqw i ewdy. Yuw oc yjko zf iuyhwa. Cgqxbfaslxlv qwaldzbhi pc qqmac ajb th duv shk ctt tdpul vp n dxs sjwmlh. Kbb Boopti epqu rvd ou thkqbmo hf lbsxxpq. Cwqcs enkvd.
There was a long moment of silence after they finished reading the passage, as uncertain glances and confused looks were traded among them.
“Karking sorcerers.” Thadar growled, shaking her head. “Never can be simple with ‘em, can it?”
A low murmur behind Gasin caught his attention. He turned to face the source: Sizet, of all people, keeping herself upright with her axe acting as a crutch. She was at his elbow, peering closely at the spidery writing and unfamiliar symbols that adorned the journal before them with an almost unnerving intensity. “Is something the matter, lady Sizet?”
“Not much, master Crewcanyons…” Sizet swayed slightly as she leaned further in, peering closely at some of the writing. After a moment, she reached out, one finger tapping against a small indentation in the parchment. “But I recognise this mark, and some of the lettering here.”
“Truly?” Gasin leaned in eagerly, his features alight.
“Aye. Look here –” Sizet squinted slightly as her eyes focused on the letters, leaning forward for a closer look. “This mark here, the indent in the vellum - it looks like the runes the greenskins use, on their flags and papers alike. And this scribble here – it looks like an archaic word of our own language.”
Mori raised a sceptical eyebrow, peering over the axewoman’s shoulder. It looked like utter nonsense to her, with the way the letters were so jumbled about. “You’re certain, Sizet?”
“My eyes may be redder than a greenskin’s right now, but I know what I’m seeing. Languages and codes are a fancy of mine.” The axewoman’s voice was dry as she turned her red gaze toward the hammerwoman. She tapped a finger against the diary’s pages again. “Here - there’s a couple words they left whole. Could be a lead, could be a lure. Whole thing’s scrambled worse’n a thrall’s brains.”
Mori shot a look toward Gasin. “You said there were a couple paragraphs you’d decoded?”
Gasin shook his head. “Such would imply a breaking of the code. Those we uncovered were of a different kind – normal, but oblique, rather than the cipher guarding these secrets.” He pointed to a particular section of the journal, marked with a bright scarlet strip of leather. “Here.”
24th Fall, 8XX.
My work continued through this day. It is little compared to the comforts and qualities of past days, but what is held must be utilized. The brew is not of the old quality, but those few I remain with are willing to trade their coin for it. Little more changes, beyond the look in the eyes of others.
[Several further lines followed: a table of apparent ingredients and plants, and their prices in the three common currencies. Here and there were signs of erasure and re-writing – small changes in their stocked quantity or price. Sizet impatiently flicked forward, searching for the point at which the writing returned proper.]
When the darkness blinds your eyes, know that the way back to the Light is three-fold: charity, forgiveness, and health. Seek these paths and pursue them to their iron-clad end, that you might feast on knowledge and gain your answers.
“...Karking sorcerers.” Hathur muttered, palming her face with one hand. “You were right, Sizet – there is something here. But what?”
“Well,” Luki murmured, the interest clear in her eyes as she sidled up to the group. “If we’re laid up here for the next few days, we might as well try and find out, aye?”
There was a low grumble of sound – mixed agreement and apathy, from the various quarters of the group. Some were clearly reluctant, desiring to continue the hunt for their quarry; others rather more enthusiastic, with Sizet voicing a surprising desire to break whatever code the journal had been writer in. Gasin listened to the various remarks and agreements, turned for a moment to think alone, and then finally settled for a nod and a smile to the group.
“Well then, my comrades,” He intoned. “Let us begin our work.”
The work progressed faster than any of them had expected. With half a dozen people in the same mead hall and little else to occupy their idle hands, the encrypted diary soon became an object of obsession for most of the group. The cipher itself was identified swiftly enough – a simple substitution of letters, interspersed with stranger sigils – but the key to it remained frustratingly elusive. Every now and then, a single word would be translated or a seeming pattern would begin to emerge, to be disproven as soon as they tried to apply it to the other sections.
Candle after candle was melted down to a stub as the days passed, frustration building as it did. Tempers began to fray. Until at last –
“Finally!” Sizet’s shout shattered the early morning silence, startling her comrades from their rest. “I have it!”
By way of answer there was a loud thump and a stream of sulphurous swearing from the cellar; Dubmith had evidently been sleeping when the axewoman’s cry startled her into wakefulness, and either her arm or head had paid the price. In the main hall, Sizet’s comrades stirred and rose amidst a chorus of yawning and grumbled complaints, turning to face the scarred axewoman with bleary eyes. Her lips and eyes were crusted and bloodshot, her skin visibly waxy and blotched with red, but her expression held nothing but triumph and her posture practically crackled with unbound energy.
“Wh’t is i’?” Mori grumbled, dragging herself upright with a groan. Her bleary eyes blinked rapidly as she tried to rouse herself to full awareness. Then, more clearly: “What is it, Sizet? What’re you making such a racket over?”
“The code!” Sizet cried. “I have the code!”
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Topic: Museum III, adventure succession game (DF 0.47.05) (Read 474599 times)