Registered Member #25529
Joined: 3:52:11 pm GMT 10/09/20
Posts: 188
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Beyond sight, and smell, and sound and sense, past the black outlines left by the white beyond, into the stretching infinite unknown, a wrestling and writhing tendril of consciousness struggles against the back side of the material world. It is an intelligence made of many burgeoning intelligences, one thought-finger carefully massaging the crack it had cleverly seen opened that has recently closed… Something done by that strange mortal circle, delaying the native entropy of its homeland...
Something or someone has sealed in a hard fought sliver of the quasi-reality, and the result… elsewhere the splinter presses against the underside of the troublesome little world’s skin. The intelligence muses for a moment… Surely there is a way to use this recent development to its advantage. Surely there is a thinning upon the barrier elsewhere that has now been reinforced elsewhere. It only needs to find a way through that spot, to reach out through something it scattered long ago, perhaps...
Registered Member #25529
Joined: 3:52:11 pm GMT 10/09/20
Posts: 188
In a dusty Sandburrow living room, a fat little hin munches thoughtfully on a plate full of fresh, hot, buttery scones; eye drawn suddenly to a glint of light on the mantle. She frowns over at the pile of junk assembled on it- wondering if the dark room full of oddities and knicknacks is playing tricks on her. Still... It would be like late-Uncle Gottschildr to accidentally keep a live firebomb in his room full of old maps, cloudy glass baubles, and dusty rugs… She pops the last scone in her mouth and unbuttons her waistcoat before she can lose a button as she waddles over to the place she saw the light.
Nothing but rubbish… She grimaces. She’d hoped to find something valuable when the old man had passed and left her the place. She had little need for the collection itself - not being a collector of any serious degree. Still, despite that, and despite the fact that he had almost certainly known she would sell it all, she wasn’t surprised by the inheritance. Ele was positive she was Gottschildr’s favorite relative and his will had confirmed it - every last possession he owned down to the as-yet-too-large belts and braces. And why not?
Who else among his numerous relations had spent those delightful summer mornings riding in his cart to the nicknack fairs (and enjoyed his scones on the way)? Or, rather than play in the river and catch frogs, passed the afternoons of her childhood in his parlor listening to his strange stories (and enjoying his teacakes)? Had any but her happily whiled away their evenings since their crazy teenage years, not chasing boys but instead at his dinner table playing that numbers and dice game he loved (and enjoying his Greenvale wine)?
She pulls a footstool over, and with little trouble and legs more nimble than they look, steps up and surveys the oddities. Her head cranes slightly around her doughy midsection, down at the framed parchment on the mantle - the belly evidence of the indulgences, the parchment evidence of the evenings well spent. Her first “character” sheet, a lady knight in armor with a sword sketched carefully into the margins. Bold, beautiful, and brave - everything she’d wished to be as a teen. The Hin sneezes as the dust rises and she wipes her nose with one of Uncle’s gold-embroidered handkerchiefs. The last room in his burrow to be cleaned out, and the one she’d dreaded the most… She picks up a small glass orb off of the mantle. Who could put a price on some of the things in here?
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Ele looks around. An odd trick of the wind through the drapes? No… she’d never let a window open to this room, never would she let any of the greedy little know-nothings out there see any of Uncle’s hard collected prizes - at least not until she was ready for another lawn sale. She pats the small glass bauble thoughtfully… perhaps time to hold one sooner than later. After all, the longer the stuff sits, the more likely it is to go missing. Who’s to say that their dirty mitts, fresh from the fields, wouldn’t find their way onto some of the precious little items scattered around here?
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She nods in agreement with the voice this time. Yes they would… She looks down to see a little flicker of light in the violet ball in her hand. Curiously, she polishes it, looking into its crimson and blue-hued depths as the veins of light inside it begin to streak and swirl. Had Uncle Gottschildr accidentally found something of value in all his strange collecting? Something worth more than just gold pieces and teacake money?
Would the thing fetch a proper price? Heavens knew that despite the quantity of the inheritance, its quality had so far failed to pay off mounting bills… but here and now with the little sphere in her hand, odd colors washing over her face, a new payment plan forms in her mind. A deal is struck and that evening the Hin puts the old burrow up for sale, knick-knacks and all. It is sold in two days, and on a strangely cool spring morning, Eleshandrea finds the road leading through the mountains under her bare feet.
Registered Member #25529
Joined: 3:52:11 pm GMT 10/09/20
Posts: 188
As the sun rises across rows of solar collectors in the fields of Sandburrow, a small wagon trundles down the lane to the small and cozy residences of the Sandburrow halflings. At its lead, coaxing the mules with a carrot on a stick, sits the small hin whose sudden sale three months ago of her uncle's hole and leaving of the little farming town had made such gossip. Eleshandrea dangles her bare feet off the end of the wagon as she tuts the steeds to a stop. In the back, reclining and chatting with her, a dozen now well-fed hin and gnomes begin to hop out and hurry back to the homes they were so brutally kidnapped from in the weeks prior. As she pulls up to the last hole in the row, her Great Aunt Twidfillow rises, some strength returned to her legs from a week of traveling in the cart with good meals and warm sun. The two embrace, and the venerable hobbit promises to look over Ele's curiosities once she has had some tea and scones and put her feet up for a few days. It is only after the old halfling closes the door that Eleshandrea realizes she has sold her hole and has no home left in Sandburrow.
A minute later, Aunt Twidfillow realizes the same and the door swings open as she stumbles out into the lane to shout a polite invitation for tea and the spare bed.
That night, under the familiar stars of the Southern Coast, Ele smokes a pipe and reclines in her nightshirt on top of the grassy roof of the hill the hole is built into - an act clearly considered triply scandalous enough by the neighbors that they draw shut the curtains and pull closed the shutters on all their east-facing windows to avoid the sight... but leave both open a crack, to peer every so often at the queer hin who left and returned. The tavern up the road is awash with stories of where she could have been, and the things she could have done, the rumor mill aided and abetted by some of her rescues who tell stories of a man "ten feet tall if he wa' an inch" with a flaming blade and a voice that shook the stones, and a beautiful elven companion - "She were like some princess from a fairy tale, too!" from whose hands magical bolts of green energy subdued most of their captors... and at the center of every tale is Eleshandrea. The hin smiles faintly as she puffs on the pipe and listens
"Her dagger were out an' she was fightin' off a horde o' em!" "Ah never seen the like of it. Ele was?" "Aye, like sum knigh' in a story, all a swingin and a stabin and a... a..." "A parryin, there's the word lad." "Aye, parryin!" "Graceful like a dancer she was!" "Awh, now don't be talkin' grace if'n it ain' to talk abou' that elf lass... beautiful, that's all the words fit to describe 'em." "Elves, g'warn?" "Aye... Pointed ears, she an' Twiddy talked fer hours... an' Ele the whole time leadin' us up to see sunlight again... bless me I weren' ever sure I'd see it again." "Elves an' flamin' swords an' Ele in the middle eh? Sounds like she got her a proper adventure jus like ole Gottschildr used ter talk abou' eh?"
On the rooftop, Eleshandrea smiles to herself as they begin to attempt to compose sonnets... she knows the folk in the Trade and Tackel could tell them a thing or two about telling a tall tale in a song, and only a few months ago she listened to those songs with an ear hungry for details of all the things she'd never seen. As she takes a long puff on the pipe and blows a small smoke ring, she holds a lightning-burned hand up to the sky, looking past it at the glittering needle points in the sky, and wonders if her Uncle's adventures were quite so... Awful? Extraordinary? Painful? Exciting? Sad? She turns the words over in her brain, wondering if any of them really fit what she has experienced these past months...
Elven forests, trees tall and towering to the clouds... but dark, and sad at the same time, like a story of what had once been. Cold northlands and beautiful stately mountains, a white blanket as far as her eye could see, and at the center of it a merry little fire pit... and only a mile north of that camp, a tragic memorial to the collective loss of the northern people. Goblin caves and deep catacombs, terrifying shades, hissing steam tunnels... babbling rivers and tea with the White Rose. A pint of Ale at the Iron Minogon while a troupe of Bloodguard arrayed in red marched past headed north with a wave to the owner... Beaches and caves and untold buried riches, strange insect speech and the beautiful faerie dagger that now rests in the grass, sheathed beside her - within arm's reach out of caution, not to be cast aside when she put every other one of her things in the drawing room to be washed...
She remembers that dagger sticking out of a goblin's chest as it looked at her, face masked in hate and confusion, arms still struggling to grip her face as she pushed its dirty fingers away and it tried to grab her hair until she drew the knife back and plunged it in, again and again... Pouring a bottle and trying not to let her hands tremble as Alken shudders beneath her, pinning his spasming arm with her knee as she tries to counteract the poison coursing through him... Opening her eyes after a brutally heavy hit from the back of a bugbear axe shattered her shield, and seeing Leg's face pulled in concern... Buckling as lightning rocks her body and forces her against a wall... Her legs bleeding and nearly broken as Alken lifts her crumpled pony off her... A cavern where dwarves and duergar met in battle, now awash with blood and body parts... Running for her life, through shades and spiders, clutching a crystal ball for dear life... A witch, red-eyed and surrounded by a swirl of magics.
The hin looks down and finds her hand gripping the handle of the dagger in the grass. She sighs and relaxes her fingers on it... but when she takes her hand back, it doesn't shake anymore like she expects it to... it returns, steady, to her side. She knows she'll have to leave Sandburrow soon... no matter what word best fits an adventure. Will she return to her room at the Tackel? Keep finding new places to plumb for strange stories and riches? She closes her eyes and wonders...
****************
Two mornings later, Eleshandrea rises early, breakfast cooked and eaten, with a belt that had been growing one loop tighter by the month now conspicuously open. She leans back, patting a full stomach and having a sip of wine to digest when Aunt Twidfillow arrives. The older hin smiles at her and takes a seat. She crosses her arms and looks Eleshandrea up and down.
"Well lass, feeling better with a proper Sandburrow breakfast in ye?"
Beside her, the strawberry haired girl stifles a burp.
"Y-urp. Sorry... pardon me!"
The older woman just laughs.
"Ahhh... at least you've found your appetite again here, whatever else ye found on the road..."
Ele regards her with a curious eye, covering her mouth politely but unable to hide her smile.
"So... the things on the road that I've found... those little curiosities as Uncle called them... you've had a chance to look at them?"
The grizzled crone spears one of Ele's remaining sausages and munches it thoughtfully for a moment, keeping her in suspense before swallowing. She frowns when she finally speaks.
"A few little magical trinkets you've already identified, some fine looking gems... a tablet or two in some language I don't know... You've got a better chance of identifying everything you left in the drawing room than I do... So what is it that you're wanting to know about... really? Why come to me?"
Eleshandrea sits back for a moment and pretends to digest... she'd wanted Auntie Twidfillow's help, but now that it came to it... Her hand lingers in her pocket, palm settling familiarly on the small crystal orb in it... No... she needed to trust someone... She draws her hand out of her pocket and suddenly opens the satchel at her side, drawing the Witch's Crystal Ball out instead, making sure the cloak she has it bundled in totally covers it before handing it to her aunt.
"Did you see the crystal ball I got from that witch?"
Her aunt's face falls and she rubs the orb lightly through the cloak.
"That thing? Yer aughta throw it away... I ain' sure what it is, but I know it's no good. Dangerous to keep such a thing around... you can't ever be sure she isn't watching through it, Ele... Witches... Witches don't take kindly to their magics being stolen. Ye know that much... that's what's happened to yer arm, yeah?"
Eleshandrea rubs the shoulder reflexively, able to feel the pink and scarred flesh through her sleeve, but the skin of her arm unfeeling to the touch of her fingers.
"Aye Auntie... That's the size of it... I stole the witch's orb while she was involved in some... some awful ritual to sacrifice elves. We saved the elves and broke her spell... That little theft did some good, y'know... and I used it to find you! I couldn't have ever saved any of you without it..."
Her aunt sighs.
"Good fer others... but puts you back smack in harm's way, girl... be careful out there. Stealin' magics is a dangerous occupation."
Her niece sighs as well and looks down at the floor. Eleshandrea had hoped... no, she'd needed Aunt Twidfillow to understand... someone other than the folk she traveled with had to know the value of what she was doing. [ image disabled ] The hin quickly draws her hand back out of her pocket, where it was resting on the other orb... the one from Uncle's drawing room... when did it get back in there? She sighs and looks across the table, where her Auntie is studying her curiously.
"Sorry... Sorry Auntie. I don't mean to make you worry. Let's take the witch's crystal ball down to the museum this afternoon... maybe we can look through some books and find a nice old spot no one will ever find it in."
The older woman's face crinkles into a smile.
"Ele... you're family. I'll always worry... but you're talking adventure again already, and I've got me mind made up that you'll leave again before long... I've something to send you on your way properly. As soon as we got back I started to work on it - it's not much, but you can't be adventuring in your streetclothes forever, and some of the sharpest gnomes in Sandburrow have put it together. Come with me down to the Museum this afternoon, aye?"
In her chair, Ele nods, breathes a sigh of relief, and puts her hands in her pockets.
From its small view through a pinhole in the howling silence of the void, straining tremendously to look and listen through the little glass bauble it his slipped into her reality, the entity views its hard won prize with great interest... It has done so much right to groom her, to mold her into something of use to it. Once a fat, weepy, emotional little thing, now it has grown bolder with each mission, more confident and capable... and in turn the spirit has now entrusted her with three of its simple cantrips. Stonehearted and logical: she has been suitably using each of those gifts. Whimsical and emotional: is this what mortal creatures call pride? Now from her careful position in the Trade and Tackel, it has learned something else - a possible way out of its prison.
It must tread lightly and not risk discovery... Magii would know its nature, would capture or ensnare it for themselves. Zealots would banish or destroy it, an impurity in a stream in which it does not belong. Only the girl, simple and naïve, holds the keys to its freedom... and she must not know yet what it is either, lest she cast it away in ignorance... Her willpower! Yes, it is not the mountain possessed by the deeply arcane, but it surprisingly nimble, flexible, even stubbornly unyielding... She could have been a great talent, a shame conceited mages so easily overlook that which appears small and worthless... But the intelligence would not make the same mistake.
"We know your skills" it croons to her gently. "We know your worth." Her attention brings her face to the bauble, a firestorm of light in the prime material when pressed against the infinite emptiness the intelligence inhabits.
"Then tell me what you are." The halfling's eyes pierce into it keenly. "All this time we've traveled together, tell me I'm right for trusting you."
The intelligence regards her with some difficulty.
"...Prisoner."
It tries to send the word to her, but the steps get jumbled and assorted along the way - everything dies in here, even time, and the word is flung backward. In a study in the Silver Scroll Academy months ago, an old man with a silver beard peers into it. The word comes to him instead.
It tries again.
"I am... a prisoner..."
The words fall empty out of its unmouth, tumbling away past it into the chasm behind it, the place all things are consumed through.
The intelligence struggles once more. It presses itself with all its energy against the glass. In the material, the girl's attention shifts. Another of the tallfolk have arrived in Sandburrow? Her hand slips the orb quickly into her pocket. As it drifts away, the Aether spirit makes one desperate cry to her.
Registered Member #25529
Joined: 3:52:11 pm GMT 10/09/20
Posts: 188
The evening wraps deeply around a quiet Sandburrow, a dark cloak peeled back only occasionally as the beam of the light house - only recently rebuilt from the last assault upon the little town - swings about, ever seeking and protecting in its nightly vigil. As it turns across the hamlet, its beams cross solar collectors and fields, houses and museums, and inside onesuch house, Eleshandrea tosses and turns beneath sky blue bedsheets she has slept beneath happily since she was a child. Most nights she dreams. Many nights they are normal dreams - odd collections of happenings, or even odder turns of fancy and desire.
A hat made of snakes, a loose tooth, a long hallway that does not seem to end with the smell of pancakes at the end of it.
Tonight is not one of those dreams. Tonight is a memory, a raw wound on her psyche, a splinter working its way to the surface of her mind's skin.
There is an eagle, prostrate and desperate beneath a net of webbing. Her dagger tries to part the threads, but the demon-touched gossamer is too strong. She looks up, terrified that she will have been noticed, that the foul Witch of the North will be prepared to cut her apart. Instead what she sees is worse - the drow sorceress gripping Legebriewyn by the throat. His legs kicking. The light, strange green light, leaving his eyes. She looks down to her work and knows it is too late for the eagle.
Desperately she tries to loan him some of her power, holding the orb down in offering to him, but instead of using it to leap away - he scratches it silently with his beak. He knows that this is how he dies. But there is still time to save Legebriewyn. She must rescue him, must rescue her elven friend. Her hand reaches out, her body turns in place to move, to summon the power she has called upon in the past. Nothing happens. Leg chokes. The sorceress laughs. Suddenly there is a dark shadow, and ravens burst from Leg's robes, flying in all directions. The hin sees one take off toward the Feywood barriers, its legs extend and touch down, now the slender figure of the elf running into the dark of the moors. She follows. She weeps as the sky turns green, as the ancient creature they tried to rescue dies. She follows Leg into the dark, her short legs struggling to keep up, sure as she pants and her heart pounds that she can hear the footsteps of the Drow Witch just behind her, just out of view. She cries out for him, she doesn't want to die here - "Legebriewyn!". A tunnel of white light opens before her and she hurtles through it.
There is a crack of sound, and she looks down. The floor is three feet beneath her and coming up fast. Her sheets are tangled about her. She cannot get her arms out, and lands in a rough pile, awake and alert. The fey dagger flies out of the sheath she keeps it in at her back, butchering a pillow and slashing aside her long-lived blankets. She pants, realizing it has happened again - a door between dimensions. Sometimes it happens intentionally. Most times it happens on impulse. She looks to her bedside, where the orb flickers - is there a new light in it now? Something... green? Something new?
She picks it up, and only the swirling violet meets her eyes. A small purple light beckons, beckons as it always does to trade new magic for secrets... and this time, with the memory of the eagle fresh in her mind, with thoughts of Alken and Rey and Legebriewyn in the net next time... She accepts.
Show me. Show me what I need to know. Help me to use our power, to learn to be stronger... Please. I don't want to watch anyone else die.
There is a pause as the thing within the orb regards her.
"There is such power, here in your home village. Will you take it from them?"
She thinks of Auntie's smiling face, of the people who live here, of what they would say if she took the offer and robbed them of some ancient magic... and as she does the light-house beam splits the dark for a brief instant and illuminates her body through the window. It casts a shadow upon the wall - her shadow, leaner and more toned than the fat hin she was when she first left Sandburrow. Through the glass in her hand, the light refracts and casts a violet prism upon the wall... and as the purple light dances in that brief instant, the beam wheels away, and the room is left dark, but not before, just for an instant, it settles into a soft green glow.
She looks down at the smooth, polished orb in her hand.
[ The Island of Thain ]
Call to the Void