Ashes to Ashes Epilogue

STORYLINE-WL: GM Kenstrom has the epilogue for the recent #KST Landing storyline, Ashes to Ashes. Three vignettes. All pretty scary! Or … is it a prologue for the next one?

It grew louder as he approached.

Wild barking reverberated across the deck of the ship.

The gold of the alchemist’s rings encircled his fingers. The blood of the child king mayor still soaked his hands. His muscles were sore, and the flesh of his skin where the chains had been tightened were still raw and thin. He had never known confinement before. But now, he had finally, for the first time, known true freedom.

Their breath was pungent. Their eyes were wide and filled with the fire of greed, of rage, of the endless cycle of sailing and sinking that his brothers had been trapped within. He did not blame them. It is all they knew. It was all they had been shown. Some of them watched on with a high sense of reverence, already acknowledging him as their next bringer of war.

The Czag Dubra.

But he would be more than that. They were too simple to understand. Conflict was not eternal. Conquest was not endless. The blue and green light of their god had been tarnished and darkened red. Fires along the ports of humans would not mend it. Pens filled to the brim with elven slaves would not heal it. It would take more than that. It would take him.

Others stared, unwillingly to publicly dishonor him, or show even a shred of mutiny, but he could see it in their eyes. But of them all, the Crow did not wear a mask. His eyes were as dark as the depths of the sea in which he wished to throw him. Soon, he might do just that. He returned the glare, and snarled his lips, reminding him that no one feared a bird over a wyvern.

As he entered his cabin, he closed the door behind him. He smirked at the sight of small squid rings still resting on a wooden crate. He reflected on the events that had transpired, and what his next decisions would be in order to rebuild what he had lost, and reclaim that which had been stolen.

The heretic must have a weakness, he thought to himself.

He does. A voice in his mind responded.

The krolvin warlord sprung forward, a white hand-pylon flying into his grip.

Birthing out of the shadows came a Tehir man, slate blue eyes watching from behind a veil of grey-green. A black burnoose wrapped around his body, shifting like a column of living shadows. He held out his hands, palms forward.

The voice spoke again, echoing in the krolvin’s mind.

I will lead you to his end. All you must do is take it.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

He missed the rising pillars of solid stone ramparts.

Now in their place, were piles and piles of parchment, climbing higher and higher.

He read through one. Skimmed through another. Recognized one from Dakris, and just crumbled it up altogether. Never had his hand tired in all of his years on the battlefield. The fighting, the blood, the war cries, it all filled his veins with life and energy and never dulled his senses. But now he couldn’t even remember where he had left his sword. Was it near the old boxes of Cruxophim’s trinkets? Or the crate with Lylia’s chipped tea cups? Perhaps near the piles of unused red yarn Leafiara left behind. It certainly wasn’t with any of Puptilian’s things, he had discarded those quickly.

The quill in his hand felt heavier than steel. He kneaded his shoulder with his hand. They had all warned him, and they had all been right. It was a cage, and he felt its deep burden weighing upon his back. Gone were the days of scouts bursting into his tent to report the movement of enemy soldiers. Never again would he feel the slick of mud and grime as he crawled through a marsh, to lay in wait for the approach of unsuspecting ravenous orcs. The dull clang of field smiths’ hammers mending armor had been replaced by the endless dribble of whining voices.

My neighbor has stolen some of my sheep! The herbalist is increasing prices again! There’s red paint everywhere on our walls! What are you going to do about these blood witches!

He heard their voices, over and over. His sword usually fixed all of his problems. Now his words never did. Often they just created new ones. He would have lit every stack of scroll on fire if he thought it would do any good. He’d light the whole building on fire just to spare the next mayor if that would help. Maybe Maylan had the right of it. No, there had been enough smoke and ash in his lifetime, and Wehnimer’s Landing didn’t deserve anymore of it.

A knock came from his door. He was torn on what to do. Should he welcome the respite from the daunting administrative work? Or would that door only hold more burdensome tasks for him? Perhaps it would be a giant toothed monster, or a barbarian from the wilds, or an extra planar creature come to claim more flesh. Yes, to all three of those. That is what he wished. Except, where was his sword?

He sighed, loud enough for the visitor beyond the door to hear as he opened it to greet whatever complaint awaited. It was a young man with the frame and face of a boy. It seemed the squires and clerks were all getting younger. Where had the men gone? The future of Wehnimer’s Landing would not be protected by children. He needed soldiers.

The clerk handed him a sealed scroll, awkwardly saluted, then did not linger. He looked at the seal and frowned. The wax bore the symbol of a blue phoenix on a field of silver. The Earl. He placed it in the stack of papers on his desk, but near the top. He wasn’t his Lord anymore, his priorities had shifted.

He felt a twinge of pain in his chest. It was the third time that day. He barely showed a wince then went to stand before a mirror. Slowly lifting his shirt, the dark veins had become even more prevalent along the skin of his chest. He wasted no time in moving to a drawer and snatched up a dagger before sinking it into the flesh of his other arm, driving the blade up under a small shard of bluish-white kroderine and painfully wedging it out of his skin. Blood oozed across his arm as the metal fragment fell to the floor. Two more times, he pried chunks of kroderine from his flesh, biting his tongue in agony as the metal remnants clattered below.

With blood trailing down his fingers now, he returned to the mirror and watched as the veins lightened. But he knew what came next. He closed his eyes and braced for it. One by one, the scraps of kroderine lifted into the air and spun towards him, immediately fusing again with his skin and plugging the bleeding holes in his arm. But the veins remained faded, so he nodded in approval.

He had bought himself some more time again. But for how long?

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The air bent and shimmered.

Odd sounds popped and a faint hum echoed in the distance.

A small rat skittered along an earthen floor that had been pooled with a glow of silver moonlight. The rodent stopped to sniff at the corner of polished rock walls, its nose and tiny whiskers twitching. Its beady red eyes darted about and it inched towards the center of the enormous chamber where a gigantic blue cocoon was suspended by dozens of sinewy dark green tendrils, which disappeared into the depths of the encasing. Deep viridian veins stretched along the slime-covered surface of the cocoon, and periodically it seemed to flicker in and out of existence.

As the rat got closer, it suddenly collapsed to its side, blood seeping out of its still and lifeless eyes. For a brief moment within the cocoon, a tiny hand appeared, pressing against the inside of it.

A second hand appeared. Then another, then another.

Then another.

-GM Kenstrom-
Waylayer of Wehnimer’s Landing

Newsby

Newsby is the main anchor for the TownCrier channel over ESP and Lich. She does not adventure, she is a townsperson and completed her apprenticeship for the news desk in 2017.