Iron Quill - (Honesty): The Ashen Landscape

[E.T.A. Hoffman]

Part I: http://wyrd-games.net/community/topic/99431-iron-quill-the-hunt-venas-violin/

Part II: http://wyrd-games.net/community/topic/100502-iron-quill-absent-friends-tomorrows-town/

 

 

The Ashen Landscape

 

It had been, by Nell’s reckon, six months since her destruction of Tomorrow’s Town, a small place on the boarder of nowhere that she had inadvertently burned to the ground. A part of her felt no guilt for it, since they had attacked her first and yet another part of her worried about the ratio of innocent to cruel men. Could a town be completely filled with bad people? She would often wonder late into the night until exhaustion won.

               

It had also been over a year since she saved her own life by striking an eternal bargain with the creature of the forest, Vena, who had both gifted her with a great weapon and murdered her family. This she rarely thought about anymore. A sixteen year old girl needed iron in her blood to survive in Malifaux and the past only rusted her insides.

               

Bingles, formerly the beast named Vena, leapt onto a boulder, twitching its tail; it waited for Nell to catch up.

 

“Wonder, wonder where will Nell next blunder,” said Bingles.

 

 Nell walked past the furry little cat without a glance.

 

“You must have mustered a plan or mused on the matter,” said the cat.

 

“I don’t know where I’m going,” said Nell.

               

“Then when will your trek retire?”

 

“If this world has an end, maybe there, or maybe till I can’t go on.”

 

“Every entity engenders some sort of endeavor eventually, not even Nell can negate the necessity of purpose.”

 

“If I knew what I wanted I’d go get it. Or, I should say, if I wanted anything I’d have figure that out what it were,” said Nell sullenly and from a great distance.

               

Bingles hopped off the rock and ran ahead.

 

Days passed in silence. Nell was sure that her supplies were only going to last her one or two more days, if she cut her rations to half.

               

In her previous life, Nell had lived on a small farm near the city. In her despair she had began her march eastward without any inkling where she might be going. She was far from the city now, farther out than perhaps any major population of humans had moved so far. She couldn’t recall how far back the last town was she had left. The only thing that broke up the monotony of her life was the occasional life threatening encounter with some creature or another.

 

A breeze blew hot sand across her face, she had become accustomed to this, but a pungent tang of sulfur struck her as very odd. The deserts of Malifaux rarely smelled of anything. The stench got stronger as she marched. Soon, it was over powering. It burned her eyes. Her stomach reeled so hard she collapsed to her knees. Vomit came up but she clapped her hand to mouth. She couldn’t afford to waste any of the food she had eaten. Tears washed the dirt from her face in muddy streams.

 

After a few moments she regained control. Her hand came away, sticky with bile, she whipped it on the sand for the little good it did. Bingles, she noticed, sat only a foot away with a look on it that made Nell hate it even more.

 

First one foot, then the other; each step forward requiring fresh resolve. Nell would not turn back. She could never turn back. A very slow mile later, Nell came to the source of the foul air. Blanketing the landscape for as far as she could see was a grey ash. She stopped on the line where the sandy desert floor transformed. The sky was different over those lands, the endless corpse-blue was gone and a drab lead color replaced it.

 

“What is it?” asked Nell.

 

Bingles sniffed. “Old,” was all he said.

 

Nell placed a boot on the ash. It was cold on that side of the world. When nothing happened she placed the other one on it. When nothing happened still, she marched on just as she had done for the last year. It would take more than the strange to stop her, though she did advance a little more cautiously now.

 

It was not until Nell was practically upon the village that she had seen it. The horizon was a constant dull grey and the buildings just slightly darker, an almost perfect camouflage.

 

There was something wrong, Nell saw it almost instantly. The structures where shaped like any one might find in Malifaux, but their substances were… wrong, was the only way Nell could think of it. Instead of wood or iron, each building seemed crafted from shadow; a surface like ink that wisped at the edges. Nell withdrew her soul stone violin.

 

When They spoke, it was as if their whole population was speaking. In a horrible singsong voice They said, “No child, we are not to be feared. There is no harm here for you.”

 

Nell nearly strung a note out of fright. The voices quickly revealed their owners as smoke like apparitions emerged from the structures and, in some places, out of the ground. They were vaguely humanoid but lacked any distinguishing features other than size. Some were tall and others very short. Each of them resonated pathetically; Nell couldn’t help but feel pity for them. Still, that wasn’t enough to lower her violin.

 

“What do you want from me?” asked Nell.

 

“We are the Children of Charr, or so we recall. Anything else we might have been has eroded with the ages,” They sang.

 

“That’s nice, but I enquired about your intentions not your history,” said Nell, she kept her bow ready, and if they moved even a little suspiciously she would raze another town.

 

“Revenge,” They said, “is what we want. Once, we were beings of so many colors and functions but a beast came, a creature with a legacy of ruin and nothing more, who laid us to waste. By will and despair we remained to seek retribution. The beast moved on after it consumed us but we could not pursue it for we are anchored to this location by memory. Eons passed and we have waited for something to free us.”

 

“How, and yet a better question, why would I free you?” asked Nell.

 

“We hold a great many secrets, things we knew when once we lived. If we could be freed from our want of revenge, then perhaps we can offer you these secrets in trade.”

 

Nell shifted her weight back in preparation to flee. If she could trust one thing in Malifaux, it’s that if you refuse a monster’s offer it usually got mad. “You cannot give me what I want.”

 

“What is it you desire?”

 

She didn’t know. Feelings she had been subduing were coming to the fore of her mind. She pushed them back. “To leave, that’s all.”

 

“Wealth? Power? Knowledge? Life? Freedom? Our ancient knowledge can provide any of these things.”

 

“Yes, you young fool, what is it you desire?” asked Bingles, it had kept an amused silence up till now, his curiosity had been piqued.

 

Nell stammered. Anxiety was filling her, she knew this whole time she was just moving to make motion but whenever she was forced to consider why she just buried the thought away, someplace dark in her mind, then moved on.

 

“We sense a terrible despair in you, sadness is perhaps the only thing we truly understand,” They said.

 

Memories of a bloody scene came flooding: a severed limb belonging to her father, her mother’s head frozen with a wicked and bloody grimace. Nell cried. “I want… I want…”

 

“We can return them to you,” They said, having picked away at the surface of Nell’s psyche.

 

“No!” she screamed. She felt dizzy, the ground came rushing towards her but it didn’t hurt when she landed. A cloud of ash was supporting her.

 

“Really?” purred Bingles, “Now isn’t it interesting.”

 

“Don’t bring them back,” sobbed Nell. “I can’t…”

 

“But why?” They sang in a tone of true confusion.

 

“I can’t! They would…” Nell trailed off into more gently sobs.

 

Bingles sauntered close to her. “Why not girl? Do not you miss them or have you come to mind the misery you’ve made?”

 

“I can’t bare to have them hate me!” Nell screamed. “If they came back… if they could know what I did… they would hate me! The memory of their love is all I have left of them.” Her voice became almost a whisper. “Please don’t take that away from me.”

 

“Amusing,” purred Bingles.

 

“Child, you are lost and in that we share a true fate. But, we can give you something you desperately seem to need,” They said.

 

Nell looked up into the crowd of faceless things. “What” she sniffed.

 

“Purpose, we can help you find purpose in this world,” They said gently.

 

Inexplicably, Nell felt they meant what they were promising. The deep longing in her seemed to match the agony they felt. In that union a feeling of something close to comfort was lurking. “I can trust the honesty of your words,” it wasn’t a question.

 

“We are kindred spirits, we will fulfill our promise if you yours.”

 

Nell lifted herself from the cloud, it disappeared. "How can I assist you?”

 

“We need someone to carry us and carry out our revenge, to kill the Great Arachnid known only as Ruin.”

 

“How can we find him? If it’s as old as you suggest, then he might have long since died.”

 

“Indeed, you are correct. Ages have won against him too. But, like us, a fragment of Ruin remains. Even if it’s all we can do, we will destroy that much of him.”

 

“Then, I agree to assist you.”

 

A great sigh went out amongst the shadowfolk. “Thank you child, an eternity of gratitude is yours in addition to what we have agreed upon. At this tasks ending, you will have found a purpose suitable.”

 

The buildings collapsed, the shadowfolk dissolved, and the ashen landscape exploded into a hurricane. Nell covered her eyes as the whirlwind raged; she braced herself to stay standing. The storm narrowed, forming a great cyclone directly over Nell. It flowed into her face, forcing her hands away, and into her mouth. She could feel her lungs filling with ash. It was agony but she couldn’t breathe to cry. In panic she clawed at her throat, leaving bloody snakes from her nails. Then all at once it was over. The world of ash was gone and the desert of Malifaux was all around her.

 

Exhausted, she sat on the ground, breathing heavily. She coughed and each time a small cloud of ash escaped her but would quickly flow right back in.

 

A great laughter filled the desert; a vicious malevolent howl that instantly made Nell fell like a small child again, hiding under her blankets from the monsters all around her that parents can never seem to see. She looked behind her and there was Bingles. The tiny little cat with its head tossed back and a voice as vast as the world was laughing. For a long time Nell laid in terror as Vena, the creature of the forest reveled in haunting mirth.

[Sholto]

That was cool

 

Is this a continuation of another story?

[E.T.A. Hoffman]

Thanks for reading and I'm glad you liked it!

Yes it is a part of a continous series. I totally forgot to post the links here. lol

 

Added links to the story!

[Sholto]

Ta! I was going to say that this story has a good sense of background to it - there is clearly a larger narrative at play here. I just wasn't sure if it was something you were going to reveal later, or had already done so

[E.T.A. Hoffman]

I kind of plan on sticking to these characters for a while and turning all my IQ's enteries into a larger narrative.

 

Thanks a lot for the interest!