Welcome to the Underdark
Well, here we go, Chapter 2: Something in the Deep is finally being released without the mistake of being called Something in the Dark.
Please enjoy and tell me what you think! ^^
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“And the son said, ‘if the 9 Gods are so powerful, why did it take all 9 of them to seal Little Bird?’ The mother only replied, ‘Because the Great Calamity is a terrible, terrible mistake upon this world.” Scroll of Materna 2:6
Doth Thou Curse Bare Upon The Land Once More Little Bird? Doth Thou
Chapter 2: Something In The Deep
“AHHHH” Little Bird screamed as the woman… no, the monster who calls herself The Torturer inflicted the most unbearable pain upon the caged bird. The searing hot iron melted and cauterised the deep cuts made in her skin, done by the same person who aims for no information or retribution, only the pleasure of seeing the chirping of the calamity in front of her. “Please, please stop. STOP.” The Little Bird screamed in pain and terror once more as her mind finally broke down after 72 hours of nonstop cutting and cauterising. Her skin pale and bruised bluer than the ripest berries from the Seven Passages, but slowly, yet quick enough to be visible, the colour realigns it’s self to the natural fair colour of skin and the melted craters caused by the flames disappeared, only leaving a beautiful woman chained to the ceiling and suspended a meter off the ground.
“See?” said the monster, “Look at how your feathers are so beautiful after so much wear and tear. Why is it not fine to take it for myself and to play with it? After all, you’re a calamity. A monster yourself, destined never to set foot in the outside world again.” The Monster said spitefully, ounces of hate mixed in with every word that reached her ear. “I love the world, so you must hate it. I like other beings, so you must kill them. You have no choice on the matter, after all we are opposites destined to hate.” The monster cackled an ungodly laugh as she stepped out of the cold, stony, room that held Little Bird captive. It was her cage and hers alone. This was for her sins against the world, this is what she deserved. She loved the world, what did she do to it? What did she hurt, or kill, to deserve this?
“It doesn’t matter,” she mumbled to herself, “Where is he?” Little Bird asked. None of it mattered. This is her cage, her eternal torment, destined to continue till the end of time itself with each week a new tormentor to lead her to her imminent break her down.
9 years till the great calamity.
—
3 leagues from the deepest darkest depths of nowhere led Glynn to the murky, misty mire. The stale air almost as stale as the ‘water’ sitting in small pools between the natural paths, all leading to the one spike being the central point in this swamp aptly named Lone Tower. From the distance there was nothing much to be said but an oddly shaped and darkly coloured, but as Glynn got closer and closer he could see the true wonder that was Lone Tower.
Just 1 league from Lone Tower, when the twilight hour was nigh, Glynn saw the odd shape grow. Not growing larger as if he was moving closer to him but physically growing, slowly, yet visibly, vertically into the terrifying heights. Trudging ever closer to the mystical tower he saw two signs, one floating in the water the other staked to the ground saying. The water-borne one was covered in thick moss but the text could still be read as clear as the day it was made, “RIP to ‘Moonlit Dancers’”. The other could be red too but was slightly less visible, “Death count since creation: 526,627”.
Glynn stood still and stared at the latter sign, He could only wonder how such a precise number could come about. He looked towards the tower and saw a flash of light similar to that of a conflagration and moment later an ear shattering roar came about which confirmed that it was an explosion. He quickly glanced to the sign once more and saw two things, “Death count since creation: 526,631” and “RIP to Carnol Tucker / Arnold Moore / Michal Tuner / Leona ‘The Untrue Shot’ Everboom”.
After 30 minutes of travelling ever-onwards towards Lone Tower, Glynn came across a single man walking towards him. The man had an uncanny mix of grey and brown on top of his hermit-like head, accompanied by a similarly hermit-like beard, his crooked back gave him a visible limp with a leg slightly shorter that the other, giving him a slant in his already obvious limp. A ‘white’ tunic that was stained over and over with various colours with a patched brown jacket that’s been through a lot of wear and tear, brown trousers down to half his shins along with wearing leather boots on his feet that supplemented the missing space in his legs, but not by much. An assortment of equipment and items came with the old man, including, an intricate looking walking stick made of Ashen-Brown Oak used to prop up the old man, a mahogany bow and strange looking ebony arrows with weird markings and red feather fletching in a well used, cow hide quiver. The arrows in particular caught Glynn’s eye as they were not of the sort that he had seen before and noticed that one of them was the wrong was around, due to this he saw that the arrowheads were an unusual trident shape with strange red liquid dripping out of it. Despite what it may look like at first but this was not blood, it was an entirely different liquid.
“Hail traveller, did you read the sign that came across earlier?” he asked in an old, decrepit voice.
“Aye, who’s asking?” Glynn replied, cautious of the obviously out of place villager.
“Oh, excuse me I haven’t introduced myself. My name’s Cane, the local hunter, and I live near the village over by lone tower. I’ve came to look at the Signs down the road.” Glynn paused and gave Cane a strange look, maybe he had been drinking? He certainly had the look and the stench that accompanied a night of heavy drinking but that wouldn’t explain how or why he came here to look at signs 6 leagues away from the village. Glynn pushes this point.
“What brings a man a day’s walk away from his village?”
“Oh don’t you know? The explosion at Lone Tower brings us, or namely, me, to see its victims.”
“So why not go to the Tower?”
“Because it’s infested with all manner of things on the inside, so we look at the signs. Much safer.”
“Interesting, so who made the signs? Wizards are either part of the Inquisition or the Guild and neither of which will make something like this or give something like this away at all.”
“Neither of the Factions, he’s an ex guildsman gone roamer that’s settled in our kind village. Even got two of his own apprentices, one of which went in the tower.” Glynn had a look of pure astonishment upon his face. 1 in 1000 people have a prowess to study magic and only 1 in 10,000 people with that knack have the funds to study magic, so it is rare for a village to even have a wizard let alone apprentices. Another profound idea was that the wizard was a roamer; the whole point of the factions was to protect wizards from people trying to misuse and abuse their powers. Some such people like “The True Seer’s”, a delusional group of people heralding the birth of a new era of magic, these people class under the name of “Terror Seekers”. The fact that he’s a roamer means that he’s either a Terror Seeker himself or he was excommunicated from the factions.
“So what are you then? Those arrows are not of a regular hunter’s.” Using that as a prop to regain his shaken mental state, he pointed out the strange arrows in the quiver.
“I’m not a regular hunter boy; these arrows are specially made for the Murkers in this god’s forsaken place.”
“Murkers?”
“Aye the Murkers,” He spat on the ground, “The little devils are holed up in this wetland ready to prey out on any they see fit, you’re lucky you haven’t seen one boy. You can’t usually get in and out of this place without an encounter or two, so we’ve laced these with poison that they don’t like one bit.”
“So monk’s hood then?”
“Ah you do know of them.”
Murkers were a foul being that live in the wetlands, perfectly suited to them. They would lie in wait in the muddy waters and the long grasses of the wetlands to kill their prey with brute force and drag their bloodied corpse to their nest in the water, earning them the name “Murkers”. They were said to look like a fish with human like arms and legs, only to have an elongated neck that retracted at will, similar to the body of an eel only retractable.
“We’re getting off topic lad, what was the name of the people on the sign?”
“Something like Carnol, Arnold, Michal and Leona.” The old man’s face drained of all colour, hastily and worriedly he asked Glynn,
“What was the last one’s name? Quickly!” Seeing the old man in a panic Glynn stumbled across a few words.
“Uh… Um… Everboom.”
“Oh dear… Oh dear, oh dear.” Cane began walking back and forth.
“Why, what’s wrong?” Glynn cautiously asked.
“The Wizard name was Leoric Everboom.”
—
One and a half days later in the Lone Tower village
A dark room was illuminated by the warm, open fire. Tables were piled with scattered documents, recipes and a single painting of a girl with Auburn hair that came done to her shoulders; lay down on the piles of expensive paper. She had a face that was the ire of women and the affection of men, her body was much the same as she donned a golden dress down to her small feet. She was sitting of the trunk of a felled tree in the sunny vastness of grasslands behind her, few small hills with long grasses, hiding the potential wildlife underneath.
That painted 2 years ago, now that scene could no longer be seen again.
Yesterday evening the ‘Misfire Incident’ occurred and killed all 4 people involved, including the Wizard that was the problem. The cause of the incident, Leona Everboom, was not even given a gave due to the mixture of anger and spite mixed in with the laughs against her very existence. Her father, the last surviving family member and an excommunicated wizard, was driven out of the village he was staying. Due to the failure and impossibility to punish the dead, this was a natural choice for the irrational citizens.
Now at the edge of his village, with naught but a weeks worth of provisions and the cloth on his back, stood an that father and the people he helped so much over the past years.
“Finally, we can get rid of the nuisance of our village.” Said Mr Tucker, the man whom he had taught alchemy to I case something were to happen.
“I never liked him, he was always suspicious.” Said Mrs Tuner, the lady whom he had given enchanted thread for her tailor business.
“Aye, the sooner the better.” Said Mr Moore, the man whom he had supplied potions for 3 years due to the constant need to prevent him from killing himself with the faulty and experimental be had constantly tried to produce.
The village looked to him in disgust, no one here had harboured good intentions towards him save Lily Woadhart, his student for 5 years. If that’s the case then why did he stay here, why did he help? Who caused him to help? Who was to blame? The last question cycled over and over till he figured it out, he wasn’t to blame. The village was to blame, they must have been. Who else could have made Leona miss but the village? They must have occupied her mind when she cast the spell, that was definitely it.
If that was the case then he must have justice on the people who caused Leona to die.
“Puhahaha, I’ve figured it out. You killed Leona, you killed my daughter.” The village looked at him in bewilderment, “You say punish me but I’ve done nothing, so I must punish you. Drigolion y dyfnder , oedd yn edrych yn alwad hon o frwydr . dewch yma at y pwynt dy feistr.” An ungodly screech harked as the wizard uttered every last word of this ancient tongue, the ground shook as the swamp started moving.
The Murkers were on the move.
Welcome To The Underdark 