Difference between revisions of "D5"

Latest revision as of 20:01, 29 September 2017

The celebration of the victory of Thraindul over the Orcs was in full swing, wild with the kind of unfettered joy that can only come from a people that had already come to terms with their defeat only to have victory forced down their throats by creatures of legend. The dwarves had set their feet, ready for blood and death at the hands of the green horde and when a mishmash of lunatic foreigners had left their city to give some foolish funeral rites for diseased Stone Giants half faded into the deadlands themselves, none could predict if the city would still be standing on their return, let alone for them to return with mighty arcane behemoths ready to wake the ancient defenses and rain death on the greenskins. Now every person in the city had a thick blanket of despair on their shoulders and it seemed to Derrick that every last one of them intended to dissolve it away with copious quantities of Dwarven Spirits.

Derrick, for his part, was trying to become one with the back walls of this establishment. He was quite familiar with hopelessness, but for him it was not going to end with Jotun magic and ribald songs. There was a pressure in the air, an undercurrent of hate that Derrick did not trust to be gone any time soon. Count Argus was done for, but the Corrupter had risked little with his pawn and likely had many others moving across the board.

The joke of Derrick's inattention had become legend within the party, but even he could not fail to notice when quite possibly the most lovely example of feminine hobbit grace entered the feasthall. For a moment the room was empty to him and Derrick felt his face flush. All at once he forgot everything. He did not remember the patchwork of disfiguring scars across his face, nor the black shadow that perpetually lay across his soul. He could not even remember his name. In his stupor he stared dumbly as she scanned the room, her gaze falling ever so briefly on Derrick's slackjawed face. She barely lingered but even in that moment Derrick was able to see the revulsion. She was polite enough to wipe it away quickly but it was clear enough. Again he was Derrick Sawyer, troll and blaggard.

He tried to behave, to not look at her with every moment. His mind was screaming at him to hide his thoughts, to not let Papa Starlight hear, not let him know his hopeless hunger for her innocent beauty. He knew he was making an utter mess of it, expecting at any moment to feel the cold breath of starless space that would herald Papa's arrival. He could not master his emotions, he was lost at the thought of her and he knew that she surely would not have a second glance for him. He contented himself to quietly drink as near as he could dare without offending her sensibilities.

He heard conversations and learned her name. She was Arcadia Rootfield, only daughter of a prominent hobbit family. She did not call herself hobbit, but rather was called by the Dwarves here Smallfolk. He swallowed bile as drunken dwarves and hobbits and even humans tried to buy her drinks and make inappropriate suggestions. He had no right to jealousy but deserved or not he felt it burn his throat. She was glib and gracious at refusing the advances and her laughter was altogether disarming. She was almost another attraction at the feasthall, competing with the dice pit and the card game and the contest of vigor that Jihan was taking part in with some young Dwarf miners who were genuinely insulted at the notion that a gangly half-elf could outdrink them.

For a time Derrick watched the rest of the crowd, and when his attention returned to Arcadia something had clearly cracked her jovial facade. A boorish human was making demands of her and she was clearly upset by his attitude. His tone was arrogant and his demands most inappropriate. Derrick caught a name and a family woven into his threats, and it was enough for Derrick to weave together a plan.

The celebrations were loud and Derrick's chanting was low, it went without notice. He chose illusions of sound, dwarven sounding voices just loud enough for the human to easily hear over the din but direction lost in the cacophony. “Everyone knows that the master of the house of Druthic is a cuckold and his children are bastards born of the lady's love of masked orgies. From what I hear she is fond of Orc flesh.” The human reacted as if shot by a crossbow, wheeling around the room looking for the source of the slander. From another part of the room came the retort “I hear her son has both sets of parts. He has to tape his tits down to wear men's armor.” The human drew steel and he and a pack of goons at his command went swimming through the crowds as Derrick drew them back and forth through the sea of bodies, chasing taunts of “Druthic sheepfuckers” and “Nah they only like it when the sheep fuck THEM”. Every chuckle was another insult and in very short order the whole lot found themselves ejected from the hall completely by stout dwarven bouncers.

Derrick laughed to himself, pleased at the result but when he turned back to Arcadia he saw that she was staring openly at him. No one could have picked him out of the churn of drunken dwarves but nonetheless she was without a doubt locked on him and she soundlessly mouthed the words “thank you”. Derrick was not surprised when an illusion of her voice manifested right by his ear and spoke the words that she was forming. Derrick could not comprehend for a heartbeat, then he found his wits enough to nod.

So it went for an hour or more, the two of them magically whispering in a crowded room. She told him that she had a little mastery of the art but that it was sorcery and her control was marginal. He told her of the giants and how his companions had taken on the task of helping them. She told him that she was afraid to tell her parents about her budding power and he warned her that lying about it would only mean that she would have two things to confess when the truth came out and she was better to be a freak than a freak and a liar.

Eventually she came over to his table and teased him for not coming over to hers first. “I am easier to look at from farther away” he responded and to his surprise she laughed. She confided in him “I have to see to my parents but I will come back if you will wait for me.” The thought was too much for Derrick, did she actually ENJOY talking to him? He promised to wait for her, watching her leave with longing in his heart. Less than ten heartbeats later he was out the door himself, unable to bear the anticipation.

He saw her up ahead running in the lamplight. Why was she in such a hurry? Then he saw them. She was being chased. The Druthic noble and his goons were at her heels, jeering as their long legs closed the distance easily. They had steel drawn and their intentions were clear. They meant to take what they wanted from her by force. Derrick urged his legs to make haste. They responded stiffly but obediently.

The thugs made a game of herding her, pushing her toward darker alleys and she was not able to see through their ruse in time. They managed to drive her into a dead end and closed in. By the time Derrick caught up they were making a game of shoving her one to the next, each time ripping one of her garments as they pushed. Derrick yelled out without thinking “Touch her again and you're dead!”

The humans laughed. The fool at the head of the alley thought he was going to battle the lot of them? Three feet tall with no armor and no weapon except a silly silver flute that he was brandishing like a Rod of Lordly Might? The noble snarled back “Turn around halfie, and you might live to see the sunrise.” They were ignoring Derrick and advancing on Arcadia who was nearly nude and cowering at the back of the alley.

In desperation Derrick did the one thing he was sure would get their attention. He replayed the illusion, the dwarven jeers louder in the still night air and clearly coming from Derrick this time. “It was you?” The noble raged and turned on Derrick. “You just made your last mistake you little half shite.” His dagger was joined by an arming sword as the whole group advanced with deadly purpose.

Derrick chuckled ominously. “No, stupid. You just made yours. You gave me room to throw my spell without hitting her.” He leveled his flute and uttered the cruel words that Papa's dreams had whispered to him. The entire width of the alley was consumed with an inky blackness.

“You think we are afraid of the dark, little wizard? When we get to you we are going to use you worse than we ever meant to use your little friend.”

“Oh you are wrong again, you simpleminded satyr's bitch. I am no wizard and that is not darkness. Do you not hear it? Listen closely, it's the last thing you are going to hear.” As if on cue, the voices of a dozen madmen rose up out of the darkness; all at once crying and screaming and laughing in a way that only the truly unhinged mind can laugh. And interspersed with the screaming madness was that sound, the wet sound of something unfathomable rolling a slimy bulk through the deepest voids of the Far Realm.

The walls of the alley near the blackness were forming a thick hoarfrost now, and within the impenetrable dark the fresh screams of the formerly confident humans were joining the lunatic choir. “Gentlemen, and I use the term quite loosely, I would like to introduce you to Hadar. From what I hear he has many many tentacles and instead of suckers his limbs are covered with mouths. The tentacles will penetrate your worthless bodies and then the mouths will eat their way free. Ponder on this violation and the irony of you who would penetrate unwilling flesh now being the ones penetrated. But ponder quickly, I am told that Hadar has a special fondness for brains.”

As cruel and confident as his speech was, Derrick was secretly grateful for the curtain of black that kept him from witnessing the carnage. He held the spell as long as he could, waiting for the human screams to stop completely. At one point the leader, the nobleman seemed close to breaking free. His face and chest strained as it pressed free of the blackness, covered with frost and acid and a score or more ropey black tentacles. Derrick watched him desperately trying to wrench free with wild eyes and he thought about being merciful and putting a blade through his exposed chest, end his suffering. In the end the thought of the noble's intentions steeled Derrick's will and instead of a blade he pushed the nobleman back into the black with his flute, slowly and deliberately. Derrick watched the fresh panic wash over the man's face as he realized what was happening.

Once the mortal voices were still, Derrick released his spell. He waded his way through nearly unrecognizable carnage and reached Arcadia who was whimpering at the back wall. Without a word he wrapped her in his fur cloak and scooped her up. He carried her for a time, striding through the empty streets with no direction to take, only marching for the sake of doing something. Eventually she regained her composure enough to start calling out turns and they made it to her family home.

She went inside without a word and although she did not close the door behind her Derrick was not so sure of himself as to follow so he stood at the open door like a sentry. He had no idea how she was going to react. He had saved her, but also he had placed her mere feet away from the kind of hopeless terror that melts away sanity like butter in the sun. He had rescued her, yes, but he had done so by revealing himself to be a monster.

He heard the door pull shut and at first he assumed that she had come back just to lock it. Instead when he turned he saw her resplendent. She had fresh clothes finer than the ones the thugs had ruined. Her face was washed and her hair was fixed up in a very aristocratic fashion. She looked perfect, her garb and her temperament betraying no sign of the evening's ordeal. Without so much as an invitation she wrapped both of her arms around Derrick and rested her head on his shoulder. For a moment he just stood there, enjoying the simple intimacy of her embrace. Finally she whispered to him. “Shall we then?”

“Um, certainly. Where are we going?”

She giggled softly. “Back to the party of course. It's not even midnight yet.”

Chapter 4

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