I don’t understand how Pathfinder Grandma and Stevenie walk so smoothly without their magicks.
I don’t understand how everyone else tracks shit out here either. It all looks the same.
He never actually gave us a direction or anything on these ‘Channelers’ besides that they’re around and needed to be rid of.
I don’t even know how to kill a troll - don’t they re-juv-erenate? Am I supposed to like, rub my knife in someone’s shit and stab them?
I shouldn’t have gone alone.
Shoulda asked Stevenie to come along.
She’d be good at this. Probably.
Better than me.
I don’t even know how long I’ve been in here.
At least I got water.
Red leather. Red leather. Druidy stuff. Troll.
I don’t know what druids look like.
I’m gonna assume they look like witch-hermits.
Oh- oh… oh.
I think that’s one?
Uh, crap. He has buddies.
Alright.
Think, baby, think.
I’ve done this before.
Kind of.
It was in an alley instead of a forest, though.
And I didn’t kill the idiots that time, according to the Church menders.
And I didn’t want to, anyway, because I had mail to run, and time is money.
But I’ve got this.
Somehow.
Uhmmmmmmm.
Step One: use my magick-y shit.
…
…
Done. They ain’t gonna see me or hear me now.
My magic smells funky out here.
Think a Magister-y folk would call it effer-esc-verent. Or something.
Anyway, focus. Focus.
Step Two: yoot-ill-ise my surroundings.
Tree. Tree. Tree. Bird. Tree. Root. Stump…
...Rock.
Rooooock. Rock. Big rock.
Just gonna… zip up there. ‘Cause they all distracted with drawing pictures on the ground or something. Wonder why they’re arting right now.
And now all I gotta do is… make these shadows eat up the rock too.
Now I’ve got a buddy. A quiet, quiet, buddy. For a big rock.
And… push.
Or try to.
Fuck.
Come on! You’re right on the ledge!
Shove! Kick! Shoulder-check!
Ah! Come on, baby!
COME. O- there it goes.
Rooooll on off, buddy. Like the silent meteor of death you are.
Theeere you g- ...Mmm. Oh.
That was the grossest sound I’ve ever heard in my life.
Sounded like someone dropped a horse onto a vat of cheesy noodles.
--Alright, alright. Focus here, Elv-y. What’s the next step? Two? No, we did two. Right, right.
Step Three: E V I D E N C E. Very important.
...well.
There’s no picking up that boulder.
At least not for me.
Maybe if Cow Guy was here. Or Sunspear Grandpa. Or Dawnmender Tower.
But I am none of those.
There’s….
There’s some body parts sticking out.
Alright, alright. I got this. I knew this camera would come in handy. And Vissy-boy said it was a waste of those crystals I got tipped.
Jokes on you, baby: it IS being used for something other than sleeping drunk people.
Just… gotta… finagle with this shit. And taaake off the lens guard or whatever. Because that’s important, evidently.
Okay.
Alright.
I did it.
Without Stevenie or Grandma.
All by myself.
Hell yeah.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
Six.
Seven.
Eight.
Nine.
Ten.
BOOM, BABY.
Step Four: Profit!
Captain Itrius Sunshatter finds an unreported envelope displayed right on the center of his desk in Kris in the next day’s early morning. Within, is a discordant polaroid.
The foreground possesses the ‘visage’ of the curiously-masked Pathfinder from earlier time, still enwrapped in her characteristic, contrastingly vivid, silks. In spite of her obscuring attire, her pride is evident with the twist of muscles around her lidded eyes and a wrinkle breaking across the scattered dust of freckles along her face. Oh, and one thumb brandished upward across the scene.
Behind her, is the deep forests of the province. Dark, lengthy, underbrush contrasted with towering trees and the crumbling dirtside of a nearby cliff so typical to Kris’ environment… and a rock. A big rock. A boulder, actually, rashed with wet soil from a scraping, hazardous journey.
Beneath the boulder, the wetness of blood blends in with the shadowed greenery of the grasses. But what cannot be easily looked over is… the evident fact that fresh bodies lie crushed underneath the terrible force of nature above. Hips, feet, arms, hands, ears, tusks, all sorts of body parts poke out from underneath their crushing fate. Scraps of their attire, following the known descriptions of the particular trolls known to the province, can be spotted as well amidst the mossy fur and sluggish wounds coating the visible flesh.
The faint glow of unfinished druidic engravements etch out below the gruesome display.
Sought after, and unsought; no one to come, no one to need or remember.
She was alone. Again.
Sendrila was used to the quiet, because she was never truly alone, but this time was different. Even though the rough stone floor was not hard against her back and the breeze whispered platitudes and encouragement, she felt a pit in her stomach.
Lonely. It was a foreign feeling, one not felt for centuries on centuries of forgotten time. Even when Cely left her for her long travels she never felt like this, never felt the need to catch a glimpse of a friendly face. She thought of them now, Cely, the one with the silks, the boy with gold hair, friend of Huge Steve. They were safe, she hoped. Safe under the breeze in the trees, with the earth under their feet, the crackle of their campfires at night. Safe somewhere far away, away from her.
In the corner she lay, her body curling on itself, a sad parody of the death throes of the insects she so loved. Alone in the dark she lifted a finger, a beetle perched on the tip, wings buzzing softly as it tried and failed to fly. It was a sad thing, a broken thing, not fully formed from some cruel twist of fate. Lifting her other hand, she reached out with another finger to gently touch it, the buzz stilling after a second.
“You won’t leave me, right Steve?”
Hard to mend a broken chalice … when it was never meant to be a chalice at all.
For @thanidiel reading courtesy of @stormandozone
@stormandozone, @thanidiel @wideeyesinthenight for mentions!
Sendrila stood outside the gates of the cursed place, the one she didn’t even know the name of. In front of her were five mounds of dirt, little empty plots for those she did not save. Gently she stroked the small beetle in her palm, one of the few she managed to spirit out of the cursed place. One by one the graves smoothed themselves over, the lightest of breezes running fingers through her hair.
“I’m sorry we couldn’t help your friends Steve.”
The insect quivered on her fingertips for a second, iridescent carapace opening to reveal gossamer wings. It lingered there for a moment longer before taking off, flitting slowly lazily away.
They had done enough.
In light of all the tears enjoy some swamp thing having sads at the uldir beetles @curiouslich
You can’t hide forever, her parents had told her when she hid from her tutors, her fine clothes soiled by soil and leaves.
You can’t hide in the woods anymore, she had been told when they stole her from her duties, dressed her in borrowed gowns that felt wrong and foreign.
You can’t hide from me he had screamed at the trees after she had fled, leaving no sign to follow, not even a footprint.
For centuries she had taken solace in the fact that they were wrong, that there in her grotto she knew true peace; forgetting the world and being forgotten in turn.
But nothing lasts forever.
Even now, in the cards that flowed like water and whispered like the wind came the same words, ghosts of a different kind.
You can’t hide forever, Sendrila. Not anymore.
Thank you @stormandozone for that good good reading
For the stinky bog shaman - which element does she feel closest to, and are there any she doesn’t like, or can’t, use and why?
Sendrila is very firmly air aligned. The second would be earth, with fire and water serving in more of an auxillary nature. I headcanon that her connection is on a very base level, and she is a very open and easy communicator bc in some ways she can be a conduit for the will of the elements rather than her own. Since she’s a weird wildswoman her basic needs are always taken care of, the ground never feels hard or cold and there’s always fresh water to drink when she’s thirsty. In legion tainted areas where there’s a lot of felfire she’s completely cut off from fire, and that voice becomes warped and twisted but remains constant, so she tries to avoid those areas, which is why she’s living in a bush in the dawnspire now because her little squat got corrupted :’)Thanks for the ask!
Fire crackled and spit, dancing shadows playing across men and map alike, pebbles as makeshift front lines strewn across worn paper.
“Why don’t we send patrols there?” A manicured finger stabbed at a gap on the map, a small patch of empty space in an otherwise unbroken line.
Tired eyes turned to stare at him, their owner eventually deciding to forgive the newcomer for his ignorance. “Don’t need to. Demons don’t go there.”
“Why not?” Oblivious to the disdain, the noble son of someplace or other kept up, earning him a disdainful snort. Scratching the weeks worth of growth on his chin, the veteran took his time to reply, fixing the young man with a piercing stare.
“Even demons are afraid of ghosts.”
Dipping his hands into the stream, the recruit lifted them to his lips, tasting cautiously to check for fel-taint like he had been taught. Over the top of his fingers, he watched the ‘grizzled veteran’, a boy half his age, plunge his face into the water, drinking with abandon without a shred of care for protocols. Sitting back on his haunches, he let the liquid run through his fingers, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “They said you were there, you saw her.”
The boy sat up, fixing him with eyes that were chillingly old, wiping his chin with the back of his hand. “Aye, they had us pinned- could feel the sound of their boots through the ground under us.
We thought we was done for, but suddenly there was not but a sound, just the wind. We wait, right? And they make me go and see what’s happenin’ and I jus’ see her up there. Now I ain’t never seen a spirit before but there she stood, a ghost in a gale. She waves her hand and demons jus’ crumble like she’d just cut em in half. With another, she makes the ground swallow the rest of em whole. Then, she just stands there like she’s talking to someone, before turnin’ around and disappearin’! No tracks, nothing! There’s a right spirit out there, and you best believe it.” His gaze drops for a moment, staring blankly at the water before blinking and locking eyes again. “But I swear though, before she was gone, she looked right at me, an’ smiled.”
She doesn't see them, but she speaks and they are there to reply. They answer in the clatter of pebbles under her feet, in the fingers of breeze in her hair. From the outside, she is a woman alone, a small figure facing down the endless throngs, but she knows different.
Only the blaze doesn’t answer her, in this place twisted and corrupted. It comes instead screaming at her from the hands of demons, pain evident in each piercing roar. His brothers shield her from the brunt of his fury, and she knows that elsewhere he is whole and unharmed. She tries to soothe him in her campfires during the long nights, soft words doing little to quell the indignation in each crackle.
She can scarcely remember a time before the air around her swirled with sound, when the ground rumbled in response to her questions. The jumble of voices was her constant companion, the woman who used to hunt in silence was another person, another lifetime. The breeze had been the first to answer her, light reedy whispers and puckish laughter, silent and suffocating when it needed to be. The others had followed soon after, their various voices soft but ever-present, and she cherished each of them the same.
Out in this place they are louder, angrier, more insistent. They too balk at the demon’s intrusion, all too happy to aid her in her assignment to eradicate them. There was a purity in her will that the elements spoke to, a clarity that served as their unbreakable bond. Her will was all it took to summon a blade of wind to cut down the mighty down. A thought all she needed to crush armies beneath earth and stone. She was their charge, their ward, and they’d protect her until the ground shattered. Until the seas ran dry. Until the wind gave its last dying breath.
She sleeps, curled up in the dirt amongst the roots of a massive tree, one hand outstretched as if reaching for the hand of a friend. In the stillness of the morning, unseen fingers tousle her hair, causing one pale green eye to open in response. “More coming? Four of them?”
Pushing herself up, she yawns, a pool of water already collecting in the depression she she laid her head. As the breeze picks at stray leaves stuck to her, she drinks deeply, standing and beaming her thanks to the seemingly empty forest around her. In another second she is gone, leaving not tracks but peace in her wake.
In Azsuna, there is a patch of forest littered with rusted armour and scorch marks. No lone woman could have held it, but she had never been alone.
