The Waters of Wynlomere

[KidKrinkles 2043]

 

[The following is a narrative retelling of some roleplay, please do not metagame.]

 

 

· · ────── ꒰✦꒱ ────── · · · · ────── ꒰✦꒱ ────── · · The Faceless Tormentor https://pin.it/2Yxjbt5pD

The sounds of a taut rope creaking under the weight of the heavily armored Bowie could be heard, a pulley straining against the cord. Lower, lower the lift went. Even the entrance to Wynomere felt like a crypt: a trio of skulls all staring, empty-eyed and unjudging, like the keeper's to some foreboding hell. Though, there was no lamp-lit underworld. The cavern felt as if it was its own lush, unearthed paradise, forgotten by some absent God, as a lost terrarium. Proof that life could indeed flourish where we lay our dead.   He quietly eyed the bulletin board as he entered. No outsiders until the war is over.   … At least he wouldn't be breaking the law. The gate was even open, though he did feel a quiet chill creep up his neck as he spied it. Perhaps some sixth sense, though it was more than likely the manifestation of that blind foresight he was tormented by. Even in the cramped cave, a figure greater than the room cramped itself, knees tight to its chest, hands holding up the ceiling, and its hollow, swirling face whispered what might happen next. It told him he'd die. It always told him he'd die.   … there was no greeting, the cave reached out to him in utter silence. The waters of Wynomere were crystal, and clear, the soft and weathered stones beneath them holding them up like cupped hands. It felt a place unperverted by the corruption and tyranny of the topside world. The wise would merely plug the gate, and continue to exist with their head in the sand, blissfully.   But the Bowie-knight had purpose here. As much as he appreciated the cerulean stillness and the sanctuary it offered, he would have to ruin it for someone. He drew in a long inhale and glanced about, soon spying a crackling fire atop the hillside. At least he could begin there. Step by step, he began his climb, armor clanking softly as he went.   His mind drifted, as it always did, from thought to thought: the Emperor of Humanity has seized the reins of fate. All of the world had crumbled, or knelt, before them. He was a hunted man with no refuge in the world: no safe haven, and no home. There weren't even allies to protect him in these moments. It was a conscious effort to stave off the dread of his greater situation: to keep his mind from sinking further. But, as with all things;   We persevere, and move one step at a time.   His thoughts split off, at the sound of grunting, and steel, and death.

 

He stepped onto the road between the fire and the branching path, and saw the fighting to either side of him. A hulking red Uruk, bone exposed in places, wielded a great and wicked halberd. Opposite him, a figure clad in dark plate, their face shadowed, raised a hammer to strike the outnumbered armored man between them. And near the fire, a smaller armored figure reared back… it seemed to be striking a child.

 

"What's going on here?" Victor called out, though his hand had already drawn Kieran's warpick: wrought, black metal of high-density volatite that shifted low in his grip, and a rokodra shield that misted in the humid, damp cave air. The uruk answered with motion, halberd swinging down as he barked out, "Lat muvz, lat die."

 

"Sounds like if'a dun' move, ah'm dead too." The bowie retorted. He couldn’t reach the armored man in time, not without losing something else… but he could reach the child. He watched as an armored boot kicked the small figure closer to the fire, though they rolled with surprising agility. Victor stepped in, placing himself between the attackers and the child, his gaze flicking between the smaller form and the larger threats closing in. The halberd soon turned and the Uruk made his way for Victor, and in those rushing movements, it was hard not to think that the dead Uruk looked a lot like Tide'rippa.

 

“Whub wi du knyght?” The voice snapped Victor from his thoughts, as he realized the child was a goblin. But that realization only lasted a heartbeat; any life is a life worth saving. His left-arm reacted on instinct, catching a downward motion. An axe made a heavy clang into the Rokodra of his shield: rending a slash through the Mountains of Solgaard emblazoned upon it, like some terrible beast carving the countryside. He shoved upward, and a swift smack from the warpick announced its strike with a matching boom, the force of which shuddered up the knight's arm as he backpedaled around the fire; the flames recoiled away from the shockwave, ash spilling across the stones.   “Try'te find'a way te' disengage kid.” He urged. But there were few safe avenues to escape from. He was already slowing under heavy-plate and mail. He looked to the goblin briefly, and spied the red-faced Uruk rush forward, lifting their wicked halberd, “KRUUUUUG” they cried. The dwarf broke for the goblin; the bowie-knightstunned by their killing intent for something so small.   "Nub ah kub!" The goblin shrieked, diving backwards and landing on their heel, spinning in place.    Victor followed their gaze to the cliff’s edge. It was difficult to judge the drop, the distance, but there was water below. Perhaps drowning was kinder than what waited here.   Seeing the goblin make for the edge: he followed.   His foot left the ledge, and for a moment he felt weightless—before the fear seized him whole. Men were not meant to be birds. The water rushed into his armor as he struck it, flooding through the gaps and into his helm. His gambeson soaked through at once, his cigarette snuffed out,   And then came the snap.

· · ────── ꒰✦꒱ ────── · · · · ────── ꒰✦꒱ ────── · · The Caverns of Wynomere https://pin.it/1eTzNmbpy

 

His right shin broke with the cold embrace of the waves. Pain lanced up his leg, sharp, overwhelming. He gargled a scream in his helmet at the shock of it. He couldn't even notice the pain in his left leg.

 

His left-foot found stone, not yet deep enough to vanish it seemed. His hands scrambled, and he pulled upon a lip, and gasped as he felt his ears pop: and water drained from his armor. Limestone-silt silt his helmet and emptied from his lungs. He began to crawl, dragging himself like an alligator through the waters as a wounded beast. His hands reached for the corner of a rocky outcrop, where he might simply vanish from.

 

Above, where he had come from, a smoke-signal of sorts followed after a crash. The uruk's great halberd had sent up a black plume, rising as a thin, ominous column. A silent death-knell.

 

But there was a second impact. The dwarf had followed him. They struck the stone outright, legs shattering beneath them as they crumpled, yet even then their hand reached for a javelin, their focus unbroken. The determination of the dead was confounding and terrifying There was a razor focus behind the visor of the dead: no pain, only a murderous thirst. A jealousy of life.

 

Victor pulled himself further along the rock, slipping around the corner as the tide began to drag at him. His fingers strained for purchase along the slick stone, and he glanced back just as a javelin slammed into the edge where his head had been moments before. He'd nearly lost his grip, as he tried to spy the goblin. Unfortunately, he found them: plummeting, a bola wrapped to their feet, and the Uruk above had ushered them off the edge.

There was no time to think, but a hollow weight settled on his chest, and the strength from his fingers waned. His grip relaxed, and the tide took him.

 

In moments like this, it was easier to fade away.

 

· · ────── ꒰✦꒱ ────── · · · · ────── ꒰✦꒱ ────── · · Drowning https://pin.it/25qUKng9j

His armor did not feel so mighty, or impervious, as he was dragged into the abyss. The jagged throat of the cavern swallowing him, armor grinding against slick, smooth stone. He felt like a can, spiraling in a maelstrom. Water flooded back through the gaps, sloshing in his helmet. His ears felt muffled beneath an assailing tide. His broken leg dragging behind him dead and limp. Each impact shook him, and reminded him he was not dead yet.   Fingers stretched out, clawing things trying to find any handhold in any direction. It was hard to even tell which way his momentum was going: let alone to find an edge in the dark. It was a fool's errand. The more he resisted, the more he turned, and rolled. The more the pain forced the air from his breath, and silty-water flooded back into his chest.   The man did not give up. He simply eased. He did not surrender, merely adjusted. He did his best to orient as he was tossed, and focused on getting his head above water: consistently, so he might breathe. His hands continued to stretch out, his back to the waters. The dim light of Wynomere faded behind him. All that remained was relentless water. The fled passage grew tighter. Closer.     His head smacked off a rock, a dull metallic clang from it, his ears ringing once more as he grimaced. A nausea welled in his stomach, almost immediately, and his eye fluttered against a brief flash of white. He thought he could make something out through the brightness of it; a shape in the dark, almost as if it was embossed upon the fabric of the shadows. A hollow-faced figure, crunched and cramped within the tunnel, where the water otherwise filled, and it leaned forward as he passed by.   He watched as the goblin fell, small, and diminutive: its feet tied, and the panic on its face. Was it better that it wasn't a child? It was hard for him to split the two, or weigh their life, at this moment or any other. There was no path to success, then and there. He had chosen. But it still felt like he had chosen wrong.   … the man came to consciousness. He'd hack and press his hand to his chest, rolling to his side. The plate smooshed into the dirt, and mud, and pebbles beneath himself as he fiddled with his helmet shaking. Water sloshed out and down his chin, before light took place where water once was.    The man gasped, and spit foam, looking around. The shores of the North. He had half an idea of where he was let out… somewhere near Kaer Sköllreach. His breathing slowly became measured.

 

 

There was no sign of Undead. There was no sign of life. There was no sign of the goblin. The giants had left him, alone. 

 

He sat beneath the gray expanse of the frigid North, and looked to his broken shin; a hand stretching out for a rock he might press himself back upon.

 

We persevere.

[JediMaestro 240]

Spoiler

I'd read a Victor Rorin novel. Very gripping and well written

 

[JokerLow 1317]

Somewhere in the untamed wilderness of the mesa, the towering uruk Victor encountered, is resting by the massive halberd he used to thunder the caves of Wynomere. Thinking about their encounter, the uruk wonders to himself what came of the man that jumped only to be swallowed by the waters, hoping that he survived the ordeal so that they may encounter one another soon.

[ChainedDragons 1374]

Spoiler

fire