002 🥀

[undread]

The party is in an ancient shrine carved in the side of a hill, injured and exhausted from battle. You are there with your close friends, Orym, a halfling fighter, and Ashton, an earth genasi with an enormous hammer. But the rest of your party isn't here. You miss them, feel their absence and are worried about them, particularly your missing friend Imogen. Part of you has been afraid for days that she didn't simply get separated from you during the battle when you last saw her, but that she was consumed, driven mad or killed.

But you can't think about that now. You're with three new travelers, people you've spent the last week with and have been slowly growing to trust. Prism is a young apprentice wizard, Deni$e is a capable fighter who happens to know some figures from Orym's past, and Bor'dor, a young sheepherder whose sorcery only just awakened. All of them are lost, thrown to another continent by powers beyond their control. Deni$e is capable and has seen danger before, but both Bor'dor and Prism are incredibly new to this and clearly seem in over their heads, leading you, Orym, and Ashton, as more seasoned adventurers, to feel the need to protect them.

They gather to try to make comfortable bedding out of their borrowed cots, Ashton starting a fire while some of the more injured try to rest and eat some jerky. But before everyone can settle into sleep, Deni$e suddenly pulls Bor'dor into a close hold, twisting his arm behind his back. The scrawny young man doesn't try to resist.

"You're not telling us everything," she says to him, suddenly cold. "I don't think you really have a brother."

Everyone had asked a kindly healer for help finding the loved ones they'd been separated from in the last town. She'd managed to scry and find some of the people you'd lost, but she couldn't locate the sick brother Bor'dor had told all of you he'd been separated from.

"I probably don't have a brother anymore," Bor'dor says sadly.

"Don't try to make me feel bad, I'm immune," Deni$e says. "I'm just not going to sleep next to you without knowing all there is to know."

"I can sleep outside," Bor'dor volunteers.

"No. You can tell the truth," she says.

You aren't quite sure what to make of what Deni$e is doing. Sure, Bor'dor might not have told you all everything, and you have your suspicions about him lying about certain things, too. He showed healing powers he hadn't ever mentioned before in the combat earlier. It's strange that he didn't tell you, and reminds you of Yu, an adventurer you all once met who played with your feelings, convinced you to trust them. Yu had healing abilities that suddenly appeared in a fight as well, and they turned out to be a paladin of the Unseelie court who was using all of you to find their quarry. But you don't want to be so distrusting.

It hasn't always been easy for you to trust people. You've been hurt before. But you've met good people, too, people who would go to the ends of the world for you, and not all of them were forthright in your first meeting. But you're uncertain enough that you don't intervene, either - at least not right now, when Deni$e still hasn't hurt him. You accept a cup of spiked tea from Ashton and settle in to watch. Bor'dor might have his reasons for holding back, but you hope he'll explain them now.

"Fine," Bor'dor says, quiet and defeated. "I don't have a brother. I thought that story, hearing that I had a sick brother, would endear me to you. I was scared and I wanted to make you guys like me. I'm not a sheepherder, either. I'm a leather worker."

This explanation doesn't really make sense - why replace one benign sounding backstory for another. "Bor'dor," you say. "I noticed earlier, that healing magic you did, it seemed to have some divine energy to it..."

"I never knew my mother," Bor'dor says. "Maybe that came from her. I don't know. I was told my magic might have been passed down from her."

All of you watch him, uncertain, and then you seem to see him make a decision, realize that he's caught, that these half-truths aren't going to suffice. He sighs, and starts to speak again.

"Okay, here's the truth," he says. "I grew up on the Menagerie Coast, not far from Damali. My mother, her name was Livandra, was said to have been blessed by the Wildmother. She taught me her secret, she showed me how to use her powers. We lived in the city under the guise of humble leather workers, and we hid from the people and their churches, and I learned how to do magic from her. She believed in the gods and she taught me that as long as we had faith in them, we'd be taken care of. One day, I went into town and a bunch of rich kids picked a fight with me, and I used my magic on them and I nearly killed one of them. It was an accident, but my mother knew they wouldn't let me live, so she took responsibility for it. She was sure the gods would save her. My brother and my father didn't believe in that. They fought for her freedom against an entire army, and they were cut down. And I watched my mother's eyes, the moment her faith shattered. The gods she had trusted let her down. She handed me a dagger and she told me to run. The last thing I saw was her setting off a sphere of magic against the guards as they swarmed her, and I ran. I hid in the mountains, and I used my magic and tricked and stole, did anything I could to scrounge up coin, and I survived. And I developed a reputation. Small at first, but soon, I caught the attention of people around me who were connected, who were powerful, and I found a community. And I was asked a very simple question, which you all have been asking this entire time. Do I believe in the gods and do I believe that they are good? And I did not. And they accepted me."

Even hearing all of the lies Bor'dor told, the feeling you have as you hear this story is sympathy. You might be fighting against people who plan to destroy the gods, people you hate, who have taken things from you, who have tried to hurt the people you love, but you don't have any faith in the gods themselves. You've also been broken, your faith shattered, and abandoned. You know most of them wouldn't look kindly on you for what you are. But finding a community of people who accepted you, wanted you with them, that's what saved you.

In feeling this connection with Bor'dor, you don't think of the obvious follow up question. It's Deni$e who asks it. "What community is this exactly?"

And you realize exactly what group Bor'dor is telling you he belongs to you at the very moment he summons a sphere of acid that rains down on all of you. You don't have time to stop him, to react, to counterspell it. You only feel the pain, and you can only watch as the others take it, too. And you watch as young Prism, her skin bubbling from the acid, collapses to the ground. You can't tell if she's dead or unconscious, but you can see the shock on her face as she's betrayed by a man she thought was her friend, and you understand that feeling all too well.

Bor'dor stands there in the middle of you, in the middle of the spell, and drops a disguise illusion. He looks much the same, but completely different. This man is older, scarred, but stands straighter, and there's something cold and furious in his eyes. There's nothing there you would have believed was an innocent young sheepherder, completely out of his depth. And he stares at you, and at Ashton, and Orym with hate in his eyes, and he yells, "I saw you! You killed my friends in Marquet! I saw you there!"

You've been traveling this whole time with a member of the Ruby Vanguard, the group trying to summon a god killer into Exandria. A group whose generals have tried to kill you and your friends, who are responsible for taking everything from Imogen and Orym, who are the reason you're separated now. Yes, you killed dozens of them in Marquet, trying to stop their plans, crashing an airship into their base. You don't care how Bor'dor feels about that. You hate them.

You see Orym grab Prism and drag her away from the danger, try to give her a healing potion. And you see Ashton knock Bor'dor to the ground with one strike of his hammer, and Deni$e restrain him. But then you watch Bor'dor try to transform into a bird, something that will let him fly away. You don't intend to let him leave. You counterspell it.

And Bor'dor is just left a blubbering, bloody mess on the floor.

"We don't want to kill you, for fuck's sake," Deni$e says. But you're not sure she's right. Prism is up again, but she's crying furious tears, still being held by Orym, who gives you a hollow, angry look.

"I'm really sorry, Bor'dor," you whisper. And you begin to transform. Your body starts to elongate, as branches start to erupt from your back. Your eyes stretch and grow dark, and a faint purple glow begins to emanate from them. And you call to a power that has lain dormant in your for a long time. "I just can't stand having anyone else betray me." And you grab him by the throat and you pull, and begin to drain him, shadows leaving his body along with his vitality, and he crumples to the ground.

It feels delicious. It feels like revenge. And in the back of your mind, you can hear something. It sounds like a heartbeat.

You continue to siphon him. Somewhere in the back of your mind you can hear the others arguing, Deni$e insisting that they can interrogate him, Prism vacillating between anger and pity as she punches his unconscious body with a tiny wizard fist. Ashton gently taking Prism by the shoulders and steering her away from them. A shimmer of a mourning veil folds over your face as you drain him, blocking out the others. You see Orym again, in the periphery of your vision, and he nods.

The only thing in your mind is remembering Bor'dor's expression, the look of someone who has known true pain. And your own life flashes before your eyes. Your death, the years of loneliness, losing your friends, watching so many people die, being hung on a tree. Death upon death upon death. So helpless, so out of control. You thought you had found acceptance, but in doing so, you had lost the control you once had. You may have been alone, without anyone except her in your head, but you had control. And now, in this moment, as you siphon necrotic energy from his body, you feel it again. Control.

Nothing is going to stand in your way. You give into the darkness. A purple flame burns down your arm. It curls, and his skin pales and cracks beneath it, and he burns away to ash. But the moment after, you hear it. A sort thrumming, almost like a heartbeat inside her, another presence besides her own, hungry and powerful. Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Ba-dum. And your satisfaction and calm gives way to terror in an instant. You freeze, staring straight ahead.

What did you just do? The body crumpled on the ground beside you is withered, worn out, empty. You drew something out of it, and something in you responded. You know what it was.

You feel a presence behind you and you instinctually lash out, and then recognizes the familiar form of Ashton. They hold you, and you bury your face in their shoulder and cry, trembling.

"It's going to be okay," they say gently.

"No," you cry. "I'm weak, I'm weak. What have I done?"

You feel her presence in the back of your mind again. Gleeful. Alive. You think of your friends, all the kindness they showed you, all the trouble they went through for you. They all fought so hard to free you, and you brought her back in one moment of weakness. Even if she's weak, you feel her, and you know you'll never be certain she's gone again.