30 Apr 2006 at 22:51 - 8
Rydna woke up early, the floor was uncomfortable and it was cold. The morning mist still hung in the air but it made the air fresh. She filled her lungs several times before she got up. Through the door she could see several stones, they were flat and round at the top and all of them were placed in columns. Curiously she went to examine these strange things. On every one of them there were text and numbers, Rydna found one with clear golden text on it. “Things are not what they seem to be, like that bed of leafs. Never will you lay down on a bed of leafs again, as spikes hid under it”, she laughed. It was a long time since she laughed, back when everything was normal, then she used to laugh all the time. Now it was all out of hand, her magic had turned sinister and wicked, her face was not like it used to be and she had become a murderer and a thief. Rydna turned back to the stone house to pick up he stuff. She stopped, something wasn’t right. Everything was smaller than it had been before, in fact her clothes was tight. She looked at herself and got shocked, she had grown so much she looked like an adult.
Fear overwhelmed her. She fell to her knees trembling, this was unnatural. “I don’t have any use for a brat, I grown ups, besides, you don’t fit in anywhere and you can’t survive on your own in the forest”. Was it the one with the voice who had made her grow? This was scary, Rydna didn’t even know who the person was. Why would he do this to her. Once more she tried to bring herself together, packing her things and then move out again. Several times she had to stop and adjust her tight clothing, make it fit. After a long walk she came up to a gravel road. One end led to the forest while the other led to something that looked like a bigger village. She had been too much in the forest so she set her footsteps towards the village. The voice was correct; even though her cape would cover her she would still look like a kid. Now the cape fit her perfectly. The hood covered most of her face but her eyes still glowed so she had to cover them. She found a piece of cloth in her backpack. She made sure she could see through it and that nobody could she her eyes then went into the city.
Eyes gazed upon her, she was the stranger in town. A smile landed on her face. Netlah had told many stories where strangers came to the villages and bad things started to happen. But it had always been the stranger that saved the day. She turned left and went into the local tavern and looked around. None had noticed her. People were playing cards, drinking, trading rumours or sat unconscious on their chairs. A challenging dressed barmaid ran around taking orders and took payments for food and drinks. Rydna went to a table in a dark corner and sat down so she could see everyone. In her backpack she found a big bag full of gold, “must have been the voice” she thought to herself. She counted it, and in total it was worth about 500 gold. “hrmhrmm” came from somewhere, Rydna looked up and saw the barmaid ready with a pen and a note. “Good, what will you have?” she said, Rydna leaned back in the chair “ what does your strongest cost?” she heard herself say, this wasn’t good, she had never tasted alcohol before and now she ordered the strongest the house had. “10 gold” the barmaid snapped back. “I’ll take that and some food, whatever you got”. The barmaid scratched down the order and went to the kitchen. Rydna didn’t think she could do like that, ordering the strongest the house got, the gold she got must have given her some extra confidence. After a couple of seconds she decided she just could drink small amounts at a time.
A couple of minutes later the barmaid came back with a plate of something that didn’t look eatable, and something that looked more like paint than a drink. Rydna paid and the barmaid walked of, leaving Rydna alone. As she was about to take her first bite of the meat that looked like it had been run over by a wagon wheel on a sandy road, the doors swung open and a man followed by 4 others came in. They walked straight to the bartender, mumbled something to him and kept an eye on him as he fumbled with something under the disk. Rydna didn’t bother, it wasn’t her business what they did, because she was just passing through.
“blam” a reddish liquid stained the table. Rydna looked up, the man that had been at the counter now stood in front of her, looking at her with his drink on the table. Most of what had been in the cup was now on the table. Behind him the four men stood, also looking at her. All of the had some white shiny armour. “I got a couple of things to say,” he said as he smiled strangely. Rydna noticed that everyone in the tavern now was awake, surprisingly sober and was looking at her. “I’m the law keeper in this city and these are my men”, the man pointed at those behind him. He then turned back to Rydna, his smile was now a little bigger, and sinister. “This is my table your eating your crap at” as he said that he smashed the plate in several pieces and swiped it of the table. A grunt was heard behind them, the barmaid was not looking happy with the so called “law keeper”. The man didn’t care, “You are a stranger in this village, we don’t like strangers here”, as he stopped speaking it was completely quiet. Every single pair of eyes was fixed in the corner where Rydna and the five men stood. No one knew what was happening, or what was going to happen.
“I don’t care if you are blind, you are going down”, the man quickly grabbed Rydna’s cape, and threw her into the middle of the tavern before she had time to react. It was surprisingly empty there, just moments ago there had been people sitting there enjoying their drinks, now they all stood in a circle and shouted at her. Were they afraid of him, or her? She hadn’t said a word except the order of food. As she stood up she felt a strong pain in her stomach, and she flew through the tavern and hit the wall and collapsed on the floor. Big heavy steps came closer to her. She looked up and the law keeper stood there bent over with an evil grin. Something warm dripped from her nose and filled her mouth. She spit on the law keeper’s white metal boots and they became red. “Lick that up stranger” he yelled at her, he grabbed her head and forced it down to his blood-covered boots “lick it up NOW”.
That was it, nobody treated her like that, and her strength was now back so she didn’t have to cut herself to use magic. However she already had blood on her and in her mouth so she could use that first. Rydna’s mouth mumbled something no one heard. “What was that you said? Are you sorry?” Her muscles started itching, growing and stretching. With a swift hit on his leg he fell backwards, and she came on her feet so fast that nobody even saw it. As the law keeper came up himself Rydna’s sudden muscles started shrinking again, she had only used it to get up and get a fighting chance. Some time to escape too as the monks already were on the way, but how far from the city were they? “Didn’t see that one coming” he said calmly, “better teach you a lesson in manners”, the same evil grin was on his face again. Rydna mumbled something again, and pointed her hand at the law keeper. He only laughed “so you’re a blind magician, let’s see how well you fare in a fight, and may the unseen ones be easy on your soul” he said as he came walking towards Rydna with his fist raised. She didn’t move, she was used to pain, but this would hurt him more than it hurt her. It felt like a hammer hit her jaw, a sudden scream and she was on the floor again. “That hurt me too stranger, but I’m used to pain, let me see your face”. Pretending she was weak after the hit she lay still on the floor. She heard the footsteps and saw how he stretched down to remove her blindfold.
The law keeper backed from Rydna as his eyes met hers. It went completely quiet. Rydna was the first to break the silence “So what are you going to do now”. Now she was the one with an evil grin on her face. “So you’re a necromancer, aren’t you, those eyes, that scar and the magic you used, good for us, there is a bounty on a necromancer who did some very stupid things not far from here, and we could use the gold, boys, you know the drill”. The four other men drew their sword as one. This time however, Rydna didn’t plan on running, instead she wanted to practice her magic even further. She didn’t have anywhere to run either. Shouting out something not understandable she pointed her hand at one of them, then shouted again and pointed. They didn’t care. They just walked against her. Rydna rested a little, then again, shouting and pointing at the third one.
Suddenly the door literally exploded. “Oh no, the monks were close by, I’m not going to make it” Rydna thought as she panicked. The 4 men were only a few metres away from her when instead of monks came barging in a strange green-blue shimmering fog came in. Everyone started looking at the fog. A strange clacking sound was heard, several clacking sounds in fact. “I say you’d better leave this place, I have no control of the undead in this region” the strange voice said. Rydna really wanted to know who was the owner but didn’t bother much at the moment as the ones who made the clacking sounds appeared in the now black remains of what would be a door. A tall partly armor covered shadow stood in the opening. Where the face should have been there was three holes and an upper row of teeth. The bony fingers held something strange, a ball that had the shape of a head, exactly the shape of a head. Something dripped from it, Rydna froze, it was a head, and its eyes stared emptily into the crowded tavern. Where the hair should have been there were lines and curves of green color.
“It killed an apprentice, kill the wretched bonehead, we’ll handle the necromancer after this” the lawkeeper shouted to his men who instantly turned and sprinted against the figure standing in the door opening. The skeleton didn’t do any less than to do the same, but without the shouting, and as it left the door several other skeletons made their ways into the tavern. Chaos broke out, people screamed when the archer skeletons kept arrows in the air, skeletons fell to the floor in several pieces when everyone who knew how to fight turned their abilities to use, and those who couldn’t fight tried to flee. Rydna put on her blindfold, looked for someone who couldn’t fight. She saw a little girl under a table, the little girl was terrified and kept her knees tight to her chest. Rydna couldn’t just leave the girl there. The chaos grew even worse as more skeletons made their way in. Someone fell just in front of Rydna as she was to make her way to the girl but there was no time to avoid it. Rydna fell and was even angrier than before. Not only could she not escape but also when she tried to do something good the world was still against her. Shouting and cursing she pointed at the lifeless corpse.
As soon as her last word came from her mouth the body started twitching. Only seconds later the skin ripped from the inside. Rydna had to wipe some blood of her blindfold. On the corpse, or what seemed to be left of the corpse, which wasn’t much, stood a dwarfish looking creature, it had no skin, eyes or entrails. It was made of bone and flesh. Rydna didn’t know what to do, but then remembered the little girl under the table. As she even started thinking of her the strange creature started moving towards the table the girl was under. Rydna didn’t want to know what the abomination was about to do but she knew she had to get there before it did. Rydna came up on her feet once more and sprinted as fast as she could, she was side to side with the creature as yet another person stumbled in her way. This time she swore silently to herself, and tried to dodge him. Suddenly the man lay on the floor almost cut in half, the abomination stood behind him with one of it’s arm bloodier than it had been when it raised from the corpse. Rydna hadn’t noticed before but the abomination had one arm that was more like a bony sword than a usual arm, while the other arm still was normal. The abomination seemed to answer her thoughts, would it might be her creation? She had cursed and shouted at the corpse and then pointed at it then it appeared. “Splash” A big chunk of flesh fell of the abomination and landed soundly on the floor. It just stood there dripping blood and loosing bits of itself. Rydna thought it might be best to “use” the creature before it completely fell apart. Rydna thought of getting the little girl to safety, and the creature once more launched itself towards the table. It took some hits but didn’t make a sound or even bother with it. With it’s normal hand it threw the table away and then picked up the girl. She screamed and hit the creature for all she was worth.