2025-11-20
So last summer, I was trying to figure out what I wanted to be. I had burnt myself out and was feeling aimless, restless.
So I took a stab at creative writing. This is mostly inspired by my time playing dungeons and dragons.
A creeping shadow approaches you. It's shape bulbous and warted, covering spans and leagues of red clay and scarlet grass.
As you crane your neck up to eye the source of this silhouette, you make out the shape of a bird, suffering at the shands of some contagion. It squaks in deafening pain.
We should be hunting that
Not crawling to some upstrat brat to beg for morsels
You see the others look at Benton. Some roll their eyes, scoff. They wave him off, like some bothersome fly. Some simply stare. Flies are part of the nature of travel, after all.
Ah shut it benton.
Benton and Leonard begin an argument which you've seen before. Two dancers, following a now well familiar choreography, twirling around one another, but never quite touching. It looks like they're partners, the momentum suggests it, but they could just as well perform alone, on an empty stage.
It's been a fornight since you've left Dreia, you and your contingent of soldiers, ambassadors and what have yous. You were charged by Queen Deidre to travel to Knoeff to negotiate ... something ... or anything, from what it sounds like. More likely they just needed more people gone from Dreia.
You survey the martian landscae, and it is a motherless land. Nothing grows here, it is a land that is of, for and by the jackals of it. What little that is worthwhile will rot, but not before it gives up everything to those willing to drown for a moment longer.
You hear a crack in the sky, grotesque tendrils burst out of the floating carcas, writhin in loathsome patterns.
You stare into the eyes of a once-crow, but you receive no response. There are only unfeeling voids.
A hand appears in your face, fingers stretching in and out, one after the other. You follow the arm to tits face, one with a wide grind. You repeat the gesture in kind, and you two share a smile.
I think we'er almost there. If you squint, I think you can almost make out the ruby from here.
She was referring to the coast of Knoeff, soaked red by the blood and guts of the Headless Fish.
They'er quite lucky, y'know.
How so?
Once the blood runs out, they can still mine the scales, butcher the meat. They'll excavate the guts, that'll take them decades by itself. Then they'll carve out the bone, build fortresses and ships outta it.
They'll last. Not forever, but they'll last.
She's stopped smiling now.
You're not sure how to respond.
Uh huh ... how morbid.
She turns to you and she cannot but betray her annoyance, but only for a moment, and she just as quickly looks back ahead.
We should prepare ourselves.
Make sure you are ready.
You try to grab her, but a moment's hesitation means that she's out of reach. You look at the patogenic bird in the sky. You try to envision the grand kingdoms that might burst from it, but all you can feel is envy.
The moon is bright …
... and the campfire is warm. You have been travelling through the Cormanthor woods, as you make your way from Hillsfar to Ordulin, and you are taking the night's rest. Today has been a taxing day.
The road you travel is not one of convenience. Typically, one might take the sea route around the coast and then travel inwards into Ordulin. But in the effort to save some gold, you decided to travel through the dense woods on a more direct path. Fortunately, you found three other adventures that are traveling the same path, and you began your expedition some six nights ago.
Today was a particularly miserable one. These woods are not so well travelled, and what insubstantial path you were following has now been banished, leaving you to follow the sun and then the stars. You trudge your way through sticks and brush only to find yourself truly lost.
So you take camp, hoping tomorrow yields better fortunes.
A woman walks alone in deep night, through thick forest. Her steps are light, tracking no dirt. She breathes softly, as if by habit and not by need. Her red curls fall on her pearl satin nightgown, now dirty from the undergrowth.
Then, she stops. The moonlight shines through the canopy, and rests on her pale shoulders. The dew on the ferns looks almost sweet to the taste. A moment of peace.
She then parts her lips, and a dark, viscous decript sound escapes.
An oily grot seeps over her eyes, as she speaks her black tongue. She slowly begins to rise, limp, back bent and limbs hanging, above the fugous soil.
At the last, she drops uncermoniously. For some while, she lies there. Ravens collect on the trees nearby, warily keeping a distance.
Her body starts to convulse and her screams mix with her choking spittle. Slowly burns cover her body, evolving into charred brittle bits.
In silent flames, the woman lies.