05-10-2016, 08:39 PM
The Sage woke up suddenly, he hadn’t even realized he had gone under. The flash still burned in his retinas, and he blinked several times before he was able to actually make out anything about his surroundings. To his confusion he found that he was back in the ramshackle hut he had first awakened in, but this time there was a figure poking the fire, their identity was shrouded in the heavy folds of sailcloth that surrounded them, but their general size showed that the being wasn’t too large. Not large enough to be dangerous hopefully. The Sage shifted slightly trying his best to stay unnoticed. There was a ruffling amongst the sailcloth, and before the Sage could get to his feet, the figure somehow appeared in front of him and pushed him back down.
“No.” The figure said, and the Sage was surprised to find the speaker was a small, almost withered old woman. She stared down at him with one good eye, the other closed and diseased-looking. There was a pause, as the old woman eyed the Sage skeptically while the Sage attempted to gather some clue as to who the woman was. He did notice that her left arm seemed shriveled and stunted, sporting a charred black color. The same side as her bad eye… he noted, though he was convinced that they were the same affliction. The woman seemed to have reached a decision though, as she turned away with a shake of her head.
“Too Young! Too young!” She almost shouted to herself as she started to stalk away to the far side of the hovel, “The flames of youth will scorch the words away even as he reads them. He needs more time for his mind to smolder!” She seemed to be having an argument with the air. A week ago the Sage would have assumed her simply mad, but since his experiences in this world, and on this island in particular, he was much less ready to dismiss the possibility that she was actually speaking with someone. He took comfort in her lack of apparent threatening means, but still kept a wary eye for any possible advances.
The withered old woman seemed to pause for a time, and the Sage thought he could hear her muttering to herself in some language that he did not comprehend. The Sage considered trying to flee the hovel, but the truth was he needed answers and he wasn’t likely just to find the answers he was looking for in the carcass of one of those derelicts. As he weighed his options the island’s only real resident seemed to make up her mind, and motioned for him to sit at fire, at which the Sage noticed there was some kind of meat cooking.
Realizing he was starving he took the seat, and reached for a piece of the meat, though the old woman smacked his hand away before he even got close sharper reflexes than I would have guessed… not that he had really been paying close attention, the gnawing in his stomach was making its wishes far too apparent for him to properly focus on anything else.
“Do you want to live?” the woman asked him suddenly, and the Sage paused before nodding in response. His hunger dwindled as he began to worry more about his surroundings. The woman in front of him had somehow survived for what was clearly a long time in the same place as that strange insectoid monster that very nearly made a meal of him within a few minutes.
“I find it the preferable mode of being…” he said, deciding to humor the person who was cooking the food. “I would imagine that to be the standard response however, so I would posit whether you actually meant…Agh!” The Sage stopped short as the old woman jabbed him in the face with one of the sticks from the fire. He fell backwards clutching his face, as the woman clucked in disapproval.
“Reflexes are too slow. You wouldn’t make it. Won’t last a minute against the Carcoginox. Eat you up, eat the words. Maybe burn tongue, but won’t care.”
She turned back to the fire and began to stoke the smoldering flames, trying to get enough of a blaze to even pretend that the meat had been cooked. The Sage almost started to counter attack, but as she seemingly continued to ignore him he paused. The Sage began weighing his options. The woman seemed to be dangerously eccentric, but she had managed to find something to eat in this wasteland, an accomplishment the Sage had to respect. He pondered trying to simply take the food and hope he could escape, but he was less than optimistic about his chances against a person who had not only survived on this island long enough to set up a living space, but also had managed to hunt down and kill at least one of those beasts that burrowed through the sand, and the Sage noted the discarded carapace of at least one other beast resting against the wall of the shack.
“Since you are clearly the one in the know here, tell me. What is this place? What is that thing, and how did you destroy it?”
The Old woman turned on him fiercely as he uttered the last question, gesturing pointedly with the smoldering stick.
“Did not destroy, only dispersed. Shadows, stick together, pool. Will be back soon enough. You must not be here when it does.”
The Sage frowned in irritation when she turned back to the fireplace. Part of him knew that his frustration was overpowering his wiser caution, but at this point he didn’t care.
“And how am I supposed to leave when you keep bringing me back here?” He demanded. The old woman gave no indication he had even uttered a word, which only served to aggravate the Sage further.
Communication is a double-edged sword hag, we can both be cut with the blade. You wish to play with silence. I am more than willing to oblige.
They sat there for a time, the old woman watching the fire, the Sage’s thoughts drifting over the choices that had landed him here. He should have fought Carmen’s thugs, he decided. Topps had kept his end of the bargain, leaving his dirk behind him when the three pirates had finished throwing their weight around. As it was, the Sage was in no shape to actually do anything by the time he had gotten the opening. He had barely any energy left when he had actually made his move. The pirate hadn’t even really been phased, and her aim with the weapons had been good enough.
The Sage rubbed his shoulder, although there wasn’t any pain there when he touched it. Confused, the Sage glanced down at his shoulder but was interrupted yet again by the Old woman, again pointing the stick at him. This time however, it contained cooked food. The Sage was still leery of this situation, the woman clearly had some plan for him that he was unaware of, and he considered refusing the food. His stomach protested this strongly.
“Why are you giving me this? What is your aim here?” The woman simply thrust the chunk of meat closer to his face.
“To leave this place, you must know it. Understand it. Accept it into yourself. Take! Consume! Then you will leave.”
Still unsure, the Sage pondered for a short while longer, then gave into his stomachs demands. He took a bit of the chunk of meat, unsure what to make of the taste, but too hungry to actually care. He ate quickly, aware that the old woman had not eaten, and was now watching him do so.
“You carry a book. When you get back to where you are going, you will read it. Right.” She intoned, her wavering voice suddenly firm, “Now we will leave this place.”
She said and crossed to one of the sides of the shack. She lifted a tattered satchel from the timber where it hung and exited the hovel, the Sage following behind as he finished the last of the meat. Already the surroundings were growing darker once again, and the Sage’s uneasiness returned. The two of them moved at a decent pace, picking their way along the shoreline, weaving in and out of the gutted derelicts. After a few minutes the Sage saw their destination, a small sailboat, probably not meant to go out of sight of the shore. A part of him began to question the wisdom of trusting this woman, but the ever-growing darkness proved difficult to ignore.
They reached the ship, but to the Sage’s dismay he realized that the boat would be too large for them to push into the water. He glanced behind him, and thought he could see two orange lights in the growing gloom. They were getting closer, and fast.
“How is this supposed to be an escape route? We’ll never get it back into the water!”
Starting to panic, he ran around to the front of boat and began extracting sand as best he could, trying to create enough of a depression that the boat could reach water. It was too slow, he doubted it would actually be possible to get away before that thing reached them.
“Stand away.” The woman said, pulling a tome out of her bag. As she opened the book what small black shapes began to spill out of it, in the darkness the sage could not make out what they were, as they spilled outwards like skittering spiders. The Sage quickly got back to his feet as the black shapes swarmed towards the ship. He backed away as the ship began to slowly move forward, borne by the swarm. The Sage looked at the old woman in surprise, but she was clearly concentrating, her eyes closed and brows furrowed. The sailboat continued to make its way towards the water, rocking on its own personal wave.
“Get aboard. Time to go.” The old woman said, the effort noticeable in her voice. Without hesitation the Sage caught up to the boat, and clambered up the side onto the deck. He began to ready the sail, wishing he had more experience with sailing. As the boat crashed down into the water the Sage looked back, noting that the woman was still on the shoreline.
“Defend the words. Record them. Learn them. Become them. That is your purpose now. Your youth is ended. Your calling has begun.” As she said the last a streak of light flashed forward to strike the Sage in the forehead. He fell onto the deck as the boat began to sail away, pain searing through his brain.
After a time, he sat up, his vision blurry. The sky above him was a tempest of sound and fury. He glanced down, only partially registering the long white beard that seemed to be covering his chest. He raised a hand, staring at the gnarled limb that he barely recognized as his own. Struggling to his feet on unstable limbs, he looked back to the shoreline. Through the storming winds that engulfed the vessel he could see flashes of light breaking through a dense black cloud that enveloped the island. The darkness festered over the shoreline with a heavy presence. Now and again the bright light, that he could only assume was the woman somehow, would thrust through the darkness, providing him a glimpse of the shoreline and the tumultuous ocean around him.
She was losing, that much was quite evident. There would be no escape for her. Though as he watched the lights become fewer and farther interspersed he realized that she wasn’t planning any sort of escape. Escape was not part of a distraction.
As the lone witness to her bravery drifted away into the storm, the light spread out in one final burst of power, but the darkness was eager to overtake the light, and rushed forward without hesitation to overtake it. The light faded, and only darkness remained on the island.
The Sage turned on stiff and weakened legs. His respect had been paid, now he had to ensure that he actually did make the escape. Facing the bow of the ship, he thought he could see an island on the horizon, a point of calm in the wrathful sea.
Then a large wave rose on the port bow, swamping the ship. The Sage was flung backwards, and his head struck against the mast of the sail. He crashed against the starboard side, as the wave rushed past and over him. He vaguely felt the boat tipping sideways as another larger wave began to form, but his thoughts scattered, and he lapsed back into unconsciousness.
“No.” The figure said, and the Sage was surprised to find the speaker was a small, almost withered old woman. She stared down at him with one good eye, the other closed and diseased-looking. There was a pause, as the old woman eyed the Sage skeptically while the Sage attempted to gather some clue as to who the woman was. He did notice that her left arm seemed shriveled and stunted, sporting a charred black color. The same side as her bad eye… he noted, though he was convinced that they were the same affliction. The woman seemed to have reached a decision though, as she turned away with a shake of her head.
“Too Young! Too young!” She almost shouted to herself as she started to stalk away to the far side of the hovel, “The flames of youth will scorch the words away even as he reads them. He needs more time for his mind to smolder!” She seemed to be having an argument with the air. A week ago the Sage would have assumed her simply mad, but since his experiences in this world, and on this island in particular, he was much less ready to dismiss the possibility that she was actually speaking with someone. He took comfort in her lack of apparent threatening means, but still kept a wary eye for any possible advances.
The withered old woman seemed to pause for a time, and the Sage thought he could hear her muttering to herself in some language that he did not comprehend. The Sage considered trying to flee the hovel, but the truth was he needed answers and he wasn’t likely just to find the answers he was looking for in the carcass of one of those derelicts. As he weighed his options the island’s only real resident seemed to make up her mind, and motioned for him to sit at fire, at which the Sage noticed there was some kind of meat cooking.
Realizing he was starving he took the seat, and reached for a piece of the meat, though the old woman smacked his hand away before he even got close sharper reflexes than I would have guessed… not that he had really been paying close attention, the gnawing in his stomach was making its wishes far too apparent for him to properly focus on anything else.
“Do you want to live?” the woman asked him suddenly, and the Sage paused before nodding in response. His hunger dwindled as he began to worry more about his surroundings. The woman in front of him had somehow survived for what was clearly a long time in the same place as that strange insectoid monster that very nearly made a meal of him within a few minutes.
“I find it the preferable mode of being…” he said, deciding to humor the person who was cooking the food. “I would imagine that to be the standard response however, so I would posit whether you actually meant…Agh!” The Sage stopped short as the old woman jabbed him in the face with one of the sticks from the fire. He fell backwards clutching his face, as the woman clucked in disapproval.
“Reflexes are too slow. You wouldn’t make it. Won’t last a minute against the Carcoginox. Eat you up, eat the words. Maybe burn tongue, but won’t care.”
She turned back to the fire and began to stoke the smoldering flames, trying to get enough of a blaze to even pretend that the meat had been cooked. The Sage almost started to counter attack, but as she seemingly continued to ignore him he paused. The Sage began weighing his options. The woman seemed to be dangerously eccentric, but she had managed to find something to eat in this wasteland, an accomplishment the Sage had to respect. He pondered trying to simply take the food and hope he could escape, but he was less than optimistic about his chances against a person who had not only survived on this island long enough to set up a living space, but also had managed to hunt down and kill at least one of those beasts that burrowed through the sand, and the Sage noted the discarded carapace of at least one other beast resting against the wall of the shack.
“Since you are clearly the one in the know here, tell me. What is this place? What is that thing, and how did you destroy it?”
The Old woman turned on him fiercely as he uttered the last question, gesturing pointedly with the smoldering stick.
“Did not destroy, only dispersed. Shadows, stick together, pool. Will be back soon enough. You must not be here when it does.”
The Sage frowned in irritation when she turned back to the fireplace. Part of him knew that his frustration was overpowering his wiser caution, but at this point he didn’t care.
“And how am I supposed to leave when you keep bringing me back here?” He demanded. The old woman gave no indication he had even uttered a word, which only served to aggravate the Sage further.
Communication is a double-edged sword hag, we can both be cut with the blade. You wish to play with silence. I am more than willing to oblige.
They sat there for a time, the old woman watching the fire, the Sage’s thoughts drifting over the choices that had landed him here. He should have fought Carmen’s thugs, he decided. Topps had kept his end of the bargain, leaving his dirk behind him when the three pirates had finished throwing their weight around. As it was, the Sage was in no shape to actually do anything by the time he had gotten the opening. He had barely any energy left when he had actually made his move. The pirate hadn’t even really been phased, and her aim with the weapons had been good enough.
The Sage rubbed his shoulder, although there wasn’t any pain there when he touched it. Confused, the Sage glanced down at his shoulder but was interrupted yet again by the Old woman, again pointing the stick at him. This time however, it contained cooked food. The Sage was still leery of this situation, the woman clearly had some plan for him that he was unaware of, and he considered refusing the food. His stomach protested this strongly.
“Why are you giving me this? What is your aim here?” The woman simply thrust the chunk of meat closer to his face.
“To leave this place, you must know it. Understand it. Accept it into yourself. Take! Consume! Then you will leave.”
Still unsure, the Sage pondered for a short while longer, then gave into his stomachs demands. He took a bit of the chunk of meat, unsure what to make of the taste, but too hungry to actually care. He ate quickly, aware that the old woman had not eaten, and was now watching him do so.
“You carry a book. When you get back to where you are going, you will read it. Right.” She intoned, her wavering voice suddenly firm, “Now we will leave this place.”
She said and crossed to one of the sides of the shack. She lifted a tattered satchel from the timber where it hung and exited the hovel, the Sage following behind as he finished the last of the meat. Already the surroundings were growing darker once again, and the Sage’s uneasiness returned. The two of them moved at a decent pace, picking their way along the shoreline, weaving in and out of the gutted derelicts. After a few minutes the Sage saw their destination, a small sailboat, probably not meant to go out of sight of the shore. A part of him began to question the wisdom of trusting this woman, but the ever-growing darkness proved difficult to ignore.
They reached the ship, but to the Sage’s dismay he realized that the boat would be too large for them to push into the water. He glanced behind him, and thought he could see two orange lights in the growing gloom. They were getting closer, and fast.
“How is this supposed to be an escape route? We’ll never get it back into the water!”
Starting to panic, he ran around to the front of boat and began extracting sand as best he could, trying to create enough of a depression that the boat could reach water. It was too slow, he doubted it would actually be possible to get away before that thing reached them.
“Stand away.” The woman said, pulling a tome out of her bag. As she opened the book what small black shapes began to spill out of it, in the darkness the sage could not make out what they were, as they spilled outwards like skittering spiders. The Sage quickly got back to his feet as the black shapes swarmed towards the ship. He backed away as the ship began to slowly move forward, borne by the swarm. The Sage looked at the old woman in surprise, but she was clearly concentrating, her eyes closed and brows furrowed. The sailboat continued to make its way towards the water, rocking on its own personal wave.
“Get aboard. Time to go.” The old woman said, the effort noticeable in her voice. Without hesitation the Sage caught up to the boat, and clambered up the side onto the deck. He began to ready the sail, wishing he had more experience with sailing. As the boat crashed down into the water the Sage looked back, noting that the woman was still on the shoreline.
“Defend the words. Record them. Learn them. Become them. That is your purpose now. Your youth is ended. Your calling has begun.” As she said the last a streak of light flashed forward to strike the Sage in the forehead. He fell onto the deck as the boat began to sail away, pain searing through his brain.
After a time, he sat up, his vision blurry. The sky above him was a tempest of sound and fury. He glanced down, only partially registering the long white beard that seemed to be covering his chest. He raised a hand, staring at the gnarled limb that he barely recognized as his own. Struggling to his feet on unstable limbs, he looked back to the shoreline. Through the storming winds that engulfed the vessel he could see flashes of light breaking through a dense black cloud that enveloped the island. The darkness festered over the shoreline with a heavy presence. Now and again the bright light, that he could only assume was the woman somehow, would thrust through the darkness, providing him a glimpse of the shoreline and the tumultuous ocean around him.
She was losing, that much was quite evident. There would be no escape for her. Though as he watched the lights become fewer and farther interspersed he realized that she wasn’t planning any sort of escape. Escape was not part of a distraction.
As the lone witness to her bravery drifted away into the storm, the light spread out in one final burst of power, but the darkness was eager to overtake the light, and rushed forward without hesitation to overtake it. The light faded, and only darkness remained on the island.
The Sage turned on stiff and weakened legs. His respect had been paid, now he had to ensure that he actually did make the escape. Facing the bow of the ship, he thought he could see an island on the horizon, a point of calm in the wrathful sea.
Then a large wave rose on the port bow, swamping the ship. The Sage was flung backwards, and his head struck against the mast of the sail. He crashed against the starboard side, as the wave rushed past and over him. He vaguely felt the boat tipping sideways as another larger wave began to form, but his thoughts scattered, and he lapsed back into unconsciousness.
If history is to become legend, it first must be recorded.