12-10-2016, 05:02 AM
(This post was last modified: 12-10-2016, 11:35 PM by Kelly MacAryn.
Edit Reason: Fixing this 4 AM garbage (word choice, character, lack of atmosphere - basically everything about it except the content)
)
Stepping into the Pale Moors, Kelly emerged into a damp and ominous autumn night. The air smelled intensely of mold, nighttime, and the sharp, melancholy scent of sodden decay.
The gate stood on a hill, in the middle of a thin copse of black and skeletal trees whose jagged branches evoked the ghoulish, emaciated fingers of long-dead giants. When the wind blew, they clawed at a crimson harvest moon that seemed to cover half the sky. Wispy streamers of mist coiled in this place like snakes, seeping through Kelly's clothing, condensing inside of his boots. Water beaded under his ponytail and ran down into his shirt, making the cotton feel clammy and cold.
As the traveler's eyes grew accustomed to the moonlight, a world of shadows unfolded. Beyond his hilltop, broad, uneven acres of knee-high grasses rolled away to the horizon, the domain of thistles, and thorns. Spots of oily shimmer in the valleys suggested the presence of shallow pools, and scattered here and there across the moors were the shades of solitary trees and small groves. They got more frequent as they grew more distant, finally culminating in what looked like a scraggly fur blanket thrown over the far distant hills - an actual forest, dense and threatening.
Swirling around all of it was the mist. It gathered in the hollows. It rose along the overgrown paths and fallow fields to form thick banks of fog. It capered and danced with a life of its own, forming mad shapes that glowed red in the unnatural moonlight, jeering at the traveler from afar before resolving again into cold gray silence.
Something huge flashed across the face of the moon far overhead, wings as large as a man booming as they caught the night air. Thin and reedy, a warbling inhuman scream echoed across the moors.
Kelly filled his chest with chilled, musky air and let out a long breath, watching the little cloud it made. Here, even that small nimbus seemed somehow sinister and twisted.
There were points of light as well, out there in the darkness, warm and lonely little pools of lantern-light and hearth-glow. They were few and far between, isolated farmsteads and tiny villages scattered across the moors, and looked small and defenseless against the looming specter of the red unknown.
The traveler thought back to the maps he had seen during his research binge. Supposedly, provided he could avoid getting lost in one of the roving banks of fog, Darkshire wasn't far from here.
He took out his spyglass and peered into the distance.
...
There.
Nestled near the far forest, as though trying to avoid being seen, was a large, dark shape, with men holding torches moving along the top - the walls of a fortified town. If he moved quickly, Kelly estimated he could be there in under an hour, provided the journey was uneventful.
Sadly, that didn't seem likely.
Far off in the distance, beyond the mist-shrouded forests and the rolling hills, something that must have been nothing short of colossal let loose a reverberating bellow of anger and mindless aggression, like a philharmonic string-section being played by a train-crash. In response to that hellish cacophony, a chorus of wolves took up the call, seemingly howling from every hill and vale. All around the traveler, things stirred in the dark, peering at him with curious, inhuman eyes.
Not entirely unexpected. All those warnings in the database about not coming here at night weren't exactly ambiguous, after all.
Should I camp here until morning? If anything came at me, I could just dive back into the Nexus. Of course, there would be nothing to stop it from following me... and I don't know how much time I have to spare. For all I know, Darkshire could come under attack at dawn.
The time factor was what clinched it. In order to err on the side of caution, it seemed he'd have to take a risk.
Kelly sighed, then took a few minutes to summon himself a lantern. A flashlight probably would have been handier, and more nimble as a weapon if it came to it, but a heavy oil-lantern had other advantages.
Besides, it seemed thematically appropriate.
When he was done, cloaked in a little pool of light and strangely emboldened by the smell of burning lamp-oil, the traveler set off towards Darkshire, leaving vaporous swirls and eddies in the mist.
Striding through a red, primordial darkness come alive with low, animal moans, Kelly resigned himself to a very long trip.
The gate stood on a hill, in the middle of a thin copse of black and skeletal trees whose jagged branches evoked the ghoulish, emaciated fingers of long-dead giants. When the wind blew, they clawed at a crimson harvest moon that seemed to cover half the sky. Wispy streamers of mist coiled in this place like snakes, seeping through Kelly's clothing, condensing inside of his boots. Water beaded under his ponytail and ran down into his shirt, making the cotton feel clammy and cold.
As the traveler's eyes grew accustomed to the moonlight, a world of shadows unfolded. Beyond his hilltop, broad, uneven acres of knee-high grasses rolled away to the horizon, the domain of thistles, and thorns. Spots of oily shimmer in the valleys suggested the presence of shallow pools, and scattered here and there across the moors were the shades of solitary trees and small groves. They got more frequent as they grew more distant, finally culminating in what looked like a scraggly fur blanket thrown over the far distant hills - an actual forest, dense and threatening.
Swirling around all of it was the mist. It gathered in the hollows. It rose along the overgrown paths and fallow fields to form thick banks of fog. It capered and danced with a life of its own, forming mad shapes that glowed red in the unnatural moonlight, jeering at the traveler from afar before resolving again into cold gray silence.
Something huge flashed across the face of the moon far overhead, wings as large as a man booming as they caught the night air. Thin and reedy, a warbling inhuman scream echoed across the moors.
Kelly filled his chest with chilled, musky air and let out a long breath, watching the little cloud it made. Here, even that small nimbus seemed somehow sinister and twisted.
There were points of light as well, out there in the darkness, warm and lonely little pools of lantern-light and hearth-glow. They were few and far between, isolated farmsteads and tiny villages scattered across the moors, and looked small and defenseless against the looming specter of the red unknown.
The traveler thought back to the maps he had seen during his research binge. Supposedly, provided he could avoid getting lost in one of the roving banks of fog, Darkshire wasn't far from here.
He took out his spyglass and peered into the distance.
...
There.
Nestled near the far forest, as though trying to avoid being seen, was a large, dark shape, with men holding torches moving along the top - the walls of a fortified town. If he moved quickly, Kelly estimated he could be there in under an hour, provided the journey was uneventful.
Sadly, that didn't seem likely.
Far off in the distance, beyond the mist-shrouded forests and the rolling hills, something that must have been nothing short of colossal let loose a reverberating bellow of anger and mindless aggression, like a philharmonic string-section being played by a train-crash. In response to that hellish cacophony, a chorus of wolves took up the call, seemingly howling from every hill and vale. All around the traveler, things stirred in the dark, peering at him with curious, inhuman eyes.
Not entirely unexpected. All those warnings in the database about not coming here at night weren't exactly ambiguous, after all.
Should I camp here until morning? If anything came at me, I could just dive back into the Nexus. Of course, there would be nothing to stop it from following me... and I don't know how much time I have to spare. For all I know, Darkshire could come under attack at dawn.
The time factor was what clinched it. In order to err on the side of caution, it seemed he'd have to take a risk.
Kelly sighed, then took a few minutes to summon himself a lantern. A flashlight probably would have been handier, and more nimble as a weapon if it came to it, but a heavy oil-lantern had other advantages.
Besides, it seemed thematically appropriate.
When he was done, cloaked in a little pool of light and strangely emboldened by the smell of burning lamp-oil, the traveler set off towards Darkshire, leaving vaporous swirls and eddies in the mist.
Striding through a red, primordial darkness come alive with low, animal moans, Kelly resigned himself to a very long trip.