Of Light, Life and Liches

[Faithdreamer]

After Breakfast

“I never thought of that. Ingenious, bear, sit there and don’t move.”

The Worgs are busy gorging themselves on your campsite. Scar tries anyway, and seems to have at least an acceptable success rate. He stands proudly, erect, straight, uncompromising. His brother Silt is somewhere nearby looking regal and princely, for a Worg, at least.

“All the people in the city are dead, and they won’t care if we eat their food. So these idiots said they’d kill everything in the way. Then we’re going to go into the city and eat what they’ve got. No objections, because none will be tolerated – I’m hungry.”

The pack gives him a lukewarm reception, and apparently that means they’re whining and complaining. By now, every leader in creation is used to that. He turns to the Green Man, looking up at him with calculating, earnest, fierce eyes. The differences in your height don’t even seem to occur to him. You get the impression that, in his mind, Scar thinks he can beat you, opposable thumbs or not.

“These Worgs are lazy. They’ll catch up when they feel like it. My brother and I will go with you.”

Silt made a high-pitched sound. “I don’t want to go with them. They go looking for trouble.”

“Brother, that’s all the better knowing where it is.” Scar waits patiently for you to leave. The only thing Matthias is able to find readily in this forest seems to be the Worg pack. They’ve already eaten everything edible, and for some reason it seems bad to eat the Worgs themselves. If push came to shove, did you want to eat the Worgs..?

Spoiler

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You’ll have to wait a short time while I figure out what ‘next episode’ means. Don't write anything new just yet.

Like a Tigress

For a moment your mind feels fuzzy and sleepy, like it’s weaker than it usually is. You’re able to shake off the discomfort, all those nights spent forgetting to sleep weren’t for nothing. Being a bard required intensive effort, dedicated focus, so many never understood what that felt like. If you’d been misfortunate enough to be someone else, you wouldn’t be concentrating right now. This place was creepy. It just didn’t feel on the level.

“Little thing. Wake up before something coddles you.”

As impossible as it seemed, you opened your eyes. Disorientated, you wondered how reality hopped from one place to another. It was dark in here, and you knew the stone altar you’d been laid upon was cold, you did not feel it. The glowing coals of a fire basin warmed the air not at all, and even though they stood out in the darkness, shed no light to see by. You can hear the high pitched wail of icy winds outside. The familiar sound of strong wind; and your intuition tells you there’s a heavy stone door nearby. It’s the only way out of this room. The smell in the air is clean and pure, there is no distinct flavour. It just feels chaste.

You blink again, and you realize with a gasp, you can see more in the darkness. A faintly glowing line of letters above the door warns very sternly against opening it.

Spoiler

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Will save successful, follow-up smooch averted. That's a good thing... right..?