Child of Darkness

[Luned]

They made it. Flint was a bit perplexed when Luned led him to the nicer side of town not far from the museum, seemingly deeper into the city they aimed to flee. But, when she took him down a side street and rapped on a shabby old door, he knew why.

It took several long, trying minutes, but after a few more knocks, it creaked open at the whim of a short, voluptuous woman, rubbing her eyes in her bedtime negligée. "Took you long enough," she yawned, moving aside for them to step in. She didn't seem particularly concerned about their mutilated states, and rather more about what that might do to her meticulously clean home. "Keep those muddy boots off the carpets," she commanded sharply as they entered, apparently more alert than she appeared.

The disheveled pair shuffled into the room, an extravagant space with luxuriously upholstered furniture in jewel tones that could have made their eyes bleed after the dreary monochrome of Ettermire. It suited the fairy princess well, her inhumanly vibrant gold hair matching the metallic threading of the pillows on her oversized bed perfectly. It took every ounce of Flint's willpower not to just stumble over and pass out on the inviting down comforter right then.

"Thank you, Ags," Luned sighed in relief. "Do you think you could drop us at the library? I know it wasn't part of the deal, but––"

"It's really nothing, dearie. I'll even do you one better." She glanced between the pair, winked at Luned with one mismatched eye, and when she reopened the door, it led into another bedroom instead of the street. The scribe's, to be precise, and everything was just how she left it. It was a modest but cozy niche carved out of the old stone building, bed made up tidily in the corner, an old desk nearly invisible under stacks of books and papers and projects that were also littered across the floor in a labyrinth of scrolls and paints and inks. Late morning sun shone warmly through the transparent curtains, parted just enough to give a glimpse of azure sky.

Luned stepped in and relaxed as the comfort of the familiar wash over her. "Thanks, but… when did I ever invite you up here?" she asked the fairy with a surprised glance over her shoulder. Agnie answered with a mischievous shrug and Cheshire grin, then swiftly closed the door behind them.

Flint visibly decompressed, feeling safe in knowing he was finally far from the clutches of the Skinner. "Where…?"

"Radasanth. Welcome home."

---

Treatment of Flint's infection was long and arduous, requiring several visits from Luned's doctor friend, along with several drainings. These events were distressful for all involved, and the scribe wasn't quite sure if it was a good or bad thing that tapping the ocean of pus stored in the man's shoulder was significantly easier to bear after the horrors of their fateful adventure.

But he was a trooper, and within a couple days he was out of bed and exploring parts of the vast library in short bouts. This time Luned found him sitting in his room with a small stack of reading, an atlas opened to Akashima on the table in the sun as he gradually sipped a strong herbal tea he didn't particularly like. Dr. Petru had prescribed it, and as Luned dutifully brewed it every eight hours, he begrudgingly obliged. He was wrapped not unlike a mummy in the amount of bandages he wore, visible under his open collar as he lounged in a comfortable leather armchair with his book. He wished, perhaps not as halfheartedly as he thought, that he could get used to this.

"It occurred to me," she said, stepping up to him, "That I don't actually know anything about you. We haven't been properly introduced."

Now that they were finally out of impending danger, Flint was able to find enough humor in himself to crack a hint of a smile. "I suppose not."

Luned leaned against the arm of his chair and offered him her hand, careful that he wouldn't have to strain his healing shoulder. "I'm Luned Bleddyn, scribe from Radasanth. I have a thing for old books, my favorite color's blue, and I recently discovered that I might have a phobia of rats."

The man accepted her hand with a firm, business-like shake. "Flint Skovik, security and acquisitions, Salvar. And yeah, I'd have to say the same." As if the rat king took offense to that, a sharp pain suddenly stabbed at his shoulder, having moved his arm just enough to aggravate the injury.

At this point Luned knew him well enough to notice when it was bothering him, and he couldn't tell if it irked him or not that she was so keen at finding whispers of weakness in his stoic countenance. "I can get some niphena from––"

"No, I'm fine," Flint declined, figuring now that he was out of the woods, he would do just fine without measly painkillers. This unexpected vacation –– a novel thing, really –– was more than enough to see him well again.

"Suit yourself." The scribe stepped over to the open window and perched on the sill, one hand running over the flowers in the box hanging just outside. She picked a couple dry leaves off one spindly plant and let them flutter away, a cool breeze stirring the room Flint would call home until he was well enough to leave –– or, rather, when Luned allowed him, insisting that he stay for proper medical care. For some reason he didn't argue and, when he considered why he hadn't, he realized the past couple days holed up in the cozy living quarters of the library reminded him of what memories he had of home. That thought disturbed him and his brow furrowed, Luned immediately catching his vexed look. "Don't tell me you don't like Corone already," she teased.

He shook his head. "Just thinking about my own country." This time it was Luned who was visibly vexed at the thought of something, and he turned the concern back on her. "Apparently it's you who doesn't like Salvar."

The light mood turned as Luned looked down at her hands, her thumb running along the lines of her left palm. The sun caught the red and gold highlights in her loose, dark hair, giving her a halo of warmth, but the stitches on her neck and face caught the light as well. There would most certainly be scars when they finished healing. "I never did tell you why I needed Swaysong, did I?"

Flint shook his head again.

"I'm wanted in Salvar for three murders. Oh… and witchcraft."

The man caught himself as his jaw dropped, his stoicism swiftly restored after a brief lapse of astonishment. "Did you really…?"

The scribe could have argued semantics, but it really didn't matter. She nodded, still avoiding eye contact as she stared at her lap. "If I had Swaysong, I could undo it. I went to Ettermire planning to do just that, but you know how that went."

There was the nagging guilt again. Before Flint could reply something sheepish, however, she continued.

"It's probably for the best. I've had a lot of time to think and I realized it was all for the wrong reasons, anyway. I wasn't doing it for them, they weren't good people… I was doing it because it had changed me." Luned leaned her forehead against the frame of the window, still paying meticulous attention to her hands and not Flint. She seemed to be curling in on herself as she let it all out in one uninvited deluge of secrets. "When I realized how stupid that goal was, I thought I could fix Ezura and Helethra's life instead. But you know what I felt when I saw Ezura die? Disappointment. What kind of human emotion is that? No sympathy, no sorrow, just… disappointment. For myself. Because it ruined my desperate attempt to revalidate my sorry existence."

Flint wasn't used to emotional conversations and found himself severely lacking in the knowing-what-to-say department, so he merely sat in speechless silence as she rambled on.

"Even if I could bring Ezura and Helethra back together, their family would still be broken. Even if I erased everything that happened in Salvar, I would still be broken. I'd still do stupid things like this to reclaim some part of myself that I'll never get back." Luned looked to Flint with an apologetic little smile, knowing she'd likely just made him very uncomfortable with information he probably didn't care about, but even so, it was better than trying to describe her mistakes to the morally righteous people she usually surrounded herself with. That wasn't a slight against Flint, either. "I'm done kidding myself, though."

With that, Luned stood up, stretched, and in an effort to change the subject, stole Flint's half-finished cup of tea off the table. "This must be cold, isn't it? I'll go get some warm for you." It felt good to get everything off her chest, and though she rather felt in need of a hug, too, she figured she'd forego further awkwardness for her poor friend's sake.

[Warpath]

As Luned hurried off to procure more tea Flint examined the moment, feeling with absolute certainty a crossroads he didn’t realize he’d been approaching. His eyes wandered over the room, taking in the books, the wood, the peace of that place. War was Flint’s status quo: the endless struggle was familiar to him and thus, illogically, it was what historically gave him comfort. To languish in one place was to stagnate and become soft, weak, and thus this estate – this room – was the antithesis of all he stood for.

And yet, nothing seemed sweeter than to stay.

The concept was novel and uniquely startling, and it set his heart to hammering in his chest. Could he read books and write letters the way Luned and her mentor did, relying on their expertise to sharpen the intellectual skills he’d garnered on his own? No, he could never neglect his body that way, unless…and for a moment he saw himself in another life, hauling nets full of fish or crates full of goods from all over Althanas, an uncommonly strong but anonymous worker on Radasanth’s teeming dockside. He’d cover his scars under cotton shirts and wear a hat. He’d have a modest home and a…

He flinched from the concept the way a normal man would flinch from the thought of committing murder. And yet, the scenario lingered, tempting in its eerie possibility, pregnant with the distant sound of children’s laughter and a woman’s smile. He could be a man of peace instead of pain. He could renounce this path he walked in perpetual loneliness. For the first time he felt his burden, and knew he could put it down.

Flint reached into his pocket and felt cool glass, letting Luned’s revelation play over and over in his mind’s conception. “If I had Swaysong,” she'd said, intent upon her hands, “I could undo it.”

He tried to imagine the person she’d been before the darkness of Salvar had touched her, and then he withdrew his hand from his pocket, and with it came the single remaining vial of Swaysong in the known world. He turned it over between his fingers, his selfishness and his shame, watching it shift and slosh against the glass walls, and then he decided.

He reached out and slid the vial under a pile of folded papers Luned had been flipping through earlier that morning, and then he sat back. The breeze came in through the window, tossing the curtains and kissing the naked skin of his scalp.

----

The days dragged on, and his strength grew. It was usually sunny, and in time Luned gave him permission to take short walks, and then she began to catch him doing pushups in the morning and she would chide him and make him drink tea. There were rainy days too, and on those days they read, and once stood in the open doorway and watched it pour, and said nothing. She either hadn’t found the Swaysong, or hadn’t said anything. He waited.

Though the scribe did what she could to keep his presence a secret, Flint soon met her elderly mentor. The event was, to Luned’s surprise, a non-event. She walked into a room one day to find the thug and the scribe sincerely engaged in a game of chess. They did not talk, but hummed and harrumphed every dozen moves. Bleddyn usually won, but sometimes Flint did, and that seemed to please both of them.

There was a warm night when they played late by candlelight, long after Luned had given up on them and gone to sleep. The crickets filled the silence between muttered compliments, and fireflies drifted near the open window.

“Not a good trade,” Bleddyn muttered. “Knight for a bishop there. Strange game.”

“Never judge a sacrifice until the game ends,” Flint countered.

“Very Skavian of you to say,” the old scribe said. “Even had the accent for it. Check, by the by.”

Flint blinked, and then was silent for a long moment of thought. Finally he made his move and said, “How would you know a Skavian accent?”

Bleddyn shrugged, almost as if he hadn’t heard the question. “I have so much in my head,” he said, “why waste brain space remembering how it all got there?”

“What do you know of Skavia?”

“Not that much. It’s been a hard place to come up in recent years, even around Andvall. Hard to be happy with your lot in life up there, I imagine.”

“They find ways to be happy, even up there,” Flint said. “Check.”

“More to life than being happy,” Bleddyn said. “Little late in the game to change tactics, isn’t it?”

“Not if I win.”

Bleddyn made a pleased sound as Flint made his move, a bold and aggressive sweep. There was a moment of thought, and then Bleddyn countered it with a creative retreat, and Flint narrowed his eyes.

“Checkmate,” the scribe said. “That was an interesting move, but you should have stuck to your first plan.”

“It wasn’t a good one,” Flint said.

“Maybe, but you knew what you were doing,” Bleddyn said, “even if you didn’t realize it.”

---

That night, Flint laid in his borrowed bed staring at the ceiling in the dark. The smell of rain was on the breeze, and he heard thunder from the sea’s direction. He thought of the life he was about to begin – the bold gambit he was about to undertake. He thought of where he’d come from, the trials he’d undertaken, the near-death he’d faced underneath Swanra’ann’s knife.

In the dark he reached up and pressed his fingers gently to the developing scar on his shoulder, and then he reached back and let his fingertips play over the older scars – the gifts from whip and knife and claw. He thought about the pit, and all the vile places he’d been since he escaped slavery. It was easy to forget about the scars, talking to Luned and drinking tea, but they remained and always would.

He tried again to imagine Luned before Salvar, and as the rain began to fall the picture became clear, and a chill washed over him.

I was doing it because it had changed me.

Flint crawled out of bed and padded through the halls, his way illuminated by flashes of lightning. He pushed aside the pile of papers, and found the little vial of Swaysong – his selfishness and his shame - and stared at it.

Flint wanted the future he’d envisioned for himself – the anonymous dockworker he could become. Alone in the dark, he allowed himself to feel the ache of that want, the longing. But to become that man he would have to leave behind his burden: all the darkness that made him who he was now, all the selfishness and the shame. That man would not set aside his own darkness, and yet abandon Luned to hers.

But the cold, immutable fact was that the darkness Salvar had given to him was what Flint saw reflected in Luned. It was what they shared, and with that erased what would she see of herself in him? Flint had the opportunity to be a good man, but to do it he would have to give up his only friend.

So he reached out and took the Swaysong. He buried the pain alongside the fear. Doing so was wrong, he knew, and it stripped him of his humanity. He made himself hard-eyed and cold, cruel and dangerous, a predator, and he put the vial in his pocket. He pretended that deep, deep inside him – buried alongside his humanity – there wasn’t a deep and overwhelming yearning for the other path.

He was good at pretending.

---

The next morning he packed to leave. He wondered if Luned was disappointed, and told himself it was silly if she were. She didn’t try to stop him, but she brewed him tea and packed him too much food. Bleddyn mumbled a farewell in passing.

As he was on his way out, carrying a rucksack of everything he owned in the world upon his back, Luned stopped him and then disappeared into her study for a long moment. She emerged again in a flurry of flowing skirts and bobbing braids, presented a piece of paper to him, and then said, “Oh, wait!”

He watched as she folded it into a neat envelope, and then she handed it to him.

“It’ll help us keep in touch,” she explained. “I’ll be able to read whatever you write on it, and vice versa. I’d like it if you’d write me when you get home. Let me know you made it alive, and you’re not hanging from a pipe in your underwear somewhere.”

“Wouldn’t want you to miss that,” Flint said.

There was a long pause in which the pair stared awkwardly at one another, and then Flint pointed at her neck and shoulder, where stitches peeked out from her collar. “Those validate your existence,” he said. “If they change you, it is for the better.”

“I don’t know if it feels that way.”

“Getting stronger hurts,” Flint said.

“I was afraid you’d say that.”

The brute shouldered his rucksack, and shook his head with only the slightest ghost of a smile. “That’s the trouble with being fear,” he said.

“All you have left to be afraid of is yourself.”

[Luned]

The End.

Spoils requests:

Ezura's corpse, with some Swaysong still present inside- will/ can ONLY be used for story purposes, not battles, etc.

An elf fetus to be remade into my flying creepy ass familiar.

One vial of Swaysong to be used in quests only. If he takes it, any new abilities will go through RoG at level-up. Also the glyph from Aurelianus and the piece of paper Luned gave him. (None of these are for selling.)

The receipts Luned gives Ags in the beginning, if necessary. Maybe not, since Luned makes them herself (see abilities), but figured I'd ask just in case.

Please note that this thread is eligible for the 50% EXP bonus offered via the LCC. Flint/Luned are Skullfuckers and this is "How They Met"!

[Otto]

Alright, folks. Prepare to be judged! Bonus LCC 'how we met' thread experience added for Luned and Flint, as well.

---

Plot ~ 25/30

Storytelling ~ 9/10
I was utterly enthralled by everyone’s effort in this section. I went from disgust, to laughter, to horror, back to disgust, then surprise, sick fascination (cue Aurelianus’ entrance), et cetera... not once was I bored, nor given something irrelevant to read. Deus Ex Machinima was avoided by bringing in important elements of the story early, and letting them pay off towards the end – Gravebeard, the smoke bombs, Helethra’s dolls and medicine, and so forth. Also, when things are too convenient in a story, it smacks of laziness and unbelievability. Things were far from convenient for the characters in the story here, and that really added to the tension. Very good stuff. The last bit with Helethra had me close to tears, to be honest.
Now for the bad: I was a little thrown by the ease with which Aurelianus waltzed into an audience with the Queen, and furthermore by how she just gave in to his requests. I was under the impression that Swanra’ann was much more vicious and, to be honest, competent, to rely on a lone, bruised and battered, unknown quantity. That Aurelianus was responsible for sabotaging her earlier efforts to track Flint, Luned, and the thief also hurt the credibility of this part.
I’m conflicted about Helethra’s survival as well, to be honest. You had me ready to cry over the death of a monster, but instead, you managed to bring her back. I think you did the right thing by the story, though. Everything you needed for that was already there, it fit character (to mix scoring sections), and Helethra’s reaction stopped it becoming the Disney ‘happy ending’ that it could have become.
That’s about it for complaints, though. Nothing apart from that really stands out. Good work!

Setting ~ 8/10
Urgh, yuck. When Luned tripped over in the sewers? Ettermire’s smogocalypse? The formaldehyde-choked laboratory? Swanra’ann’s furbished and oh-so-tastefully decorated office? The wall of rotting, giant rats? Bravo, people, bravo. Every place you went to, from the shoe shop, to the seedy brothel, to the streets and to the sewers, I could really feel the locales.
Some places were explained well, but I haven’t retained a distinct impression of them – the lower stretches of the sewers, and the fancy hotel’s a little vague, too. Things seemed a little jumbled between the three character as they navigated the tannery, too.
Nonetheless, whatever the setting, it wasn’t just a painted backdrop. I liked to see you all interact with it, use it, affect it, and be affected by it. A touch more detail and cohesion in some parts here and you could easily get into 9 territory.

Pacing ~ 8/10
Another good effort. The slow, cautious creeping through the sewers enhanced the thread’s tension without becoming agonisingly slow. Battles were frantic, moved quickly, but weren’t a confusing mess. On a larger scale, the story unfolds bit by bit, enough to tease a reader along without giving away a great deal.
I must admit, there were times when I wished you did move along a bit faster. As interesting as it was, my attention waned once or twice per page. With long posts such as you all had, you may want to ease up on some of introspection and let the character’s actions do the talking, and also maybe be a little more zealous when it comes to cutting down content.

Character ~ 25/30

Communication ~ 8/10
This part was key to the story. Individually, each character projected a unique persona, NPCs included. I actually think Aurelianus took the cake here, but in terms of character-character interaction, Luned and Flint’s developing rapport flowed naturally and easily, and was instrumental in pulling the quest along while also exploring the personalities of both. That’s not to say Aur didn’t have his moments in this regard, though. The sadistic pleasure he took in causing pain even as he patched the other two up inside the warehouse really stood out.
Again, I was disappointed with Swanra’ann. She was always as much a source of danger, if not more, than the sewers, and her reputation and presence overhung much of the thread. However, when it got to meeting her... she didn’t really make much of an impact. It might have been better to not meet her at all, in fact, as the mere threat of her personal involvement towards the end was doing a good job of keeping things nice and tense. Also, the responses of her elite underlings (such as the wizard) weren’t too realistic, or inventive. I can imagine lowly street thugs with something to prove getting their panties in a twist because of Aur’s insults, but not necessarily the veterans.
Close to a 9, but Swanra’ann and her lackeys failed to impress. Given their importance, this worked against the story.

Action ~ 9/10
Very good. Everyone’s use of action was credible, at times inventive, fit their settings, and assisted the communication aspect. I saw Aur’s lithe agility, Flint’s brute strength and later, the weakness of his ailing body, and Luned’s physical frailty at conflict with her resolve. I also saw Ezura’s slight social awkwardness, Helethra’s childish demeanour, and Gravebeard’s crippling injuries. I recoiled from the press of bodies in the brothel, and despaired at the mindless trudging of workers to and fro in the tannery. I felt the blows land and the pain strike, the swiftness of the sewer channels, and putrid fur slough off under hand. It was all very evocative.
I don’t really know what else to say for this section. I think action was one of the biggest problems affecting clarity for you, although ‘big’ isn’t really the right word.

Persona ~ 8/10
There isn’t really much to add to this section, sorry. The things which detracted from your score here are all listed under ‘communication’. Otherwise, each character’s persona came out very well in regards to action and communication, as well as periods of introspection. This may be better off under ‘story’, but I found the involvement of Aur’s character to act as a really good counterpoint to the Flint and Luned’s relationship, perpetually and legitimately skirting the line between friend and foe.

Prose ~ 24/30

Mechanics ~ 8/10
Mostly, it was very good. Grammatical errors were few and far between, as were spelling issues. Unfortunately, they were still present - see post no. 13, and compare ‘exhale’ to ‘exhalation’, for example. You won’t need to reduce their number by much to progress to a 9 for this section. To really polish up a post, perhaps you can leave it and come back after a day or two with a clear head for another read-through. The errors I encountered weren’t really something that a spell-checker is likely to pick up on.
This seems to be an easy mistake to make, but I noticed, just once or twice, some sentences came off rather awkwardly due to redundancy. To be more precise, things like "Running fast, he ran through the door" - mixing participles of the same verb. Also, Dirks picked up on this, which I seem to have missed (or forgotten):

That said, mechanically there were quite a few run-on sentences and abrupt changes between active and passive voice in the first few posts.

Clarity ~ 7/10
Good, with room for improvement. A couple of times per page, I was re-reading a sentence, or even previous paragraphs to a make sense of something. It wasn’t necessarily even anything major – like when Aur threw his coat to Luned during the final face-off with the giant roach. There’s no mention of her using it, but if she didn’t, wouldn’t that mean that Freki’s shield would have hit her as well?
The vast majority of it was understandable at the very least, and more often than not, everything was described succinctly and colourfully. Just be careful with some of your action, and be sure to address all the relevant points of the preceding post.

Technique ~ 9/10
I found Flint’s delirious flashbacks in post no. 19 to be a piece of technical brilliance. Although it did less to progress the plot than most other posts, it fit in better than many. The three of you have an accomplished technique. Nothing too adventurous, but I get the feeling you’ve each settled on something that combines versatility with reliability. That said (and perhaps you've already done this in the past), I believe it would have paid for the three of you to experiment with your writing style. With your strength in the other sections, you could have tried something a little different here (say, to write a post following your characters from an NPC's point of view) at the risk of losing a point or two.
A couple of noteworthy mentions, now: the way that Luned and Flint wrote really let the dynamic between the two characters shine, and Aur did a fine job of painting Ettermire through the tiefling’s eyes. For the most part, you didn’t just pick the right verb or noun (etc.), but a poignant synonym to maximise its effect. The centipede’s legs weren’t just ‘many’, or ‘numerous’, they were ‘illimitable’. I liked that. Keep it up. Aur, your Sigil vernacular adds a distinct flavour to this thread, as it does with others, but be careful of creating a caricature of either your own character or that of NPCs.

Wildcard ~ 8/10
Damn good story. A little hard to continue on at times, but I’ve tried to account for the forced reading. Ezura and her daughter, perhaps, could have stood to have a more prominent presence, as I was more concerned with Helethra’s part in the story than even Swanra’ann’s. Don’t get me wrong, though - I still think it to be remarkably well done. And what a beautiful ending!
I shudder to think what sorts of favours Aurelianus will call in for with those two, too...

Total ~ 82/100

Aurelianus Drak'shal gains 926 experience and 253 gold. Spoils: Ezura's corpse with ingested traces of Swaysong, for quest purposes. Additonally, a preserved elf foetus (race selectable), because that's how he rolls.

Luned gains 2580 experience and 469 gold. Spoils: receipts! Receipts galore! Also, lots of nightmares. Latter optional.

Warpath gains 2381 experience and 433 gold. Spoils: one vial of Swaysong for quest purposes (powers to go through RoG upon leveling), Aurelianus' golden glyph, Luned's instant-message paper thingum, and some bitchin' scars (also optional).

[Letho]

EXP/GP added.