Turkey Hollow

[Stanley Anderson]

((Closed to Lasair and Whiteshadow))
Edit: Fix a lot of errors, didn't reread before I went to class, sorry =D

"Stan, We have to get out of here!" The words echoed in Stanley Anderson's head. Words torn from the mouth of the man laying face down, passed out, on the bar before him. Not but 20 minutes earlier the man, a short elven archer in his late midlife named Glevian, had been filled with enthusiasm for visiting his old stomping ground of Turkey Hollow.

Turkey Hollow was widely thought of as an enigma, the dark, damp, twisting road took hours off of the route to Jadet from the South Road by cutting through the dense forest. Though the time saved was valuable, the decision to use it was widely contested by the squad of soldiers. Turkey Hollow had a reputation for grim stories, many of which Stanley knew of well, stories of infidelities, and revenge, stories of phantom coffin riders, and destructive poltergeists. Also, though, Turkey Hollow is frequented by bandits, and Stanley's squad was only 3 soldiers strong. Glevian, despite the tales, used to work as a maintenance man on a small dilapidated inn and pub that stood close to 10 miles into the twisting road that was Turkey Hollow.

7 Miles into the hollow, the trees began to appear shriveled, and gray. The only light was what few particles of the setting sun made their way through the canopy. The road, by then was mostly caked with mud from the common rainstorms through that region, the only traction being the lightly sprinkled gravel which kept the soldiers' boots from sinking into the mud. Stanley's mind played tricks on him, the only thing tethering him to sanity was the constant mic-muck noise from his boots tearing through the mud. The trees, as dead as they looked, began to squeeze in on the road, suffocating it, they wrapped around over head, shielding even more of the sparse light. The group remained silent, listening for any signs of movement, they were all uneasy, and felt like they where being watched. The road kept its tricks up, it twisted, and turned, waved up and down, and flung them back and forth.

"Up ahead is The Turk's Feather, we can take a rest there." announced Glevian, an obvious hint of nostalgia in his voice. "Thank everything holy", thought Stanley. A rest from trekking through the mud sounded superb to the squad, the flora alone had been taking it's toll on the minds of the men. The road took a sharp left, and blocked the view of the continuation of the road by a large bank on the left hand side. When the road straightened out though, the squad was greeted by a grim sight. A soggy covered wagon was set abandoned in the middle of the road. A horse still attached, though collapsed on the ground from the numerous arrows protruding from it's midsection.

"Weapons!" yelled Garbell, the de facto leader of the squad, a large, dreadlocked, gray-faced man. The squad in its entirety drew their weapons to prepare for what was ahead. Garbell inched close to the wagon, with Stanley second in line. Garbell kept moving forward, but Stanley drew back slightly.

"Flank!" screamed Glevian, who was furthest from the scene. Stanley looked back, flinching slightly, to see a bloody corpse hanging from a tree, an obvious sign to the squad. Stanley's eyes welled up, and his face got puffy, his heart raced, and he saw the world through tunnel vision, he could feel the tension of the situation race trough his veins. His heart thumped louder and louder as he stared into the whitened eyes of the stiff, blood soaked, man. He focused in, its skin was gray and clammy, and had the consistency of wet paper. "Oh Shit." said Stanley, robbed for words. Like a wind chime in a doorway, they had walked right under him.

The seconds he looked to the dangling body seemed like hours. It was silent, and the sun had now set. Wind shot through the trees, making a low bellowing noise, and shaking the body back and forth. The eerie silence broke with a more vicious sound.

An explosion roared through the forest from behind Stanley, knocking him face first to the mud. It had felt like he had been pushed from behind, and his ears had gone out from the ignition of whatever had been in the wagon. gravel and mud rained down on Stanley as he focused his vision at the sight of his knapsack in the mud in front of him. He flipped himself over, foundation rocked by what had happened. He wiggled his digits to make sure he was all still there. He seemed fine, but felt mud between his toes. Upon inspection he saw that his boot had completely been removed from his body, he moved toward it, and slipped it on, while trying the clear the mud from his eyes with the other hand.

In the distance Stanley viewed a silhouette of Glevian running toward him full speed, yelling something inaudible to Stanley. The ringing cleared from his ears, verified by the pitter patter sound of the Gravel still raining down on them. Glevian helped Stanley up, and grabbed his backpack for him, yelling again.

"Stan, We have to get out of here!"

Stanley nodded, and began running after Glevian, toward the rubble of the wagon. "To the Turk's Feather!" Glevian yelled at Stan. As they ran over the wreckage Stanley viewed their former squad leader, Garbell, torn apart by the blast, mixed with the remains of the horse, which seemed to be the container for the putrid trap. Nonetheless, Stanley kept running, as fast he could with all the mud, following the footprints of his squad mate, and the now visible tracks of the wagon.

It seemed like an eternity of running, Stanley was chased by both the wind, and the sound of a bow string's twang from a single bandit that had now exposed himself. The two continued on, Stanley grasped his sword as hard as he could, and tried to keep up with the fit elven man who was leading. When the two had finally lost sight of the archer the Inn was in view, only about 50 yards away. A single lantern hung from a post to light the beginning of a brick road leading to the short, two story building. It was a well maintained building, with a small bell hanging from the doorway, unfitting for the area.

Glevian tried to slow down when he hit the brick, but the mud caked on their boots thought otherwise, the two both fell the the ground. Glevian hit his head off of an uneven brick, which immediately unleashed a torrent of blood from the back of his head. Stanley got up once more, this time sheathing his sword, and picking up his book bag.

"I'm surprised I haven't stabbed myself yet." he said aloud, trying to catch his breath. He leaned over, bracing himself on his legs, then walked over to His comrad, obviously sore.

"Glevian, you OK?" Stanley said wiping the mud from his eyes again. Now realizing the dark liquid rushing from Glevian's head. "Shit", Stanley grabbed Glevian from the back of the chain mail vest he had on, and drug him to the door. In hindsight, Stanley had figured he should have used more care, but with chain mail and all, Glevian was very heavy.

Kock-kock-kock "Corone Soldiers, open up!" Stanley yelled, slipping his badge under the door. A older elven man opened the door, he wore glasses, balding, with large mutton chops running down his face. "I've got wounded, Help me get him in here." Stanley barked the order to the man. The older elf helped Stanley lift him to the bar, the closest flat surface. After Glevian was flatened out, and Stanley had bandaged his head, he looked around to see that though the bar was silent, there where a few patrions staring at the horrid scene. Stanley braced himself on the bar, then dropped to a seat, and collected himself, holding one hand over his heart, trying to calm himself, then searching for his badge on his person, forgetting he had slipped it under the door.

[Lasair Anubail]

Hic!

Hic, hic!

Lasair took another long drink from the glass in front of her, the frothy substance on top coating her lip and creating a tasty moustache for her to lick off. The bar she sat in was relatively quiet, her being pretty much the only creature in there making noise. All the other patrons silently sat and drank their choice of poison, hers being some kind of ale. It wasn’t Dheathainian alcohol, but it sure was good and it was hitting her where it counted! Every now and again a small hic seemed to escape her lips, causing the wings on her back to flutter and shimmer in the soft lighting of the tavern. It wasn’t a very big place, she’d been in bigger, but it was comfortable. There was a crackling fire set off into the far left wall with roughly cut and quarried grey stones surrounding it. It cast warmth and light into the room, and every once in a while it burst and exploded, sending shards of embers flying out and onto the stones, making her glad they were there.

Before her was the bar and all the many shiny bottles that lay upon wooden shoves, some of which looking a little worn and uneven. There was even a barkeep who stood behind it, cleaning his obligatory glass with the obligatory cloth. Honestly, couldn’t they ever think of something better to do? Behind her were all the wooden tables resting on wobbly legs that had bits of something stuck under them to help keep them stable. If they built them properly they wouldn’t have to do such a thing though.

Beside her sat her two companions, each of them with a glass in front of them as well. The only difference to regular companions were these two were roughly nine inches tall and both made by her hand and enchanted by her hand to act exactly like the people they represented. The one currently shoving his face in his ale cup and drinking rather loudly was Tristram, her best friend. The plushie version of him looked exactly like he would, down to the dark blue detailing of scales on his shoulder, wings and thighs, not that one could see his thighs since they were covered in brown leather pants. As he only wore a sleeveless white shirt, the scales on his shoulder were easily more noticeable.

“Tristram, how’s your drinking coming along?”

Beside Tristram was a plushie of Avery, a very hot and sexy King of the Moontae who had come into her store and subsequently spend the next three days with. 99.9% of that time being in her bedroom. She’d taken such a liking to the man that she’d made a plushie of him to accompany her on her travels, not that he knew it. When she’d met him, he’d been completely naked, but seeing as how that would be inappropriate for a stuffed figure, she gave him a set of black leather pants. She also had a belt around his hips that kept his twin daggers sheathed.

A few moments of silence passed where Tristram’s mouth was too full of liquid to bother replying and Lasair couldn’t help but watch as the tiny version of her friend drank exactly like his did. All the while she wondered where he put it, after all he was only made of cotton. Completely finishing off the cup, the Draconian plushie slammed it down on the counter and burped rather loudly for such a tiny thing.

“Another!” He barked to the man behind the counter.

By now the human was rather used to her strange friends, though he still looked at them rather oddly every time they spoke. She didn’t see the big issue. They were enchanted to become alive and act exactly like the people they were made from, there was even blood from Tristram and Avery inside the dolls. They may not have a soul as some cultures believed in, but they felt pain and they could die, and Lasair would be greatly saddened if either of them did.

“You should learn some manners…” Avery said to Tristram as he sipped from his glass.

“Like I’d want to learn manners from a freak like you.”

Lasair sighed and took another drink of her ale. Those two always fought.

“Lasair?” She looked down at Avery as she continued to drink from her glass. “I can’t stand hanging around with this… this brute anymore! Why don’t you and I go someplace alone and leave him to his never ending glass of ale?”

Swallowing what was already in her mouth, the Fae set the glass down and gave Avery a small smile. Before she could answer, there was a sudden set of loud bangs echoing down from the entranceway. Hurried voices quickly followed and before long two men were carrying in the wounded body of some person dressed in a soldier’s outfit.

“That kind of looks like a Fae… a little on the tall side…” Tristram said off-handed.

Lasair was too busy staring at the whole scene with wide eyes to bother responding. No, it wasn’t a Fae. What Tristram failed to notice was the blood flowing from the wound on his head was red, not silver like Fae blood. But he did bear a remarkable resemblance to a Fae.

With the slow wit of someone under the influence, Lasair finally realized that blood meant a wound, which mean an injury and that the person was clearly in need of some assistance!

“I can help!”

Jumping down from the high stool and onto the floor, the Fae wobbled for a second and then snatched her never-ending rucksack off the ground. Throwing open the flap, she began rummaging around inside as she hurried over, wrapping her fingers around a bottle and pulling it out just as she reached the bar area where they’d set him to rest.

“Oops, vampire repellent, wrong bottle.” She said with a giggle. Putting it away, she reached inside again and this time pulled out another bottle with a silvery looking liquid inside.

Pulling the cork out, Lasair reached in and coated her fingers in the substance, then carefully spread it over the nasty looking gash on the side of the person’s head. Almost immediately the bleeding stopped and she knew within a few moments the wound would completely heal as well. After all it wasn’t that bad.

“There! Wound Be Gone fixes nearly all!” She said rather triumphantly.

[Whiteshadow]

Lightning tore the sky in two as Eternium watched the Corone Soldiers bring in the wounded man, and he shook his white head in dissapointment. He had thought it would be the criminal he was tracking, but obviously she hadn't come to the Turks Feather after all, like he had been told. Eternium cursed his own stupidity and was about to have left but the sight of the wounded men drew his curiousity.

One man was extremely out of breath, and the other was unconcious with a large gash on his head. Well, that one's a goner. Eternium thought to himself before returning to his drink. It was a regular brand, a spiced beer, that Eternium thought tasted like salt water compared to the taste of firewhiskey. The genetic experiment could almost have an orgasm at the taste of that.

Something surprised him, however. One of the patrons of the bar, a tall, red-headed woman with a light tan, suddenly jumped up and shouted, "I can help!"

Eternium couldn't help but chuckle at her enthusiasm at a time as dark as this. Turkey Hollow was known for its undead inhabitants, which is why the Bounty office had chosen Eternium for this mission. His swords of light were the most effective thing against the undead, they seemed to think. Why was a hyper woman like her here?

Eternium took a look at her table, looked away, then did a double-take. He thought his eyes were mistaken, but they weren't.

There were two stuffed animals sitting there drinking.

Eternium rubbed his eyes to make sure he was sane. Now he had seen everthing. Standing up, he decided that he should spend the night here, and beckoned over the worried bartender, who had been talking to the exhausted soldier(Eternium knew he was a soldier from his garb) with a series of quick, fleeting words.

"I'll take a room." Eternium said as the barkeep strode over. The man's eyes widened. "What?"

"You're....taking a....room?" the man stammered.

"Yeah. I think we just said that." Slow people simply irritated the experiment. Maybe it was just because his mind worked much faster than theirs, but they got on his nerves.

The barkeep shook his head and said, "Fine, but its your funeral." It was meant to be ominous, but Eternium only laughed at how corny it sounded.

"I think i'll be fine." Eternium grinned, then went back to a table to observe what would happen next.

[Stanley Anderson]

"Who does she think she is?, I'm a Corone medic, best in the world, she shouldn't be interfearing my work. She had to have known, Hell, it says it on my bad- where the hell is my badge?" Stanley scaned the dim lit room, spotting his badge on the far side of the bar, by the foot of the door. He popped himself off of his stool and walked to it, leaning over very slowly to pick it up. The enteranceway was dark, robbed from the light of the fireplace from its awkward angle. A crack from under the door shone dimly from the lantern outside, then flared up followed by the sound of thunder chasing it. Stan Turned around and walked back toward the bar, moving with stiff limbs, his joints aching from the run.

"Thank her, she did a good job, and that stuff cauterized that wound right up." He creped up to the Fae, who had helped save Glevian, and tapped her on the shoulder.

"Hey, Thanks a lot, you really helped out there." Once this close he could tell she had been drinking from the slight wobble she had while standing.

Stanley, still hunched slightly over, lifted his badge to the ceiling, flashing it to everyone, and holding it there.

"OK, everyone I am Stanley Anderson, a soldier of the Corone army. Circumstances outside have made it to unsafe to leave tonight, and I'm going to have to insist that no one goes outside for the remainder of tonight." He lowered his badge, then thought about Garbell's mangled body on the road.

"And, tomorrow when I deem it safe you can leave, but I have to ask that no one takes the Hollow toward the South Road, the roads been destroyed that way." Stanley knew well that the Road was still usable, but he didn't want anyone to walk over the bodies until they had a chance to clean the area up.

A few mumbles and grumbles came from the patrons, some of which who where to drunk to leave anyway, but overall no one seemed to contest staying, considering the Hollow was a dangerous enough place by day. Night was a whole different story.

Suddenly a breeze shot from the doorway, shoving the door out of the way, and resonating a low bellowing noise from the entranceway. The gust shot leaves into the inn and sprung across the room to the fireplace, extinguishing it immediately. Between the flairs of noise from the wind Stanley heard a quiet scraping noise that caught his attention. He walked back toward the doorway, now pitch black, and slammed the door shut, this time engaging the lock on it. He leaned over, feeling the cobblestone ground for what it sounded like slid in the door. The stone was cold, and wet, but the feeling broke when his hand hit an uneven bump in the ground, something leathery, that felt exactly like what he held in his other hand. Stan walked back toward the bar and held it up to try to see what it was, feeling its pointy corners, and its embroidering on its front.

"OH shit." He knew exactly what it was, lighting flashed to verify his suspicion. The room was lit for a brief second, long enough to view that the item in his hand was a badge, almost exactly like his, But this one was an officers badge, Garbell's Badge. It was soggy, covered in mud and blood. "Weird, how'd this make it all the way here."

Stanley quickly stuffed it away in his pocket to conceal it from the bar, he didn't want to freak anyone out, for all they knew it was only Himself and Glevain on the road.

[Lasair Anubail]

“No problem!” Lasair gave the human an extremely large smile as he thanked her, proud to be of some kind of help.

She always liked helping people in any way she could, which wasn’t always a big way. With her store though, she had been able to help quite a few people and whether or not it was big or small was up to them. She just enjoyed it. Not to mention she was beginning to miss it. She hadn’t even been away from Dheathain for very long and she was finding herself missing the oddest things. The way the region smelled after a heavy rainfall, the deep and twisting paths of Luthmor that she knew so well, the waterfall near her home and even the way her sister Aileen chastised her. It was odd the things that a person could miss when they were away from home. Still, Lasair wasn’t going to let that get her down. She had Tristram and Avery to keep her company.

The Fae was about to open her mouth and say something else to the human when he began addressing the entire room, pretty much ordering them to stay the night here. She felt her smile fade from her face a little. Why was he ordering everyone to stay here? What if they didn’t want to stay here? Lasair had no problem with it, she had already paid for her room, much to the surprise of the Keeper of this place, but she still felt it odd. This human was certainly being rather nosy if he thought he could just order other people around.

Out of nowhere the cold breeze broke through the doorway and blew straight into the tavern area. It tossed her fiery red hair and her dark red dress around her body before extinguishing the fire on the far side and many of the candles in the room as well, literally throwing the place into darkness. Lightning crashed outside and Lasair could smell rain in the air. Living in a rainforest for so long, one just knew when it was going to rain. Plus, the lightning kind of gave it away. Really made her feel like she was home again.

“Tristram?”

She couldn’t really see much of anything. The few candles that still held desperately to their flames caste a bit of light in their general area, but deeper shadows everywhere else.

“Don’t worry, I’ll fix it, Lasair.”

A few seconds later and in the fire was once again roaring in the stone hearth. With the suddenly bright light it cast, Lasair could see Tristram move from table to table using his magic to light the wicks of all the extinguished candles. As he did that, she walked back to the bar counter, knowing there was nothing else she could do for the injured man. In fact, he would probably be regaining consciousness within the hour, around the same time his wound would be completely healed. A few feet away from her was a strange looking man talking to the bar keep. He had rather interesting hair and eyes, the kind she had never seen on a human before. Maybe he wasn’t human.

Placing the Wound Be Gone back into her Never-Ending rucksack, she dropped it the ground by her feet and then jumped up onto the rather high stool. Not really feeling up for drinking anymore, the tiny Fae pushed her tankard of ale towards Tristram the moment he sat back down on the bar counter. He didn’t waste a moment before finding the strength to pick the entire glass drink the content within ten seconds. After which he subsequently fell over and passed out on the counter for.

[Whiteshadow]

Eternium had finished talking to the bartender when the soldier had stood up and made an announcement, that he was ordering everyone to stay here for the night. While the experiment had no qualms about staying here, as he had just bought a room himself, the fact that this man had the nerve to try and order him around set Eternium's nerves on edge.

The woman, Eternium noticed, was a lot shorter than he had first thought, as he glanced at her to see her reaction. She, like him, didn't seem to be too pleased with the fact that the man was using his "superiority" to force everyone to stay. Sure, this place had some dangerous rumors, but...

Suddenly a cold wind blew in and extinguished all the candles and fire in the room, smothering the place in darkness. Eternium felt chills as he sensed something moving through the room, something dark.

Then, as swiftly as the moment came it was gone, and light began returning to the dim room. Eternium thought they were lighting on their own at first, until he saw one of the stuffed animals that had been drinking moving around and lighting all the candles. Eternium would have laughed at the rediculousness of this, but it seemed the situation was much more serious than he had first thought.

Thus Eternium decided not to speak up against the soldier. The man may have had an ego on his head, but he was doing the right thing in forcing the people to stay here. The genetic experiment watched the stuffed animal go around and saw the small woman return to the bar counter and sadly push her drink over to the other stuffed animal, who drank it down greedily before collapsing on the table. Eternium chuckled, as he had never suffered that experience, and moved from the spot he was sitting at over to the injured man, who lay unconcious on the counter.

Examining the wound, Eternium saw that it had been a blow to the head that had caused the man's collapse, and immediately the experiment grew suspicious of the other soldier who had been commanding everyone to stay for the night. Would this man strike his own comrade down for personal gain? He couldn't tell right now, but Eternium decided that he would keep an eye on the soldier, lest he do anything suspicious. Moving away from the injured man he sat down on the seat to the left of the small woman and sighed. "Strange companions you have there." He murmured to her, and he heard a meow behind him. Turning slightly he saw Dweia sitting there, looking at him with baleful green eyes. Eternium chuckled and picked the cat up, who immediately began purring and rubbing her head against his coat. "No, I haven't forgot about you." He said to her, and reached into the leather bag by his side and pulled out a piece of dried fish. The old woman Erin at the Bazaar had given the fish to him, and he would have paid for it but she hadn't said anything. So Eternium had cut it up into little chunks for his cat, assuming the fish was for her. Dweia meowed in joy as she saw the fish and immediately "grabbed" it to say with her claws before chewing on it happily.