Re: The Gradual Massacre (GBS2G4) [Round 4: Misty Swamp]
09-26-2011, 06:26 AM
Originally posted on MSPA by Godbot.
Over the next week, Fernwood and its able-bodied refugees set to work reassembling their tiny village. Various swordsmen, a plant wizard, a self-styled “extreme botanist” and a miniature giant lumberjack had grown several new trees and cut them down for lumber. This went to a construction crew of various dinosaurs and beastmen, an elephant-like creature with ivory tentacles for tusks, and an entire crew of goblin ex-pirates, who had made some rudimentary repairs to the boardwalks before moving on to putting together some emergency housing for the people who were still gradually trickling in. Every once in a while, another group of refugees arrived, bringing word that another remote village had fallen.
Before long, Fernwood was extending another thirty feet in all directions, including up. By growing trees as extra supports, the sturdier buildings had had second stories added to them, and another few watchtowers were put in place, mostly in case Ouroborous returned, but also in case of raiders attacking while the village was both crippled and well-populated. Once they had nearly filled all of the available space with new buildings and construction projects, they began work on a system of piers and raft-like platforms that extended into the lake so they could build even more. Before long, Fernwood was starting to look like something between a wooden city and a shipwreck. (A lot of people jokingly blamed the goblin pirates for that, but Captain Scumbeard’s crew didn’t think it was very funny.)
---
Cherry’s decision to set up shop as the village therapist was extremely well-timed, to say the least. It was only a few days after she started, and her list of clients was already so full that people were showing up after hours, hoping to get a minute of her time. As Holly, she might have turned those people down, but Cherry wouldn’t dream of it. She was only one woman, but she didn’t need the rest as much as all those poor villagers and refugees needed peace of mind. And besides, it was only during the evenings.
No one went out at night.
At first, Cherry was worried that using her pathomancy so much and so often would make her unstable again, but it turned out to have the opposite effect. At the end of each day she was usually exhausted, and Algernon periodically had to dump large amounts of sharp ice crystals, ticking alarm clocks and DO NOT ENTER signs into the swamp, but just the knowledge that she was doing something good for other people on her own free will and asking for nothing in return was enough to keep her happy and her thaumic levels stable.
This kept Algernon in good spirits, too, so Cherry never brought up how often Algernon came up in conversation during her sessions.
---
Galatea and Chambers had stopped talking to and looking at Algernon for obvious reasons, but mercifully, they hadn’t told anyone that Algernon was the one who had redirected Ouroborous towards Kerosene and destroyed the entire village by accident. Maybe out of respect, figured Cherry.
Instead, the people of Kerosene found out because Fernwood declared Algernon a hero.
The locals were extremely grateful to Algernon for obvious reasons, and a sizeable group of villagers pushed to hold some sort of feast or holiday in his honor, which only made Kerosene hate him more. After a bit of deliberation and a few covert meetings, the town council decided not to take sides, and ruled that their town and supplies weren’t in good enough shape to manage anything like that. Even though that was basically true anyway, their decision didn’t really solve anything, and some days it felt like it just created more tension.
(Originally, the Kerosene refugees had been planning on taking the fact that they were stuck in hastily-thrown-together dwellings as an insult, but it was pretty obvious that it was just because there weren’t any empty houses in Fernwood before or after Ouroborous leveled about half of it, so they just settled for hating Algernon even more so that they could be angry at Fernwood for celebrating him. It worked out okay.)
So, villagers frequently came by Cherry’s little magical psychology joint to talk about how much they hated Algernon and how terrifying Ouroborous was and how they knew it was an accident but really it must have been on purpose that Algernon did it, it must have been because he knew how much they hated him, everyone’s out to get them, everyone always has been, or else it’s the universe that wants to make them miserable and do you know about that time a god plucked them out of their lives to get murdered by an elephant with ivory tentacles for tusks?
Cherry didn’t know about that, but she just smiled, nodded, worked her magic and worried about Algernon.
For the moment, she didn’t really have to worry, though. In an uncharacteristic show of good sense, Algernon made the decision to spend the week after the incident avoiding both the people who wanted to celebrate his misdeeds and the people who wanted him lynched for his heroics. After a few days of sitting in Cherry’s house doodling and staring at the wall, guilt began to set in, so he got out of the house and started helping to get the town organized again. He mostly just performed simple manual labor, clearing away rubble and tearing down rotted houses that were sinking into the swamp and torn up beyond repair, but everything helped.
Cherry never brought it up, but she was delighted to see Algernon actually doing something on his own for once that didn’t involve him getting attacked by monsters.
He kept a low profile and mostly worked odd hours, before other people were getting up or while they were going home to rest – generally, any time of the day that discouraged running into anyone who wanted to give him a shiv in the ribs. But he never worked at night, of course. Cherry would be expecting him home, or she’d get worried and pissed off and think he’d gone and done something stupid or gotten himself hurt.
Besides, no one went out at night.
---
No one knew exactly when it started, since there were so many people and so many unfamiliar faces and no one knew where anyone was staying at night, but a few days into the Fernwood reconstruction effort, people started vanishing. By the time anyone noticed there was a pattern of people going missing, it was clear that most of the people who were disappearing were night watchmen, tasked with standing in the one place on the outskirts of the village. Where no one could hear them. In the dark.
As a response, the Fernwood town council doubled the number of people on night watchman duty, and only a few people showed up each night. The brave souls who did would stay in the center of town around a fire where everyone could see each other and no one could really see much of anything else. Not a lot of actual night-watching got done, but no one vanished or died, so no one really had anything to complain about.
But even after people learned to spend the night indoors where it was safe, there was still the issue of why people had been vanishing and who was responsible for it. Just to make things convenient for everyone, the disappearances had started on the same night that the first couple dozen refugees arrived, which narrowed the suspects down to either one of the refugees or one of the villagers, depending on whose side you were on.
People watched their neighbors and boarded up their windows. A few brave villagers formed a group of vigilante watchmen to watch the docks. Their group was quickly disbanded upon their abrupt and quiet disappearance two nights later. In the end, everything just led to more suspicion, tension and divisiveness in Fernwood. This suited Thane just fine.
Every few nights, Thane’s empty shell came from the shadowy outskirts of the village to claim some hapless villager. No one trusted everyone, so everyone made sure they were alone, and that just made it easier for him. Closed doors and absent watchmen didn’t stop him any more than devouring villagers sated his mindless hunger for violence and flesh.
People kept disappearing.
No one went out at night.
No one knew why.
Over the next week, Fernwood and its able-bodied refugees set to work reassembling their tiny village. Various swordsmen, a plant wizard, a self-styled “extreme botanist” and a miniature giant lumberjack had grown several new trees and cut them down for lumber. This went to a construction crew of various dinosaurs and beastmen, an elephant-like creature with ivory tentacles for tusks, and an entire crew of goblin ex-pirates, who had made some rudimentary repairs to the boardwalks before moving on to putting together some emergency housing for the people who were still gradually trickling in. Every once in a while, another group of refugees arrived, bringing word that another remote village had fallen.
Before long, Fernwood was extending another thirty feet in all directions, including up. By growing trees as extra supports, the sturdier buildings had had second stories added to them, and another few watchtowers were put in place, mostly in case Ouroborous returned, but also in case of raiders attacking while the village was both crippled and well-populated. Once they had nearly filled all of the available space with new buildings and construction projects, they began work on a system of piers and raft-like platforms that extended into the lake so they could build even more. Before long, Fernwood was starting to look like something between a wooden city and a shipwreck. (A lot of people jokingly blamed the goblin pirates for that, but Captain Scumbeard’s crew didn’t think it was very funny.)
---
Cherry’s decision to set up shop as the village therapist was extremely well-timed, to say the least. It was only a few days after she started, and her list of clients was already so full that people were showing up after hours, hoping to get a minute of her time. As Holly, she might have turned those people down, but Cherry wouldn’t dream of it. She was only one woman, but she didn’t need the rest as much as all those poor villagers and refugees needed peace of mind. And besides, it was only during the evenings.
No one went out at night.
At first, Cherry was worried that using her pathomancy so much and so often would make her unstable again, but it turned out to have the opposite effect. At the end of each day she was usually exhausted, and Algernon periodically had to dump large amounts of sharp ice crystals, ticking alarm clocks and DO NOT ENTER signs into the swamp, but just the knowledge that she was doing something good for other people on her own free will and asking for nothing in return was enough to keep her happy and her thaumic levels stable.
This kept Algernon in good spirits, too, so Cherry never brought up how often Algernon came up in conversation during her sessions.
---
Galatea and Chambers had stopped talking to and looking at Algernon for obvious reasons, but mercifully, they hadn’t told anyone that Algernon was the one who had redirected Ouroborous towards Kerosene and destroyed the entire village by accident. Maybe out of respect, figured Cherry.
Instead, the people of Kerosene found out because Fernwood declared Algernon a hero.
The locals were extremely grateful to Algernon for obvious reasons, and a sizeable group of villagers pushed to hold some sort of feast or holiday in his honor, which only made Kerosene hate him more. After a bit of deliberation and a few covert meetings, the town council decided not to take sides, and ruled that their town and supplies weren’t in good enough shape to manage anything like that. Even though that was basically true anyway, their decision didn’t really solve anything, and some days it felt like it just created more tension.
(Originally, the Kerosene refugees had been planning on taking the fact that they were stuck in hastily-thrown-together dwellings as an insult, but it was pretty obvious that it was just because there weren’t any empty houses in Fernwood before or after Ouroborous leveled about half of it, so they just settled for hating Algernon even more so that they could be angry at Fernwood for celebrating him. It worked out okay.)
So, villagers frequently came by Cherry’s little magical psychology joint to talk about how much they hated Algernon and how terrifying Ouroborous was and how they knew it was an accident but really it must have been on purpose that Algernon did it, it must have been because he knew how much they hated him, everyone’s out to get them, everyone always has been, or else it’s the universe that wants to make them miserable and do you know about that time a god plucked them out of their lives to get murdered by an elephant with ivory tentacles for tusks?
Cherry didn’t know about that, but she just smiled, nodded, worked her magic and worried about Algernon.
For the moment, she didn’t really have to worry, though. In an uncharacteristic show of good sense, Algernon made the decision to spend the week after the incident avoiding both the people who wanted to celebrate his misdeeds and the people who wanted him lynched for his heroics. After a few days of sitting in Cherry’s house doodling and staring at the wall, guilt began to set in, so he got out of the house and started helping to get the town organized again. He mostly just performed simple manual labor, clearing away rubble and tearing down rotted houses that were sinking into the swamp and torn up beyond repair, but everything helped.
Cherry never brought it up, but she was delighted to see Algernon actually doing something on his own for once that didn’t involve him getting attacked by monsters.
He kept a low profile and mostly worked odd hours, before other people were getting up or while they were going home to rest – generally, any time of the day that discouraged running into anyone who wanted to give him a shiv in the ribs. But he never worked at night, of course. Cherry would be expecting him home, or she’d get worried and pissed off and think he’d gone and done something stupid or gotten himself hurt.
Besides, no one went out at night.
---
No one knew exactly when it started, since there were so many people and so many unfamiliar faces and no one knew where anyone was staying at night, but a few days into the Fernwood reconstruction effort, people started vanishing. By the time anyone noticed there was a pattern of people going missing, it was clear that most of the people who were disappearing were night watchmen, tasked with standing in the one place on the outskirts of the village. Where no one could hear them. In the dark.
As a response, the Fernwood town council doubled the number of people on night watchman duty, and only a few people showed up each night. The brave souls who did would stay in the center of town around a fire where everyone could see each other and no one could really see much of anything else. Not a lot of actual night-watching got done, but no one vanished or died, so no one really had anything to complain about.
But even after people learned to spend the night indoors where it was safe, there was still the issue of why people had been vanishing and who was responsible for it. Just to make things convenient for everyone, the disappearances had started on the same night that the first couple dozen refugees arrived, which narrowed the suspects down to either one of the refugees or one of the villagers, depending on whose side you were on.
People watched their neighbors and boarded up their windows. A few brave villagers formed a group of vigilante watchmen to watch the docks. Their group was quickly disbanded upon their abrupt and quiet disappearance two nights later. In the end, everything just led to more suspicion, tension and divisiveness in Fernwood. This suited Thane just fine.
Every few nights, Thane’s empty shell came from the shadowy outskirts of the village to claim some hapless villager. No one trusted everyone, so everyone made sure they were alone, and that just made it easier for him. Closed doors and absent watchmen didn’t stop him any more than devouring villagers sated his mindless hunger for violence and flesh.
People kept disappearing.
No one went out at night.
No one knew why.