Chapter One: Strange Introductions…and a Lack Thereof

We meet our first two characters in this tale...both of whom do not quite understand each other just yet...

Chapter One: Strange Introductions…and a Lack Thereof

She had always found it funny, she thought, that things never entirely worked out how people wanted- and yet, typically, did in the end. She supposed her life was like that- rarely how she had expected yet ultimately for the best.
She stretched on the bed of grass beneath her, bare toes wiggling between the blades of grass, eyes squinting at the refreshing light that filtered between swaying leaves, the fingers of her left hand burrowed in a rabbit’s soft taupe fur as she seemed to sniff the refreshing breeze. She felt…peace. Happiness. Like everything was just as it should be, and all time should feel just like this moment. Such feelings were things many in the land of Verina never thought they would feel again, for such a long time all anyone had known were the sadness and pain of crippling loss.

And perhaps, dearest of readers, that is the reason a woman such as Delphi  was born. She stood in the middle of the crater which had begun the slow process of regrowing life some fifteen years ago. Her parents had oft warned her to stay away from the Pit, but she always seemed to conveniently forget this warning.
‘Some fears are rather unfounded, after all-’ She thought to herself as she stood and skipped along the stones poking through the earth, her trusty rabbit companion following her teetering hops with much more grace than she possessed. She smiled as she threw in a little twirl, just enough to feel her skirt swish about her shins. ‘Lightning does not oft strike the same place twice, I am inclined to believe the same is true of senseless tragedies’. Senseless tragedy was right. Some fifteen years ago, the Pit was made, and alongside it- a great many lives were lost- not just from the forested citystate of Crocus, but similar craters emerged in the desert lands of Al’dura, and the coastal ones of the Niem. The stories go, from those willing to recant, that the earth was torn asunder with great plinths of energy, demolishing anything within a three mile radius of these massive pillars of raw magic. From these plinths emerged monsters, great and small. Delphi would argue that monsters had always been here- merely in dwindling amounts in recent days before the eruptions. These plinths did not create anything new. They merely manifested what was already there, although they multiplied it to a grave and perilous magnitude. A part of her wondered if fear could be put aside, and perhaps an armistice found- because when soldiers from each city state approached these roaring pillars, they could not bear the raw energy. The flesh was stripped from their bones until naught remained- and even the land became sorrowful and black.The pillars roared for one full month, thirty days of endless horrors- many lives were lost- and the land, and many people, wept.
Delphinia would never tell anyone that she went to the Pit regularly. Not just regularly, but each day. She didn’t feel afraid of it, as so many others were. In fact, she felt drawn to it. She didn’t know what to make of it. The townsfolk were the sort to avoid the depths of the May’ra forest entirely these days- citing that spirits now frequented the hollows since the tragedy. Delphi didn’t believe that- or at least, she hadn’t seen any herself. Many in their town said that it was simply that a girl like Delphi was not made to feel fear. She didn’t know if she liked that very much, as there were a great number of things that the people in the town of Adva said about her, and not many of them were nice. Delphi would argue that she did not know very much of what transpired here- only that she wanted to make things better than what they were. And for her, that meant going to the Pit with her rabbit companion, sowing seeds where the earth had blackened, lugging water from the creek, a bucket on each side of her long walking stick across her back, trying to make the place of tragedy a bit less frightening, trying to help the forest take back what was its own. 

She didn’t know if there were really spirits here, the air certainly felt different in this place- but she knew naught of spirits and spooks.If there were- they seemed content to let her be. After all, she brought life to the earth nestled above their bones, and her voice humming as she worked was the only thing that reached them, she planted blooms and herbs that enticed wildlife to linger near them once more. She imagined being forgotten and feared was rather unpleasant...and while she did not know much about ghouls and spooks, she knew unpleasantness was what usually led to angry spirits. And as full of strife as her home was, she did love it so very dearly.
“Goodnight, spirits!” She laughed as she hoisted herself up over the edge of the crater, grunting and kicking her legs as she did so. Cynthia, the large rabbit, had no such struggles and gave Delphi a look one would give a horribly inept pupil. Delphi didn’t expect a response to her teasing joke, and her long floppy ears twitched as she heard a branch snap. 

‘Why do you test your luck, always?’ She heard the bun’s voice, distorted and reverberating in her skull. She had always been able to talk to Cynthia. She knew not why or how- but knew better than to expose such facts to the townsfolk. They didn’t like things they did not understand- and certainly, they did not understand Delphinia in the slightest.

“Oh, hush. It’s probably a deer coming for some leafy greens…” Delphinia waved a hand dismissively. But despite her assurances, she walked a good half measure faster than she would normally back home. She did not even stop to collect wild berries and blooms- one of her most favorite activities in the entire world.She did not even turn back to collect her shoes that had been left behind in the gaping crater.

* * *

Everyone knew what the Night Watchers did. It was literally in their name, they watched for the things of the night, and summarily dealt with them forthwith. A long time ago (a long time ago being about two decades ago), people of the lands didn’t think very much of them. They were regarded as swindlers and brigands, because their quarry was few and far between. There was the occasional goblin, or maybe a cursed Lupus, but more oft than not they had been delegated to huntsmen who charged far too high a rate for their services. But times had changed…mostly. With the rifts that opened those fifteen years ago, and the creatures that had spilled out, there was suddenly a much greater demand for the once dwindling and secretive order. Nobody knew very much of them, but they did know that the order would take children, boys fairly exclusively, while they were young. Mostly orphans, or children parents could not afford to keep. Nobody knew what happened in their reclusive keeps, but most of those unfortunate young men were never seen or heard from again- or if they were, they were greatly changed and nigh unrecognizable to those that once knew them. 

Gordon was one such man, if he could call himself a man at all these days. His armor creaked as he dragged the body of the venomous river serpent from the cart his horse had dragged in. Its scales were still covered in the silt of the riverbed, and stained with crimson. He took it to the Alderman’s house, in this village of…what did they call it? Adva? Honestly all of these tree-laden elf loving towns in Crocus looked the same to him. His horse alone was a massive thing, with shaggy hooves and a coat the color of fine dust. He’d never bothered naming the beast, in his line of work forming attachment to dumb beasts didn’t tend to go over very well. There were gasps and a cacophony of hushed whispers as he dragged the serpent to the Alderman’s doorstep.
“Good huntsman!” The white haired man answered the door before Gordon had even raised his gauntleted fist to bang upon it. He was keenly aware of the man’s shudder as he looked upon the man and his quarry. Gordon was, perhaps, one of the reasons so many people still did not look fondly upon the Watchers. He was not polite, nor was he gentle, and his looming form was ne’er seen out of his hulking armor. One would wonder if he ever removed it at all. “You can…erm….leave that with the guardsmen. They will see it properly disposed of. Come inside, that we may discuss your payment!” Gordon did not think there was much to discuss. The agreed upon rate had been 100 Crocan leis.The coinage was discernible from other currencies from even five paces away, due to the strange green hue of the metal. He didn’t know how the forest-dwellers made it such a color, he suspected they tempered them in water steeped with tea leaves or something stupid like that. He wouldn’t put it past them. Still, his heavy boots climbed the wooden steps, so heavy they made the boards creak, and came inside the Alderman’s rather comfortable home.
The Alderman, Gordon decided, had a face like an apple left out in the sun too long. His skin was an olive hue, and whilst Gordon had not seen very many wrinkled elves- he doubted the Alderman would have been well pleased with this accolade were he to mention it aloud. He watched the man rummage within a small wooden coffer, before sliding a cloth bag across the table towards him.
“We agreed on a hundred.” Gordon’s cold voice reverberated in his helm after he had slowly and quietly counted the coin meticulously, 80 lei. Twenty short of the agreed upon price. The steel of his armor had been brushed down and dulled to look darker than the norm. He was no shining knight…and besides, all that glinting and pageantry was more likely to get him snatched by a gryphon’s talons than do any good. There was no point in doing things just for look’s sake. Putting form before function was what got poor b******s killed.

“Ah, erm, yes. But then my girl got sick…” He doubted that excuse severely, the jilt just wanted to short him after the work had already been done…luck of his trade, he supposed. Normally he’d deck any soul that tried to short him- but somehow he imagined cracking the local authority’s skull would not go over well for him. Gordon grumbled and tucked the coin away, but his displeasure was made clear. “But, good huntsman! Listen here! We have another job that may interest you!”
“Oh. And how are you going to pay me for it when you’ve a sick girl leeching your pockets?” Gordon narrowed his eyes at the weathered elf beneath the shadow of his helm. The elder man coughed nervously and thumbed the edge of his tunic. It was by no means a lavish tunic, but certainly the cotton was finer than most he’d seen wearing in this backwater place. It was clean, fresh pressed, not too worn and shabby, and someone- the man’s wife, he surmised- had gone to the care of embroidering the cloth with various leaves and herbs in striking emerald green thread. Oh yes, while not the best off- there was no reason for this apple-faced elf to short him 20 lei.
“We can take up a communal offering. If I were to…hazard a guess, I should say the people of Adva would be very eager to have this unpleasantness dealt with, yes yes. Why, I shouldn’t be surprised if the amount was in excess of 300 lei…” Three hundred? Gordon’s eyebrows raised, but his surprise was not shown to the apple-faced Alderman with his obscuring helm. What was this threat that it was worth three times as much as that blasted river serpent? The thing had claimed two children out wading in the waters before he managed to dispatch it. 

“300? You mean to say this thing is worth three times as much as your river beast? What is the catch?” Gordon knew, there was always a catch- or at least a strong chance of permanent maiming or dismemberment when the pot sounded too sweet.
“This unpleasantness has been a thorn in the side of this good community for over two decades-” ah, there it was. Any monster that had been around before the rifts awakening was certain to be a crafty and dangerous creature indeed, one that had evaded or otherwise killed any Night Watchers that had come after it before. “-the river serpent and she were made by the same person, you see- vile, dastardly creations meant to plague the good people of this town.”
“You speak foolishness, Alderman. Nobody makes monsters, save for monsters themselves which possess such features as to spread their likeness like an infection…” Gordon shook his head with a scoff.

“You would think that, would you not, good huntsman?!” The Alderman slammed a fist on the table, the wood teetering slightly before he composed himself and cleared his throat, then straightened his embroidered tunic. “Us in Adva…we’re a small town. Off the main roads. We’re simple folk. And it may be that way of things that brought the wicked witch to us all those decades ago.” Gordon had to do his best not to scoff derisively at the mention of a witch. He’d heard of sorceresses- pompous magic users with various and wildly unpredictable powers, rarely were they so wicked and foul as people described. But…on occasion they had been known to prove…troublesome. Still. He’d never heard of any sorceress manufacturing monsters. And certainly with the tomes his order possessed, spanning centuries, there would be some mention of such abilities in ‘The Chronologica Arcanum’, a weighty book that described every single power that had manifested in mankind since they had gotten the notion to take pen to paper. Powers that ranged from moving boulders with the mind, to the mundane sense of being able to tell when it was going to rain although the sky had nary a cloud.

“Witch is just another word for a sorceress you lot don’t like.” Gordon shook his head. “Leave her alone, and I’m certain she’ll do the same.” It was quite rare, the instances of a Sorceress developing madness and lashing out unprovoked. At their core they were still human, much like their non-magically-aligned counterparts.
“She’s no sorceress!” The Alderman objected. “The wicked witch…we were fortunate…chased her off some years ago with our torches…but a piece of her remains.” That figures. These backwoods places didn’t much like magic users, they were typically standoffish and frightened of them, afraid they would upheaval their way of life on a whim. So they had chased a woman out of town some years ago because of some misguided fear, like as not.

“If she’s gone, what do you care?”
“Because a part of her remains! One look at it and you can see her vile influence in the fiend’s blood!”

“You have yet to tell me what this ‘it’ is.” Gordon stated coolly.
“I told you! The witch made monsters- vile sorts! That river serpent was just one of the ones she left behind to muck about!” The elf’s face was getting quite red now. “But the worst thing she made was a child of foul blood and breeding-”

“Let me guess, you want me to dispatch the child because it shares her likeness?”
“Oh contrary, good huntsman! The changeling shares none of her likeness at all!” Gordon rolled his eyes at this reply. “She is monstrous to look at, horrific even- and worse yet she has bewitched an unfortunate couple, and has since she was but a tot!” He could tell he was losing the hunter’s patience, so he tried once more- “She has played near the Pit since she was a child! Tell me what small one has no fear of the monsters there? Unless she, like her mother, is making them!” This did give Gordon pause. Any sane person avoided those craters, still lingering with energy. Nobody knew if, or when, they would erupt again. “Animals behave strangely when she is around, the weather itself is tumultuous..all our seers decree she is a bad omen indeed...and will only further the misdeeds done by her mother, who had felled more than her fair share of good men. Please, good huntsman, we are desperate. Be rid of her, and we will reward you handsomely.”

* * *

Gordon was not really paid to have scruples. Really, he was paid not to have any. Some of the beasts he had killed were perfectly capable of mimicking a human form, even mortal emotions and pain, but had souls of the blackest pitch within…if one could say such creatures had souls, such philosophical discussion made Gordon’s brain hurt, and so he decided to shove it from the forefront of his mind.

‘That is to say-’ He thought to himself as he trod into this shaded forest. ‘That it is entirely possible that old man’s fears are well founded, and this creature merely mimics a mortal frame.’ These were the thoughts that milled about his brain as he and his nameless steed passed by the town granary, and he tethered the horse just outside the May’ra forest, where locals feared to tread too deep. Asking the locals, they all expressed a similar fear of the witch’s creation- despite his prodding, they never regarded her as a sorceress, only ever a witch.

 ‘A sorceress may yet do some good, messere.’ They told him. ‘Ain’t no good ever come of that woman. Blight your animals, a pox on your house. Steal your man and curdle your milk. A witch she is, through and through.’- and that had been the consensus amongst any he asked among the small village. Some had personal accounts of the witch of the wood- claims that she had seduced and killed their sons or husbands, and sure enough yet there were gravestones in the local cemetery to support their timelines. It was generally said that those who had met the beautiful woman were instantly bewitched- and while her offspring did not share her beauty, she certainly had bewitched the poor herbalist couple that lived on the outskirts of the May’ra forest.

Gordon did not know much of bewitchings. He himself had never been bewitched, of course. He knew there were some mind games those with a magical inclination could play, but had never been privy or victim to them himself. Gordon knew much about many things, he thought as he ventured into the shaded forest, whose birds chirped and insects stirred, he knew much of the monsters that had plagued this world since the first of his order had been formed.

…But he had never seen nor heard of a creature such as this.

The villagers had been kind enough to point him towards their local Pit, the one they avoided with such revulsion. He did not approach it directly, for he heard humming, and did not wish to spook his quarry before he had assessed its strengths. A woman’s song. He kept his distance, crouching in the brush as he lie in wait. He waited, maybe an hour or two, from the position of the sun and the cooling springtime air. This whole while, the humming persisted. It was not an unpleasant song, although one he did not recognize. Likely, it was a local tune that he himself would not know being from the northlands. He had heard tale of creatures bewitching with their song- mostly very attractive monstrous entities that mimicked the form of beautiful women- those sorts were particularly dangerous to men and women alike of a very stupid and gullible variety. Gordon did not consider himself either of these things.

“Goodnight, spirits!” He heard the rustling of movement and the voice ring out as the sun had just began to set. He crept closer, hoping to chance a glance of this creature that supposedly communed with the spirits. She came into view, scrambling over the edge of this crater and hoisting her body up with her arms…she surprised him.

He had expected some monstrous thing, from what the people had described, with amber eyes and a finely cut face. Foxlike features, or a scorpion’s stinger. He could not have expected this.

At first he suspected she was a druidess- the antlers on her head resembled some of their adornments after all…after a few moments he realized there were no such adornments, but were in fact affixed to her skull beneath a wild mane of auburn hair. She had a soft frame, the one that implied perhaps she was of the sort that had too great a fondness for sweets and good food- he would not call her fat per say but…certainly on the chubbier side. He watched her struggle to hoist herself up over the edge, and then smooth bits of dried leaves and dirt from her skirts. Her dress itself looked made of scrounged scraps- cloths that did not match, bits of dirty salvaged lace. She looked a wildwoman incarnate. Her shins were covered in pelt…like a spotted deer’s pelt. Shinguards perhaps? He suspected that made sense if she was always scraping them against the edges of that pit. She wore no shoes, he could see the filthy pads of her feet as she scrambled. At the small of her back there was something...at a glance one might suspect a serpent- but upon letting his eyes adjust and a mere moment’s focus he could see it was an odd sort of tail. He moved to get a closer look, when a branch snapped underfoot of his heavy boot- and he saw the woman turn quickly.
She had seen him. He was certain of it. Her head whipped to where she’d heard the sound. She had a rabbit companion beside her, a large breed, and her own ears were…very abnormal. From this distance he could only see that they were furred, long, and droopy, brushing her shoulders. Her face was freckled and around her forehead were white spots like those of a deer. Most of her skin was freckled and sunkissed, and not covered in pelt or fur. He would agree with the townsfolk. She was not a human, or any mortal thing he’d ever seen before. But then…what was she? And what to call her?

‘Chimera.’ He decided, the name was often given to beasts in the early days of his order that had yet to be categorized and displayed traits of several different monstrosities. ‘I will call you Chimera. And we shall see if you are truly as dangerous as this town believes…’

“Oh, hush. It’s probably a deer coming for some leafy greens…” He heard her voice again, she must not have seen him after all, because she’d looked back to her rabbit. Was it a pet? It must have been. Anything else made little sense. A rabbit made for a poor guard or defender after all. He watched her take off along the forest path, slowly at first, and then picking up speed as though set at unease by something around. He waited until he heard her footsteps no more to get up. He looked into the Pit to observe her leavings…there was a pair of pigskin sandals, and a patched wicker basket. A wooden staff, and two empty worn buckets.

Curiouser and curiouser, he surmised. If the beast was dangerous, he’d be the talk of the keep when he brought it’s head…and if it wasn’t…the notes he could take on it alone would astound his fellow hunters.  But he had never known a monster to wear pigskin sandals, nor to bother with such silly things as a flower picking basket.