faderift | Just a little adventure, really quick, in and out. Back before you know it.

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Just a little adventure, really quick, in and out. Back before you know it. | Closed

WHO: Glimmer, Abby, and Ellie
WHAT: Three girls get assigned to do a job together and two of them get along two cats in a sack. Surely nothing can go wrong.
WHEN: Sometime in mid-Guardian/mid-Pluitanis
WHERE: The Fallow Mire
NOTES: Violence done to zombies/demons at some point; possible discussion of past traumas and conflicts. Swearing. Lots of swearing.

Glimmer had been excited to finally get assigned a little 'project' with Ellie and Abby. At least, that had been the first reaction--something to do with two people she liked! Then after that initial excitement had faded, there'd been a grim realization that Ellie and Abby got along about as well as fire and water.

Maybe this wouldn't be so fun. The feeling of apprehension had grown and grown as the date for their departure had loomed closer and closer until at last, early one morning, they had loaded up Blanche and Artichoke with rations, camping gear, and everything else they'd need for a jaunt to the the Fallow Mire. Surprisingly, Abby and Ellie while still tense didn't seem on the verge of killing each other at the drop of a pin, which was a relief. Naturally, though, Abby had to ride behind Glimmer.

As they finally had made landfall, Glimmer was taking a moment to stretch herself out as she surveyed the marshy island that was going to become their base of operations. It was relatively flat at least, about 100 meters long and 20 across. The edges of the swampy spot were muddy (everything was muddy, but it was extra muddy) and twisted swamp trees sprouted, offering shelter and casting looming shadows that got worse as the afternoon dragged on.

Tugging the panniers off of Blanche, she turned to look back at the other two setting up camp.

"We might need to switch up who rides which griffon. That or make sure they get some good rest..." She gave Blanche a good pat on the flank.

"So, money on the carts just being abandoned or whether we actually run into anything?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ Gonna make this into a proper top level soon ]

"I'm good to walk back."

Abby is being sarcastic. ... Sort of. Having spent the flight over clinging inelegantly to Glimmer, she isn't looking forward to the return trip. But enough about that; she's acting as if it never happened, and the rest of the party is going to follow suit or else.

Other than that, she thinks she is being on her best behaviour all things considered. She'd volunteered to put the tent up for starters, and nearly has it. She's just nailing it into the ground as best she can considering this place is mostly marshland, ignoring the squelch of mud underneath of her boots. It stinks a bit but, oddly, it reminds her of home. It rained so much in Seattle. Made the ground soft.

"It's too easy if they're– fuck yes," finally found a solid bit of ground for the last peg, "abandoned. We're definitely going to have to kill something to get whatever it is."

Bet it's not even good. Bet it's really boring cargo... fabric, or something.

Ellie snorts under her breath, which is starting to become her usual stock answer to Abby's bullshitting. It keeps her from saying all the things she'd normally say, if she were trying to be friendly, or anything.

It means she's been fairly quiet for most of the journey.

All told, Abby really should have ridden over behind Ellie -- Artichoke can bear the weight of two better than Blanche, he's bigger and more muscled. But having Abby cling to her for hours still might be a little too much, despite their recent understanding.

... it's weird. She wonders if it'll stop ever being weird.

"Yeah, the real question is what we'll have to kill," Ellie puts forward, adjusting the hood of her cloak. It's keeping most of the rain off of her but she can barely feel her toes with this icy mud. Probably a blessing since her foot's still not completely healed. The new skin feels tight, tender.

"And whether it's already dead."

Ellie throws a glance over at Glimmer, catching her eye and wiggling her fingers. Spooooky.

Edited 2022-02-14 04:57 (UTC)

"Just saying, maybe I should ride Artichoke back, if he'll let me," Glimmer says as she does an odd little hop-skip-walk motion towards the campsite, trying to stick the tufty areas where tough grasses and their interwoven roots helped do away with mud and damp. No matter. It was cold and difficult but here she was. The panniers are draped over a convenient low tree limb mostly out of the rain and she rummages into a pouch for a little fire starting kit..

"Ellie, help me with the fire? You're way better at it than me.". All the years.of experience, no doubt. It's hard not to be conscious of the tension between the other two, but it feels different. Still anxious and stretched but perhaps not as deadly. Glimmer peers from under the hood of her own cloak.

"I mean. You're both probably right, but I like think between the three of us we can handle anything that's not, you know, too bad..." Glimmer says, sticks her tongue out at Ellie.

"I'm not all that scared of anything out there if I've got the two of you here," she adds with genuine fondness. Then:

"Ugh I hope it's not undead."

"Cross that bridge when we get to it," is Abby's gruff response, because she's just realised when she made that previous remark she naturally paused afterwards just to wait for Ellie's telltale snort, and she's mad at herself for it. Whatever! Not thinking about it. The tent is up, and she throws its waterproof cover out over the top to secure in place.

Glimmer has given everybody a little job to do. Abby isn't stupid; if her and Ellie are distracted by work they don't have time to snipe and snarl at each other, right? Glimmer doesn't seem to know that they've had a truly odd amount of reasonable conversation in the space between then and now, which means Ellie hasn't spoken about any of that to her. And that's very interesting.

"I do." She's winding the ropes into good, sailor's knots. Glimmer's affection goes unreacted to, but is silently appreciated. "I actually know how to deal with those."

Ghosts? Out. Undead are in, baby. God she hopes so bad it's undead, is that wrong of her.

"Think we can clear everything out in a day?"

"He probably won't mind," Ellie says with a shrug, throwing a glance over at the griffons, who look about as miserable as they do before Ellie throws the semi-waterproof tarp over the back of them. They're soaked, but it'll keep the poor guys warmer.

Ellie heads right over to Glimmer at her request, squatting down to take the firestarter in both hands, and rasp it together until she gets a spark. It goes out, of course, because it's practically pissing down rain out here.

"Fuuuck," she mutters, and tries twice more before it catches, and she sticks her tongue out in return at Glimmer. "Yes."

"Abby and I saw a ghost near a Rift on the Sword Coast," Ellie says breezily, carefully not looking at Abby. "It might've been some kind of demon, actually..."

Huh.

"And yeah, probably. If it takes longer than that it's gonna be because of this fucking rain," Ellie mutters, digging into the boggy leaf matter to turn up anything dry. No luck, but she manages some moss, feeds it slowly to the fire. It smokes a lot.

"Fuck, finally--" Someone is hanging around Ellie way too much. Glimmer begins to feed small bits of kindling to the small fire, carefully husbanding it as it begins to grow in brightness and warmth. Maybe they can make something warm to eat or drink, at the very least. She looks up at the other two.

"A ghost? That sounds spooky. What happened?" Glimmer says, a little shiver running down her spine.

"I mean, if we get an early start tomorrow, probably? I'm more worried about getting the carts back on the road if they got taken off into the muck..." Glimmer wrinkles her nose. Always practical this one.

"WHy'd they send us out to the fens in winter? Ugh."

Edited 2022-02-15 21:42 (UTC)

She's casting a critical eye over the fire efforts, but it looks like they've got it going. Abby only has one note– "Make a lay."

Hang on. With the last knot in place on the cover, she comes over to help: the extra kindling can be propped up over the steadily growing flame, each stick leaning over to criss-cross at the top. The fuel wood circles that. It'll help keep it dry.

"Dunno. It came out of a Rift on the coast. Kinda the same green colour and everything– ouch. Fuck." Splinter... she squints at it by the light of the fire, and attempts to dig it out with her teeth. Muffled, mouth full: "I hit it with a sword."

And that worked, so maybe it could be ghosts and that would be fine. Abby's still sore from the castle events. "And they sent us out because we're the youngest and nobody else wants to do any of the shit jobs. But they can make us do it because we have the most energy."

That's her take on it anyway. "Dicks."

"Make a what?" Ellie asks, glancing up at Abby, then frowning before it comes clearer to her. "Oh. J- wasn't called that in Wyoming."

His name tucks itself back down into her throat, and she keeps it there, lets Abby and Glimmer talk. The thoughts leave her a touch shaken, and she shivers in the rain, pulls her cloak in more tightly around herself.

"Probably," she agrees, her voice soft and gruff. "Still not the worst mission I've been on."

She watches the way Abby works at the splinter with her teeth, then sighs under her breath, holding her hand out, palm up.

"Lemme see."

At this rate she'll have a giant raw place on her hand.

"I don't feel like I have the most energy," Glimmer protests, which is a lie. She's constantly bouncing around the Gallows in search of things to do in an effort to not go completely crazy with a lack of activity. She watches as Ellie offers to help with Abby's splinter and stays quiet. That's just... not her place to talk about, right?

"At least the fire is going." She holds her hands out towards the flame, exhaling as the warmth prickles at chilled skin.

"I hope the rain lets up. It'd be less miserable if we didn't have to deal with the rain..."

"... Of all three of us, you definitely have the most energy."

She's eyeing that offer of Ellie's suspiciously, teeth still in the heel of her hand, but eventually she gives up and offers it to her. The splinter is wedged in, might need a bit of coaxing.

Because she can't let this slide as a simple moment of mutual trust– "What did you call them in Jackson, fire tents?"

Edited 2022-02-22 22:46 (UTC)

Ellie can't disagree with Abby, so she rolls her head to one side, gives Glimmer an apologetic smile, a shrug of the shoulder as if to say sorry about it.

"Fire tents?" Ellie scoffs softly, and flicks out her switchblade. The last time she used this one Abby it was to make an ugly wound, this time... well. With steady hands she takes Abby's wrist, leverages the blade against her thumb, and lifts the edge of the splinter. Ellie picks it first with the blade, then with her blunt fingernails, but can't get a good hold on it.

"Called 'em tepees 'cause of the shape," she says absently, and before Abby can ask anything else, she curses under her breath. She could dig it out with the knife, but then she'll be doing the damage she was trying to avoid.

"Glimmer? I can't feel my fuckin' hands. Can you get the end of this and pull it out?"

"My hands probably aren't much better," Glimmer protests, but she shifts herself over to squeeze in between the other two so she can look at the splinter in question. She squints. Fingers splay over Abby's hand for a moment while Glimmer considers her angle, then tries to dig one (slightly less blunt) fingernail underneath the splinter.

"...Almost," she murmurs. "Hold still." There's a faint grimace and she finally manages to grab hold of the splinter.

"I thiiiiink I got it--" And with that, she gives a firm little tug to extract the offending bit of wood.

Yeah, fire tents, picked because it was the dumbest sounding term she could think of on the spot but she doesn't get a chance to say it; historically, nothing good has ever happened to her after Ellie pulls out a knife.

"... This doesn't have to be a group activity," she mutters, after Ellie's exhausted her own attempt– but Glimmer's in the mix immediately anyway, and thankfully she's the one with the magic touch. The splinter is out.

Abby reclaims her hand with a wince, shaking it. "Thanks." First hurdle overcome. Easy. "Hopefully that's the worst injury we have to deal with." Fingers crossed?

Ellie props up Abby's wrist for her, squinting in the gloom to make sure they have enough light, though she huffs about Abby's weak protests.

"Nailed it," she says by wait of praise, when Glimmer works out the splinter, and drops her hand, scooting towards the fire to warm her hands.

"Ugh, don't say that shit out loud," she mutters, thinking of what she'd said after the battle in the city -- about how no one was lost. It hadn't taken very long for that to be proven a lie. Ellie doesn't like to think she's superstitious, but damn.

"We should keep watch, just in case. Go searching when it's light."

Glimmer takes a moment to look very proud of herself for succeeding where Ellie failed. Maybe even a little smug! Then she leans back to get closer to the fire, her expression muted.

"Good idea. I think waiting until morning is a good plan--we're going to lose the light here in an hour or two and I don't want to be out in the muck in the dark."

Abby nods, agreeing. "If we don't have to fight in the dark, we shouldn't."

Even if it means... sharing a tent.

She makes a face at her splinter-free palm. The most annoying part of all of this by far is that they all have to act like they're on a cute little camping trip together. Even the keeping watch bit irritates her a little. Her and Ellie are far from actually attacking each other, but she still doesn't like the idea of her being up, near by and awake while Abby is asleep.

Not that she's all that likely to get much sleep out here anyway.

"Wish I could have brought the dog." A little mutter, like an afterthought.

Ellie finds Glimmer's smug look in the darkness and sticks the tip of her tongue out at her, mostly to hide a smile. She's got a right to be satisfied, but still.

She puzzles over Abby's comment for a moment, though, hesitating before deciding not to say anything to it -- let Glimmer respond to that if she wants. Instead she stacks up a little more wood for the fire, setting it inside the corner of the tent where it'll hopefully not get quite so wet.

"... anybody's hand hurting?" she asks, carefully.

"Aw, I know. Your dog is adorable," Glimmer says with a sigh. At least they have the gryphons to give them cute animal companionship.

"...Mine isn't?" Glimmer replies as she tries to huddle a little closer to the fire.

"Why?"

"Means a rift is nearby," Abby supplies, plucking off her glove to examine her own shard, "Or that we're too far from the Gallows, I guess."

She hasn't experienced the pain that reportedly sets in if you stray too far from your fellow Rifters. Not yet, anyway. Maybe having Ellie and Glimmer around will be enough to keep the shard satisfied until they start to head back.

Hrm. It's... far too tempting to pick at the base of it where it protrudes almost seamlessly from her palm. After a beat of rubbing at the shard uselessly with her thumb, she puts her glove back on.

Blurts into the silence, "I can take first watch."

May as well get that squared away.

Edited 2022-03-29 09:19 (UTC)

Ellie hums agreement, while Artichoke grumbles and clacks his beak because he's cute too, thanks, he doesn't need to listen to this slander! Ellie snickers to herself, then tosses him a small chunk of dried sausage. She's not incredibly hungry, but she's tired, and eager to get to bed.

Maybe it says something that she's not particularly worried about Abby keeping watch while she sleeps. She knows she won't knife her or anything-

But things could still go wrong.

"Fine by me. I'll take second," she says, and shoves off, crawling into the tent. She tries to ignore the way her ears are pricked for any conversation between Glimmer and Abby- she doesn't want to care.

"Wake us up if your hands starts hurting, or anything."

Seems a useless thing to say, when Abby already knows the drill. But it's a distraction from the way the rain's pattering down on the top of the tent. She tucks herself into one side of it, leaving room for Glimmer in the middle.

---

Ellie does eventually sleep, but the things in the swamp don't. There are eyes in the dark, reflective red like animals, that blink in and out. Things that stir in the brackish water, the shadows of black on black. The hissing sound of the rain covers most sounds, but there are still distant cries of whatever lurks out here.

It almost seems like the first watch will pass without incident, when a soft glow cuts through the trees, blinking in and out like firefly lights. It's there and gone, hovering on a sandbar. But every time, the outline of it gets a touch more clear, the light brighter.

Finally, it's bright enough to glint on what hairless, bloated thing is pulling itself from the boggy water. Slimy, rotting.

It smells like death.

Any conversation with Glimmer doesn't last much longer, the silence fire-lit and comfortable, broken by one or two questions, and easy chatter. After fifteen minutes or so, Abby gives her a shoo. She's third up, but she should get as much rest as she can. Glimmer disappears into the tent, and leaves her sitting on the bank, giving the fire a good stoke before she settles in for the night.

The soft sound of light rainfall might have proved soporific under other circumstances. Thankfully, Abby is wired and alert. She makes little grooves in the dirt by the fire with her boot, and stares at the flames, and thinks.

Flinches, when something soft snaps in the distance. A twig underneath the foot of an animal most likely, but she still looks.

Hard to see. It's pitch black out here. She squints through the gloom, and takes a step away from the fire to better hide the outline of her towering silhouette, breath caught between her teeth as she waits. Waits, waits.

She might have thought the shard would alert her, but the smell hits her first, sends a wave of shivering disgust up the length of her spine. Fuck, she knows that smell, she hates that smell, she hasn't missed it for a second–

"Hey." She'd meant it for the tent, but something in the darkness answers her spoken word instead, though not with any of its own. A gurgling wail startles her. It's closer than she thought it would be but slower, a runner would have been at her throat already.

"Ellie!" She shouts it, suddenly, and the corpse lurches out at her from the darkness. She swings at it, and her mace bounces off its torso with a dull clang- it's wearing armor, "Glimmer! We've got trouble!"

Glimmer is asleep almost as soon as she hits her bedroll. It's damp outside and the long day of travel combined with the soft sound of the rain on the tent is enough to lull her into slumber quickly. She's still asleep, dreaming fitfully of home, when Abby's voice cuts into her and shakes her free of her slumber.

"Abby--?!" She says, still sleep addled as she gropes for her staff and clambers out of the tent. She'd stripped out of damp cloak and outer layer as best she could and an attack in the middle of the night means little time to think about changing. She stumbles into the circle of fire-light and lets out a shriek at the sight of the walking corpse.

"Fuck that--!" She says and there's a blast of magic from her staff that hits the thing full in the face to send it tumbling back from Abby. Whether that's enough to kill it, she isn't sure, but at least it's breathing space.

Ellie wasn't sleeping too deeply, but she'd been dozing, hating the sound of the rain and the soft croaks of the insects in the brackish water -- but Abby's yell rouses her quick enough. She gives a snort as she yanks herself awake, paws on her backpack in preparation for a quick getaway, grabs her bow.

Stumbles on the edge of the tent on the way out, and Glimmer manages to throw a hell of a glitterbomb in the walking corpse's face. It reels backward and into the bog with a sickening splash and the stomach-twisting smell of burning, rotting flesh.

"Oh, fuck ME," Ellie gasps, eyes wide, and nearly fumbles one of her arrows as she nocks it, staring wide-eyed at Glimmer. The thing in the bog doesn't get up again.

Unfortunately, several more do, dragging themselves from the water, reeking, coming after their light and life.

"Shit, fuck, fuckshit-" Ellie pulls back and gets off a shot, which hits one of the things in a shoulder and sticks. It gives a jerk, but it doesn't seem to hurt it, which is more unnerving than the rest of it. Even with infected, they obviously felt pain.

She gets off another arrow, and this one literally goes through a gap in a ribcage, clattering off the bones.

"Are you fucking kidding me?!" she yells, throwing her hands up.

"Thanks-" She manages on a ragged exhale, because she's just noticed another wet hand pawing up onto the bank. Trust this goddamn place to give her exactly what she wants but with a twist: undead who are more bone than skin, and wearing enough armor that it's difficult for her to find places her mace should go.

She remembers the attack on the Gallows, and Jone's torn open lip. Don't waste time on the chest, face and neck–

When she reaches out toward one skeleton with her gloved hands to grab it by the face it bites her through the leather; she screams instinctively, and twists. There isn't nearly enough sinew to keep the head on top of the spine. The body crumples, when the neck snaps.

"I'm fine," she shouts, heart hammering, ignoring the instinct to rip her glove off and check if those fucking teeth went into her skin or not, "More coming. Go for the head!"

Finding the Carts

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