Golben: Redemption

Golben: Redemption

Postby Cinnabar » Tue Sep 03, 2013 3:55 am

Cinnabar Calomel, former High Constable turned Governor, since gladly retired; perhaps retreated would be a better word for his withdrawal from Myrken Wood's affairs, instead filling his days with more rewarding roles - husband, father, landowner, blacksmith. He has found a rare contentment, an uncommon peace, his estate a sanctuary.

There's little that could draw him away from the comforts of home, from the company of his wife and children. He has fought enough battles, shed enough of his own blood on Myrken's behalf, he has earned this. He would fight to keep it, yes, but otherwise? There are others who'll stand in his place, others who'll take up the task. He's done his duty.

What brings him here, to the edge of the Pit as the sky begins to lighten, is a different kind of obligation to that which rested upon his shoulders as Governor. A debt. No, not debt. Atonement.

Calomel has made his preparations. He has camped on the crater's edge, gaze sweeping the tangle of lawns and hedgerows below for signs of movement, for pattern amid the chaos. He has drawn maps, hiking around the rim for different perspectives, noting the relative orientations and angles of the observable landmarks - a spire of twisted stone here, a distinctive tree there, a small lawn with a piece bizarre statuary over there; he's recorded the line of the cliffs against the sky from various angles, so that he needn't rely solely on sun or stars to find his bearings. He has been rigorous.

He shifts the weight of the pack across his shoulders, checking straps and buckles as he has a dozen times in the last hour. He has made lists, has whittled them down to what might more easily be carried, has added further items as new possibilities rose to mind. He wears his sturdiest clothes, his most hard-wearing boots, and has equipped himself for an extended expedition.

An iron-headed hand-axe equally suited to the splitting of wood and skulls; a matched rapier and dagger at his belt, among his oldest and most dependable possessions; in his pack, rations enough for a span of weeks, though he prays that it won't come to that; waterskins; clean linen bandages, salves and a flask of fierce brandy; oiled canvas enough to make a simple tent, with rope and blankets besides; a shrill tin whistle and a brass hunting horn; oil and whetstone for the sharpening of blades; fresh clothes, steel needles and strong silk thread; firesteel, flint and tinder; a certain quantity of lamp oil, and a handful of good wax candles; chalk, charcoal, and a fat reel of red-dyed yarn; a pan of bright copper, for cooking and boiling water, a tin dish and cup from which to dine; a neat wooden box of dried leaves and fragrant petals; assorted lesser sundries, small items he has gauged to be worth the weight of carrying for the comfort they will bring.

The dawn breaks over the Sikasoon Mountains, and he gives one last kick to the iron stake driven into the ground at his feet. He stoops, tugs at the rope running from the stake to the edge of the vast crater, and begins his descent as sunlight begins to creep down the cliff face around him.
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Re: Golben: Redemption

Postby Cinnabar » Thu Sep 05, 2013 6:50 am

A full day spent walking, pacing the narrow paths and unruly lawns of the Maze, pausing at regular intervals to mark his way - short lengths of red yarn fastened to a branch here, a twig there, chalk marks whenever he happened across exposed stone. Every so often he'd find a vantage point affording a view across the floor of the crater, an opportunity for him to get his bearings from the landmarks he'd observed from the rim. At such spots he lifted the hunting horn to his lips, sending blasts of sound rolling across the basin to echo from the distant cliffs.

He'd made camp as the late summer sun sank towards the false horizon, and now sits beside a little firepit hacked into the turf of one of the lawns, a pot of water slowly coming to the boil. It's a pleasant enough spot, a grassy hillock with a coupld of trees at its peak, dark hedges encircling it on all sides. He has dined frugally, as is sensible, and now sets his mind to settling in for the night. A pinch of dried leaves and petals from that box, deposited in the bottom of the tin mug, just as the water begins to seethe; a moment's care sees the cup filled with hot water, and its contents left to infuse for a time.

Small comforts.
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Re: Golben: Redemption

Postby Rance » Thu Sep 05, 2013 10:27 am

Atonement.

Cinnabar Calomel had skirted the edges of Golben for some time, a wary observer of an expanse almost too wide, too fantastic for a single human to wholly understand. He'd studied the vast, winding fabric of hedgerow mazes scattered throughout the earthen bowl of the crater; he'd have noted, amid the verdant, the occasional snaggletooth of old architecture incorporated into the Pit's labyrinthine weave. A battered pillar here, lounging across hedgerows like a fallen corpse; a fallen buttress there, marbled and chiseled so long ago and now left to crumble under the elements.

Remnants of what Golben once was: a town, a city, a place where life thrived.

And now it was nothing more than a circular hell of several leagues depressed into the landscape, as if the gods themselves had spooned out a helping of the earth. It was a shadow of used to be, filled with all manner of madness and confusion.

In descending the side, the soil was layered in darkness and lightness like a fine pastry -- new earth, then softer dirt, then earth of the most stirring beige. Clay, then peat, then mud. A flat length of stone. A glimmer of black coal. A thousand years, and then a thousand still, a diorama of colors dashed across the dirt-wall Cinnabar descended.

When his feet touched the earth, there was silence.

No wild animals willingly sought out solstice or protection in Golben. The sky above had been choked gray and ashen by the dust and fog that clogged the air. Layers upon layers of hedgerows sprawled beyond him as he began his trek and as he continued through, decorating with twists of crimson, slices of white chalk. Day bled into night.

Small comforts.

Tea-leaves were conduits to fortune. In some houses, they could tell dark and mysterious futures. In Golben, however, the boiling water and the twisting sprinkles of herb and leaf that sought to dissolve never did, not fully -- they simply spun, crackled in the steaming bubbles--

--until the water went flat, lifeless, despite the steaming heat of the cup. His tea fell still, scarcely even a ripple in its surface so that if his firelight reflection ever caught his eye in the tin cup ocean, he would see himself.

A basso resonance whispered through his bones.

A MAN WITH HANDS GENTLE [kind, clean] ENOUGH TO BRUSH A DAUGHTER'S HAIR. YOU ARE FAR FROM YOUR HOME, WANDERER [traveler, nomad].

Cinnabar Calomel's lips had not moved, but his reflection's did.

YOU CANNOT BEG FORGIVENESS [purity] FOR THOSE WHOSE DEBTS HAVE ALREADY BEEN PAID.
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Re: Golben: Redemption

Postby Cinnabar » Thu Sep 05, 2013 12:31 pm

He is a stillness in the silence that follows those words, felt more than heard; but for the flicker of the campfire or the thin threads of steam that arise from his cup he might be mistaken for a painting, a study worked in ruddy flame-yellow and deep evening-blue. A stillness, save for a breath to clear coiling vapour from the surface of his tea; save for a flick of eyes to the gaps in the encircling hedges, eyes that care nothing for darkness or shadow.

He is, in certain ways, a simple man; he cares for his home, for his family, for his friends; he is adept in the use of blades, though has not practiced regularly for some while; he is a passably good smith of iron and steel, for all that his experience has mainly been in the crafting and repair of farm tools; he is practical.

He has his subtleties and contradictions, like anyone else, but for the most part he prefers his dealings to be straightforward.

His knowledge of magic is very much limited, but he can recognise it readily enough and this is by no means an ambiguous manifestation; he might guess it intended to startle, to awe, and in fairness it has him very much alert now, listening for any approach, any movement in the growing darkness that surrounds him. He tilts his hand slowly, noting how the surface of his drink remains mirror-flat, does not swill or ripple against the sides of the cup.

Lowering the cup, leaning forward so that he might look into it more directly, if it is to his reflection that he is expected to speak; his words are quiet, a murmur into the tin vessel.

"It has been a long day, friend, and I have a thirst." That title a presumption, perhaps, but a better start than assuming emnity; polite, respectful, at least until he can learn more of this voice and its owner. "If you'll not join me in person, might I ask you to show yourself through some medium other than my tea?"

Amiable, the tone of one gently alerting a stranger to some trivial misstep about which they both might laugh as it is set right.

"Of whose debts are we speaking?"
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Re: Golben: Redemption

Postby Rance » Thu Sep 05, 2013 6:15 pm

DEBTS OF THE MAN [being, fellow] YOU COME TO RETRIEVE. HIS SCALES ARE BALANCED. HIS LEDGER IS SWEPT CLEAN.

Calomel's tea began to bubble and cackle again, returning the water to its scalding boil, that the herbs might infuse as originally intended. The voice did not belong to the water, nor to the night, or even the Pit; they were not a quality of the earth, a whisper in the hedges, or even a chorus sung by the occasional mirror. They weren't chords struck near to his ears, or spoken by a voice embodied.

The words were Calomel's, a slithering connection of thoughts and sounds pieced together from the abandoned detritus lingering between his ears. Criticisms he'd never spoken; sentences he'd thought to say in times of frustration or disgust, but in his logic and judicial self-composure, had thought better than to utter -- shards fused together in an order that made them coherent, whole.

THIS CITY IS A CREATURE ALL ITS OWN, WANDERER. WE [it] EVINCE[s] LITTLE ILL WILL FOR LOST BABES. WE [it] ADMIRE[s] YOUR ADHERENCE TO LOYALTY.

YOU WISH TO RECLAIM HIM. THE HUMAN,
it said. DO YOU NOT?
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Re: Golben: Redemption

Postby Cinnabar » Fri Sep 06, 2013 12:52 am

The voice knows a great deal, or professes to do so; of Calomel's daughter, his quest. Loyalty. It speaks in overlaid fragments, a mosaic of words and concepts scavenged from things never said, and the talk of balanced scales and clean ledgers might be interpreted as having somewhat sinister implications. A frown of quiet suspicion creases his brow as he sips slowly at his tea, biding his time while the aroma of leaves, flowers and spices seeps into the water.

"I seek Glenn Burnie. I know little of his debts, or to whom he owed them, but he is" Was, may still be. "a friend of mine." His eyes are for the edges of the lawn, watchful for whatever else may be roaming the maze's paths and avenues. "I do not believe myself lost, as yet; I am where I mean to be. I have my own debt to repay."

He shifts to sit more comfortably, elbows resting on raised knees, tin cup gripped lightly by fingertips about its rim.

"I must confess myself at a disadvantage. You seem to know plenty about me, but I know little about you." We, it, plural, singular. "Who and what are you, friend?"
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Re: Golben: Redemption

Postby Rance » Fri Sep 06, 2013 1:59 am

WHAT DEBT MUST YOU REPAY, it asked. WE KNOW OF NO OUTSTANDING BALANCE. JUSTICE [consequence, punishment] IS NOT NECESSARY, WANDERER.

The voice softened, became less prominent as the words trickled on; it spoke with no thunder or force.

YOU MAY STILL DISCOVER YOURSELF LOST, CINNABAR CALOMEL. YOUR EYES SHINE WITH A FATHERGLOW. YOU HAVE PERFORMED NO CRIMES WORTHY OF RESPONSE [retort, consequence]; YOUR CHILD MUST HAVE HER SUN. SHOULD YOU BE LOST HERE, IT IS NOT OUR DESIRE.

Who and what are you, friend? Calomel inquired. The retort was not immediate, but in Golben, time needed no measure -- it was a place removed from the natural order of things, a sprawl of Laboron greenery and silverglass reflection. Cinnabar's was the only fire that burned, but it lit neither sky nor hedgerow.

WE ARE A PRISONER. WE ARE A WARDEN.

FRIEND, it mused, as if considering the weight of the thought. TO WHOM DO YOU TRULY OWE LOYALTY -- FAMILY [daughter, wife], OR BURNIE?
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Re: Golben: Redemption

Postby Cinnabar » Thu Sep 26, 2013 2:22 am

What debt does he owe? The once-Governor thinks for a time, another quiet sip of tea as he considers his answer.

"I owe a debt of regret. Glenn has always been a good friend to me, when I most needed it." Through the bloodiest nights of the Ashfiend's terror, in the moments of his greatest uncertainty and doubt. "I was not there when he had need of my friendship, my help. I'd withdrawn from Myrken Wood, sought distance from... from distractions. In doing so I failed him, and he suffered greatly. He was changed for the worse."

Silence for a span of breaths, watching pale flames lick at the sticks and branches he'd spent part of the day gathering. Then that question of loyalty, and his smile is amused, indulgent.

"I'm loyal to both, in different manners and measures. And to myself - if I don't do this, if I don't make the attempt, that is a betrayal of its own. I owe it to myself to be a good man, and what man could abandon his friend twice and still call himself good?"

As to his other duties, his obligations, he offers a slight shrug, whether or not the entity can see the gesture.

"I'll see my wife and children again; I promised them I'd return, and that's a promise I'll keep." Conviction in his tone, stating a simple matter of fact. "No matter what lies in my way."
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Re: Golben: Redemption

Postby Rance » Thu Sep 26, 2013 3:12 am

SOUGHT DISTANCE FROM...FROM DISTRACTIONS, the entity repeated, inflecting with Cinnabar's own tone. DISTANCE FOR THE PROSPERITY OF YOURSELF. DISTANCE FOR THE PROSPERITY OF YOUR FAMILY.

The essence spilled out of Cinnabar's conscience as if his brain were a deflating water-bladder. Across the flickering, dancing flames, a pair of eyes watched him. Or rather, things that wished to be eyes -- perfectly rounded stones plucked straight out of the chaotic soil of the Pit, hovering above a tongue of firewood smoke that coalesced into a mangled, humanoid form.

When the smoky avatar spoke, the voice was a slithering hiss -- not a tone of threat or danger, but a noise wholly apathetic, a poor imitation of natural human speech.

"This debt of regret you owe is not to him, but to you. You are here less as a friend and more to seek a poultice for the heart of Cinnabar Calomel. A Good Man matters nothing in this place. In this place. But in the home, he matters all. To be here for Burnie is mere pageantry. We see it with our eyes; we feel it with our soil.

"We will not summon the dangers of Golben willingly against you. Burnie has suffered his consequence and will be yours to safely escort away from here -- should you find him. Our veins run deep and twisted, and our roots cut great and confusing paths. You failed him," the figure admitted, "but you brought peace to your family by being their lodestone, by fulfilling your duty as father and husband. We know this because you know this; we know this because the soil knows this, Good Man."

The smoke flickered, wavered, threatened by a gust of wind funneled down into the Pit and cast across its great expanse. One of the stony eyes fell and splashed into the embers of Calomel's cookfire.

"Glenn Burnie fabricated this place to be a bane for the living. A Good Man will survive it; we will precipitate this conclusion in your case, for our nature is to be Just."

And the voice again -- in his bones, under his muscles, popping like bubbles under the skin.

WE CAN ENSURE THAT YOU WILL RETURN TO YOUR FAMILY, WANDERER. FAR BE IT FROM US [me] TO INTERFERE WITH PROMISES GIVEN TO THOSE MORE INNOCENT [undeserving of punishment].

BUT WILL YOU BE THE SAME GOOD MAN WHO LEFT THEM?
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Re: Golben: Redemption

Postby Cinnabar » Wed Oct 02, 2013 2:21 am

"For the safety of my family." A small correction, but an important one. "If you know anything of Myrken Wood, friend, you know it's a cruel place to those who least deserve cruelty. Had I remained... prominent, had I remained active in public life, it would have cost my family dearly." A sip of tea, a narrowing of his eyes as the voice scrapes together a form for itself, something with which he might converse.

"Understand this: when my daughter was born, the midwife cast her into the hearth to burn." An atrocity described with a flat, factual tone, though the memory brings flecks of silver into his gaze that catch the firelight, an old, smouldering anger. "Myrken's people have been preyed upon by monsters for generations. They've learned to fear that which isn't human, which isn't normal. There is... something in my blood that showed itself in my daughter, and the midwife acted to destroy it then and there - rather than let it mature into something worse, hm?"

A pause as he leans forwards to reach into the firepit, taking up a fistful of glowing embers from the heart of the fire. He holds the pebble-gaze of the apparition that sits across from him, grasping the glowing coals as calmly as he might hold a fistful of cool earth. Demonstration made, he drops them back into the pit and dusts off his palm on the grass by his side.

"She survived the flames, thanks to my blood. But it was a reminder - whatever good I might have done for them, I'm not like them. My children are not like them, and they are quick to strike at what they fear. So I chose to withdraw."

The smoke-wraith whispers its own corrections and the once-Governor listens carefully; his features stiffen briefly at mention of poultice, of pageantry, but he does not interrupt, does not protest.

"It's important that Glenn knows he is not alone. That he is not abandoned here, as he was before. That he still has at least one friend who will seek him out. Important to me, yes, but also to him. When he returns as Governor," An assumption there. "what compassion will he have for those who left him to rot here? The people of Myrken, in whose name he has toiled, and yet who showed such little interest in his fate when his woman usurped him. What right have they to protest against anything he does? How trifling their concerns, in comparison to what he has endured on their behalf." His hand lifts to indicate the rim of the crater and, by extension, the province beyond.

"It's important for him to know that Myrken hasn't given up on him, so that he doesn't give up on Myrken wood."

A last swig drains the cup, and he reaches for the tea box to transfer another pinch of leaves and spices into the vessel; hot water to follow, and the brew left to steep for a time.

"It's also a salve for my own conscience, yes. But that's not all of it."

The thing makes its promises, offers its terms, and he nods in acceptance and thanks. "I'll be glad of your cooperation."

The wraith begins to dissipate, its voice now shivering through the fabric of the pit itself, and at length he grins at the empty air.

"Everything changes, friend, and we are changed with it."
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Re: Golben: Redemption

Postby Rance » Wed Oct 02, 2013 4:46 am

Cinnabar Calomel drank. It was not with tangible eyes, but with eyes nonetheless -- invisible ones, planted on the backs of scrabbling beetles, wound within the thorns of the gnarled hedges -- that the presence observed him. The soil throbbed and listened, contemplating, considering. Tasting the tones of the wanderer's voice, judging the merit and truth within his words as if the echoes and vibrations alone were valuable enough measures by which to examine emotion and intent.

YOUR ABNORMALITIES HAVE NOT DETRACTED FROM YOUR HUMANITY; IT IS OUR [my] HOPE YOUR OFFSPRING DOES NOT SUFFER FURTHER MISJUDGMENT. WITHDRAWAL WAS A WISE CHOICE, CINNABAR CALOMEL.

For a long time there was silence following Cinnabar's proclamations regarding Glenn Burnie. Almost imperceptibly, the earth under Golben shifted, and the coals of the fire gave off a sputtering cough of smoke.

EVERYTHING CHANGES. WE ARE CHANGED WITH IT, the presence repeated. BE NOT MISLED: BURNIE IS NOT ALONE HERE; HIS FOOTPRINTS [tracks] ARE ACCOMPANIED BY ANOTHER THAT HAS NO MET JUSTICE. DEEDS HAVE NOT YET BEEN EQUALLY REMUNERATED. SEEK YOUR RECONCILIATION WITH YOUR FRIEND AND WITH YOURSELF, IF AT THE PERIL OF WHAT ELSE EXISTS HERE.

WE SHALL NOT MARSHAL [levy, direct] DANGERS AGAINST YOU, CALOMEL, LEST YOUR ACTIONS NECESSITATE BALANCE AND PUNISHMENT.


Then, as if drawn from the coals by an unseen series of fingers, a burning ember dragged itself out through the dirt. It scorched a volume of connected right angles into the dirt, a sharp and jointed drawing in soot dragged through the dry earth. Two lefts. A right. Three lefts. Two rights. A long forward trek. A quick series of slaloming turns. Where the lump of hot coal rested, so ended the scrawling.

BE NOT MISLED, it whispered again, though the prying tone began to lighten its grip on the roots of his mind. OTHERS COME. WITH MORNING LIGHT, THEY ARRIVE. DRINK. EAT. SATISFY YOUR BODILY NEEDS.

FOR YOUR SELFLESSNESS, OUR [my] FAVOR IS YOURS UNTIL YOU GIVE US [me] A REASON TO QUESTION IT, CALOMEL. HAVEN EXISTS IN THIS PLACE [pit, prison] FOR YOU. FOR YOUR OFFSPRING. SHOULD YOU EVER REQUIRE [need] OUR AID--

--for the safety of my family.

His very words. His own voice.

Moments later, the acumenus was gone.
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