Grommet'd hardly heard from her mother since Cowlflap had left Gnomeregan to volunteer as a medic for the Argent Dawn.
The first letter was full of concern and worry that Grommet had not gotten into the Arcane Academy after all, along with the admonitions to study harder and “apply again later. I know you can do it! Maximom, serving the Light at Light's Hope Chapel. P.S. They don't know anything about the soothing Power of the Infinite Lever!”
Grommet had dutifully kept the letter, "organizing" it into one of her many boxes. She had not thought of it since, and had only partially taken her mother's advice, she was studying, but it was more of a real world applications course of study, she had the callouses and bloodstained robes to show it.
After the first letter had come a series of eight packages, wrapped in several odd publications, seemingly from some sort of religious press. Grommet had filed a single copy of each of them away in one of her boxes as well, the one closest to the small fireplace in her room. Why her mother would send dozens of copies of them, Grommet was afraid to ask. Maximom was a fairly respected priestess of the Order of the Infinite Lever, so not likely to be taken in by such a rough and illogical religion as portrayed here. The first few boxes contained various knick-knacks to sell, and some jewelry (a hobby of her mother's, though these were quite unlike anything her mother had made before.) Grommet had sold the lot off to help pay for private tutoring.
Grommet excitedly wrote to her mother that she was studying enchanting in hopes of helping her own magic work better. And, coincidentally, hoping to distract her mother from the topic of the Arcane Academy; Grommet had pretty much lost all hope of meeting their entrance requirements. The next package contained several enchanted items of armor and a couple of weapons, the shipping cost must have been exorbitant. They were all far too complex for Grommet to make any progress with them, so she took them to the auction house in hopes that someone else would be able to use them. That shipment had also contained the first hint that things were not right with her mother. There was no letter. Whilethere had been no letters with the first few boxes, they had come all at once over the course several days, and were obviously goods meant for resale, after the economy of Gnomeregan broke down, barter was pretty much the way things got done, Maximom was good at it. This package, though, was obviously sent in response to her own letter, but there had been no correspondence.
Upon returning from a trip to Kharanos to purchase her first mechanostrider, Grommet found that another package had arrived, full of odd little carved glass balls. Grommet had taken one out, pondering it, and promptly got lost in the maze of lines etched in its surface. She sat, mesmerized, and drifted off. She dreamed of shouting and blood and fire and smoke and the smell of death, not fresh like the wild boars whose leather Grommet skinned and meat she preserved to provision her allies in the local militia, but old death, rotten with evil. The smell permeated the box and clung to the glass baubles. Grommet took the box of baubles to the fountain outside the Cathedral and washed them, unconsciously reciting the “Checklist of Smooth Operations” she'd learned as a child. She discarded the pasteboard shipping box, and though the smell was gone, she couldn't bring herself to meditate on one of the baubles again. She sold that whole lot for a somewhat surprising fee. It funded her next couple of lessons and allowed her to purchase what she needed to make a runed rod to further her study of enchantments.
The final clue that something was amiss was the boots.
Westfall and the choking mines underneath were days ago. The undead that still worked the deep mines were all formerly good men of the Explorer's League and Ironforge Mining Guilds. How they'd been turned was a mystery to Grommet, but it had taken most of the day to get the smell out of her robes. Grommet had donned her coveralls and gone down to the Blue Recluse to study and check her mail, and hopefully forget. She'd frozen again, fighting the undead, and had almost died because of it. If that Handsome Dwarf with the two headed hound hadn't come along....
Another package, the outside was singed and items were stuffed inside as though in a hurry. The smell of smoke and blood was still on them. It was an odd collection of mismatched armor and baubles and trinkets. Then there were the boots. They were at the bottom of the box, on top of a note, scrawled in what looked like blood. Grommet set the boots aside, one of them much heavier than the other. She picked up the note. It was, though large and rough, undoubtedly her mother's writing.
“Study harder. I'm coming for you. You MUST be ready. Cowlflap Cogswaddle”
“Cowlflap Cogswaddle,” Grommet blurted aloud, startling a young mage headed into the Blue Recluse. Her mother never signed her letters that way, not since, as toddlers, Grommet and Camfollower had nicknamed them Maximom and Omnidad. They always signed their letters with their nicknames. They even called one another by them, even when working around the medical platform, at least when they thought no one could hear.
“What's the matter, Maximom?” she whispered to no one.
She picked up the heavy boot, and discovered the remains of a foot from the ankle down. Her squeal echoed through the Mage's Quarter.
The young mage stepped over to see what the problem was. He saw the raw rotting edges of the contents of the boot and passed out at Grommet's feet.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Sunday, September 20, 2009
DRAFT: Terror on the Tram
Grommet Cogswaddle
in
Terror on the Tram
Grommet Cogswaddle had managed to make enough profit on the skins she'd taken while running errands across the wilderness of Dun Morough to afford a room in Ironforge for a few days. She wanted to spend some time studying before making the trip to Stormwind to apply at the Arcane Acadamy.
Unknown to Grommet, the Scourge had all ready arrived, eager to disrupt her classes.
Grommet cut through the center of the central forge, she loved the sound of hammers ringing against the great anvil, the business of blacksmiths and engineers chatting as they worked, democratically sharing what they knew, offering improvements and suggestions. Despite being ruled by a king, the Great Forge was a meeting place that provided not only for technological development, but for political development as well. It was because of the community links forged here centuries before that the Dwarven Kings found themselves bound to a sometimes fractious and always raucous Senate.
Finding herself amongst the history tomes in the Explorer's Library, Grommet mused that Dwarves would have a full on republic if they weren't so stubborn about their traditions, and having a king was certainly a dear tradition. She wondered when her own people would begin to demand a say in Dwarvish governance, as their own institutions had all but broken down in the collapse of Gnomeragan. Gnomes had adapted to their new alliance societies with mixed results. In the case of Ironforge, the society was republic enough to absorb the Gnomish political pressure and make it part of its own. In human lands, being small like human children was likely all that prevented a full crackdown by members of either the clergy or the sovereign's government. Human towns had counsels, whose job it was to provide requested resources to the crown, and, so it seemed, to beg for some return on those resources. That seemed to be about as far as democracy stretched in Stormwind. Grommet could not imagine how humans had put up with such unfairness for so long. (She did freely admit that central rule did have certain undeniable efficiencies that her own political system had lacked, particularly when it came to dealing with unexpected conflict.)
Grommet's reverie was disturbed by coughing and hacking from a nearby table. A reader had collapsed, enveloped in a foul sick cloud. Grommet instinctively moved away. The reader rose, altered, a feral look in his eye. Guards arrived, but not in time to save a poor library clerk who'd been too absorbed in her own work to notice the change.
Grommet left the library and looked around her. There were signs of illness everywhere, insects crawled about that she'd never remembered seeing before. Suspicious looking piles of crates oozed a miasma of diseased energy so thick that she could see it. She was startled to realize that not everyone saw the danger as people walked up to the crates, out of curiosity or stubbornness, she couldn't tell.
“Stay away from those crates, there's something wrong with them!”
“Mind yer own buisness, squirt!”
“Just want to see where they're from and who they're going to. Sure are a lot of them.”
Grommet could see that the writing on the crates was magical in nature, but nonsensical in reality.
“This here crate belongs over in the War Quarter, I'll just take it there m'self, I'm gong that way any how.” A burly Dwarf hefted one of the crates and began carrying it, the miasma flowing out of the crate and into his mouth, ears and nose, un-noticed, as he made his way through the Great Forge to the War Quarter.
“This is bad,” Grommet spoke aloud, though no one was listening to her. “I think I'll head to Stormwind early.” Grommet reasoned that the open architecture would be healthier. Another coughing fit broke out in the Library, this time, one of the guards. “I'd better hurry.”
The griffin shot into the air, seeming glad to be leaving the place. Grommet clutched the saddle, grabbing hand fulls of neck feathers. The tighter she gripped, the steeper the griffin banked. Grommet realized that her tight grip was signaling the griffin that she wanted to go faster, so forced herself to ease up. The griffin's flight immediately smoothed out. She glanced down. Though many of the high places in Gnomeragan had no hand rails, none had been to be so high as this. Then she realized that rather than a solidly engineered craft with multiple safety systems, this was a living breathing being. She had no parachute.
Grommet forced herself to look out to the horizon. She took to counting her coins to distract her from the flight. With a start, she realized that she shouldn't have taken the flight, she would barely have enough for her classes, especially if she wanted a tutor (and that seemed to be the fastest way for her to learn.) She would have to try to find a room other than an Inn.
The griffin hovered over the landing area, unsure. Grommet had closed her eyes on their final approach, remembering that some of the griffins liked to weave through the guard towers before landing. She wondered only a moment why they weren't down yet; the landing platform was awash in combat.
Grommet tumbled backwards off the griffin, and stayed low in the pile of straw until the scuffling moved away from where she hid. Grommet raced out of the landing area and across to the Mage Park and it's tower full of classes, tutors and tomes. The trade district was not as lively and open as usual. People were huddled in small groups, some even with every person's weapons ready and pointing outward. They eyed Grommet with suspicion as she ran to the Mages' Tower.
Grommet studied well into the night, and one of the tutors mentioned the Blue Recluse being open for dinner. Several of the tutors and students wanted to take a break, Grommet wanted to go, but the fare there was far more than the dozen copper coins left in her purse would allow.
“I have rooms in Ironforge, so I will just take the tram back.”
“Be careful, things have gotten strange out there.”
“I will.”
The cobbled paths were oddly quiet, but the city itself was not. Guards ran past, on their way into the Trade district. Grommet decided it was a nice night for a stroll along the canal. The air was cool, fish jumped, the stars shone brightly over head, at least until she neared the Dwarven district. “Temperature Inversion,” she said to no one in particular, but it made her appreciate the continuous ventilation of Ironforge, powered of course by the heat of the Great Forge itself. “Out doors is highly over-rated.”
Grommet made her way towards the Tram station, only detouring once to avoid a large conglomeration of people, people who were inspecting boxes and crates and finding that they weren't exactly where they were supposed to be, so they might just move them as a favor to who ever had tried and failed to deliver them properly.
“Ugh! I think I got some on me!”
Grommet turned the corner to see a young mage and a hard looking woman shooting disgusted looks at the miasma cloud around a large cockroach.
“Let me clean that up,” the woman said, and with a few gestures Grommet recognized from her own father's healing skills, cast a spell on her young friend, then on herself. “We need to see if anyone else has been infected, this could be bad. Let's stop for my armor.”
The young mage looked nervous, “Does this mean our evening is over?”
“No, just that this will be a working date.”
The young mage sighed, the sigh of a man who knows he's not getting any.
Grommet scurried past, a huge grin on her face. Human males had a delightful ability to look imminent disaster in the face, and immediately think of something else, usually women. She liked the woman's practical approach, it was very Gnomelike. The humans didn't acknowledge her as they moved by, all their attention focused on their new mission.
Grommet looked at the ruined insect from what she hoped was a safe distance. She marveled at it's size, It looked like it had some sort of pale liquid sheen trapped between its body and wings. “It's a good thing they aren't more intelligent.”
“What?”
“Oh! I didn't see you there.” Grommet found herself facing a handsome young Gnome with a tall shock of red hair.
“What's not intelligent?”
“That,” Grommet pointed to the ruined bug.
“Of course not, it's a bug.”
“You're right, of course, but there's still something out of alignment here.”
“Yes, well, I have a tram to catch.”
“Me, too, mind if I come along.”
“If you can keep up.”
The handsome Gnome sprinted away.
Grommet was left far behind. Until she stopped, huffing and puffing at the train platform.
“I missed the Tram by that much,” the young Gnome held his hands barely a whisker apart.
“You're just like my brother, insanely fast, but poor timing.” Grommet heard brakes squealing in her head as she watched the Gnome's face fall.
“Did she really just compare me to her brother,” was written all over the handsome young Gnome's face.
The two Gnomes stood in awkward silence waiting for the Tram. Grommet waited until the last second to board, making sure no one infected got on. As the tram pulled away from the loading station, Grommet moved to the front of the car, and the handsome Gnome stood a respectful distance towards the rear of the car. Grommet gave a little cheer, the tram always made her happy, its smooth and speedy progress inspiring in a deeply spiritual way. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a hunched man shape launch itself from the refugee lined walkway onto the tram, and into their car.
Three beings froze. Grommet struggled to remember a single spell, but before she could un-jumble the spells she knew from the ones she'd just learned, the creature had slammed the handsome Gnome against the back rail, knocking him flat instantly. Grommet squeaked and ran to the front rail of the car. Highly engineered safety systems kicked in, preventing her from leaping over into the next car. She turned, expecting to meet the same fate as her car mate. Frost danced on her fingertips. The creature sprayed a full blast of mucus like bile over her. Then was off the car before she could finish her spell.
Grommet spent the rest of the trip sitting with the unconscious Gnome. Trying to clean herself off. She was still shaking when the Tram pulled into the station.
“You need to get to a healer. We'll take care of this one.”
Grommet looked up, and up at the speaker. An elf, clad in forest greens and her hair tightly contained in long braids pointed out of the Tram Station.
“Where did the zombie go?” A plate clad warrior of the Argent Dawn asked.
“He jumped off the train, way back before the lake.”
The walking output of a steel mill rumbled something under his breath that Grommet didn't catch.
Grommet felt confined by the large number of tall people who'd gathered around, so excused her self with a curt, “I feel fine, nothing a bath won't fix.”
Grommet reached the anvil, and realized the anvil was silent, even the smithy's vendor was away, his barrels and crates of flux and coal unattended. Grommet's belly soon felt like loose oil senders rattling against the insides of a crankcase. “I think I should find a healer,” She'd remembered seeing one by the Griffins, and not thinking anything of it at the time, believing it to be a recruiter or some such. A quick glance showed her that post was now empty. Grommet felt her cogs slip. There was no one in the forge, even the guards seemed to be missing.
Grommet ran, the bank was always full, there would be someone there. “Healer, I need a healer!”
“On the balcony at Stonefire,” came the response.
Grommet tossed a wave and a “Thanks,” out to the crowd, who watched her run off, some shaking their heads.
Just a couple of hundred yards to the tavern, Grommet's sight faltered and she missed the door. Circling back, she raced inside, and up the stairs. Somehow, she was turned around in a crowd, the illness took on a life of its own, a voice seemed to call to her, encouraging her to give up.
“No,” she said aloud and stepped into the room with the balcony. It was full of elves. White hair, purple hair. The healer was busy with them.
Grommet saw that he would turn regularly and heal people out on the street below. She yelped, but he still did not see her.
Grommet's vision faded and she tumbled back out of the room, and down the stairs.
“I don't feel so well,” she said and clutched her stomach, the pain stopping her before she could reach the street and healing.
The voice, it was calm, assured, but demanding. Grommet didn't like it. She lurched to her feet. A human and a Gnome were engaged in conversation at a table across the room. They stopped to look at her, they looked like, well Grommet hadn't eaten since she started her tutoring in Stormwind.
“No!” Grommet shook off the feeling and staggered out into the street. “Balcony, it's not too late...” was what she meant to say, but only a strange gurgling came from her lips.
A guard rushed at her, an instinct, from some other mind, kicked in and she parried and stuck the guard to the ground in a gooey effluent vomited from somewhere unholy deep in her body. The urge to bite, infect and move on was almost impossible to overcome.
“I'm tall!” Grommet reveled in it a moment, looking down at the helpless guard.
“I was going to put her out of her misery,” from a small feminine voice in the tavern.
That was enough to kick what Gnomish personality was left into high gear and she turned to step out under the balcony, arms raised to the healer in supplication.
Holy light ripped reality asunder and brought down its healing powers. Grommet didn't remember her father's healing powers burning so awfully, and that fact stuck in her head for some time after she stopped moving.
How long she was out she could only measure by the continued conversation inside the tavern. Grommet couldn't really follow it, but there were strong arcane energies being tossed about, and that drew her back inside. Grommet crawled, unseen and tried to make it into a chair. She rolled out onto the floor at the feet of the mage, instead.
“Are you okay?” the same feminine voice asked.
Grommet wanted to shout “No!” at the reddish pink ponytails, but that was the same voice that had so disappointingly spoken about putting her out of her misery, she stopped herself. “I will be, thanks.” Embarrassed, Grommet stepped back out of the tavern. Baram had allowed her to clean up after one of her messier lessons, so she made her way next door.
“Actually, you'd probably be safer in the tavern, there's some mighty powerful doings there, and not just from the Argent Dawn priest on the balcony.”
“But, I almost threw up on them.”
“Strange times, these, I imagine they've seen worse.”
Grommet couldn't fault his logic and, after carefully checking the roadway, ducked back into the tavern.
“Do you mind if I sit here. I'll be very quiet.” Grommet realized that she might have well asked them to protect her, but by now she just didn't care.
“Please have a seat,” the bouncy pigtails motioned her to a chair.
“Thank you,” and for some reason she curtsied to the work cloth clad woman. There was something commanding about her.
Grommet sat quietly, sipping some tasteless conjured water and nibbling on some pumpernickel. Her trainers assured her that there wasn't some poor baker somewhere out of his mind because his goods kept going missing, but their explanations of what was really happening left a lot to the imagination. Whenever Grommet went to a bakery, she always made sure to tip well, just in case.
“So, what's your story?”
“I was attacked on the tram, even though I checked before I got on.” Grommet pouted at the memory, both fresh and somehow all ready ancient at the same time. She shuddered.
“Tram jumping.” The human mage moved closer to the conversation.
The pigtailed Gnome blinked, as though surprised and perhaps a little delighted to hear something she didn't know. “What's that?”
“A kind of sport I heard about in my youth,” said the mage, sounding more familiar than just hearing about it, “people would move down the platform and then try to jump onto the moving tram.”
“Why would they do that?” And though Grommet had the same question, she didn't voice it.
“The challenge. It's sort of a sport.” The human stopped, realizing that both Gnomes were now ready to bolt down that conversational opening rather than talk about the attack.
The questioning continued, and Grommet was surprised that the telling was so much longer than the incident itself.
The two mages decided they must do something about it and prepared to leave. Grommet lost herself in counting her coins again, deciding that it might be worth it to spend the last of them on something stronger to drink.
“Okay, lets go.”
Grommet looked at the pigtailed Gnome, not knowing if she'd spoken to her (as her attention had all ready turned inward.) “Me?” she asked with a terrified look on her face. The pink-tailed Gnome shook her head.
Grommet sat back down with a much relieved sigh. She thought to wave good bye, after they'd walked out the door. “Good luck, be careful,” she said to the nearly empty room.
“You going to order something?” the bartender asked, but tenderly.
Grommet shook her head.
“I don't know what's worse, being attacked by zombies or being grilled by the likes of those,” the bar tender chuckled, trying to lighten the mood.
Grommet knew. Grommet treasured the older Gnome's command of the interview. Though she felt like her cogs still skipped and slipped, Grommet felt much more aligned. It was good to know that the 'likes of those' were out there patrolling the city.
in
Terror on the Tram
Grommet Cogswaddle had managed to make enough profit on the skins she'd taken while running errands across the wilderness of Dun Morough to afford a room in Ironforge for a few days. She wanted to spend some time studying before making the trip to Stormwind to apply at the Arcane Acadamy.
Unknown to Grommet, the Scourge had all ready arrived, eager to disrupt her classes.
Grommet cut through the center of the central forge, she loved the sound of hammers ringing against the great anvil, the business of blacksmiths and engineers chatting as they worked, democratically sharing what they knew, offering improvements and suggestions. Despite being ruled by a king, the Great Forge was a meeting place that provided not only for technological development, but for political development as well. It was because of the community links forged here centuries before that the Dwarven Kings found themselves bound to a sometimes fractious and always raucous Senate.
Finding herself amongst the history tomes in the Explorer's Library, Grommet mused that Dwarves would have a full on republic if they weren't so stubborn about their traditions, and having a king was certainly a dear tradition. She wondered when her own people would begin to demand a say in Dwarvish governance, as their own institutions had all but broken down in the collapse of Gnomeragan. Gnomes had adapted to their new alliance societies with mixed results. In the case of Ironforge, the society was republic enough to absorb the Gnomish political pressure and make it part of its own. In human lands, being small like human children was likely all that prevented a full crackdown by members of either the clergy or the sovereign's government. Human towns had counsels, whose job it was to provide requested resources to the crown, and, so it seemed, to beg for some return on those resources. That seemed to be about as far as democracy stretched in Stormwind. Grommet could not imagine how humans had put up with such unfairness for so long. (She did freely admit that central rule did have certain undeniable efficiencies that her own political system had lacked, particularly when it came to dealing with unexpected conflict.)
Grommet's reverie was disturbed by coughing and hacking from a nearby table. A reader had collapsed, enveloped in a foul sick cloud. Grommet instinctively moved away. The reader rose, altered, a feral look in his eye. Guards arrived, but not in time to save a poor library clerk who'd been too absorbed in her own work to notice the change.
Grommet left the library and looked around her. There were signs of illness everywhere, insects crawled about that she'd never remembered seeing before. Suspicious looking piles of crates oozed a miasma of diseased energy so thick that she could see it. She was startled to realize that not everyone saw the danger as people walked up to the crates, out of curiosity or stubbornness, she couldn't tell.
“Stay away from those crates, there's something wrong with them!”
“Mind yer own buisness, squirt!”
“Just want to see where they're from and who they're going to. Sure are a lot of them.”
Grommet could see that the writing on the crates was magical in nature, but nonsensical in reality.
“This here crate belongs over in the War Quarter, I'll just take it there m'self, I'm gong that way any how.” A burly Dwarf hefted one of the crates and began carrying it, the miasma flowing out of the crate and into his mouth, ears and nose, un-noticed, as he made his way through the Great Forge to the War Quarter.
“This is bad,” Grommet spoke aloud, though no one was listening to her. “I think I'll head to Stormwind early.” Grommet reasoned that the open architecture would be healthier. Another coughing fit broke out in the Library, this time, one of the guards. “I'd better hurry.”
The griffin shot into the air, seeming glad to be leaving the place. Grommet clutched the saddle, grabbing hand fulls of neck feathers. The tighter she gripped, the steeper the griffin banked. Grommet realized that her tight grip was signaling the griffin that she wanted to go faster, so forced herself to ease up. The griffin's flight immediately smoothed out. She glanced down. Though many of the high places in Gnomeragan had no hand rails, none had been to be so high as this. Then she realized that rather than a solidly engineered craft with multiple safety systems, this was a living breathing being. She had no parachute.
Grommet forced herself to look out to the horizon. She took to counting her coins to distract her from the flight. With a start, she realized that she shouldn't have taken the flight, she would barely have enough for her classes, especially if she wanted a tutor (and that seemed to be the fastest way for her to learn.) She would have to try to find a room other than an Inn.
The griffin hovered over the landing area, unsure. Grommet had closed her eyes on their final approach, remembering that some of the griffins liked to weave through the guard towers before landing. She wondered only a moment why they weren't down yet; the landing platform was awash in combat.
Grommet tumbled backwards off the griffin, and stayed low in the pile of straw until the scuffling moved away from where she hid. Grommet raced out of the landing area and across to the Mage Park and it's tower full of classes, tutors and tomes. The trade district was not as lively and open as usual. People were huddled in small groups, some even with every person's weapons ready and pointing outward. They eyed Grommet with suspicion as she ran to the Mages' Tower.
Grommet studied well into the night, and one of the tutors mentioned the Blue Recluse being open for dinner. Several of the tutors and students wanted to take a break, Grommet wanted to go, but the fare there was far more than the dozen copper coins left in her purse would allow.
“I have rooms in Ironforge, so I will just take the tram back.”
“Be careful, things have gotten strange out there.”
“I will.”
The cobbled paths were oddly quiet, but the city itself was not. Guards ran past, on their way into the Trade district. Grommet decided it was a nice night for a stroll along the canal. The air was cool, fish jumped, the stars shone brightly over head, at least until she neared the Dwarven district. “Temperature Inversion,” she said to no one in particular, but it made her appreciate the continuous ventilation of Ironforge, powered of course by the heat of the Great Forge itself. “Out doors is highly over-rated.”
Grommet made her way towards the Tram station, only detouring once to avoid a large conglomeration of people, people who were inspecting boxes and crates and finding that they weren't exactly where they were supposed to be, so they might just move them as a favor to who ever had tried and failed to deliver them properly.
“Ugh! I think I got some on me!”
Grommet turned the corner to see a young mage and a hard looking woman shooting disgusted looks at the miasma cloud around a large cockroach.
“Let me clean that up,” the woman said, and with a few gestures Grommet recognized from her own father's healing skills, cast a spell on her young friend, then on herself. “We need to see if anyone else has been infected, this could be bad. Let's stop for my armor.”
The young mage looked nervous, “Does this mean our evening is over?”
“No, just that this will be a working date.”
The young mage sighed, the sigh of a man who knows he's not getting any.
Grommet scurried past, a huge grin on her face. Human males had a delightful ability to look imminent disaster in the face, and immediately think of something else, usually women. She liked the woman's practical approach, it was very Gnomelike. The humans didn't acknowledge her as they moved by, all their attention focused on their new mission.
Grommet looked at the ruined insect from what she hoped was a safe distance. She marveled at it's size, It looked like it had some sort of pale liquid sheen trapped between its body and wings. “It's a good thing they aren't more intelligent.”
“What?”
“Oh! I didn't see you there.” Grommet found herself facing a handsome young Gnome with a tall shock of red hair.
“What's not intelligent?”
“That,” Grommet pointed to the ruined bug.
“Of course not, it's a bug.”
“You're right, of course, but there's still something out of alignment here.”
“Yes, well, I have a tram to catch.”
“Me, too, mind if I come along.”
“If you can keep up.”
The handsome Gnome sprinted away.
Grommet was left far behind. Until she stopped, huffing and puffing at the train platform.
“I missed the Tram by that much,” the young Gnome held his hands barely a whisker apart.
“You're just like my brother, insanely fast, but poor timing.” Grommet heard brakes squealing in her head as she watched the Gnome's face fall.
“Did she really just compare me to her brother,” was written all over the handsome young Gnome's face.
The two Gnomes stood in awkward silence waiting for the Tram. Grommet waited until the last second to board, making sure no one infected got on. As the tram pulled away from the loading station, Grommet moved to the front of the car, and the handsome Gnome stood a respectful distance towards the rear of the car. Grommet gave a little cheer, the tram always made her happy, its smooth and speedy progress inspiring in a deeply spiritual way. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a hunched man shape launch itself from the refugee lined walkway onto the tram, and into their car.
Three beings froze. Grommet struggled to remember a single spell, but before she could un-jumble the spells she knew from the ones she'd just learned, the creature had slammed the handsome Gnome against the back rail, knocking him flat instantly. Grommet squeaked and ran to the front rail of the car. Highly engineered safety systems kicked in, preventing her from leaping over into the next car. She turned, expecting to meet the same fate as her car mate. Frost danced on her fingertips. The creature sprayed a full blast of mucus like bile over her. Then was off the car before she could finish her spell.
Grommet spent the rest of the trip sitting with the unconscious Gnome. Trying to clean herself off. She was still shaking when the Tram pulled into the station.
“You need to get to a healer. We'll take care of this one.”
Grommet looked up, and up at the speaker. An elf, clad in forest greens and her hair tightly contained in long braids pointed out of the Tram Station.
“Where did the zombie go?” A plate clad warrior of the Argent Dawn asked.
“He jumped off the train, way back before the lake.”
The walking output of a steel mill rumbled something under his breath that Grommet didn't catch.
Grommet felt confined by the large number of tall people who'd gathered around, so excused her self with a curt, “I feel fine, nothing a bath won't fix.”
Grommet reached the anvil, and realized the anvil was silent, even the smithy's vendor was away, his barrels and crates of flux and coal unattended. Grommet's belly soon felt like loose oil senders rattling against the insides of a crankcase. “I think I should find a healer,” She'd remembered seeing one by the Griffins, and not thinking anything of it at the time, believing it to be a recruiter or some such. A quick glance showed her that post was now empty. Grommet felt her cogs slip. There was no one in the forge, even the guards seemed to be missing.
Grommet ran, the bank was always full, there would be someone there. “Healer, I need a healer!”
“On the balcony at Stonefire,” came the response.
Grommet tossed a wave and a “Thanks,” out to the crowd, who watched her run off, some shaking their heads.
Just a couple of hundred yards to the tavern, Grommet's sight faltered and she missed the door. Circling back, she raced inside, and up the stairs. Somehow, she was turned around in a crowd, the illness took on a life of its own, a voice seemed to call to her, encouraging her to give up.
“No,” she said aloud and stepped into the room with the balcony. It was full of elves. White hair, purple hair. The healer was busy with them.
Grommet saw that he would turn regularly and heal people out on the street below. She yelped, but he still did not see her.
Grommet's vision faded and she tumbled back out of the room, and down the stairs.
“I don't feel so well,” she said and clutched her stomach, the pain stopping her before she could reach the street and healing.
The voice, it was calm, assured, but demanding. Grommet didn't like it. She lurched to her feet. A human and a Gnome were engaged in conversation at a table across the room. They stopped to look at her, they looked like, well Grommet hadn't eaten since she started her tutoring in Stormwind.
“No!” Grommet shook off the feeling and staggered out into the street. “Balcony, it's not too late...” was what she meant to say, but only a strange gurgling came from her lips.
A guard rushed at her, an instinct, from some other mind, kicked in and she parried and stuck the guard to the ground in a gooey effluent vomited from somewhere unholy deep in her body. The urge to bite, infect and move on was almost impossible to overcome.
“I'm tall!” Grommet reveled in it a moment, looking down at the helpless guard.
“I was going to put her out of her misery,” from a small feminine voice in the tavern.
That was enough to kick what Gnomish personality was left into high gear and she turned to step out under the balcony, arms raised to the healer in supplication.
Holy light ripped reality asunder and brought down its healing powers. Grommet didn't remember her father's healing powers burning so awfully, and that fact stuck in her head for some time after she stopped moving.
How long she was out she could only measure by the continued conversation inside the tavern. Grommet couldn't really follow it, but there were strong arcane energies being tossed about, and that drew her back inside. Grommet crawled, unseen and tried to make it into a chair. She rolled out onto the floor at the feet of the mage, instead.
“Are you okay?” the same feminine voice asked.
Grommet wanted to shout “No!” at the reddish pink ponytails, but that was the same voice that had so disappointingly spoken about putting her out of her misery, she stopped herself. “I will be, thanks.” Embarrassed, Grommet stepped back out of the tavern. Baram had allowed her to clean up after one of her messier lessons, so she made her way next door.
“Actually, you'd probably be safer in the tavern, there's some mighty powerful doings there, and not just from the Argent Dawn priest on the balcony.”
“But, I almost threw up on them.”
“Strange times, these, I imagine they've seen worse.”
Grommet couldn't fault his logic and, after carefully checking the roadway, ducked back into the tavern.
“Do you mind if I sit here. I'll be very quiet.” Grommet realized that she might have well asked them to protect her, but by now she just didn't care.
“Please have a seat,” the bouncy pigtails motioned her to a chair.
“Thank you,” and for some reason she curtsied to the work cloth clad woman. There was something commanding about her.
Grommet sat quietly, sipping some tasteless conjured water and nibbling on some pumpernickel. Her trainers assured her that there wasn't some poor baker somewhere out of his mind because his goods kept going missing, but their explanations of what was really happening left a lot to the imagination. Whenever Grommet went to a bakery, she always made sure to tip well, just in case.
“So, what's your story?”
“I was attacked on the tram, even though I checked before I got on.” Grommet pouted at the memory, both fresh and somehow all ready ancient at the same time. She shuddered.
“Tram jumping.” The human mage moved closer to the conversation.
The pigtailed Gnome blinked, as though surprised and perhaps a little delighted to hear something she didn't know. “What's that?”
“A kind of sport I heard about in my youth,” said the mage, sounding more familiar than just hearing about it, “people would move down the platform and then try to jump onto the moving tram.”
“Why would they do that?” And though Grommet had the same question, she didn't voice it.
“The challenge. It's sort of a sport.” The human stopped, realizing that both Gnomes were now ready to bolt down that conversational opening rather than talk about the attack.
The questioning continued, and Grommet was surprised that the telling was so much longer than the incident itself.
The two mages decided they must do something about it and prepared to leave. Grommet lost herself in counting her coins again, deciding that it might be worth it to spend the last of them on something stronger to drink.
“Okay, lets go.”
Grommet looked at the pigtailed Gnome, not knowing if she'd spoken to her (as her attention had all ready turned inward.) “Me?” she asked with a terrified look on her face. The pink-tailed Gnome shook her head.
Grommet sat back down with a much relieved sigh. She thought to wave good bye, after they'd walked out the door. “Good luck, be careful,” she said to the nearly empty room.
“You going to order something?” the bartender asked, but tenderly.
Grommet shook her head.
“I don't know what's worse, being attacked by zombies or being grilled by the likes of those,” the bar tender chuckled, trying to lighten the mood.
Grommet knew. Grommet treasured the older Gnome's command of the interview. Though she felt like her cogs still skipped and slipped, Grommet felt much more aligned. It was good to know that the 'likes of those' were out there patrolling the city.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Grommet, Interlude
Grommet sat at the table across from the mailbox, enjoying the last light of the day. A blast with the tell tale ring of arcane sounded from within the bar. Grommet chuckled, she'd fallen for the Arcane Academy's joke as well and had run screaming from the bar with four angry rift spawn on her tail.
There was a girlish scream and then a male human acolyte bolted from the door of the Blue Recluse, three rift spawn on his tail. Grommet ducked beneath the table and fired a blast of frost outward from her being, feeling the heat leeched into the twisting nether through arcane conduits. Only one of the rift spawn was caught. The being howled, locked in magical ice between the mailbox and the table. His prey was escaping, chased by two of his companions. Grommet made short work of stunning him. She knew he would slip away into the rift soon enough, so half jumped half climbed into the human sized chair.
A whisper. “Grommet. Grommet Cogswaddle?”
Grommet turned to the rift spawn, none had ever spoken before, let alone known her name. Perhaps she'd been spending too much time in the bar lately. “Yes?” She turned to the rift spawn, it was still out cold. An old gnome, ghostly looking through the spawn, pulled back his hood. Grommet stood and leaned to look around the spawn. There was no one at the mailbox. She leaned back to look through the spawn. The faded image of the old gnome waited patiently, smiling.
Grommet recognized the smile. It belonged, in her mind, on a much younger face, less care worn, one framed with bright green hair like the rest of her family rather than the whisps of white edging a large bald spot. “Uncle Castpipe?”
“Grommet, what luck, the rift! Facinating! Tell your mother I'm alive! Tell her I....”
The rift spawn struggled to its senses and slipped sideways to the world and was gone, along with it her connection to her long lost Uncle.
“No! Rusted sprockets of doom!” Grommet cursed and headed into the Blue Recluse.
The young male mage, looking a little slimed and out of breath held the open scroll out in front of him as he approached the door of the Blue Recluse with his face determined, and his hands shaking.
They ran through the door together. Grommet needed a rift spawn for herself.
“Stop! Think a second. What happened when you read from the scroll?”
“Some sort of wide-area, low-yield arcane blast brought four rift spawn out of hiding.” The young mage lowered the scroll a moment.
“Right. This is an intelligence test. Can you handle four of these at once?”
“Uh, no,” the young human mage shuffled his feet, embarrassed. “What do you think I should do?”
“You'd better do some thinking, this is a test after all.” Grommet hoped she'd slow him down long enough for her to collect her own rift spawn.
Grommet walked over to the stair well and tossed out a small fire spell. The magical fire spread across the stairs, bathing them in a magical glow but not igniting them, These flames only hungered for living energy. In moments the flames reached their maximum radius and there enveloped a spawn. The spawn howled, Grommet raced towards the door. The young mage hastily set aside the scroll and began casting.
“This is mine! Get your own!” Grommet reached out with her staff and rapped the young mage lightly on a shin, breaking his concentration, she hoped that was all she broke. “Sorry!”
Grommet ducked out, feeling the rift spawn's slime spray against her back as its claws narrowly missed. She barely heard the young mage curse and hop about. She positioned herself just after where the other spawn had been stunned.
A flash of ice, she leaped backwards and blasted the spawn with fire. Running to where she could look through the stunned form to the mailbox, the alignment wasn't exactly the same, but she hoped it would be close enough.
A moment later, a partial rift shape overlapped her own. The old gnome, her Uncle, if he was to be believed, peered through the gap. “Smart cog, just like your ma.”
“Uncle Castpipe, Where are...”
“It's Axelpyre now. Is your mother still in Gnomregan?” His question was oddly intense.
“Yes, both parental units are still there.”
Her uncle looked hugely relieved, years dropped from his face, it was as if a shadow had been lifted from his soul.
“The Threadneedles, do they still have a shop in Stormwind?”
“I don't know.” Grommet had never thought to look up her Uncle's friends, they would be old now. Old humans frightened her somehow, it wasn't natural for someone with so few years in their tool belt to be so used up.
Uncle Axelpyre looked lost for a moment. Then spoke hurriedly, “Same time tomorrow.”
“What's the...” the rift spawn on both sides seemed to merge and twist out of existence, “same time...” Grommet smacked herself for being dense. “Of course the same time tomorrow.”
There was a blast, again with the tell tale ring of arcane, and the young mage hobbled from the Blue Recluse with three rift spawn on his tail. Grommet thought for a split second of freezing them in place for him, she was the reason he was hobbling, after all. Upon an instant's further reflection, Grommet decided to let the lesson work itself out, as he had unwisely used the Arcane Academy's joke scroll a second time.
When her dinner arrived, Grommet wrapped it up in the cloth napkin, “I'll bring it back tomorrow, I promise!” she shouted at the server as she ran back to her room to write a letter to her mother. “Uncle Axelpyre,” she said the old Gnome's new (to her) chosen name, and decided that she didn't like the sound of it at all.
There was a girlish scream and then a male human acolyte bolted from the door of the Blue Recluse, three rift spawn on his tail. Grommet ducked beneath the table and fired a blast of frost outward from her being, feeling the heat leeched into the twisting nether through arcane conduits. Only one of the rift spawn was caught. The being howled, locked in magical ice between the mailbox and the table. His prey was escaping, chased by two of his companions. Grommet made short work of stunning him. She knew he would slip away into the rift soon enough, so half jumped half climbed into the human sized chair.
A whisper. “Grommet. Grommet Cogswaddle?”
Grommet turned to the rift spawn, none had ever spoken before, let alone known her name. Perhaps she'd been spending too much time in the bar lately. “Yes?” She turned to the rift spawn, it was still out cold. An old gnome, ghostly looking through the spawn, pulled back his hood. Grommet stood and leaned to look around the spawn. There was no one at the mailbox. She leaned back to look through the spawn. The faded image of the old gnome waited patiently, smiling.
Grommet recognized the smile. It belonged, in her mind, on a much younger face, less care worn, one framed with bright green hair like the rest of her family rather than the whisps of white edging a large bald spot. “Uncle Castpipe?”
“Grommet, what luck, the rift! Facinating! Tell your mother I'm alive! Tell her I....”
The rift spawn struggled to its senses and slipped sideways to the world and was gone, along with it her connection to her long lost Uncle.
“No! Rusted sprockets of doom!” Grommet cursed and headed into the Blue Recluse.
The young male mage, looking a little slimed and out of breath held the open scroll out in front of him as he approached the door of the Blue Recluse with his face determined, and his hands shaking.
They ran through the door together. Grommet needed a rift spawn for herself.
“Stop! Think a second. What happened when you read from the scroll?”
“Some sort of wide-area, low-yield arcane blast brought four rift spawn out of hiding.” The young mage lowered the scroll a moment.
“Right. This is an intelligence test. Can you handle four of these at once?”
“Uh, no,” the young human mage shuffled his feet, embarrassed. “What do you think I should do?”
“You'd better do some thinking, this is a test after all.” Grommet hoped she'd slow him down long enough for her to collect her own rift spawn.
Grommet walked over to the stair well and tossed out a small fire spell. The magical fire spread across the stairs, bathing them in a magical glow but not igniting them, These flames only hungered for living energy. In moments the flames reached their maximum radius and there enveloped a spawn. The spawn howled, Grommet raced towards the door. The young mage hastily set aside the scroll and began casting.
“This is mine! Get your own!” Grommet reached out with her staff and rapped the young mage lightly on a shin, breaking his concentration, she hoped that was all she broke. “Sorry!”
Grommet ducked out, feeling the rift spawn's slime spray against her back as its claws narrowly missed. She barely heard the young mage curse and hop about. She positioned herself just after where the other spawn had been stunned.
A flash of ice, she leaped backwards and blasted the spawn with fire. Running to where she could look through the stunned form to the mailbox, the alignment wasn't exactly the same, but she hoped it would be close enough.
A moment later, a partial rift shape overlapped her own. The old gnome, her Uncle, if he was to be believed, peered through the gap. “Smart cog, just like your ma.”
“Uncle Castpipe, Where are...”
“It's Axelpyre now. Is your mother still in Gnomregan?” His question was oddly intense.
“Yes, both parental units are still there.”
Her uncle looked hugely relieved, years dropped from his face, it was as if a shadow had been lifted from his soul.
“The Threadneedles, do they still have a shop in Stormwind?”
“I don't know.” Grommet had never thought to look up her Uncle's friends, they would be old now. Old humans frightened her somehow, it wasn't natural for someone with so few years in their tool belt to be so used up.
Uncle Axelpyre looked lost for a moment. Then spoke hurriedly, “Same time tomorrow.”
“What's the...” the rift spawn on both sides seemed to merge and twist out of existence, “same time...” Grommet smacked herself for being dense. “Of course the same time tomorrow.”
There was a blast, again with the tell tale ring of arcane, and the young mage hobbled from the Blue Recluse with three rift spawn on his tail. Grommet thought for a split second of freezing them in place for him, she was the reason he was hobbling, after all. Upon an instant's further reflection, Grommet decided to let the lesson work itself out, as he had unwisely used the Arcane Academy's joke scroll a second time.
When her dinner arrived, Grommet wrapped it up in the cloth napkin, “I'll bring it back tomorrow, I promise!” she shouted at the server as she ran back to her room to write a letter to her mother. “Uncle Axelpyre,” she said the old Gnome's new (to her) chosen name, and decided that she didn't like the sound of it at all.
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Decipherment.
Grommet labored over the spidery scrawl of the oddly leather like pages. She needed to know more, more about this Forsaken remnant of a man, a man who once knew her Uncle. She worked until hunger and thirst overrode fatigue. Stiff from her hunched position of the last hours, Grommet made her way down into the cool evening air of spring, and then to a table across from the mailbox outside the Blue Recluse.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Pockets of Resistance, Pockets Part II
The Death Knight turned to Meteorus. “What is a Cogswaddle?”
Meteorus paused, confused by the question, The alleyway was awash with flames. Skeletal troopers dragged their most recent victims back to the necromancers. The flames were there at his master's command. Meteorus had blacked out again upon emptying the arcane bolt that powered his magic.
“You said 'Cogswaddle',“ The Death Knight waited for an answer.
“Threads of the past, they are pulled in as the bolt refills. It is nothing.”
“Just so.” The Death Knight paused, listening to the same voice that now rang in Meteorus' mind.
“No mercy, burn it all, take them all.”
The Death Knight rode out of the burning alley, heedless of the sparks and embers swirling about him. Meteorus followed, idly smacking out the flames that started on his robes. Their skeletal troopers tramped behind them, unaware of the heat or the burning embers that settled on their armor and clothing. They burned, but kept marching.
The Death Knight pointed to an alleyway full of crates and barrels. Much like the dozens of others they had seen that day. “Start there, Meteorus.”
Meteorus began to cast, fiery bolt after fiery bolt lashed the ally and the buildings around it. The voice continued in his mind, the voice was his mind, the voice was his will. The flames grew so great that the people inside the buildings were forced to flee. The skeletal troopers were waiting for them, a net of un-living, flaming bone filling the streets, waiting to haul their catch back to the necromancers of the Scourge.
People screamed around Meteorus, trying to escape from the skeletal troopers, occasionally putting up a fight. The fiery march continued, slowing only for Meteorus. He stopped, looking into the next grass lined alleyway, with its crate lined walls. The mana spooled back onto the bolt.
“Lordearon, ho!” The green-haired Gnome jumped from barrel to crate, keeping pace, and, more or less, maintaining an equal eye level as they threaded their way through the narrow alleyway to their favorite tavern.
“You don't have to come along, you know,” he was worried about his diminutive friend, even if he was four times his age, he never acted it.
“Who's going to look after you, pup? Besides, I can come back any time I want.” The Gnome grinned wide and drew forth a rune inscribed on a flat grey stone.
“I thought you were told you weren't ready for that, yet.”
“I'm a Gnome, I pick things up fairly quickly.”
“Except women.”
The Gnome made a rude noise, like a broken, flapping brake line.
“Seriously, you can barely make a fireball.”
“Mr Threadneedle, I am joining this expedition to expand my knowledge of the flora and fauna of the world, not to start fires.” The Gnome paused, a huge grin breaking across his face like a toothy exclamation. “You, you worry too much. Seamstress.”
“Garden Gnome.”
“Seamstress.”
“Garden Gnome.”
“Seamstress.”
“Mr Cogswaddle, for people who are supposed to all be geniuses, you sure are childish.”
“Yeah? Well watch this.” The Gnome held his teleportation rune high over his head.
The gnome jumped up onto a crate, unmindful of the three young students gathered around it performing some sort of ritual. The three young students were so focused on their spell that they didn't notice the Gnome, either.
“Cogswaddle, wait...” he had no idea what the three were practicing; there were always students practicing their magic in the alleys around the Mages' Acadamy tower. In his experience, the words 'watch this!' were always followed by disaster. Especially where Mr Cogswaddle was concerned. He reached for his Gnomish friend, willing to risk a fight (and picking the Gnome up bodily was certain to start one.)
The air between the three witches shimmered and hard knots of arcane magic, a dozen foci of some sort, swirled and twisted in the air. Knots of pure magical force pummeled and pushed at him. With a jolt he was flung away from the crate, away from his diminutive friend. He landed with a wet thud on the grass of the walkway.
At the same time the Gnome finished his teleportation spell.
“Bamph!” the noise was louder and longer than he'd ever witnessed during a teleportation. The foci merged and the three students flew back onto their behinds.
“Cogswaddle!” He jumped up to the platform and across the crate. No sign of the Gnome. He ran, panic gripped his heart, he bounded up the stairs spiraling the Academy tower. He was winded by the time he reached the teleport receiving room at the top of the tower.
There was no sign of the green-haired Gnome.
“Has anyone seen Mr. Cogswaddle?” he managed between panting breaths.
No one had.
“Three days, we waited, and then I sailed without Mr Cogswaddle.”
“There, you've said it again.” The Death Knight turned to Meteorus, his countenance uncertain.
“What?” Meteorus blinked, the voice returned to its place of prominence, he turned to his Knight, awaiting his next orders.
“Just so.” The Death Night pointed down the grassy alley. “Again, Meteorus.”
Meteorus tugged the arcane fabric, and with his words wrapped it around the crates and windows of the alley, with a few deft pulls his verbal stitching ignited the arcane material and fire raced along the treaded course to each of the crates and windows and then doorways in turn. The green and gray alley bloomed in reds and golds, soon to be replaced with black and ash.
Meteorus paused, confused by the question, The alleyway was awash with flames. Skeletal troopers dragged their most recent victims back to the necromancers. The flames were there at his master's command. Meteorus had blacked out again upon emptying the arcane bolt that powered his magic.
“You said 'Cogswaddle',“ The Death Knight waited for an answer.
“Threads of the past, they are pulled in as the bolt refills. It is nothing.”
“Just so.” The Death Knight paused, listening to the same voice that now rang in Meteorus' mind.
“No mercy, burn it all, take them all.”
The Death Knight rode out of the burning alley, heedless of the sparks and embers swirling about him. Meteorus followed, idly smacking out the flames that started on his robes. Their skeletal troopers tramped behind them, unaware of the heat or the burning embers that settled on their armor and clothing. They burned, but kept marching.
The Death Knight pointed to an alleyway full of crates and barrels. Much like the dozens of others they had seen that day. “Start there, Meteorus.”
Meteorus began to cast, fiery bolt after fiery bolt lashed the ally and the buildings around it. The voice continued in his mind, the voice was his mind, the voice was his will. The flames grew so great that the people inside the buildings were forced to flee. The skeletal troopers were waiting for them, a net of un-living, flaming bone filling the streets, waiting to haul their catch back to the necromancers of the Scourge.
People screamed around Meteorus, trying to escape from the skeletal troopers, occasionally putting up a fight. The fiery march continued, slowing only for Meteorus. He stopped, looking into the next grass lined alleyway, with its crate lined walls. The mana spooled back onto the bolt.
“Lordearon, ho!” The green-haired Gnome jumped from barrel to crate, keeping pace, and, more or less, maintaining an equal eye level as they threaded their way through the narrow alleyway to their favorite tavern.
“You don't have to come along, you know,” he was worried about his diminutive friend, even if he was four times his age, he never acted it.
“Who's going to look after you, pup? Besides, I can come back any time I want.” The Gnome grinned wide and drew forth a rune inscribed on a flat grey stone.
“I thought you were told you weren't ready for that, yet.”
“I'm a Gnome, I pick things up fairly quickly.”
“Except women.”
The Gnome made a rude noise, like a broken, flapping brake line.
“Seriously, you can barely make a fireball.”
“Mr Threadneedle, I am joining this expedition to expand my knowledge of the flora and fauna of the world, not to start fires.” The Gnome paused, a huge grin breaking across his face like a toothy exclamation. “You, you worry too much. Seamstress.”
“Garden Gnome.”
“Seamstress.”
“Garden Gnome.”
“Seamstress.”
“Mr Cogswaddle, for people who are supposed to all be geniuses, you sure are childish.”
“Yeah? Well watch this.” The Gnome held his teleportation rune high over his head.
The gnome jumped up onto a crate, unmindful of the three young students gathered around it performing some sort of ritual. The three young students were so focused on their spell that they didn't notice the Gnome, either.
“Cogswaddle, wait...” he had no idea what the three were practicing; there were always students practicing their magic in the alleys around the Mages' Acadamy tower. In his experience, the words 'watch this!' were always followed by disaster. Especially where Mr Cogswaddle was concerned. He reached for his Gnomish friend, willing to risk a fight (and picking the Gnome up bodily was certain to start one.)
The air between the three witches shimmered and hard knots of arcane magic, a dozen foci of some sort, swirled and twisted in the air. Knots of pure magical force pummeled and pushed at him. With a jolt he was flung away from the crate, away from his diminutive friend. He landed with a wet thud on the grass of the walkway.
At the same time the Gnome finished his teleportation spell.
“Bamph!” the noise was louder and longer than he'd ever witnessed during a teleportation. The foci merged and the three students flew back onto their behinds.
“Cogswaddle!” He jumped up to the platform and across the crate. No sign of the Gnome. He ran, panic gripped his heart, he bounded up the stairs spiraling the Academy tower. He was winded by the time he reached the teleport receiving room at the top of the tower.
There was no sign of the green-haired Gnome.
“Has anyone seen Mr. Cogswaddle?” he managed between panting breaths.
No one had.
“Three days, we waited, and then I sailed without Mr Cogswaddle.”
“There, you've said it again.” The Death Knight turned to Meteorus, his countenance uncertain.
“What?” Meteorus blinked, the voice returned to its place of prominence, he turned to his Knight, awaiting his next orders.
“Just so.” The Death Night pointed down the grassy alley. “Again, Meteorus.”
Meteorus tugged the arcane fabric, and with his words wrapped it around the crates and windows of the alley, with a few deft pulls his verbal stitching ignited the arcane material and fire raced along the treaded course to each of the crates and windows and then doorways in turn. The green and gray alley bloomed in reds and golds, soon to be replaced with black and ash.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Grommet, Reverie One
Grommet set the letter down, shaking.
“Who would send me this?”
Grommet folded the sheets back to look at the address. The pages cracked at the edges. “Cogswaddle, Mage Quarter, Stormwind” and in smaller writing “This is all I remember.”
From the age of the pages, they had been written some time ago. The mail system had obviously held them in some sort of limbo.
Grommet had only just settled in Stormwind. After the Trogg invasion of Gnomeregan and zombie invasion of Ironforge, living underground no longer provided a sense of security. She could now understand why her Uncle had chosen to live his life under the open sky, to wander the world cataloging its flora and fauna, even though it had marked him as odd, from a Gnomish perspective. For herself, she kept the shutters of her third floor room (really a converted attic space, not tall enough for a human, therefore inexpensive) unlatched and even slept with a small bag of light feathers around her neck. More than once in the days after the zombie invasion she had awakened with a nearly empty bag, huddled, shivering, on top of the dumbwaiter at the bottom of its shaft, or on the night-wet grass of the park below her window.
Until she’d moved to Stormwind the only other Cogswaddle who’d lived there had been her Uncle Castpipe.; and he’d vanished in a teleportation accident almost a decade ago. Her mother insisted that her Uncle wasn’t dead, just very, very, far away.
She and her brother had still mourned. Neither believed their maternal unit, until the first time Camfollower, her twin brother, had been seriously injured while scavenging in the Trogg infested areas of home. Grommet had felt a crushing sense of loss as Camfollower had oscillated close to closing his last circuit beneath the great gear. Then, when Cam’d unexpectedly left Gnomeregan, again a sense of distance, a loss, but not quite the same. Long before Cam’s fist letters arrived Grommet assured her parental units that her brother was alive. So, if Grommet’s mother believed Uncle Castpipe was alive, Grommet was inclined to accept that as true.
Grommet reasoned that the letters must had been meant for her Uncle.
Grommet turned back to the stack of letters, each had the same oddly incomplete address, none had a return address. She placed them in order of their delivery stamp, mere seconds apart, more proof that they had languished in the mail system’s Nether conduits until a matching recipient could be found. The most recent contained a line of tiny almost unreadable script on the outside of the packet.
“Who am I to you?”
Grommet shivered, there was something so lost, so vulnerable in that small phrase, but also, perhaps due to the sharp scratchy hand, threatening.
“Who would send me this?”
Grommet folded the sheets back to look at the address. The pages cracked at the edges. “Cogswaddle, Mage Quarter, Stormwind” and in smaller writing “This is all I remember.”
From the age of the pages, they had been written some time ago. The mail system had obviously held them in some sort of limbo.
Grommet had only just settled in Stormwind. After the Trogg invasion of Gnomeregan and zombie invasion of Ironforge, living underground no longer provided a sense of security. She could now understand why her Uncle had chosen to live his life under the open sky, to wander the world cataloging its flora and fauna, even though it had marked him as odd, from a Gnomish perspective. For herself, she kept the shutters of her third floor room (really a converted attic space, not tall enough for a human, therefore inexpensive) unlatched and even slept with a small bag of light feathers around her neck. More than once in the days after the zombie invasion she had awakened with a nearly empty bag, huddled, shivering, on top of the dumbwaiter at the bottom of its shaft, or on the night-wet grass of the park below her window.
Until she’d moved to Stormwind the only other Cogswaddle who’d lived there had been her Uncle Castpipe.; and he’d vanished in a teleportation accident almost a decade ago. Her mother insisted that her Uncle wasn’t dead, just very, very, far away.
She and her brother had still mourned. Neither believed their maternal unit, until the first time Camfollower, her twin brother, had been seriously injured while scavenging in the Trogg infested areas of home. Grommet had felt a crushing sense of loss as Camfollower had oscillated close to closing his last circuit beneath the great gear. Then, when Cam’d unexpectedly left Gnomeregan, again a sense of distance, a loss, but not quite the same. Long before Cam’s fist letters arrived Grommet assured her parental units that her brother was alive. So, if Grommet’s mother believed Uncle Castpipe was alive, Grommet was inclined to accept that as true.
Grommet reasoned that the letters must had been meant for her Uncle.
Grommet turned back to the stack of letters, each had the same oddly incomplete address, none had a return address. She placed them in order of their delivery stamp, mere seconds apart, more proof that they had languished in the mail system’s Nether conduits until a matching recipient could be found. The most recent contained a line of tiny almost unreadable script on the outside of the packet.
“Who am I to you?”
Grommet shivered, there was something so lost, so vulnerable in that small phrase, but also, perhaps due to the sharp scratchy hand, threatening.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Pockets, Part One
The line of undead shifted in their places, reflexively trying to maintain equilibrium on the gray rain-slicked cobbles. A single, battered human prisoner was tied to a post in front of the line, his armor bloodied and sticky, half his hair matted with a darkening substance. The prisoner growled at the armor clad knight who stood over him.
“You'll not get anything from me.”
The Knight said nothing, and coolly turned back to the line of waiting undead.
“Nothing! You hear me?” The prisoner spat at the back of the Knight, missing by several feet.
The Knight addressed the line of undead, “Say the words, aim them at the target.” The knight lifted his heavy runed blade to point at the prisoner.
The last undead in the line shifted a bit more than the others. “What words?” it thought to itself.
The first undead stepped forward and spoke, magic words, words of power, but ultimately, dead malformed words incapable of stirring action.
The Knight moved to the second in the line.
“Glurgll, Ughth!” and the thing's jaw fell to the muddy stones. It reached for its fallen jaw, and its arm separated at the elbow, the hand and bones landing in a clattering wet mess on top of its jaw bone.
“Put it on the cart for Deathknell.” The Knight rode past, his mount shattering wet bones under its hooves.
The third undead in the row muttered the words, too low for hearing, and too indistinct for effect. Another joined the cart for Deathknell.
“This is why you will fail! Your undead, your minions, are no match for the Silver Hand.”
A fourth and then a fifth prospect were more articulate, but also failed. The last undead in line listened intently to the words, its only desire to accomplish what its Knight had asked of it.
The prisoner, heartened by the continued failures, began to sing a battle hymn.
“Say the words,” the knight commanded the second to last of his ragged prospects.
With an inarticulate screech, the undead minion launched itself at the prisoner.
The Knight, perfectly still save for his sword arm, lashed out with his heavy iron blade. The minion's head rolled the rest of the way to the prisoner, still biting. The body collapsed a step from where it was struck.
The prisoner, wriggled in his bonds to kick the unliving head away, then began to sing again.
“Say the words,” the knight left his ichor stained sword in the air, pointed now at the prisoner.
The undead, last prospect of this batch, pulled his hands from the pockets of his apron and recited the words. The words were familiar, powerful. They rolled from his dead tongue with surprising grace, if not power. It pondered its failure, knowing that there was something more expected.
“Death...”
“Wait.”
The Knight turned to face the final prospect of the morning, sword now almost casually resting on his shoulder.
“The words are wrong,” the final candidate ventured. The undead reached into its pockets and pulled out needle and thread. “There is more.”
The Knight, remained motionless as though frozen, the prospect could feel the Knight's eyes narrow behind the visor, see the hand tighten on the hilt.
“Needle and thread, the words.”
The prospect recited the words, looking in his mind, in the world for the fabric they would shape. There, in darkness, was a flowing bolt of arcane material. The words wove in and around the material, pulling it into shape, fitting it to the target, the prisoner, who's hymn had suddenly stopped. The prospect felt fire sewn about his fingers, and with his words, drew taut the final stitch. A weak fireball spiraled out and away.
The prisoner strained against his bonds as the blast of magic fire roared over the wet cobblestones to slam home against his chest. Flames enveloped the prisoner and he roared more in surprise than pain.
“Again.”
The prospect cast again, stitching the fabric of reality into another fiery ball of destruction.
“Again”
The prisoner howled, breaking some of his flaming bonds.
“Again”
The prisoner collapsed, trying to cover his head with his arms and drawing himself into as tight a ball as his armor would allow.
“Again”
The prisoner ceased complaining with a final wail.
“Again”
Fire struck the prisoner, who lay unmoving on the steaming cobbles.
“Again”
The prospect searched, but there was no more. “I have run the bolt, I cannot.”
The Knight turned to the unholy priests waiting in the ranks.
“Prepare the prisoner.”
The priests advanced on the prisoner, healing him, reviving him.
The prospect felt the bolt refill. As the mana laden cloth rolled onto the bolt in the prospect's head, memories spooled into his mind.
A stoop, overlooking a canal. A woman spinning wool into thread. A young woman, in boys clothing running up to her.
“Where is the dress we made for you?” The spinning woman asked.
“It didn't have pockets,” the young woman turned out her pockets to reveal all manner of interesting shaped stones, discarded rivets and pieces of string.
“Go change, right now.”
“You're not my mother!”
“No hurry, dear ones. I don't leave for three more days.” He heard himself say with kindness and affection.
The young woman took that as permission to resume her pursuits of the day, running off with blown kisses and a quick hug for her sister.
“Bring me the dress,” He grinned and reached for the remnants of the bolt used to make the dress in question.
“You're not going to...”
“If that's all it takes to get her to wear it.”
“She's already spoiled rotten.”
“That's what I tell my brother about you.”
The woman pouted, “I can't believe my husband's sending you to Lordaeron.”
“There's a new holy order forming, they want vestments, we make the best.”
The woman reached out to touch his hand, gently, “Still, it doesn't seem fair to send you.”
...called?”
The prospect looked up at the Knight, who seemed to be expecting an answer.
“Sir?”
“What are you called, your name?”
“I am....” The prospect stopped. Where his name should be was gone, a blank expanse of soggy worm castings. The prospect ran his fingers through his matted hair coming up with a small bloodworm, but no answer. He carefully placed the gorged worm in his apron pocket for later.
“Clean him up, find him a robe.” The Knight gestured to his priests then turned back to the prospect. “You will now answer to,” he paused and looked over the now weeping prisoner, “Meteorus.”
“Thank you, Sir.” Meteorus looked at his fire stained claws, shaking off the sunny warm memories of a woman's touch for the gray rain-slicked, burned-flesh of the present.
“I am Meteorus.”
The Knight turned to face the prisoner. A new row of prospects were marched into position.
“Pay attention to the words.” The Knight indicated the prisoner with his sword.
“Meteorus, again.”
“You'll not get anything from me.”
The Knight said nothing, and coolly turned back to the line of waiting undead.
“Nothing! You hear me?” The prisoner spat at the back of the Knight, missing by several feet.
The Knight addressed the line of undead, “Say the words, aim them at the target.” The knight lifted his heavy runed blade to point at the prisoner.
The last undead in the line shifted a bit more than the others. “What words?” it thought to itself.
The first undead stepped forward and spoke, magic words, words of power, but ultimately, dead malformed words incapable of stirring action.
The Knight moved to the second in the line.
“Glurgll, Ughth!” and the thing's jaw fell to the muddy stones. It reached for its fallen jaw, and its arm separated at the elbow, the hand and bones landing in a clattering wet mess on top of its jaw bone.
“Put it on the cart for Deathknell.” The Knight rode past, his mount shattering wet bones under its hooves.
The third undead in the row muttered the words, too low for hearing, and too indistinct for effect. Another joined the cart for Deathknell.
“This is why you will fail! Your undead, your minions, are no match for the Silver Hand.”
A fourth and then a fifth prospect were more articulate, but also failed. The last undead in line listened intently to the words, its only desire to accomplish what its Knight had asked of it.
The prisoner, heartened by the continued failures, began to sing a battle hymn.
“Say the words,” the knight commanded the second to last of his ragged prospects.
With an inarticulate screech, the undead minion launched itself at the prisoner.
The Knight, perfectly still save for his sword arm, lashed out with his heavy iron blade. The minion's head rolled the rest of the way to the prisoner, still biting. The body collapsed a step from where it was struck.
The prisoner, wriggled in his bonds to kick the unliving head away, then began to sing again.
“Say the words,” the knight left his ichor stained sword in the air, pointed now at the prisoner.
The undead, last prospect of this batch, pulled his hands from the pockets of his apron and recited the words. The words were familiar, powerful. They rolled from his dead tongue with surprising grace, if not power. It pondered its failure, knowing that there was something more expected.
“Death...”
“Wait.”
The Knight turned to face the final prospect of the morning, sword now almost casually resting on his shoulder.
“The words are wrong,” the final candidate ventured. The undead reached into its pockets and pulled out needle and thread. “There is more.”
The Knight, remained motionless as though frozen, the prospect could feel the Knight's eyes narrow behind the visor, see the hand tighten on the hilt.
“Needle and thread, the words.”
The prospect recited the words, looking in his mind, in the world for the fabric they would shape. There, in darkness, was a flowing bolt of arcane material. The words wove in and around the material, pulling it into shape, fitting it to the target, the prisoner, who's hymn had suddenly stopped. The prospect felt fire sewn about his fingers, and with his words, drew taut the final stitch. A weak fireball spiraled out and away.
The prisoner strained against his bonds as the blast of magic fire roared over the wet cobblestones to slam home against his chest. Flames enveloped the prisoner and he roared more in surprise than pain.
“Again.”
The prospect cast again, stitching the fabric of reality into another fiery ball of destruction.
“Again”
The prisoner howled, breaking some of his flaming bonds.
“Again”
The prisoner collapsed, trying to cover his head with his arms and drawing himself into as tight a ball as his armor would allow.
“Again”
The prisoner ceased complaining with a final wail.
“Again”
Fire struck the prisoner, who lay unmoving on the steaming cobbles.
“Again”
The prospect searched, but there was no more. “I have run the bolt, I cannot.”
The Knight turned to the unholy priests waiting in the ranks.
“Prepare the prisoner.”
The priests advanced on the prisoner, healing him, reviving him.
The prospect felt the bolt refill. As the mana laden cloth rolled onto the bolt in the prospect's head, memories spooled into his mind.
A stoop, overlooking a canal. A woman spinning wool into thread. A young woman, in boys clothing running up to her.
“Where is the dress we made for you?” The spinning woman asked.
“It didn't have pockets,” the young woman turned out her pockets to reveal all manner of interesting shaped stones, discarded rivets and pieces of string.
“Go change, right now.”
“You're not my mother!”
“No hurry, dear ones. I don't leave for three more days.” He heard himself say with kindness and affection.
The young woman took that as permission to resume her pursuits of the day, running off with blown kisses and a quick hug for her sister.
“Bring me the dress,” He grinned and reached for the remnants of the bolt used to make the dress in question.
“You're not going to...”
“If that's all it takes to get her to wear it.”
“She's already spoiled rotten.”
“That's what I tell my brother about you.”
The woman pouted, “I can't believe my husband's sending you to Lordaeron.”
“There's a new holy order forming, they want vestments, we make the best.”
The woman reached out to touch his hand, gently, “Still, it doesn't seem fair to send you.”
...called?”
The prospect looked up at the Knight, who seemed to be expecting an answer.
“Sir?”
“What are you called, your name?”
“I am....” The prospect stopped. Where his name should be was gone, a blank expanse of soggy worm castings. The prospect ran his fingers through his matted hair coming up with a small bloodworm, but no answer. He carefully placed the gorged worm in his apron pocket for later.
“Clean him up, find him a robe.” The Knight gestured to his priests then turned back to the prospect. “You will now answer to,” he paused and looked over the now weeping prisoner, “Meteorus.”
“Thank you, Sir.” Meteorus looked at his fire stained claws, shaking off the sunny warm memories of a woman's touch for the gray rain-slicked, burned-flesh of the present.
“I am Meteorus.”
The Knight turned to face the prisoner. A new row of prospects were marched into position.
“Pay attention to the words.” The Knight indicated the prisoner with his sword.
“Meteorus, again.”
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Cogswaddle's Library
Grommet Cogswaddle sat at a small desk in her tiny Stormwind apartment, (It was not so much a desk as an overturned crate she’d liberated from beside the fire in the Blue Recluse.) She gazed out at the Mage’s tower and felt a pang of envy. Not for the building, nor for students practicing the skills she had yet to learn, but for the storage space. The almost countless cases of books and scrolls dwarfed her own small stack of satchels and boxes, but she wouldn’t have traded one for the other, at least, she didn’t think she would.
She patted the bundle of letters from her brother, another much smaller bundle from her uncle, and an even smaller collection written in a scratchy hand she didn’t recognize. She gave an involuntary shudder. There was a short treatise on skinning and preserving hides, and a book full of sketches of plants of all sorts and in all seasons, both written by her Uncle. There were official documents, and a stack of messages from her parental units, nearly all identical except for the names of their patients and the lists of those who had been evacuated or had passed under the great gear for their last circuit.
“I will get these organized some day,” she promised herself, then opened up a document at random and began to read the scratchy scrawl.
All thoughts of organization fled.
She patted the bundle of letters from her brother, another much smaller bundle from her uncle, and an even smaller collection written in a scratchy hand she didn’t recognize. She gave an involuntary shudder. There was a short treatise on skinning and preserving hides, and a book full of sketches of plants of all sorts and in all seasons, both written by her Uncle. There were official documents, and a stack of messages from her parental units, nearly all identical except for the names of their patients and the lists of those who had been evacuated or had passed under the great gear for their last circuit.
“I will get these organized some day,” she promised herself, then opened up a document at random and began to read the scratchy scrawl.
All thoughts of organization fled.
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