Twin Axes - the Shaman Guild Roleplay, part IV

Prologue 1/4: First House of the Seven Worms, 0010 Blue Hollows, Man Den

   Djak clapped his lips on the whistle and blew with all his might, but the air had left his lungs. Instead, he felt warm liquid burn a path up through his throat, and he saw it go all over his hands.

   “Messed-up,” Djak heaved, hauling himself along the ground. The symbol had fallen from the altar and that thing was still standing over it. Djak squinted up at it. “Sick, man, you’re sick! This is a gifted house!”

   The thing picked up the symbol and turned it over in its hands. Djak blinked to clear his vision. This creature, he realized, was shorter than he originally thought; storming through the halls in that monstrous white cloak, it had looked twenty meters tall. It had gone straight for the altar and Djak had been in its way. “Gifted house,” it croaked, as if hearing the words for the first time. “Listen to me, child – the Earthborn gods are as fresh snow in the morning, but I stand on solid ground, which has slept for eons beneath your feet. Your gifted houses but parody the truth.”

  Feet silent on the marble tiles, it strode away into the side-parlor. With a hack and a wheeze Djak pulled himself up on a pew and lurched after the white-robed thing. He made it to the doorway and leaned on it like an old man, clutching his belly. The creature had turned to face the fireplace; Djak saw it in profile. “Don’t burn that, you gum-faced lunatic,” Djak swore, but he was afraid to come closer. The pain still romped around inside him like a caged beast. “That’s private property! What’s, what’s your problem?”

  The creature raised the symbol with one hand and used the other to pull back its hood. Djak recognized the thin, hairless head of a limpkin – a fair-featured one, for those freaks, he thought – from pictures his father had shown him when he was little. The limpkin produced a vial of black powder from its robe and dumped its contents onto the symbol. A good amount spilled onto the rich carpet; that won’t come out without work, Djak thought. “What in the stars are you doing?” he tried to shout, but only whispered. Did it hear me, or does it just not care? Plates of fire, Mother Ruce will raise the dead if I let this guy vandalize the chapel…

  “Stop!” Djak shouted and pushed off the doorway, hobbling desperately towards the creature. It glanced up – its eyes were white, like molten metal at the smithy – and with a strange motion passed an arm straight through Djak’s chest, leaving him clutching at the spot. In an instant Djak was on the ground and coughing up the burning liquid again. He cursed and beat the carpet with a fist.

  In spite of the pain, Djak looked up in time to watch the limpkin lob the altar symbol into the fire, which spat and spluttered from the black powder. Something hot landed on Djak’s palm and that drove all other pain from his mind; all he knew was he jumped, his hearts skipped, and when he landed he was on his feet and looking wildly around. The white-robed thing still stood in front of the fire. “The last one,” it nodded to itself, and made haste back through the entrance hall. Djak lifted the whistle to his lips again. He blew, and this time surely everyone in the neighborhood would have heard the shrill blast.