OOC – Author’s Note:
This story is one of several within the chronicle “Where Webs Whisper” and picks up after a slight hiatus - some participating player characters are therefore not present, but may make a return in the future. We try to avoid referencing them for simplicity and out of courtesy of their authors.
The story recounts events of a live session held.
Additionally: This piece was shaped with a little help from AI. It provided help on things like the structuring, some names, shortening some verbose language/ideas as I'd written them, and it gave me the odd turn of phrase here and there. The heart and shape of the story are my own, but I realise it is important to be transparent about my use of AI assistance in the final piece.
Session 10 - Chapter 2,
'You were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off'
The roar of the explosion rolled across Ost Guruth and faded into a ringing, dreadful silence. The air was thick with ash and the still burning fires repeatedly washed waves of heat across those who still counted themselves lucky to be alive. Where the market square had stood, only a crater now was found, with a glowing faintly at its heart; the remnants of a stepped passageway down from what was the well into a myriad of tunnels below. Fire curled from broken beams and shattered stalls all around. The cries of the wounded rose began to rise through the haze, and the world seemed to sway beneath the settling dust. In short… it was pure chaos. A certain chaos-loving dwarf would have loved to witness it, if he wasn't otherwise indisposed...
Tivlyn Locksley was the first to move, dragging herself upright and out of the crater. She wiped grit from her eyes and looked around for her companions. Wittkun lay just below in the crater, groaning but alive, his beard matted with soot. Meltharian stirred further off, she was also hauling herself up to the crater’s edge. Tivlyn could not see Feay and feared she might be half buried beneath fragments of stone and timber, as many were. Wittkun cursed softly beside her now, clutching at his head, then gave a hoarse laugh of disbelief. “I live,” he muttered. It was a strange comfort amid the ruin.
Captain Rolan’s voice cut through the noise, hoarse but commanding. “Water! Get water on those fires!” He limped toward the shattered rim of the well, armour scorched and cloak torn. The militia, dazed but determined, began to form bucket lines, passing them from hand to hand while smoke clawed at their throats. Sergeant Garren followed close behind his captain, dragging a wounded guard with one arm and pointing his sword with the other. His face was streaked with soot, his eyes wild. “You brought this on us!” he shouted at the Company. “All of it! Dead men in the street, half the square in flames, and for what?”
Tivlyn flinched at the words but said nothing. The destruction around her was too great to deny. She pushed through the chaos to help lift a beam from a trapped merchant, her burned arm shaking under the weight. “I know,” she said quietly. “But we can still make it right.”
Rolan silenced his sergeant with a sharp word. “Enough, Garren. There’ll be time for blame when the fires are out. See to the living first.” He turned to Tivlyn, his expression stern but not cruel. “If you want to make it right, help keep that wall from falling. We’ll need every hand if this place is to stand by nightfall.”
Wittkun staggered to his feet, swaying as the ground trembled beneath him. “Devils dwell in quiet ponds,” he said gruffly, gripping his hammer. When Tivlyn urged him toward the wall, he muttered again but obeyed, barking orders to the Eglain guards who were trying in vain to brace the buckling stone. Together they raised timber beams scavenged from ruined stalls, shoring up the wall that threatened to crush the wounded beneath it. Their muscles burned, their hands blackened with ash, but at last the trembling slowed. For the first time since the blast, something in the ruined square held firm.
Tivlyn and Wittkun finished their work and stood panting beside the shored up wall. The firelight around them painted their faces in flickering gold and red. “It’ll hold,” Tivlyn said, though her voice trembled. “For now.” Wittkun spat into the dust and nodded. “Then let us hope the ground below us does the same.”
At that moment two figures appeared at the edge of the smoke. One, a tall and broad man with the gait of a warrior, carried a spear blackened by travel. Rothlung, his name… a wanderer from who had heard the explosion from the road and had come running. The other, a hulking bear of a man whose heavy steps shook the stones, arrived moments later. His name was Benjenn, and he bore the look of one more used to protecting others than seeking out fights.
The two newcomers stared at the destruction, then at the Company. “What happened here?” Rothlung demanded, his voice raw. “I saw the fire from the hills.”
“Trouble found us again,” Wittkun growled. “And now we must keep the town from falling with it.”
The militia did not share his matter-of-fact tone. Fear had already turned to blame. Sergeant Garren was the loudest of them, pacing before the crowd, voice raised in accusation. “More Outsiders!” he spat. “First a dead watchman, now this, this ruin you’ve brought upon us. You meddle where you don’t belong and expect us to clean up after you.”
Rothlung stepped forward, his face grim. “Watch your tongue, soldier. These folk fought to stop that wall from collapsing on your people. You owe them thanks for that at least, not threats.”
“Thanks?” Garren barked a bitter laugh. “Half the people in this square are dead or dying because of them.” He turned on Tivlyn then, his sword-tip shaking. “You’ll answer for it, Locksley. You and your cursed Company.”
Benjenn shifted between them, his big frame casting a shadow through the light in the smoke. “Careful,” he said in a low rumble, his voice neither threat nor plea but warning enough. “You’ll speak with respect, or you’ll speak no more today.”
For a moment it seemed blades might flash again amid the chaos. The guards around Garren bristled, half ready to raise their spears. Captain Rolan’s patience however snapped. “Enough!” he thundered, the word striking through the chaos like a hammer blow. “You’ll not spill more blood in my square. Sergeant, stand down.”
Garren’s jaw tightened, but he obeyed with visible effort, lowering his blade. The tension lingered, heavy as the smoke itself. Rolan turned to the Company, his expression softening by a fraction. “I know you came here with good intent, but the cost has been grave. Keep your tempers, all of you. There’s work yet to do if anyone is to live through this day.”
Tivlyn nodded, saying nothing more. Wittkun clapped Benjenn on the shoulder, muttering something. It seemed the two had met before at some time in some place. The two turned toward another building face, where the strain of the blast had loosened its foundations. Together with Rothlung they hauled more fallen beams into place and then turned to help those who could be helped.
----
Then, as the smoke began to clear, Meltharian spotted movement along the crater’s edge and caught sight of a familiar figure. The old man who had spoken earlier of the runes and the tunnels below their feet, now sat slumped, his grey beard singed, his eyes blind (an older ailment) but still open despite tears streaking his cheeks.
She ran to him, kneeling at his side, pressing a scrap of cloth to a bleeding cut on his brow. “Are you hurt badly? What did you mean, the fires are not the only thing burning?” Something he had said weakly, coughing, but which she had heard.
The old man coughed more, his breath rattling in his chest. “The runes… the well,” he whispered. “They are not gone. Below. The elves sang them into the stone long ago, binding the darkness beneath. If one seal fails, the others feel it too. The ground remembers the song. Always has as my grandpap used to tell me.”
Meltharian frowned, wiping soot from her cheek. “Then we’ve broken more than a well. We’ve torn open the old work of the Eldar.” She turned toward the jagged hole where the well had been, its edges glowing faintly green beneath the drifting smoke. Without hesitation, she began to descend the cracked stones.
The air grew cooler as she returned to the crater, and this time towards its centre. There was light spilling from the remains of the secret staircase that once stood within the well. It pulsed in slow rhythm, like the heartbeat of something vast beneath all their feet. She crouched, brushing soot and dust away from one of the remaining rune carvings there. Beneath her glove she could feel the hum of power… of magic… still alive within it, faint but steady, as though the stone itself were singing.
Above her, the shouts of men and women echoed around her. Wittkun barked for more beams. Tivlyn urged others to carry the injured clear. Buckets sloshed, fires hissed as water struck them, and the air was filled with the ceaseless sound of labour and pain. Yet down below, it was eerily calm. Meltharian traced the shape of an elven rune, its graceful lines warped into strange forms, as though twisted by some other hand. Had their action caused this… yes, most certainly… but had it been caused because of how the runes had been defaced… had a trap been set? The hum beneath her hand grew stronger. She withdrew it quickly.
------
Back above, Sgt Garren paced the crater’s edge, glaring at the Company as they worked. “Pray this can be made right,” he snarled, he seemed to be growing unhinged. “Or none of you will leave these walls alive.” But even he fell silent as a tremor rippled through the ground, rolling outward from the crater centre where the well had once stood. Dust fell from the broken walls, followed by more timbers, loose stone and more screaming ensued.
A green glow began to rise from the shattered well crater. This only made Garren more furious or scared or both. Around him, the Eglain guards wavered, what was happening, they wondered.
“You brought this curse upon us!” he bellowed, pointing his blade toward Tivlyn and the others again. This time it didn’t look like it was just a threat. “Look what you’ve done. Our dead lie beneath your feet. How many more of us will you take with you”
Tivlyn, weary and blackened with soot, stepped forward. “We didn’t ask for this, sergeant. We tried to stop it. There’s no one here who wanted your folk hurt.”
“Stop it?” Garren’s laugh was sharp and bitter. “Stop it? You tore open what should have stayed buried. The well was quiet till you meddled with it!”
Wittkun growled low under his breath, but Rothlung laid a steadying hand on his shoulder. Benjenn loomed close beside them, his arms folded and eyes fixed on the raging sergeant. The rest of the townsfolk had drawn back, watching, whispering, too afraid to move.
Captain Rolan limped toward them, it seemed he had been injured in the blast. His armour was scorched, but his sword was still sheathed at his side. “Enough, Garren,” he said, his voice level. “I said We’ll see to the blame later.”
But the sergeant barely heard him. “Later?” he spat. “There’s no later for the men lying in the square. For Tomas, or Brenn, or for the lad who burned alive in that stall!” His voice cracked, and for a moment something human flickered behind his anger. “They deserve justice.”
Rolan stopped a few paces away. “You think this is justice? Raising steel against allies who fight to save our town, as we all do?”
“You protect strangers over your own! Is that the kind of captain you are?” Garren shouted.
Rolan stopped a few paces away. “I’m the kind who’ll not have his men murder outsiders in the streets.”
Tivlyn saw the glint of steel and ducked aside; setting off in a sprinter’s run towards the gatehouse where their weapons could be found. She had no doubt that if she managed to return with them… with anything… that it would likely be too late. Still she set off as Garren’s sword pressed close to a defiant Rothlung, drawing blood from his throat.
Rolan’s hand went to his own sword, his voice suddenly sharp. “Stand down!”
But the words reached nothing now. Garren’s grief had turned to madness. He took one step forward, then another, the tip of his blade rising. “If you won’t do it,” he said, his voice breaking, “then I will.” He said something wordless and pressed his blade further, drawing more blood from Rothlung’s neck. Time seemed to slow to a crawl.
Rolan moved with the reflex of long years in battle. His blade came free in a single motion, and with it came the sound no one in the square would ever forget, even on a day of such events…. for it was a sharp metallic ‘swip’…. followed by the briefest gasp of breath, and then silence.
They all stood frozen for a moment, as if time had faltered. Then Garren staggered, the sword slipping from his fingers. He looked down at the steel through his chest as though surprised to find it there. “Uncle,” he spluttered.
The word struck harder than the blade had. Rolan’s face changed in an instant. He caught the falling man before he hit the ground, lowering him gently onto the cracked stones. “Nephew…” His voice broke. “You fool of a boy.”
No one moved. The only sound was the crackle of burning beams and the faint whimper of wind through the cratered square.
Rolan held his nephew’s head in his hands, blood running black across his gauntlets. Garren tried to speak again but no sound came, only a long, shuddering breath that left him still.
For a long while, Rolan knelt there, his eyes fixed on the face that had once been a boy following him through the barracks yard, wooden sword in hand. He had raised the lad after his brother’s death. Taught him the ways of the Eglain, of the blade, of the weight of duty to their people. And now he had ended him.
Image source: Me
Tivlyn returned with some armaments in hand… and took a slow step towards them, but Benjenn reached out and held her back. This was not a moment to share.
So Tivlyn stood close by instead, silent. The others watched without knowing what comfort could be offered. They returned to helping those in the square.
Rolan remained kneeling for a long time. When he finally rose, his sword hung loose at his side, its tip dragging through the ash. He looked at his men, then at the travellers who had brought both disaster and deliverance to his gates.
“No more blame,” he said at last, his voice hoarse but steady. “Not tonight. Not while I draw breath.”
He turned to the watching guards. “See to the dead. Every one of them. There’ll be no gallows for this, no vengeance. I’ll not see my people tear each other apart.”
He looked again at Tivlyn, Wittkun, Rothlung and the others… soot-covered, exhausted. “You’ve done what you could,” he said. “The rest of it’s mine to bear. Leave before dawn. Not as exiles… just as those who’ve done their part and must now go on.”
Tivlyn swallowed hard. “Captain, we never meant..”
“I know,” Rolan said. “But the folk here won’t see it that way come morning. Let them think I sent you away for punishment, if it spares another brawl in the streets.”
He knelt once more, resting a hand on his nephew’s chest. “There’s been enough dying for one day.”
The square was silent then, save for the dousing of the remaining fires. The Company withdrew to the edge of the crater, and Rolan stayed behind with the body of his kin.
----
Below their feet, Meltharian steadied herself, peering into the darkness beyond the base of the staircase and into several tunnels. The faint glow from the runes flickered, spreading through cracks in the stone like veins of fire. She felt the vibration in her bones now, a deep and distant song rising from far beneath all of Ost Guruth.
Her thoughts turned to the old man’s words… that the elves had bound the darkness with song, and that the earth remembered it still. If one seal had broken, perhaps the others were stirring too. Perhaps they were equally defaced… and perhaps even more… if they should be traps, that they might also be about to ‘spring’.
She ventured a little further into one of the tunnels. The glow here was stronger, casting green light across the stone. She could sense fragments of song whistling in the air along the tunnel walls, their notes elegant yet misshapen, as if someone had tried to rewrite the music.
The hum was no longer faint; it beat in time with her pulse. When she laid a hand upon the wall of a tunnel entrance before her, she could feel warmth in the stone, the throb of something waking after long sleep. Magic was pulsing down and away from this entrance, this portal to these tunnels below Ost Guruth.
Meltharian stood in the dim light of the well’s blasted open hollow, listening to a song crafted to protect the settlement, but now turned against it. The runes still lived, as the old man said. Protective seals that once kept the settlement safe, had been turned into a trap, and due to their actions, it was stirring, slow and patient as a breath drawn after a long sleep…. But in this way, it was from a nightmare…. what they had awoken would not rest easily… but they would need to try or suffer the consequences.
The story continues in the chronicle: "Where Webs Whisper"...
