EFU Short Story Contest 10/06/2017

[Kinslayer988]

Hi folks. One of my favorite parts of efu is something that is seldom told, but instead glimpsed at through play. The story and background of an EFU pc.

As with short stories in the past, this one shall also have a theme. The theme of this season's short story is Darkening. Detailing the trials your PC faced on the surface prior to entering Sanctuary.

The reward for the contest will be a personal DM quest ran by me.

Please send all submissions to the team via the NPC letters forum with the title: Player/GSID - PC Name - Story Title. Submissions will stop 10/06/2017 and a winner shall be picked the day after.

Happy writing!

[Kinslayer988]

This will be ending this friday! Please submit soon.

[Kinslayer988]

This is now closed. A winner will be announced Sunday instead of Saturday!

[Kinslayer988]

We have selected a winner! Proud applause to: Eithne! Please send me a PM to receive your reward!

Dead Weight
---

‘Beggars.’ Whistler made his guess with the same confidence he always had when pointing out the mark. ‘Even with the world going tits up, always some grimey little shits looking for a pass. A gimme.’

Eithne nodded, but she couldn’t hide the skepticism in her voice. ‘Seems like a waste going down there. I mean, what’re they gonna have?’

They lay prone at the top of the hill, right beside the hollow trunk of what was likely a grand tree when things were still bright. Things might have gone tits up, but Eithne knew Millstone like the back of her hand. This hill provided them a grand view of those coming and going, of those that would be easy pickings for the lot of them. The half dozen survivors in tattered robes below them looked like the perfect bunch, ripe for the picking.

‘Ain’t about coin, girl. Look.’ Whistler pointed, as if Eithne would be able to divine his meaning from such a distance. ‘Even little shits like that gotta eat.’
Eithne couldn’t argue with that - her stomach certainly wasn’t going to. It’d been a couple days since they each had their fill of twisted rat things and sandy vegetation. She still shifted uneasily. ‘I don’t know Whis, feels wrong. God’s gonna be pissed. Some things you just don’t to-’

Whistler sniffed, the ever present congestion causing a low wheeze to emit from his nostrils as he exhaled. It never was a very clever nickname, but the Millstone Boys never were known for their poetry. ‘Fuck Torm! Fuck Ilmatar! And fuck everyone else claiming to give two shits when we gotta do this to eat!’ If it weren’t for the constant howling winds encompassing their ruined village and farmlands, Eithne would get worried someone would hear Whistler going into one of his rants.

She was worried about something else though. Eithne was starting to notice that the boys weren’t sleeping much at all these days, their eyes all having a tinge of red to them now. Whistler and Corrin were the oldest of them - supposedly the wisest, but their tempers were starting to flare easier than ever. She looked aside to Whistler now, saw that his eyes were narrowed at her in suspicion.

‘You ain’t getting cold feet on me are you?’ And there it was, the accusation.

‘Fuck off, Whis. I’m here, aren’t I?’

‘Aye, after what? Ten rounds ‘tween me and the others? Everyone ha-’

‘Everyone has to do their share, aye. We all get it, Whis. I’m here ‘cause it’s my turn.’

Whistler’s nose was making noise to rival the winds around them now as he watched his companion closely. ‘Aye. Aye, it is…’

Eithne looked away, tried to make it seem like she was focusing on their marks and plan of approach. She felt his gaze linger on her a moment longer than it really should have, before he shifted his weight to pull out his hunting bow and harvest sickle. The wind just kept on howling.  [/HR]

The Millstone boys moved about quickly on their return - wouldn’t be too long before the supposed beggars made their way around the dried up riverbed that was the Eastern Run. Corrin and Whistler exchanged some heated words, Whistler’s finger pointed Eithne’s way. Corrin gave a tired nod, and Eithne felt a bit guilty then. The lad had always looked out for her, even vouched for her when things got dark and people were dying by the hour. She imagined she would’ve married the boy, were the sun still up and shining.
Eithne was smiling wistfully to herself when Corrin jogged over.

‘Hoi, you alright? You ready?’

‘What I was telling Whis, Corrin. I ain’t gonna back down. Everyone gets a turn, has to get bloody maybe.’ She tried to sound as tough and ready as her words, but Corrin just frowned at her.

‘Aye, we do.’ Normally he’d give her that reassuring pat on the shoulder, but Eithne noticed his face was quite gaunt in the starlight and he chose to keep his distance. Maybe Whistler was right, maybe God wasn’t going to grant anymore miracles, and it was up to them to make their own - primarily, finding and scavenging food from whatever means they can manage.

‘Who’s … my second?’

‘Mmn. Ain’t gonna be one.”

‘Eh? The fuck, Corrin! There’s six of ‘em.’

‘And only one good sword left. Fletch lost the other when he got… ‘ He trailed off with a grimace. Nobody liked talking about the incident with the lost boys. ‘You’ll have plenty of bows at your back though. Just need to make the point clear and simple, aye?’

Eithne rubbed at her face worriedly. ‘I… ‘

Corrin’s frown deepened. ‘You gotta be strong here, Eithne. And this’ll be the simplest nab yet. They’re beggars, women of the cloth. We’ll just take their crumbs and set them running away. Just scare ‘em a bit.’

A brown sort of grime had begun gathering around the corner of his eyes, Eithne had noticed. He stood there, almost unblinking as he held out the last good “sword” they had their belongings. A shoddy, madeshift thing hammered together by Fletch back when they could keep the forge fueled.

‘Can we count on you or not?’ He asked, pointedly.

Eithne stared at the blade for a few long moments, gathered herself. With a grunt she took it and shuffled off towards the foothills. ‘Wait for the signal.’  [/HR]

‘You understand, ay-aye?’ Eithne muttered to herself as she waited in the middle of the road beside the dried riverbed. She could see the survivors slowly making their way towards her. Upon closer inspection only a few of them had anything resembling weapon. A walking stick here, a dagger on the belt. No crossbows, that was always a comfort…

‘We just need to eat…’ She kept muttering the lines to herself. The confidence was gone, even as she kept learning more and more reasons these marks would be relatively harmless. The hunger in her belly was making it easier to bury the guilt, certainly, but she had to keep looking at her swordhand and consciously will it to stop shaking.

It wasn’t until Eithne heard the padding of feet coming to a halt a short distance away from her that she snapped back to her senses. An elderly looking woman was peering down at her with severe eyes, a simple staff resting upon her shoulder. Her voice was as harsh as the winds that frequently buffeted them from every direction. ‘And what is this… here?’ The thick accent was difficult to unpack and place, but this woman - short woman, Eithne now noticed, was clearly not from around these parts.

‘Ev’ron stay still, hands.. side!’ Eithne muttered harshly, her words coming out too quickly to come out in any comprehensible manner. She bore the sword from behind her, held it out and at the ready as she let out a harsh whistle to the surrounding foothills. Her gaze flicked about the six figures, and she noticed they were all women, most of them her age. Two in the back looked frightened, the others -furious, despite being mostly unarmed and being held at swordpoint. Shaky swordpoint, but still, the average traveler would have the sense to do what the brigand asks. At least, this was the reasoning Eithne gave herself.

‘Be still, children.’ The short woman, their apparent leader spoke with such confidence Eithne took a cautious step back. Figures were moving about in the foothills now, much to Eithne’s relief. The boys would be giving her the edge she needed to intimidate them.

‘Ay-.. aye, aye!’ Eithne said with growing confidence, gesturing wildly to the figures around them. ‘Let’s be still, let’s be sensible. We’re just.. we’re just hungry, we need to eat. Just drop your packs and move along…’

‘I was speaking to you too, girl.’ The elderly woman snapped at her, her own eyes tracing the hills with an unnerving speed. ‘You would rob those who would come to offer succor to one who suffers alone, in the road? You would do this?’

‘We.. We gotta eat, we’re starved.’ Eithne wasn’t sure why she was justifying herself to the woman. The boys had their bows trained on them and were closing the distance. The option to run was swiftly vanishing, and Eithne could tell the girls in the back of the robed procession wished to voice such a concern, but were too afraid to do so. Was it the Millstone boys, or…

‘We all starve, girl. You lack the fortitude to bear the burden as we do, choose the simple path. Choose weakness.’ Her words were matter of fact as she lifted the staff from her shoulder and took note of the six fellows who came to offer backup. ‘We have nothing to give you, strangers. One would have offered to bind wounds, but it seems such kindness is best reserved for those most worthy.’

‘Shut yer stupid mouth, whore.’ Whistler barked back at her as he and Corrin approached from the road proper. His eyes were wide and wild now - he was furious, Eithne could tell, and Corrin simply looked determined. ‘Shut yer mouth and put your sticks and shit on the ground.’

Eithne tensed. This was going way off script, even if she did flub up the initial contact and forced them to come forward in number. They never came so close, usually the threat of arrows from afar was enough to persuade a pitiful survivor…

‘I… I don’t think they have anything, Whis.’ Eithne turned slightly, muttered back to her companion.

Bloodshot eyes bore into her own meek gaze as he snarled aside to his second. ‘I fucking told you, Cor.’

‘Told.. told him what?!’ She yelled back, furious in her own right now. At herself, at this shitty situation, at the knowledge they likely wouldn’t eat tonight either. ‘You sent me alone, and I still went damn it! I’m doing my share!’

Whistler’s lips curled into a disgusting smile, revealing now rotting teeth. ‘Nah lass, what you are.’

The robed survivors around Eithne shifted uneasily, all save their leader. Eithne turned, looking to Corrin in confusion. ‘What I.. am?’

Corrin didn’t even have the decency to look sorry - he seemed too tired, too hungry to anyway. He simply let his arrow fly and said in an even voice ‘Dead weight.’

Eithne heard cackling from ahead of her as something knocked the wind out of her, seemed to drain all the energy she’d been saving this tenday out in instant. She was on the ground now, feeling a wetness growing from her chest. Her mind reeled from a sudden rush of pain and agony, recognized both the arrow that was now lodged in her body and the voice the laughing belonged to - Whistler.

‘.. And even dead weight’ll taste alright cooked long enough. Boys. BOYS! GET ‘EM!’

Bowstrings twanged, people screamed. The world began to grow darker still around Eithne as she saw a robed form dash over her fallen body, like a bird in flight…
  [/HR]

A low rumbling woke Eithne. A low rumbling in her ears, and a sharp pain that seemed to swim across her entire form as her body jerked about the makeshift stretcher she was tied to. She tried to scream, but found her throat was so dry she could hardly make more than a pitiful wheeze. At her thrashings, the rumbling stopped.

Eithne found she could not turn her head, as risking such would renew the pain in her chest. So she simply stared skyward in confusion as a familiar elderly face appeared - the severe gaze of the foreign woman. She gestured for someone outside of Eithne’s sight to come over, a waterskin was swiftly produced and she was given a few gulps to relieve her thirst. The woman stared at her all the while, murmuring some commands to those around her.

After another hurried gulp of the finest tasting water Eithne had ever had, she tilted her head down to look at her wounds. Her body was covered in familiar looking robes, those of the pack of survivors to perhaps ward off the harsh winds. She could see a bump underneath the plain cloth, and could feel the constraints of tightly and expertly bound bandages.

‘Wh--…guhn… wh-wh…’ Eithne tried, though her throat was barely listening to her commands as she tried to garble a question up at the woman. She peered down at her, eyes unyielding with an intense lack of pity.

‘Your first lesson - you are still but a girl, and girls should not speak. They should listen, learn.’

Eithne tried to look around, noticed that there were four others of the original pack. Some looked at her in disgust, others with thoughtful frowns. The elder ignored them, her gaze unblinking as she regarded the wounded woman.

‘Fate has something else in mind for you this day, girl.’ The woman stood to full height, rested her staff upon her shoulder again. ‘You will now call me Master Min of the Unyielding Sisterhood...’

Eithne could only blink in confusion as exhaustion suddenly crept up on her. She found it difficult to keep her eyes open, could barely process the tartness of whatever medicine her water was mixed with.

‘... and together, we will save this world.’