WG- Another Shadow Over Hackdirt Options

[Elisabeth Hollow]

I apologize for clogging the free-roaming Wobbly Goblet thread with our mission, as neither of us thought about making another thread(Until I did this morning.)

Once we get a hold of an Admin, we'll see abut putting the rest of the mission here. Until then our Hackdirt posts will be kept here.

[Darkness Eternal]

Draken remained in the darkness. Patient. Thinking everything through. Kayla seemed more irritated than he was at this point, and even going as far as to mutter words that Draken's keen ears could pickup.

"Meridia's going to kill me."

Good, she'll do the task for me

Kayla muttered other words before placing her face against the bar, her thin upper body managed to go through the bar and out, but the heavier part of her body got stuck. She was caught in the bars like someone in a trap. She started to curse in foreign words Draken could only guess was Nordic, comfirming his initial speculation that she lived with Nords.

"Well...this will be really funny later on"

Providing there is a later on, Draken told himself. These men aren't merciful.

She's lucky not to have a desperate death-fearing man as her cellmate in this particular moment. That would be something.

Not soon after Kayla was trapped Draken heard bare feet smacking upon the cavern floor, and a heavy panting. Due to the cell he couldn't see what it was, his head wouldn't fit through the bars to give him a view.

One of the shirtless men ran down the corridor, club in hand as he began to shout over Kayla. "Elf bad! Elf bad!"

More of them rushed in, blocking Draken's view of her face. Their capture of him was insult enough, but their limited vocabulary and constant shouting was just begging for him to retaliate.

The Hackdirt Brethren surrounded the outside of Kayla's cell while the same man from earlier returned to stand right outside of Draken's celldoor. He held a torch and approached to find his prisoner standing with the same look, and the same stance: arms behind his back, head up, eyes alert.

"What is your name?" the man asked with eyes that revealed suspicion, fear and a bit of unwavering hatred.

"Drathen."

"Drathen what?"

Draken wasn't sure where this was going, and before he answered, the man uttered another word.

"Decumus."

Now it was Draken's turn to look puzzled. How does he know me?

The man, recognizing Draken's expression, took a step forward. If there were no bars there, Draken was sure the man would have tried to strike him. "This isn't real. This has to be impossible. I . . . I know you! You were here thirty years ago. You helped the Legion burn this village. That face . . . those eyes . . . You haven't changed one bit. Not a single wrinkle. Not a mark of age."

Draken studied the man's face and tried to discern his identity past the grime and the madness and found . . . oh my. He found the man's face thirty years prior in the form of a young fatherless boy still living under his mother's house. It took a minute and sheer concentration and focus despite the constant raging of the barbarians around who tried to shove Kayla's head in the cell. But the memory came:

The soldiers torching the village, pulling out accused cultists by the well, executing them through the noose or by the sword while Draken stormed in house after house to enforce the law, and his own will, against one particular widow who believed that hiding her son in a barrel would help him.

In those days Draken had a trace of overconfidence and truly believed the boy would be buried beneath the rubble. He remembered the child staring from the hole as his mother fell victim to Draken's cravings.

"A tale that has been told to death," Draken said. " Young child see's his mother killed and vows revenge. Save your delusions, madman. I have done no such thing, for I was not born all those years ago."

"Don't deny it. I know. I know," the man whispered. " I know it was you that day. I don't know how this is possible but you're that same outsider that came with the soldiers. You killed my mother and burned our village to the ground."

Draken remained silent.

"The Deep Ones have blessed me by delivering you into my hands," said the man. "Your blood and the girl's blood will make Hackdirt prosper."

The man continued to look at Draken in disbelief, as if he was the nightmare made into reality. A spectre of the past returned.

"I will compensate you for this. Provide me with the proper means of liberation and I will arrange for any ransom to be paid."

The man didn't answer. Reluctantly, he backed away. Draken thought absently: It was you're mother's beliefs that got her killed.

This post has been edited by Darkness Eternal: Aug 13 2013, 03:56 AM