ARPG WRITING CENTRAL

[TheSongOfTheStars]

Valley of Kings
Store Prompt S6

526 words
Seeks finds was to prepared to deal with the devastation of watching the raiders rip and shred her ship into a shell, to watch them carry the priceless equipment she had spent hours and days maintaining to integrate into their own hodgepodge system of stolen parts.
She was prepared, she had seen it before, it had hurt, but she was ready. That was why raiders attacked her ship. That was why raiders attacked anyone.
They need things or they wanted things. Seeks finds would hesitate to call it a code, but as far as her experience lead her to believe, was that raiders did not try to cause more trouble outside of what was necessary.

But Victor was different.
For all the obvious reason of course, but he was also apparently not just a sniveling child, but a wasteful one as well.
They planted charges in the engine core and in the flight regulators and then detonated them.
They blew up the Valiant.
They made her watch and it was like getting stabbed.
Seeks finds was dead silent as her ship, her home, disintegrated silently into dust, scattered into salvageable wreckage.
She was dead silent as Victor laughed and mocked her mask of an expression. She was dead silent as they dragged her away from the view port into the stinking bowels of the raiders ship.
She did not speak a word, refused to, refused to let her face change or crumple, refused to let the welling tears in her eyes show. But she could not keep her head up and she could not find the will to keep her shoulders straight, and when they shoved her into a dark cell and slammed the door behind her, she could not keep herself from stumbling and falling to her knees.
She did not see the point in trying to get back up and simply let herself curl over, her forehead pressed against the no doubt filthy floor as she tried to keep her breathing as even as possible, as she tried to keep from letting the panic and horror wash over her and freeze her up.
"Hey."
A voice grated quietly out of the dark.
"Who's there?"
Gulping a long breath in and trying to ignore the knot in her stomach, Seeks finds sat up and blinked, trying to readjust her eyes.
"I am Seeks finds," She replied, slowly trying to gather her legs under her and getting up "From the Dark Mists system. Who are you?"
"Lost shard," A pale lioness stepped out of the shadow and extended her paw to help pull Seeks finds up to her feet "Quite the cheerful pickle we've gotten ourselves into isn't it?"
Seeks finds just nodded, not sure how to reply and barely having the will to.
Lost Shard brushed off some of the grime from Seeks find's shoulder before stepping back and leaning against the wall of the cell "You got folks out there looking for you?"
Seeks finds thought to the escape pod hurtling off into the emptiness and shook her head.
"Pity. There's no getting out of here from the inside. Looks like we're stuck together."

[TheSongOfTheStars]

VOK Summer Event Prompt Fill
1028 words
Bryva Hayes was not exactly certain why she was chosen by the cousin to tread through the portal that had opened up in the middle of the village. She was a proficient fire elemental sure and could take care of herself well enough, but she was no champion, no great warrior. Nor was she particularly cunning or crafty.
No. She was starting to get a sneaking, sinking, suspicious feel that she had been chosen because she was fairly expendable. There were many fire elementals in Home of The Drowned and Bryva had not mastered a specific keystone tenet of fire and neither had she been particularly useful in the defense of the village and the portal had demanded a sacrifice. So off she was sent with a knife looped in her belt and a bundle of food enough to last her just under a week and a change of clothes.
She forced herself to take one quick short breath after another as the whole village pressed around her, the cold, empty, merciless eyes of the counsel drilling into her. Xandris, the chief, stood at the other end of the portal, anger and apology mixing into a strange concoction behind his eyes. He had wanted to brave the portal himself, claiming that as a dual elemental he was more prepared to deal with whatever was on the other side and that as chief, it was his responsibility to asses any threat to the village. But the council had overruled him, deeming him too important to risk losing.
"Be careful," He murmured, too quiet for the council members and elders to hear "And good luck, Bryva."
"Thank you," she whispered back, her hand clamped down over her knife.
The she took one last breath of the heady, humid, swamp air, took one last look around the village, her home, the faces of her family, her friends, and the cats she had grown up around, that counted for something, even if it was not a whole lot of a something.
Then she stepped forwards and let the light of the portal envelope her.
It was like trying to take a step out onto the surface of a pond or puddle. There was not even a second of being held up but she simple plummeted straight downwards, arms and legs flailing, eyes squeezed tightly closed against the assault of stabbing beams of far too bright lights.
Bryva was not sure that there was a lack of air within the portal or if from sheer terror she'd been holding her breath, but her lungs ached and burned as though she was dying of asphyxiation and no matter how she tried to focus herself she could not pry her lips apart to even attempt a breath.
Then, as quickly and abruptly as it had begun, her plunge through empty light ceased and her body connected with something unrelentingly solid. She had about a single moment of clarity, time enough for the single thought that realized she was certainly no longer at the Home of the Drowned nor anywhere near it.
---
Lost Shard was never one to say no to a challenge. She was special like that. Or stupid.
Her mother had always said one, her father the other, and she had listened to them both, but she always managed to get into trouble in any case.
So when a small settlement hailed her and asked her to check out a small worm hole like phenomena that had appeared in their atmosphere, Lost Shard was all for checking it out.
It took a little while to even reach the plantoid, because, it was quite far, both from the position she had been holding when she received the hail and from the "beaten path" so to speak, no shipping routes, no larger civilizations that could have been considered allies or trading partners, basically nothing. Also, as Lost Shard had rapidly found out, there was a reason for this avoidance of that particular section of space. It was riddled with debris from broken ships, ships that had been broken on the massive asteroid fields that ringed around the planetoid's position. It was actually possible that it was just one massive field with some slightly less dense pockets that afforded relief.
In any case, Lost Shard and her small scouter were both a bit dinged up when they arrived.
Just to settle herself after the several nerve wracking hours that it had taken to get to the planetoid, Lost Shard did several fly arounds of the sphere, noting the landmarks of the continents far below her and the several satellites that spun in orbit around the planetoid.
She also noted the reason that she had been summoned.
The portal was large enough for her to guide her ship straight into, but not so large that anything bigger than her scouter could hope to get through.
"Settlement Vixtria, this is Lost Shard with the scouter ship, Swift-7, I have eyes on the anomaly, I am going to get closer to take some readings. I'll send them to you when I have them, over."
"Swift-7, we read you," crackled the settlement's reply "We await your readings, over."
Grinning with the nerve wracking thrill of excitement, Lost Shard navigated her scouter closer and lit up all her reading equipment. She was no scientist, the siege blaster resting in the passenger seat and the broadsword hooked to the far wall a testament to that fact, but she was smart enough to read a gauge.
She took her focus off navigation and propulsion for a second, just a second, to make sure all the scanners were running properly and picking up actual, usual information, when the portal reacted.
A tendril of light whipped out, causing all the screens across the consul to simultaneously white out and an alarm wailed out, and the light curled around the Swift-7 and yanked it forwards.
Caught off guard, Lost Shard lurched forwards, slamming her head against the controls and she barely had enough time to sit back up before the portal had drawn her and her ship in like helpless squirming piece of bait on a hook.

[TheSongOfTheStars]

Journey to the Trinity Tree Summer Event Prompt Day 2
1020 words

Bryva awoke on her back, breathing heavily but breathing. With a groan she rolled over to her stomach and waited for the pounding in her head to stop.
After several minutes of just lying there in the grass she finally pushed herself up and got to her feet.
She lit a ball of flame and commanded it to hover at her shoulder, not because she was in any apparent or immediate danger, although in the distance she could see several groups of cats but they did not seem to see or care about her presence. Not even for light as it was midday and the sky was bright and clear.
She really could not excuse it as any thing else other than to comfort herself as she wandered about the strange place, trying to figure out why on earth she had been summoned by the portal.
She came over a grassy knoll and was confronted by a sight more bizarre than she had ever expected to see

A great metallic...thing had appeared to have crashed into the hill, its great awkward stiff wings bent and broken from the impact and smoke curled over the object which still radiated heat.
Frightened but curious still, Bryva approached, brushing away the smoke like a curtain to reveal a figure perched atop the broken metal shell.
"Hello there little one!" The lioness called down as Bryva stared up at her nervously, the little ball of flame growing larger as she braced for a possible attack. There were lions in the swamps near Home of the Drowned and they were, to put it very very lightly, less than entirely friendly.
But here, so distantly removed from everywhere and everything she knew and was familiar with, Bryva wondered if perhaps she could give the lioness a chance, the friendly relaxed smile and lazy wave the stranger gave her did not seem nearly as aggressive as the lions back home had ever been.
It could, of course, always be a trap.

But there was something disarming about the lackadaisical way the lioness slid off the metal shell and hopped down to the ground in front of Bryva, despite the sword strapped to her back and the strange item holstered at her hip, that Bryva could not be entirely certain of the nature of, but was quite sure was a weapon of some caliber or another.

"I am Lost Shard," the pale lioness said by way of introduction "Of the Dark Mists System."
"Bryva Hayes," Bryva looked in alarm as the lionesss extended her paw for a shake "Of Home of the Drowned."
Swallowing hard Bryva took the risk and placed her paw in Lost Shard's. The lioness's hand was far too big for the little cat to grip properly and she could do little more than press against the massive rugged paw.
She squeaked a little in pure terror as Lost Shard shook her paw, the little cat's entire arm being wrenched up and down.
"Nice to meet ya Bryva, now, you would not happen to have any idea what is going on?"
To Bryva's relief when Lost shard released her hand, it came away just a bit sore and not snapped off at the wrist.
"There was a portal..."
"Same, so it looks like we're in the same boat huh?"
Bryva nodded.
"Well shall we have a gander about together than? You look like you are more than capable of handling yourself," Lost Shard nodded towards the ball of flame hovering at Bryva's shoulder.

Bryva hesitated. On one hand, a large scary stranger with strange weapons who could hurt or even kill her.
On the other hand, a large scary stranger with strange weapons who might be willing to help her out in case there was someone else out there who might want to hurt or even kill her.
"Sure," she said, shrugging and trying to appear calm.
"Great! There's this weird tree with other cats and lions just kinda, standing around it, should we check it out?"
"Yeah, why not," Bryva did not think she was getting home any time soon anyway.
---
Lost Shard was quiet after the tree spoke and they began to travel downwards beneath the speaking tree. Well she was quiet for a few minutes, for it seemed that the lioness could not go without at least a quip or comment for much longer than a few minutes, she reminded Bryva a bit of Tik Tak Long Smak in that way, the jittery boy could never go very long without sharing his opinion on something.
Bryva herself was too stunned to really speak, she was pretty sure she was going into shock over it all.
"A great enemy huh?" the lioness said finally with a little flick of her ears and a twitch of her tail "Good thing I just did maintenance on my siege blaster," and she tapped that strange item she had holstered at her side.
So it was a weapon.
"What about you?" Lost Shard turned to her small companion "Can you do any fancy tricks with that little fire thingy?"
"Hmm? Oh," Bryva had actually forgotten about the fireball at that point. With a snap of her fingers she doused it, then with a flicker of concentration, ordered a draping of flames to curl around her hands "I know a few tricks, as you said."
Lost Shard laughed, delighted by the light show "Lovely. Now then, it makes sense to me that they would have an arena or training grounds or something of that sort around here in their weird cavern city. What say you we go and find it and you can show me some more of your tricks."
"Alright," Bryva also had her knife, but from what it sounded like, it probably would not be as much help as her element would be in the upcoming days "I am not a great warrior though, I know just enough to really defend myself."
"Well then, not to boast but I am a bit of the warrior type, we should make a pretty good team, don't ya think?"

[TheSongOfTheStars]

Journey to the Trinity Tree Summer Event Prompt Day 3
1,001 words

Bryva was exhausted after a long session of flexing her elemental skills, showing off for Lost Shard and any other curious bystanders who had been attracted by the flare of fire and sparks and the acrid scent of the smoke let off by the flames. Lost Shard had demonstrated her proficiency with her sword, which was longer than Bryva Hayes was tall, and a few trick shots with her siege blaster.
Then they had eaten, something dark and tasteless, but not horrible. It went down much like noodle soup and sat easily in the pit of Bryva's stomach so she could not really complain.
After that, Lost Shard had set about finding them somewhere to sleep and had managed to snag them a pair of hammocks next to an open window on the third story of a strange, square building.
It was bustling with other lions and cats, but after trading a few causal words with Lost Shard, she clambered into her hammock and promptly fell asleep.
---
She came awake to a horrible bellowing that split through the air and the hammock shivering and swaying.
"There's an attack!" someone shouted from the dark and Bryva found herself scrambling out of the hammock and tumbling down the stairs alongside Lost Shard.
In the rush of so many bodies, not to mention that half of the rushing warriors were lions and many times larger than her, Bryva did not catch a glimpse of what is was that was attacking them until she was already out into the thick of the fighting.
And honestly?
If she had seen them beforehand?
Bryva was not sure she would have ever had the spine to get so close.

As the howling mountain of broken dead wood and oozing clay ripped through the haphazard ranks Bryva felt herself go stone cold, an awful, awful feeling for a fire elemental, as she locked gaze with the monster.

It screamed and charged her down and she swore her heart stopped.

It was automatic response, to raise her arms to cover her face and release a wave of fire into the monster's face. Automatic, instinctual, unconscious, whatever it was, Bryva was positive she would have been dead if something ingrained into her had not reacted.
After that, it was quite possibly the worse night of her life. Mud, splinters, and screams assaulted her every sense as she tried to keep a grip on her fear and her flames.

Lost Shard had seen a variety of bizarre and mind boggling beings on her journey through the stars but these creatures were in a category all their own. They seemed to experience no fear, no hesitation as they attacked, and most concerning of all, did not seem to feel any pain.
She tore into one, driving her broadsword deep into its gut and twisting it. The beast shuddered a bit, but when the lioness yanked her weapon free, the monster still oozed forwards, albeit it seemed to struggle with the gaping hole through its center.

Sheathing her blade, Lost Shard upholstered her siege blaster and braced it against her shoulder. Aiming towards her oncoming foe she released a volley of laserfire that she knew for a fact would have cleared out a pack of Asterdust chargers with absolutely no problems.
Woodchips splintered and flew out in a spray of stinging splinters, mud splattered against Lost Shard's face, but still the beast advanced.
Lost Shard sighed, holstered the siege blaster and just flung herself straight at the monster, ripping and tearing with her claws.
It was going to be a long night, but as the monster finally fell to pieces and ceased to move or struggle, Lost Shard thought it might not be all that bad.

Slowly the battle came to an end, the waves of enemies becoming ripples until the whole field became like a still pond. When Bryva finished turning her last opponent into charred bits of wood and baked clay she sank to her knees, sobbing from the exertion.
She was covered in mud and her lungs and eyes stung from the smoke her own flames let off, up and down her arms, face, and legs were gashes oozing from the blows the monsters had landed on her.
"Hey. You all good Bry?"

Bryva startled, not having heard Lost Shard's approached.
Hastily wiping away the tears and snot from her face, she straightened up and nodded.
"Ah good, you scared me for a second there, all curled up," the concern melted away from Lost Shard's face to be replaced with a small smile "That sure was a doozy huh? I do not think I've had such a work out since the last time I was in the Zephyr Eight system. Ooh boy, got ambushed by a pack of meteor hobblers, nearly turned me and the Swift-7 into space dust."
Bryva nodded absently and Lost Shard stopped her chatter as she realized her rather poor attempt at cheering the tiny cat up was not really working.
"Hey, come one, let's get out of here and back inside the city, I don't know about you but I am a bit banged up, nothing serious, y'know, but could still use a bit of something or other to wash these cuts our and get them clear. I am not exactly useful to anyone if I get infected and go septic huh?"
"Yeah, okay," Bryva stood up, brushing herself off, her ears held low and her eyes downcast.
Together, the tall pale lioness with her dirty weapons hanging along her back and at her side and the bright red cat with her empty hands folded and tucked into her sleeves, they made their way across the broken and destroyed battle field towards the city, silently passing the other warriors who had fought with them.
It was still and it was silent. No cries of victory no screams of defeat. The very air itself seemed to be trapped in motion, like water trapped by an extreme chill

[TheSongOfTheStars]

Journey to the Trinity Tree Summer Event Prompt Day 4
1,000 words

Lost Shard had never had a home, a base of operations, no planet that she called her place of origin, nowhere to settle herself in after a long journey. It was always just her and her ship and her sword, when she felt the urge to go sauntering out among the stars she followed that instinct as she had for all of her life. Her nomadic tendencies were as much a part of her as her heart and her tail and her whiskers and her teeth. To travel was her right, to go where she willed when she willed was some unalienable.
So when she felt the call, the call to go out from the city walls into the forest, she did not even question it, barely even realized that it was a call outside of her own restless tendencies.
Without a word to Bryva or to anyone else she strapped her sword to her back and holstered her siege blaster and stepped out, excitement brimming within her. This was good! This was right! This was how she had always lived her life.
There were others, crowding the way and going down through the streets and streaming out into the woods. It did not bother the lioness, it was never an irritation to have company on her travels. She never hung about with anyone long, making and losing friends, enemies, and acquaintances on a regular basis and had come to appreciate the fleeting companionship while she had it, there was always something to learn, always something new to find out or hear from a stranger.
Down the steps she went, treading lightly but quickly as she waded out into the crowd on the street, taking care where she stepped as there were many small cats like Bryva Hayes. They were hardly the strangest things she had seen and in fact she had seen several of their kind, she was sure, at some point, but still she found them slightly enamoring, delightful in their diminutive stature and she certainly wished to trample one of them.
She was pushed and shoved a bit by the other lions as they too answered the call but Lost Shard did not push or shove back. They would all get to where they were going in good time. Through the street of hard packed earth, between the buildings, then out into the ruined field they had done battle on the night before.
The crowd scattered as they came to the edge of the field, and then either as an individual or as a small group, they began to pick their own path over the rough and uneven terrain.
Lost Shard tread alone, distantly she thought that if Bryva had been there she would have done her best to stick next to the small cat, she had found them rather interesting with their ability to summon and command fire.
But she had not seen the little cat in the crowd.
She brushed the thought from her mind as she reached the eve of the forest and looked up at the dark trees.
For a second she felt a flash of concern. Perhaps, perhaps this was not wise.
But then that prick of doubt was drowned out by a flood of excitement and some invisible but outside form of assurance.
It was alright.
It was going to be fine.
She was going somewhere good.
They promised.
With a laugh of delight she bounded forwards.

---
No, no, no.
Bryva clamped her paws over her ears, tucked herself in the corner, and shook.
When something called out, from the wild, from the spaces between the trees, from the dark and the unknown, when an impulse that was not your own stirred in your chest and told you to leave the safety of the walls of your home or village, when voices that you did not know spoke your name, you did not open your eyes. You did not move, you did not breathe.
No matter what the voices said, no matter what they promised you, they meant you only ill.
Bryva had heard stories, Bryva had seen herself the consequences.
Cats who answered that call never came back, maybe in body, but not in soul and spirit and mind and heart.
Sometimes they lived for years in that empty state, sometimes only days.
Sometimes you could even tell that their core being had been stolen away for when the calling creatures caught them and siphoned out their memories and their emotions, the creatures would pour themselves into the husk and enter the village.
They would smile and blink and eat and live the life that their victim until the body, emptied of all true life, began to fall apart.
Then it would discard its stolen shell and attack one of the victim's family members or on rare occasion close friends, until it was either driven out or consumed the entire village.

The call came again, louder, more insistent, Bryva flinched and her legs nearly were leaping up against her will.
It insisted that is was good, that the forests would be a better place, that she would be safer there.
But she knew, she knew the truth, she knew there would be only heartache and grief.
She knew that if her own will wavered, even for a moment, she would regret it as another will would try to command her.

She already regretted that she had not been able to stop Lost Shard, but the lioness was so large that Bryva could have never hoped to stop her physically and Lost Shard had seemed totally deaf as Bryva pleaded with her not to leave.
Bryva had huddled in the corner, suppressing her own urge to go wandering out the door and down the stairs as she begged Lost Shard not to leave, tried to tell her it would only end badly. But the lioness had slung her sword over her back and picked up her gun and ignored Bryva entirely.

[TheSongOfTheStars]

Journey to the Trinity Tree Summer Event Prompt Day 5
1,015

Prompt A

Slowly the call faded, leaving Bryva with trembling hands and shaking bones, but ultimately grateful that she had managed to hold out against the temptation, grateful she had survived and would continue to survive.
Standing up from the corner she had been huddled in for hours, Bryva dared to peek out the window.
The street below was mostly empty, with a few other cats and lions poking their heads out cautiously from windows and doors.
After the bustle of incoming warriors who were gathered for the battle then the aftermath of the fight the city felt far too still, far too quiet.
Unsettled by the apparent corpse like state of her surroundings, Bryva dared to venture down the stairs, wincing with her heart in her throat at every creak the worn wood gave out beneath her weight.
She made her way to the bottom floor without having the stairs collapse beneath her or being attacked by a monster.
Then, though she really did not want to, Bryva stepped out through the door and glanced about.
No sign of Lost Shard, not that she had really even let herself hope, but there was always that tiny irrational part of her that constantly said that "anything's possible."
She supposed that the least she could do for her missing companion was to at least look around for her.
Bryva began to wander about, pretty aimlessly, up one street and down another, questioning the odd stranger on the whereabouts of Lost Shard, but it seemed that no one had seem the pale lioness during the midnight exodus.
It also seemed that many others were searching for lost friends and companions. Slowly a group began to form and move out from the city. Together with those leftover from the night before Bryva searched, for Lost Shard, for anyone who had not been lured away, for anyone returning from the arms of the forest who could tell them what they had seen, who could explain what manner of creature or being had lured the others away.
Eventually the group of investigators ended up before the tree that had, apparently, summoned them there from their respective homes.
The search, having proved entirely fruitless, was dropped as some of the lions and cats approached the strange tree.
Some of them went to demand answers, some to ask quietly what had become of the others, others gently tried to explain what had happened and see if the tree volunteered any information freely.
Bryva was among none of them. Beings such as a tree that could call up an army from across all reams of thought and reason were not to be trifled with.
Entities so vast were great but also terrible and Bryva had not desire to bring any attention of such a thing down upon herself.
So she waited a distance away, her ears pricked up her but eyes averted and she tried to listen to the questions and words of the other cats.
She did not expect anything to come from the interrogation, but, that little voice piped, anything is possible.
---

Prompt B
Lost Shard felt a weariness run deep through her bones. Through the night she had walked, deeper and deeper into the dark, until she was perfectly and totally lost. She could not have made her way back to the city even if she had wanted to.
Towards the end of the strange journey she was so spent she could barely lift one foot to put in front of the other.
Then the forest began to open up and the trees thinned away to reveal a sight that had the warm exhilaration that had lured Lost Shard and so many others out into the wilderness turning cold. An anxiety cut through the lioness, leaving a sick pit in her stomach as she viewed row upon row of dead eyed soldiers.
There was also a roiling wave of hot anger, not just at the dying decaying tree for potentially deceiving her, but also towards her own self for letting herself be drawn in so easily, for being so open and stupid and gullible.
This did not sit right, none of this. The tree that had called Lost Shard and Bryva and so many others seemed as though she had been desperate. Lost Shard failed to see what was wrong for calling for help when overwhelmed by enemies.
For a long while she just stood there at the edge of the disgusting army, wrestling with her indecision and doubt.
Well, she had come all this way and she was far too tired to even attempt to try to return to the city. She might as well try to rest and sit and listen to what this polluted tree had to say.
Taking a deep breath, Lost Shard willed her aching limbs forwards, making her way through the dead and dying monsters down to the tree.
Even as she came closer Lost Shard could not tell whether the tree itself had been sickened and its current state was not its natural one or if it oozed the pollution from its very own core, if this decay and rottenness was how it had begun its life.
Either way it was most unpleasant to look at.
The monsters, the soldiers hardly smelled pleasant, but for the most part they were bearable.
As she came nearer to the tree however, it took every ounce of her self control to keep a straight face and continue forward as a wave of stench rolled over her. It was the reek of a trillion dead and dying things, the stench of filth and decay that had festered in darkness for an age, the horrible scent like that of an untended injury let to fester and to rot.
She loosened her blaster in its holster and checked her sword. She doubted her weapons would have been of any avail, but they were all she had.
"Alright," she said as she came to stand before the tree, stifling a cough and planting her fists on her hips "Just what is going in her?"

[TheSongOfTheStars]

Journey to the Trinity Tree Summer Event Prompt Day 6
1026 words
Story A
Bryva Hayes came away feel like she had learned nothing and wasted most of the day. She had not learned of Lost Shard's whereabouts, she had not learned why she and the others were really there, and she had not had breakfast.
Now they wanted her to garden.
Well alright, she could try, she supposed. She had a row of potatoes and radishes in her backyard and a box of azealias outside her windows and she usually managed to at least keep them green and remember to water them. But she was certainly no earth element, she could not hear the roots singing as they grew, nor coax fruit from the stubborn bare branches at a whim.
Shaking her head she trudged back into the city and set about trying to find one of the gardens in order to tend to it.
She found one quickly enough in the low outskirts of the city. A small one story, two room building that did not look like it had been inhabited for a decade with a rickety gate that had once had been painted white but now most of the color had peeled away, leaving the gray dead wood behind.
Carefully Bryva unlatched the rusty hook and pushed the gate inwards. It obliged, but let out a ponderous creak as it did so.
Bryva stepped into the garden, the earth full of stones beneath her feet and the old baked mud walls that surrounded her sagged beneath the pulling tendrils of long dead creeper vines.
In fact, most of the garden was dead.
There was a rotting trunk of an old plum tree in the corner, the whole place was absolutely tangled with dead vines.
Tall dried yellow grass itched and poked at her legs, dead faded blooms scattered the ground around her.
It was going to be quite the chore to just find the sprouts, much less care for them.
Bryva was tempted to simply torch the entire mess, burn out all the debris and start fresh from the ash.
But she did not want to risk burning the very sprouts she was supposed to care for and instead was forced to take the old fashioned route.
Starting from the very spot she stood in Bryva began to uproot the dead grass, tearing them from their place in the dried ground and carrying out armfuls of the stuff out to the front of the other side of the fall.
She found her first sign of life twenty minutes in, a frail green shoot midst the wild dead tangle. It looked nothing at all like it could possibly ever grow into something as great as the tree. Smaller than the smallest clover and infinitely more frail, Bryva carefully cleared away a patch until the living plant looked like it could breathe again.
Then she began her systematic clearing away again.
It was not a large garden, thank goodness, or Bryva's task would have taken all day. Even so it took several hours to clear away the weeds and dead grass and the crawling vines. In the end she had found several sprouts, each incredibly small and fragile, which left Bryva wondering how them had managed to grow at all.
She did not even attempt to move the dead plum tree, but she had other ways of dealing with that.
Raising her hands and directing her focus, Bryva lit flames at the ends of the ragged bare branches that swiftly reduced the tree into ash. Then, when the flames had eaten their way down to the ground Bryva extinguished them.
She still needed to burn the pile in front of the gate, but she was tired and worried that the sprouts might not have had water in a great deal of time.
So, with the old worn bucket she had reclaimed from the vines, Bryva set out to search for water.
The gardening had been a nice distraction, she had to admit. After the stress of travel, battle, and the siren call, the mundane was nice. Her hands were blistering but she had not thought of Lost Shard for nearly the whole time.
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Story B
It does not make sense, is the first thing Lost Shard thinks. How could anything, anything at all, live forever? How could any entity great or small defy death indefinitely?
This tree certainly seems to believe itself and the words it says, but Lost Shard cannot help but wonder if it is merely an adept charlatan grasping for a power it does not deserve. It appeared to fumble and portray itself as inept in order to convince the soldiers that this was not what it desired but that its actions were driven by real, true need.
Balance, Lost Shard understood, the desire for immortality as well. No one really wanted to die, but no one wanted to live in an overcrowded world either.
What it had Lost Shard struggling was that she was not sure what the truth was. If this really was a battle between balance and unnatural eternity trapped on an endless mortal coil, then she knew what side she would have to chose. But if this was a lie, and she was half sure that it was because of how simply fantastical it sounded and how warped the logic seemed, then the wrong choice could have devastating consequences. Lost Shard had no desire to see a hungry army of decay set loose on all the realms and she had no desire to shoulder the burden of guilt for it happening.
She needed to know more, more about what was happening, who and what these trees were, where they and their came from, and most of all solid information about their motives and how their feud had began.
But it did not seem like that information was forthcoming, if this tree of decay was telling the truth then the tree of eternity would most likely lie, but then if the eternal tree was truthful then this one was lying.
Feeling as though she had backed herself into a corner of broken logic, Lost Shard found all she could do was shake her head.