DCC DotSK: Act 1-3

Tyravasiel-Llir does not see the arrows coming, does not hear them singing through the air, sent by thrumming shortbows.

He barely feels the first one pierce through his shoulder before the second takes him high on the chest, just below his throat. A third flies past, but it is not needed: Ty is finished, and sinking to his knees as his blood runs.

At first he is bewildered.

Why has his breath seized in his lungs? Why this tremor, then sudden lassitude in his limbs, as if he had slept too long upon them and lost all feeling? As the mithril javelin and the wolf-spear of the Ulfheonar tumble from his grasp, Ty scrabbles feebly for them with fingers that no longer obey his will. Then his legs go out from under him, and the elf topples sideways into the brush and leaf litter.

And then there is pain. Terrible, pulsing pain-- but also briefer than Tyravasiel-Llir would have thought. Already his eyes have filled with tears, and made of the arrow-shaft in his chest a strange, impressionistic watercolor. Already his pulse is slowing, and his life's blood pools around him with a welcome warmth.

If he could make his throat work, the elf might laugh to think it will all end here. Here in this haggard forest, miles from even the squalid civilization of Hirot. At least, he thinks, at least he's cheated the women who have hemmed about the last chapters of his long life with their imperious and conflicting wills: the Three Sisters who drove him onward and the Lady of Flowers who gave him chase. They will not even find his bones.

Good. To hell with the lot of them.

Tyravasiel's breathing grows shallow and faint. His eyes-- wilder and greener than the woods around him will ever be-- dim.

EPILOGUE

---

THE TOMB OF THE ULFHEONAR

Twilight comes to the now silent tomb, and it is not long before night mantles the mound and its surrounds. The waters flow and the guardian lies dormant again, unaware that the treasures it was summoned and bound to protect have now been plundered.

And near the slow-moving stream that passes by the broken flank of the mound there lies not a body, but a growth of wildflowers in the shape of one. Silvery moonlight, the kind that a certain priest would have sworn at, illuminates that faerie garden, those tiny cowslips and foxgloves, bluebells and impatiens.

Whether the fae hounds and hunters sent by the Mistress of the Ninth Blossom finally found their quarry, or whether they search still... only The Three Fates know.

And in the heart of the tomb, beneath all that earth and stone? A sound. Then another. A scrabbling, a scratching, a hiss of breath... or perhaps of death.

---

THE VILLAGE OF HIROT

Hearts pound as the church bell rings, signaling everyone to batten shutters and lock doors, to hide children and secure weapons. The Hound comes, its awful baying sure sign of that. No heroes returned from the tomb to stand strong against the beast, but a relic has been found, the famed wolf-spear that the Haverson's inn is named for! A weapon that offers the doomed village a glimmer, if no more than that, of hope.

In the dark woods, the demon hound approaches, eyes blazing. Its desire to rend manflesh is feverish, for by now it had expected to have already bloodied its terrible muzzle. A man alone, crashing desperately in the woods is easy prey for the thing. Easy prey unless that man carries a certain lion-headed, gleaming shield of bronze. Proof against the fiery boil of chaos and entropy, that shield dissuaded the Hound, caused it to shrink back... and to turn for Hirot.

Hirot... where a bloody night awaits.

Fin!

Aldric's Epilogue...

Aldric died unceremoniously. He didn't even have time to realize what had happened. One moment, Dufgal was climbing up the shaft, reaching for that fucking spear. And then, the ceiling groaned. Anora the Blue shouted something brave and pointless before trying to shove him clear, but the stones came fast, faster than any spell or scream, and Aldric caught a slab of ancient stone to the temple.

Darkness took him before the water did, but it was the water that finished him, rushing in through the cracked walls like the wrath of the sea itself. How poetic. When his lungs finally failed him, he wasn't even awake to appreciate the irony. A cleric of the Bitch Queen, drowned in a tomb. Far from the coast. Far from her domain.

Or so he thought.

He awoke in the sea. Not the cool surf of a sunlit shore, no. This was the cold, crushing dark of the Pelagial Deep, where light failed and the pressure crushed all hopes.

His soul bobbed in a current that tasted of fish piss and salt, descending past the bones of leviathans and the whispering wrecks of sunken empires. Time frayed. He remembered Hirot and his liar's promise to build Pelagia a temple atop the tallest mountain. A sham, of course, meant to give him an excuse to run from the ocean and its horrifying Goddess.

But one does not run from Pelagia.

Aldric expected the Bitch Queen herself to appear any second, and he was utterly terrified. He had met her once before, when she saved him from drowning in exchange for his vows of servitude. But when he finally hit the sea floor, it wasn’t a deity that greeted him.

It was a fish.

A bloated angler fish, the size of a wagon, dangling its horrid lantern in the gloom. Rows of twisted-knife teeth grinned in unison. And when it spoke, it spoke through every bubble, every echo, every groan of the deep.

"So," it said, with a slosh of contempt, "the potato farmer returns. Aldric, Waveborn, Witness of Pelagia."

Aldric, in death as in life, wanted very much to piss himself. But of course, his soul had no bladder.

"I ... I sought to build Her temple! Truly! But everything conspired against me ..."

"Oh, please." The angler fish swirled lazily, its glowing lure painting the bones beneath Aldric’s translucent skin. "She knew you’d fail. We counted on it."

"... What?"

"You stink of cowardice. You always did. Even when you submitted to the Bitch Queen and swore your vows, you were thinking about dry land. Dirt. Mountains. Safety."

"I ..."

"Silence."

And he was. The sea itself seemed to press on his tongue. The angler fish swam a slow circle around him, like a hangman appraising necks.

"She chose you for your fear, not your faith. Fear makes fools talk. And talk you did. ‘Pelagia this,’ ‘Pelagia that.’ Some of them listened. One of them actually heard."

"Catkins..." Aldric whispered, and the name stung like brine.

"Yes. The girl who bit off your finger. She wears it now, you know. She dug it out of the mud and strung it on a necklace. A relic of 'Saint Aldric,' her talisman that gives her the right to lead that rabble."

"But, she’s mad!"

"She’s zealous. And unlike you, she does not run from the sea. First she will take Hirot, then she will raise the mountain temple. She will sing the Hymn of the Black Tides into the sky when the World Flood comes. And when the wind screams, it will scream Her name."

Aldric stared. All his struggle, all his pain, all his schemes to escape Pelagia's briny grip ... and he was never anything but bait.

"So," he muttered, voice thick with silt, "I was never meant to succeed."

The fish gave what might have been a shrug, or perhaps just a ripple of apathy. "No, you succeeded at your task. You were just never meant to matter."

The angler fish loomed, its lantern flaring with a sickly inner light as it began to circle him again, slow and deliberate. The grin did not widen. It didn’t need to.

"You speak of failure," it said, voice thick with rot and current. "But there is no failure here. Only purpose. And yours has not yet ended."

Aldric floated, silent, trembling. His form had already begun to thin at the edges—like smoke in water, or meat in acid.

"For one such as you," the fish continued, "there can be no rest. Not redemption. Not damnation. You are not grand enough for either."

A long pause.

"You are sediment."

Its body swelled with strange light, and when it spoke again, the words struck deeper, like barnacles rooting in bone.

"By decree of She-Who-Drowns-the-World, you are hereby sentenced to the Brine Vats of Contrition."

The water went still. Even the currents recoiled.

"You will steep," said the fish, "until your cowardice dissolves. Until your words run clear. Until your soul no longer clouds the water."

"Please ..." the cleric said, meekly, though he knew it was of no use.

"The Vats are patient," the fish hissed, turning away. "They have swallowed kings. You will be no burden."

"But what are ... ?"

He didn’t finish the question. Something immense stirred below. A distant, wet gulp. Then the sea around him began to thicken, foul, warm, and clinging. He lost shape. His thoughts began to slosh.

He screamed as he sank.

The angler fish did not follow. It only watched. Smiling.

"And remember," it called after him, "you earned this."

---

It turned out The Brine Vats of Contrition were not a place. They were a state.

Aldric floated in something thicker than water, thinner than blood. The liquid churned with warmth and stung with ammonia. Prayers filtered through it like sediment. Regrets, secrets, oaths broken before they were spoken, it all seeped into him. Through him.

At times, he was a body. Other times, just pulp. His memory was fading; he could no longer recall the name of his friends, only that he had failed them.

He did not scream. There was no point. The Vats drank every sound. Every sin.

And then, one cycle, Aldric felt something. A tug, where his missing finger was. It was like a fishhook pulling on the root of his soul. And he knew. He knew.

The fish had said she was wearing it, his missing finger. The one she bit off in a fit of madness when they had first met. The one she strung on a leather cord and dangled near her heart.

That fucking little psychopath, Catkins. Such potential...

He couldn’t hear her words, only the pulse of her fervour, the heat of her madness. But it was enough. There was a connection.

Aldric stirred. His eyes rolled open like tide-bleached stones. His form, half dissolved, began to coalesce. A shape. A direction. A thought. A scheme!

The Brine Vats gurgled around him. The fluid pulsed, waiting, endless. But Aldric no longer floated passively. He began to listen.

And then, he began to whisper.

Dufgal’s Epilogue
Dufgal never looked back. One moment he was there beside Ty, the elf who tolerated him, and the next he was a rustle in the underbrush, vanishing into the whispering woods with not so much as a farewell. Adventuring had grown heavy on his bones and heavier still on his conscience. He chose instead a softer path—though few would call it gentle.
~~~~~~
Back in the Shield & Sheath tavern known for thick ale and thin morals, Dufgal found her: Maresa, the short, freckled barmaid with a laugh like windchimes and a knee to the nuts like a mule’s kick. He waited for her to come out the backdoor with a heaving sack of trash. With half-truths and the promise of freedom, he wooed her into a midnight escape, stealing her away with nothing but her clothes, a half-sour wheel of cheese, and her trust in the dream of soil and silence.

They settled at the edge of nowhere, where the land slouched and even weeds grew with regret. There, Dufgal dug. He tilled, he seeded, and—most importantly—he fertilized, drawing upon his rich and storied background in gongfarming to turn sour earth into gold. He grew carrots as long as a man’s arm, beets redder than blood, and turnips so crisp they could wake the dead.

On a small rise overlooking his fields, Dufgal built a humble shrine of stacked water-worn stones and a mini oar that he’d carved—an homage to Aldric, the most improbable and memorable cleric to ever wield divine power with piss-soaked hands.

Each spring, Dufgal would plant a single potato atop that rise, never to be harvested. He called it the "First Root," and spoke over it with words half-remembered from Aldric’s ramblings about mania, mermaids, and miracles. Travelers who asked about the strange altar were told simply: "Aldric taught me that faith’s got nothing to do with temples. It’s what you do with what you’ve got." And in the growing season, when the wind rolled through the leaves just right, it was said the shrine smelled faintly of saltwater and mussel stew.

Word about this quirky vegetable farmer spread slowly, but spread it did. A town crept toward him, hungry and growing. Merchants came for his roots, and scholars came to question his methods. He gave no answers. Just a wink, a wave with his trowel, and once—a live demonstration of his original invented trap; The Threefold Gopher Garrote. None left unimpressed.

Dufgal never again touched steel in anger. But now and then, in the mist before dawn, he’d stand at the edge of his field, eyes scanning the treeline, as if half-expecting Ty to emerge with a question and a blade.

But the forest never answered. And Dufgal, grinning with dirt under his nails, was fine with that.