Editing Shattered Sun (section)

==Excerpt from ''Darkland Denizens: A Case Study''==
I can still remember it like it was just yesterday, and really, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forget it. 

I was...I was a new guard. The merchant convoy had stopped near Tenrec ‘an when I heard that’d be journeying to The Holy City and would get there in roughly three months, I jumped at the chance to leave that shithole behind. I woke up early, bathed for the first time in weeks, combed my hair and packed my bag with everything I needed. My ma’ had died a few years back from some STD the healers couldn’t fix, and my dad had been some young Practitioner new to the city looking for a quick and cheap fuck that I’d never met, so besides my landlord and a few people who I worked with at the factory I had no-one else to leave behind....it was an easy choice, really. I thought a change of scenery would do me good, maybe help me find a nice girl and a comfy job, finally get my due, y’know?

Well, when I showed up, they checked me for my fitness, made me do some races and the like with the other sorry bastards who’d turned up, and gave me a, em, ‘quick’ background check before I kicked everyone else’s ass sides’ two in the tests and they gave us a club and some leather armor, the offer of shit pay and promised food while we were with ‘em. I accepted, threw my bag into one of the soldier carriages, and we were gone within the week.

The first few days were sorta fun, the merchants were pleasant if a bit snotty, the other two new guys, Rob an’ Nale, were good fellas, friendly as you could hope, and the older ones kept to ‘emselves 'cept when they were teachin' us how to hit things till they died. I swear, I thought I knew how to fight beforehand, but those old bastards were tougher than goddamn steel and could have you on the ground gaspin' for air before you knew they were flippin' ye’ over. Anyway....we were makin' good speed, all things considered, and in three weeks the convoy hadn’t been bothered by a single bandit or the like (though why one would try to take on twenty carriages and the same number of armed men I’ll never now), but then a nasty storm managed ta’ fuck up a few of the carriages by tippin' ‘em over and we fell behind while fixin' ‘em. So we decided that instead of taking the long, hard route over the Ansei Mountains, we’d take the less used, short one through a valley that twisted through ‘em. That....that was when it all started to go wrong.

Y’see, as soon as we got into that fuckin' thing, we started to hear stuff. Not normal things, like birds, or even wolves...but quick things. Little sounds in otherwise silent nights, that coulda’ been leaves bein' rustled by something small or puddles being splashed by something poundin' through them. We found a lot a’ dead things too, from a few dears that looked half torn open half sawed in two, ta’ birds with their necks twisted and stomachs gone scattered all over clearings in the brush...

The sides a’ the valley didn’t help, spite a’ the ton of plants an’ ivies growin all over it, and the trees an stream winding through it, the thing was thirty metres across most of the time and had steep edges, so any noise we made echoed around for ages. Ya’ couldn’ talk at one end of the convoy without bein' heard at the other, and sometime we heard things bein said in a language no-one understood. When it started to rain again, and the river burst it’s banks after two days of it constantly, we found a cave.

By then, we were all goin' a bit crazy – I was twitchin' at every noise I heard, Nale was swearin' and constantly and was so bloody angry he’d tried fightin' with everyone in the convoy at least twice, and Rob was just cutting himself off from everyone – he refused to eat when we did, and had handed in his resignation (Really just a short talk wi’ the head merchant, a reasonable fella’ called Eustace that seemed to be the only one not simmerin' with somethin') for when this was all over. Apparently, he’d had enough and wanted out. I couldn’t blame him, and after the two days of pissin' rain, was thinkin' of doin' the same – I’d been considerin' stayin' on past the Holy City to see where else we’d go, but couldn’t stomach the thought of it anymore. So, squeezing everyone into the cave and settin' up some bedsheets and a night watch, we left the caravans out with the goods covered and me an Rob sat guard until it was time to wake up the next guards on duty so we could get some shut eye.

I leaned into a nice little cranny in the rock, jus big enough to sit in, and rob went to walk outside. I tried to stay awake, I really did!, but I was wrecked after all of the walkin' and ended up droppin' off fairly quick. I think that was what saved me, I was so quiet and my armor made me blend in with the rock, so they couldn’t see me while they could get Rob. Everyone else, gathered roun' smolderin' fires on white linen and sweatin', got their attention. I woke up to the horses actin' skittish, they were sorta movin' back an forth and lookin' in the cave, and then it started. I heard someone – Eustace, I think – scream a bit before a loud crack, and then everythin' went to Hell.

Little white things that looked like they'd once been men, hunched over on their hands and covered in pussin blisters all over their skin,<sup>1</sup> were tearin the place apart. They were growlin like animals, screamin and clawin everythin they saw, an some of em were even clawin their way up the walls somehow ta get away from any of the guards tryin to club em. Merchants were tryin ta run away, but as soon as they got near the exit more of the fuckers poured in so there was about two dozen in all, and started rippin them apart. I saw a few of them tearin arms off the fat bastards and beatin them with em until the screamin stopped, before they’d started chewin on the fuckin things like it was corn on the cob! The guards had only barely managed to grab their weapons beside their beds when they woke up and were doin a little better, they were fighters after all, but they were still hurt. Some had a few nasty bruises and bite marks, others were missin fingers and were bleedin like crazy, but the pale little things, weren’t even hurt! They were millin back and forth t confuse ‘em, pullin at legs from behind to trip em and swarmin on top of any bastard unlucky enough to fall.....Hell, I saw one get a sword through the chest and all it did was shriek louder before pullin it out and started to swing it around like it was nothing....really, even if I’d been able to get my legs to work, I’da done nothing but die, so when it was finally over and the things were busy pickin the bones, and I’d stopped cryin to meself long enough to calm down, I looked at the horses.

Only three of the older ones, still tied to carriages too heavy for them to pull alone and with frayed ropes,were left, and they’d probably be next, so now was my last chance to get away....so, I bolted. I ran as fast as I could to the things when the monsters were all at the back of the cave, tore the rope holdin one of ‘em to the carriage in half with my hand, jumped on and beat it across the arse so it’d finally run. It galloped off, and I had te’ hold on to the damn reigns while my feet fell out from under me before I could get in the saddle, and it was only a few hours later when the old thing finally keeled over after runnin from the things that followed us flat out for near two hours that I finally let go. I ran the rest of the way out of the valley, only stopping once to grab some more water and goin in my pants rather than takin a lav break, for another day. I collapsed when I was safely out of it and under the Prime<sup>2</sup> before I took a break again. I walked to the City for another week with short breaks, collapsed at the gate, and told the officials what had happened when I came to a week later in a hospital.

They sent in some of the Army and a few Alchemists before purging all the little monsters they found a month later, apparently cloud cover a month ago on the other side of the Ansei had gotten so thick with the storms that the little fuckers had managed to make it from the Darklands away from the Prime to the valley, and got into it. They found everyone’s bodies, or what was left, and gave ‘em a proper burial a week later.

That’s really all I gots to say on the matter, anything else you’ll want to know about the slaughter in Blood Valley’s only kept in records I can’t get into, ‘cause it’s about the investigation. I..I’m sorry, it’s jus’....it’s jus tha it brings back a lot a’ bad mem'ries for fer me’.....<sup>3</sup>

Ed. Notes:

<sup>1</sup>:Vampires, according to official reports, a supposedly insane outcast branch of the Soulshard Worshippers that rarely are found out of the Darklands.

<sup>2</sup>:A colloquial term for the Holy city’s Shardstream commonly used in Terec)

<sup>3</sup>:The interviewee began break down in tears at this point of the interview, and has refused to comment on the matter since, claiming to have “Finally gottin it off me chest”

The interviewee’s name, and the last names of any victims, have been kept redacted to preserve their privacy.

''Published in Year 734 PPB (Post-Phoenix Birth), in “Darkland Denizens: A Case Study, Part 3” by award winning author Neal Geimen, Pufflin Book House.''

[[Category:Homebrew Settings]]