Fantasy The Legend of Kelmentina

[The Great Sage]

Act I: Voice Like a Bell​

You can’t remember exactly how you came to be here; trudging through the mud between hastily erected tents and sloppily dug latrines. Tired soldiers sit with hunched shoulders around small, sad fires upon which some cook scraps of old meat or withered vegetables on pointed sticks. Others are silent and still, their empty gazes locked upon something too far away to see. There is no joking. No conversation. The men are broken. All the camp followers, merchants, scavengers and entertainers that collect around armies like flies around a corpse have dispersed, melting into the countryside and dissolving into the nearby townships and villages as they flee for their lives. You’re the only non-combatant left in the camp. Your beautiful old lyre bumps against your back as you walk aimlessly through the pitiful scene.

The war with the Eldrin had not gone well. To even call it a war was a joke. It was one battle, and that battle had been a slaughter. The tall, long haired aliens had proven to be very dangerous enemies, and it was a shock to everyone. They didn’t even forge metal and used wooden swords in combat for heaven’s sake. This was supposed to have been an easy campaign - a way for Heortlanders like you to make their fortune and return to their families with wealth enough to sustain them for years. Instead, less than half that left would be coming home at all - most having been slain in a savage surprise attack the very night after the army had marched into the towering hardwood forest that was the Elves’ territory.

The only reason anyone was coming home at all is because the Elves hadn’t pursued beyond the borders of their forest, and although nobody wonders it aloud, it’s a question that is on everyone’s mind: Why? Why had they let you go when they easily could have ran everybody down and sacked the closer Human villages?

The atmosphere in the camp is grim. The sun barely has strength enough to cast a few rays through the thick fog and midmorning mist. You’re absent-mindedly looking for anyone you recognize… but the chaos of the disorganized retreat has broken down any semblance of order among the ranks, and everyone is filthy, caked with dirt, blood and sweat. The people trying to help the wounded and crippled lag farther and farther behind those whose only priority is escape. Discipline is absent. Last night you saw a man choke another to death over a chicken. The soldiers are starving, tired, scared and the more morally ambiguous of them have been turning to banditry, stealing food and animals from villages and farms as they run ever farther away from those cursed hardwoods.

A pained cry cuts through the still morning air. A man in a nearby tent is wailing, his tortured screams shattering the quiet stillness of it all. Nobody seems to notice, and nobody rises to offer the man in the tent any aid or succor.

---

You are in a disheveled camp on the plains of Heortland, far from any city and far from home.

There are sad soldiers sitting around a fire nearby. The don't seem to notice your presence.

There is a man wailing painfully in a tent nearby.

Exits are towards the campfire and into the tent.

 

[KellBell]

Hubris had led to Absolute Failure. As it almost always did.

Assuming those of the forest would be easy to defeat simply because they were uneducated savages, had been the greatest of follies. Klementina’s cheeks burned with shame for her people. One battle had decimated the best of Heortland’s mighty soldiers, who now ran like wounded pathetic broken animals. Shameful. The young woman pulled her canvas cloak tighter against the penetrating mist. She had come to the front to sing of victories, heroics, and make an entire epic out of the successful campaign. No one wished to hear of the worst defeat in all of living memory. Stubbornness compelled her to stay when all the other entertainers had run off. She had to salvage something out of this mess. This couldn’t be the end, not like this…

Klementina stuck to the shadows as she moved through the camp. The discipline of the soldiers had been decaying rapidly, there was no telling what a desperate man might do after all. Especially if there was nothing left for him to lose.

The young minstrel tilted her head as she caught a particularly piercing cry emanating from a nearby tent. She also spotted a fire just ahead occupied by several men perched on log seats encircling the inviting flame. As Klem took a few careful steps toward the fire, another wailing cry scraped at her nerves. Clearly there would be no peace until someone took care of the screaming.

Klementina softly approached the tent flap, keeping her ears open for any sort of danger. She hovered a hand over the small blade sheathed at her back. Damn curiosity she cursed silently.

The young woman slipped quickly into the tent and waited for her eyes to adjust to the new environment...

 

[The Great Sage]

The tent is small and crude, barely more than a few large furs draped over a makeshift frame. There is enough room for you to crouch beside the injured man, but only just, and as you do so the sickly metallic smell of fresh blood and infection assaults your nostrils. The man, who can't be much older than you, is laying on his side facing away from you, curled up in a fetal position atop a tanned stag skin, moaning deeply, oblivious to your entrance.

Your eyes take a minute to adjust to the small amount of light that is able to sneak into the tent and once they do you are able to get a better look at the man. He's not wearing anything besides a ragged pair of stained cutoff trousers. You notice right away the well defined bundles of muscle that cover his athletic back and arms - the kind of muscles that suggest he's not often missed a proper meal... his fine blonde hair....

A numb feeling washes over you.

 

[KellBell]

Klem dropped to a crouch to avoid striking her head on the low ceiling. She squinted in the darkness and gradually took in the sight of the man before her. Ick! The overwhelming scent of blood and worse things permeated the small space to such a point that Klem reflexively pinched her nose closed. She had taken for granted the clean air of her home, yet she never would again after the torture her senses had been subjected to on the road and at the war camp.

Klementina froze. No...it couldn’t be. Not him. She fell to her knees, her eyes fixated solely on the man. She had to know if it was. A shaking hand reached out to rest on the naked shoulder of the fallen man. As if bitten, the hand recoiled upon contact of the feverishly hot skin, yet it returned to pull forcefully on the shoulder. The man’s upper torso and face turned just enough for her nightmare to come true. A strangled cry of horror barely escaped her frozen lungs.

“Kelso!” She finally managed to shout aloud. Gently she grabbed the man’s face and scrutinized it for any hint of consciousness. Klementina couldn’t bear to look upon where a large mass of cloth was pressed up against his abdomen, she couldn’t allow herself to wonder why the floor beneath her knees felt slippery. She couldn’t. Instead she solely focused on his face.

Sapphire sky eyes snapped open, unfocused and filled with pain. Through gritted teeth the man gasped sharply and groaned.

Klementina pressed in closer. “Can you hear me? It’s me. I’m here. I’m sorry.”

An agonizing moment passed before the man’s eyes fixated on her. “Klem?”

“It’s me.”

“Wha-...Why are you here?”

Klementina held back tears. “I couldn’t let us part like that, not in anger. I love you.”

A shudder passed through the young man, an involuntary groan escaping his lips. “I regret that too. I would never have really told Father, you know that right? Never. ”

“Shh, I know you wouldn’t.” She reassured stroking his far too warm cheek. “From womb to tomb, we’ll always be together.” A sad smile following the utterance of their familiar saying.

“You should have it.” Kelso wheezed.

Salted liquid beads tumbled freely down the young woman’s face. She reached over and held his clammy hand between her own two. “I will.” She whispered into his ear.

Kelso’s breathing grew suddenly more shallow and labored, prompting Klementina to lean towards the tent opening and yell as loud as she could.

“HELP! Healer! HELP!”

Klementina was determined to stay at Kelso’s side, unable to bear the thought of leaving him, even to possibly find help.

 

[The Great Sage]

You turn towards the flap of the tent only to face a deep void, as if all of reality were suddenly consumed by a dark and implacable ink. There is no fire beyond the threshold of the tent. There are no sad soldiers. No fog and no mist. Terror clenching at your heart, you turn back toward your brother and what you see is not the handsome face and sky blue eyes you've always known, but a bloated and flybitten corpse with eyes the pallid, snowy colour of death, his mouth drawn back in a hideous snarl and teeth stained with blood.

You are startled and take an involuntary step backward. The ground that should be there betrays you and you slip through and fall. You fall through the unknowable distance between dreams and nightmares and with a gasp bolt straight upright in your bed, a terrible cold sweat covering your body and a clenching in your chest that feels like you just spent an hour crying.

It's early, and it's still very dark in your room. The first hints of dawn are kissing the horizon outside and the thick velvet drapes that cover your windows have little trouble keeping it all out. It's not cold in your room, the ashes and embers of last night's fire still radiate a comfortable heat from their home in the ornate fireplace opposite your bed. Your legs are covered by layers of soft downy blankets and your mattress is a large feather comforter that folds around your body like a frim dough. It takes you a few moments to realize you're not in the war... you're home. You're at Humblecreek and you're safe.



Humblecreek manor is named for a small spring-fed freshwater brook that winds its way through the property. Because of the underground spring, the brook never runs dry - even during the hottest days of summer, but the stream never gets much wider than a few feet at any point during its course down into a small fertile valley nearby which is farmed and used as pasture land by a village of about one hundred peasant farmers. Your father, Lord Anton Muzyka, the second baron of Humblecreek has served as lord and regent of the area for all of your life, and although the estate is not nearly as wealthy as the more in-land baronies, you've always lived in relative comfort... that is... until....

Best banish those thoughts for now.

You take a deep breath to steady yourself and consider what to do.

---

It is early morning.

You are in your room which is dominated by your bed and a large vanity dresser. Your personal effects are all here. There is a rope near your bed that will summon a servant. Your large bedroom window is covered by a drape and it's so dark that you can't see well.

You must prepare for the day.

The only exit is out your bedroom door and into the east wing upstairs hallway, but you can't leave before you get dressed. There may be other ways to prepare yourself that will benefit you later.