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The world is dying and there is no fixing it.
At least I had a donkey. I called it Not Bad. Not Bad carried most of my belongings - a bear trap and a pair of monkeys. Sometimes the duo tried to play with the bear trap and I clucked at them. They seemed to ignore me but stopped playing with it. The sword I kept in my hands.The scale mail bit into my flesh but I ignored it because I knew what the world had waiting for me would bite far worse. I was not particularly Agile +0. The world did not take particular notice of my Presence +0. Is this why the monkeys ignored me, I wondered. No, the world didn’t care that much about my gifts and shortcomings. The monkeys ignored me because they were too smart to show their love in this shattered hellscape. I should have learned this skill from them.
I was strong and tough, Strength +2, Toughness +1.
I named the monkeys, Strong and Tough. I proclaimed their names to an uncaring sky. They ignored me as did the sky. Not Bad brayed in appreciation or frustration. Who could say?
My Hit Points were +2, rolled of a four-sided polyhedron added to my Toughness because I walked the path of the Esoteric Hermit - my cave here on the blacksand beaches, near a monolith only about as tall as an adult.
I wondered for a moment who would take care of Strong and Tough and Not Bad when I was gone. Maybe they will be lucky and perish before me. Will I care when they die, if I should outlast them?
“Call me Vrakh,” I told Strong, Tough and Not Bad. Pointed my sword at them to gain their attention. Strong looked at the sword but Tough ignored me and growled at Strong for not holding to their uncaring demeanor.
“Vrakh is the grief one feels for a world they have never known,” I explained to them. Not Bad farted loudly as the donkey shat.
Crude but appropriate, I decided silently.
Clouds rolled in and before long we were all in a deafening storm that attacked from the grey ocean without a name. Strong and Tough screamed at the cold rain and hail but I could barely hear them. Not Bad brayed loudly at the lightning and would run away if the wind wasn’t pummeling us.
The black sand under our feet made travelling exhausting but I pushed them towards home, sometimes with my will, sometimes with my shoulder along the nameless, colorless ocean’s shoreline.
As the storm abated, seagulls returned to the shore, carrying crabs up into the sky, dropping them so that their shells splintered against the rocks, leaving only shell bits and tasty crab meat below.
Strong and Tough scampered amongst the rocks and screamed at the gulls, picking up broken crabs with both hands and stuffing themselves. I scanned the gulls to see if there were any corvids but there were none. I left my sling tucked into the left armpit of my armor, grateful that the gulls only sounded like they were laughing at me. Corvids, I know, would have been showing actual glee at my despair.
We made it back to my cave. Strong and Tough jumped off Not Bad and moved briskly by foot and knuckle. Not Bad, always the optimist, looked for pirate grass amongst the rocks. When I got to the cave there was masticated crab waiting for me at the entrance. Strong and Tough were not paying attention to me but were grooming one another, carefully taking gnits from one another’s hair. They acted aloof but they watched me eat the crab to make sure I was taking care of myself.
Not Bad was the first to notice the ship’s sails in the distance. I sat next to the stone outside the cave, burping up crab, sipping at rainwater captured in the bowl-like shape atop the tall-as-an-adult-monolith.
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A lone sailor rowed a boat from the ship. I tried to adopt the aloof natures of Strong and Tough but I could not. My curiosity and hunger for some kind of human contact were too strong.
The sailor dragged the boat ashore and approached my cave - our cave. Strong and Tough stopped their grooming and squatted on either side of me. As if it wanted to somehow be a part of this intimidating display, Not Bad pissed a stream behind us, sniffing at the monolith.
“People speak of a being who minds the monolith here on the black beach, guarded by a pair of primates. They say you Speak Truths,” he said (I made lazy assumptions).
“I am a humble survivor of the Valley of the Unfortunate Undead who has walked here, to the end of the world, to wait for the End of the World. These other beings do as they must. I do not speak for them,” I said, offering no name and asking none.
I sat on the sand with my sword across my lap. Strong and Tough showed the stranger their teeth. Had the stranger winced when I mentioned the valley I lived in as a child or had I imagined it?
“I have a map to cursed treasure. I could use a Speaker of Truths,” he said.
I shrugged and said, “Tell me more, stranger.”
He unrolled a map. “This is the Hell Fort, where a Misery was unleashed, pushing the world a step closer to the End,” he said.
“Which Misery was born here,” I said, sitting forward, not noticing Strong and Tough’s disappointment at how easily I was pulled in by superstition scrawled on a piece of goatskin.
“Psalm One, Verse Four: ‘And the depths of the underworld shall bring forth flying spectres and crawling beasts. In their passing the worm grows fat, the vulture weary,’” he recited.cou
My hands sought some form of warding but there was none to be had, so they just shook. I gripped the sword’s hilt and closed my eyes and said the prayer for my childhood, “May the 7th Misery come quickly to our valley’s dead, its living and the world beyond it.”
I didn’t notice the man wince but Strong and Tough did. Not Bad had found some grass hidden behind a rock and took no notice of us.
“Is that donkey carrying a bear trap on its back?” he asked.
“What does the world call you? Or do you think your name can save you?” I asked, ignoring the question.
“I am called Squire Belum and I am not a fool enough to think that my name nor my title will offer me any shield or succor,” Squire Belum said.
“I am called Vrakh,” I said. “I will go with you, if for no other reason than to see the site of a Misery’s birth. I make no promises of what Truths I can offer.”
“That is fair enough,” Belum said.
We got back on to the boat and Not Bad followed me as if I carried a bag of ripe apples, awkwardly but stalwartly stepping over benches to a flat area made for carrying steeds to shore. Strong and Tough went back to grooming. I watched them pick gnits off one another’s fur as Belum pushed us out into the nameless ocean and smiled, thinking, they will have a good death here next to this petite monolith. At least they will have each other.
The first time Belum failed to get us over the first breaker, Strong and Tough appeared on the beach, as if to see us off. The second time Belum failed, they came to the water, letting the cold ocean water lap at their toes and knuckles and asses. The third time they got into the boat, clinging to the prow like gargoyle prowspirits. The fourth time Belum attempted to push us past the breakers, Strong and Tough screamed at him, flailing around the boat as if they were making some kind of partnered dominance display.
That fourth time, as if the monkeys’ screaming had inspired him, Belum got us over that breaker, jumped into the boat and grabbed the oars. I watched him carefully as he pulled on those ours and got us over the second wave that threatened to dump us all into the cold ocean, possibly against sharp rocks, probably drowning us all.
I watched him with shrewd eyes as Strong and Tough calmed down and got atop Not Bad who was standing awkwardly and nervously in the middle of the boat. Their presences seemed to calm the donkey down. Strong flicked at a piece of metal on the unarmed bear trap, a clear ploy to aggravate me. I didn’t notice.
I was wondering why Belum had never asked me for help, had never even considered it.
Strong looked at Tough and they both looked at me. I was staring at Belum with keen interest. They rolled their eyes. Tough picked up the bear trap and gestured as if they were going to toss it into the ocean. I didn’t even notice.
Tough put it back on Not Bad gently and they both looked to the ship Belum’s oarstrokes were pulling us towards. They showed the dark ship their teeth and shivered in the cold ocean air.