A Song for Winter: Eventide Ring

    There was something different about this portal. As vertigo set in from transit through the portal, the normal translucent and opaque white color of the portal changed to a dark and purple color. Feelings of suffering and fear beset William’s mind as the transit became turbulent, the folf was slammed off of invisible walls in the in-between place. His stitches popped, allowing blood to flow freely into the void. Suddenly everything shifted back to normal as William was unceremoniously dumped from the portal. The dirt felt cold under William as he crawled from the portal, bleeding from his reopened wound on his side before losing consciousness.

 

    The burning pain engulfed William as it felt like his wounds were being incinerated by a smelting forge. Different color lights flashed around William as he faded in and out of consciousness. Eventually, the pain subsided, and he was allowed to sleep in peace. After several days William awoke, feeling oddly rested and to find his wounds cauterized and the burns and blisters (that normally arose from that treatment) already healed. A doctor had come in as William redressed himself and explained that they had used some sort of laser technology to seal and heal his wounds. None of this talk of lasers made sense to William, but what did make sense was that he owed this doctor quite a bit of money for his services. Vowing to pay his bill once he had the money, William had left to find a way to pay his debt.

 

    Once outside, William found himself on a planet unlike any other that he had been on before. Unlike normal planets, this one had been through some sort of catastrophe in the past that had caused it to stop spinning on its axis. This caused one half of the planet to be cloaked in a blanket of eternal darkness, dotted in overgrown crumbling ruins, while the other half of the planet burned under the light of endless daylight. In a longitudinal band around the center of the planet, a constant twilight, in which most of the world’s remaining inhabitants lived. William presently found himself in this twilight space.

 

    After hearing rumors about lost technology and treasures in the ruins on the dark side of the planet, William set off to see if he could find something sellable. Torch in hand, William ventured deep into the endless darkness, hoping to find a ruin that hadn’t been explored yet. After three days, he found himself standing in front of an old decrepit metal building. Vines covered what at one time were shiny metal walls covered in strange symbols. Having found a metal door, William tried to force it open, but the door stuck fast. He considered trying brute force cutting through the door before a better idea came to him. Noticing a slight seam alongside the door, William stuck his witch knife in it while whistling a few notes repeatedly. Slowly the air being forced into the seam began to force the door open. Still holding onto his talisman dagger and whistling, William managed to get a grip on the now partially open door. With one last hard note and a burst of strength, the door forced open off of its tracks.

 

    At first, the inside of the metal ruins was as dark as the world outside, but after a few steps inside, lights slowly began to fill the building. The lights revealed metal hallways with broken glass windows that revealed rooms full of broken glass vials, old illegible papers, various bits of useless metal and plastic, and a distinct chemical smell. As he ventured through the now fully lit halls, William eventually found himself in front of a thick metal door with a rectangle of twelve square buttons, each with a different unrecognizable symbol on them. William tried to use the handle on the door to pull it open but was hit by a jolt of lightning from the door. Swearing, William pulled his hand back to reevaluate the situation. The door was incredibly too thick to try to pull it off its frame as he did to the door coming into the building. William assumed the rectangle with the buttons was the answer, but if touching the door shocked him, he was afraid of what would happen if he hit the wrong buttons.

 

    Over the next few days, William searched the ruins from end to end for any clue as to how to bypass the thick metal door. As he searched through a particularly cluttered room which was probably an old records room, William heard the first howl. That howl was answered by a chorus of similar howls that echoed off the metal halls. Leaving the room to investigate, William found that the temperature in the ruins seemed to be rising around him as the howls came closer. Rounding a corner the folf came face to face with one of the howling creatures. A brightly glowing red and gold hound-like creature stalked down the hall towards William. He recognized them as the creatures that inhabited the world, referred to as sundogs, which meant if there was one that far into the dark side of the planet, it was probably starving and had its pack with it. Brilliant gouts of flames erupted from the sundog’s mouth, and William leaped back around the corner for cover. The flames melted through the walls like they were made of paper. Seeing the walls disintegrate from the hound’s flames gave William an idea. 

 

    William waited for the sundog to round the corner before slicing it with one of his golden-handled griffin daggers. The wound was minor, but enough to make the hound cry out in anger and pain. With his quarry momentarily stunned, William seized the moment and took off down the halls. Howls started sounding around him as all of the sundogs wandering the ruins started chasing him along with the one he had wounded. William only stopped momentarily to dodge flame blasts. William lured the sundog pack to the locked heavy metal door. Once there he turned to find ten sundogs converging on him. Thinking quickly on his feet, William grabbed his witch knife and took a deep breath, concentrating on a series of notes as all the oxygen surrounding his immediate area was forced up against the thick metal door. The heat was intense as all of the sundogs unleashed a torrent of flames at William who felt none of the fiery embrace from the blaze. With all the oxygen purged from around him, the inferno couldn’t touch him but instead melted a hole through the heavy metal door just as he had planned. 

 

    Once the flames stopped flowing from the sundogs, William barely had a moment to release his held breath and catch a quick gulp of air before the hounds pounced. Two of the beasts fell quickly when daggers went flying through their skulls. One of the sundogs managed to get his teeth around William’s arm and was met with a sword through its midsection. With the remaining seven sundogs circling closer, William gave a series of short sharp whistles that caused the daggers in the dead hound’s skulls to fly out and impale two other beasts. Dropping low under one of the sundog’s pounces, William skewered it with his sword before turning to stab another in the eye with his witch knife. Before he could react, one of the beasts bit into his left ankle. With a growl, William brought his right foot down, repeatedly stomping the sundog’s skull till all that was left was a bloody pulp of brains and pieces of bone. Deciding that he was done with this fight William turned to the last two sundogs and whistled a series of high-pitched notes that drew all the oxygen away from the beasts. Struggling to move, the hounds struggled to escape the suffocating air-free zone, and slowly suffocated to death.

 

    Ignoring his ankle wound, William collected his daggers and climbed through the melted hole in the big metal door. Behind the door was a room about the size of one of his clan’s longhouses. Lining the walls along the room appeared to be small lockboxes built into the walls themselves. Each door of the lockboxes had plaques with symbols and letters carved into them. Most of the symbols were unrecognizable to William as he looked them over, only finding a few of which he had recognized, however not knowing what it all meant. After forcing several of the lockers open, William had found no money nor jewels, but the objects he had found looked like bits of magitech he had been told about that might fetch some money back in town. One plaque he ran across simply had the word shield on it. That was a word William recognized, so he eagerly pried the lockbox open, a smirk running across his face. Inside was a metal ring resting next to a set of various precious gemstones. Accidentally brushing one of the rubies into the ring, while reaching in, caused it to project a small rectangular-shaped light that looked as though it was solid. Switching out the gems caused the ring to project different colors and shapes of hard light. This gave William an idea as he pocketed all the gems to sell later. Carefully he fit the ring around the piece of enchanted ice that made up the pommel stone of his talisman knife. Once fitted in place, the ring emitted a round blue hard light construct that was roughly the size and shape of a proper round shield with no added weight. Now William could defend himself and still use his witch knife in combat. After fiddling with small buttons on the ring, William figured out how to turn it on and off so it could still be sheathed.

 

    The next lockbox’s plaque had another word William had recognized: Gevaudan. He wasn’t sure how he knew that word, having no memory of ever learning it in the past, but something in the back of his mind told him what it was. After prying open the lockbox, William found a peculiar little cylindrical smoked glass vial, with what appeared to be more magitech fitted to each end. Shrugging, William was about to put the object in his pack when a pained snarl interrupted him. Turning around, William found that the sundog that he had stabbed in the eye had survived, crawling through the hole in the heavy metal door towards him. In a frenzy from the pain, the beast charged at William, who dropped the weird vial as he made a dive to dodge the angry hound. As the injured sundog slammed into the wall behind him, the strange vial smashed against the floor next to it. Causing a strange buzzing mass to erupt out and cover the beast. Just then, it clicked, William knew the word Gevaudan, it was from tales of a massive beast he had once heard merchants from the south talking about. Knowing that standing around was not a good idea, William grabbed his pack and ducked out through the hole in the door, leaving the sun dog to whine as the mass continued to cover its body.

 

    As William booked it down the hall, a loud howl sounded behind him followed by the thick metal door crashing to the ground. Heat began to become stifling as William sprinted down the last hallway into the cold darkness outside of the ruins. Turning back towards the ruins while grabbing his witch knife he began to whistle a few notes but was interrupted by the now ten times larger sundog crashing through the sides of the metal building. The beast was not only large but now covered in what appeared to be bits of magitech that replaced its missing eye and armored parts of its body. As the beast surged forward, William flipped on his new hard light shield before smashing it across the sundog’s muzzle, smashing several of its teeth. With his shield occupied, William wasn’t able to block the claw of the animal that sent him flying a short distance. leaving him prone on the ground as he smashed into the ground. 

 

Howling, the mechanized sundog exhaled a wall of fire that cut through the ground with its pure power, barreling towards William. Acting quickly, William made an upward slash with his witch knife while whistling three high-pitched notes, causing the air to cut through a section of the flames. Running through the safe section of the fire, William leaped high with a crescendo of whistled notes, causing a burst of air that carried him higher up. Grabbing at the rope and grappling hook at his side, William threw it while in the air, using a series of whistles to summon air bursts to wrap it around the beast’s neck before landing on the sundog’s back. Holding tightly to the lassoed hound, William used all of his strength to avoid being shaken off. Deflecting the sundog’s tail with his hard light shield, he knew that he needed to think quickly, knowing that riding this lassoed beast was only a temporary solution. Knowing that he couldn’t fight the sun dog with his sword or ax, William had an idea to use the lasso to swing out in front of the beast’s gaping mouth. Thinking it was about to finally get its meal the sundog opened its maw wider only to have a witch knife thrown down its gullet. Swinging back around to the hound’s back, William began whistling a quick urgent set of notes while holding the rope tight. All the air in the sundog's body came rushing out with explosive force, shattering the beast’s jaws and causing its eyes to collapse. With a responding thud, the hound’s carcass fell to the ground, lifeless and bloody.

 

After several hours of cutting up the massive sundog to harvest its magitech parts and to retrieve his talisman dagger, William set out for the twilight band. Arriving several days later, William managed to sell all of the magitech pieces he found, excluding his new shield device, and after paying off his medical bills, he still netted a bit of profit. Wondering where his next portal was, William heard something he vaguely recognized coming from not far into the dark side of the planet. Moving closer, he heard it again and this time he knew immediately what it was. It was the battle cry of Clan Bloodfang, the clan that was responsible for summoning the eldritch fiend that destroyed William’s clan. Adrenaline instantly filled William's bloodstream, causing him to go into a blinding rage and dart full sprint towards the sounds of his enemies.

 

William noticed It was a small hunting party of Bloodfang warriors from a distance as he darted full sprint at them. Having caught them all off guard and unprepared, William charged them with his sword and ax drawn in each hand. Screaming out for the Allfather to watch him as he tore into them with a flurry of cuts and slashes. Like a whirlwind of blades and pain, he swept through the camp till he got to the hunt master of this party. Throwing down his weapons, William took an arrow to his shoulder but ignored the pain as he grabbed the wolf slathered in red fur paint by his throat. Struggling against William’s iron grip, the wolf tried to kick and punch as its throat was slowly crushed, but all to no avail. No plea for mercy was heard, nor was any given to the wolf.

 

“As you fall to Hel’s embrace I want you to shout my name to Asgard so that the Allfather will know of me and prepare me a seat in the halls of Valhalla,” William whispered to the wolf as its throat shattered.

 

“Jaina,” the wolf coughed out, choking on its blood as its throat and lungs collapsed in on themselves, “your daughter… lives.”