Helsreach

In the Azure Archipelago, there existed a legend. Dry leaves sounded like cymbals under Nina’s feet as she thought back at it, and footfalls reverberated with the pulse of drums. From the distance, the discussion between two elven rangers, about whether they should add red accents to their outfits for camouflage, carried over with something of the haunting accords of the koto. The Parade of a Hundred Demons was this legend and, as their caravan came upon more and more people with horns, with the setting sun setting ablaze the land and the sea to their right, Nina found it hard to believe that she hadn’t been spirited away, never to be seen again. Some of the fiends had slender, ridged horns like those of impala antelopes, while others carried thick ram horns, which upon closer inspection had their hair braided around them in complex designs, and yet others had dozens of tiny horns, like nails of bone protruding from their scalp. Everyone’s clothes were even more varied, seemingly stemming from about a dozen cultures. But perhaps the strangest moment was when they went past a gaggle of teens, and one explained to the others how she bravely climbed a tree for their ball, and the tree didn’t try to eat her.

The wonder with which some of them approached everyday things in this world equaled her own.

As the hunters got closer to Helsreach, Nina felt her hands shake. The fiendstuff growths, which appeared to make up a portion of the dwellings, were like nothing she’d seen before. She wanted to paint them. At most, they vaguely reminded her of the wind-carved sandstone hills of her world’s Blightlands, which the desert people had dug their comfortable homes into. Still, the traveler hadn’t forgotten her original goal. The tension of the metal strings inside her told her that she was heading in the right direction. There had simply not been enough energy in her to focus actively on finding the Clocktower piece, shield her mind from the dark nature of the fiendstuff in the meanwhile, and also keep following Elgastus. And also, there was simply so much new for her to see! As time went on, she’d grown more confident and, while still accompanying Elgastus, she would occasionally dart away a few steps in order to better take in the world.

As they approached the moat, Nina went to the edge of the bridge, and looked down.

Nobody expects tentacles in the moat. Certainly nobody expects a moat made of tentacles.

“What is that?” She asked, with a gasp. “The Kraken?”

One step, two step, the traveler staggered back after a moment. For a moment she’d felt the urge to jump, as one sometimes did when in a high place. Her eyes were fixed on the slowly-approaching tentacle, which sunk back with a disappointed fffzzzt.

For the rest of the walk across the bridge, Nina stayed at least an arm’s length away from the edge, yet couldn’t help but stare at the slithering green shapes over her shoulder, all while internally debating that nothing proved quite as much how hardcore Hellish society was as not having handrails. Once safely on the other side, she raised her palm and asked for a moment.

The fiendstuff was embers under her feet. The green-stuff was fire, so full of magic that she felt it like fire against the nape of her neck. Eyes closed, she reached behind her back for a moment just to make sure she wasn’t burning. Her mind reached out further. And the Clocktower piece, the one she could now feel as clearly as if she had a taut string tied to her breastbone, had to be somewhere close…

A good barrier? She supposed – any who might be tempted to attack would conclude that the townsfolk are absolutely insane and, therefore, leave.

When your defense system carries a higher risk of death for you than the enemy does…Was Hell architecture always this brazen?!

“Does the king live there?” Nina asked, pointing to the spire. Her voice had a tongue-in-cheek lilt. “Kings have a thing for high places, they’re like peregrines, really.”

Tolls of fire-warning bells were ringing in her mind.

“…and I told them, you might not ken why you need to use ‘nother name for me when you’ve known me as Ock all my life, but if your grandfather is called Beelzebub, you can manage Octavia, can’t you?”

“Poor thing. I hear the fiend in that house can only come out at night. Screams at the sun and curls up in a ball. Something about the ceiling being too far away.”

“Daaahrling, you just wouldn’t believe what those Elven mercenaries have been up to!”

“Lord Alsender, could you kindly talk to the neighbors about their demon? It’s been messing with the flower beds, Sir.”

“Rachel, son, is a cook worth her weight I gold- though oh! I shouldn’t be saying that..”

Elongated like thread from a spindle, Nina’s shadow shuddered and danced as it snuck through the crowd. A fan swung, swords clattered in a spar, a skirt snapped like a sail as its wearer hurried across the road and the caravan. Nina’s eyes were round, like beads, ricocheting from everything. Flame-like decorations of twisted metal glistened on the edges of houses. She thought about sneaking away, to avoid involving someone who’d been so kind to her, but the town was so alien that she’d inevitably end up in the not-Kraken pit. Even the flora was otherworldly.

“Is that…agriculture?” She asked, pointing her chin at the swirling purple fronds.

‘Poke.’ Having been pulled along by Elgastus, Nina prodded a purple tendril after a moment’s hesitation. It attached to her fingertip, and was pulled up for a moment. After assuring herself that she could get free this way, she pushed her whole hand down, trying to tickle the plant almost as fast as the tendrils could wrap around her wrist.

Nina chuckled.

“It likes me.” Her teeth glimmered. “What’s this one called?”

Its movement was lazy, like kelp underwater. Its texture was fleshy and slightly warm, though not unpleasant. It reminded her somewhat of licorice candy-sticks. She could feel no evil coming from the plant-like creature.

“Are there more kinds of this…fiend…things…” She shook her head, “…beings?”

Nina flinched.

She wrapped her fingers tighter around her plant. Agriculture meant food; she’d known that. She had hunted for subsistence, and respected other living beings even as they ended their lives to continue hers.

It was the wiggling that made it visceral, she supposed. She’d eaten oysters and other seafood raw, but their remains didn’t flail around in what her mind could only perceive as pain.

Helsreach was a land of contradictions.

She thought. She thought a lot. She looked at the Spire rising gracefully through the air. Thought back at how a Duke she knew had also ended slavery, in the limited way it had existed in his Archipelago, and how for that reason women of the red-light district treated him as if he could do no wrong. But that didn’t mean he may not have done it out of cynical concerns, such as having a group of dangerously-well-informed, sometimes highly educated people on his side, and it didn’t mean that he wasn’t a madman who would have people imprisoned and hanged if they crossed him by a hair. Her heart skittered and skipped beats. Just because Elgastus was nice, it didn’t mean other people were. It might be wise to wait and see, she thought. There was no time, however. She’d already spent too long in the Overgrowth. If Gray was perishing, then this stray piece of the Clocktower may be the only thing left.

“Elgastus. I need to visit the Spire.” Nina said.