Greetings, fellow travellers! A piece that was written as a writing prompt a couple of years ago - at the time, and even now, I don’t know where it was going. Now, perhaps we can help decide our hero’s future. What path will our hero take?
The Call of the Boneyard.
“Where’s One got that from?” hissed Olwin the Alchemist. He formed his sentences in the way of the Reps, addressing everyone in the Third Person. The Reps or Reptilians kept themselves to their selves, with only a few such as Olwin interacting with us humans. And Olwin had made a name amongst the marsh folk as the one to see for elixirs, philtres and tinctures.
“One ain’t gonna tell Olwin that, is I?” I countered, falling into the way of speech of the lizardmen straight away. The alchemist fixed me in a stare with his one unblinking eye. A leather patch covered the scarred remnants of the other, lost years ago in some brawl or scrimmage. Through the small hatch in his wall, I could see the clutter that was his workshop. Amongst the drying weeds and fauna hanging from the mud roof were suspended bits and pieces of various animals in different states of decay. Tails and furs of beavers and the big swamp rats that scampered through the thick vegetation of the region. Snake skins hanging from nails, their blue and silver scales glinting in the flames of the candles illuminating the mud hut, a galaxy of stars in the miasma of trash and clutter. Bleached white bones hanging with their dirty, uncleaned counterparts.
He held his hand up to display what he held, as if to show me what it was. I knew what it was, I was the one who had found it, after all.
He flipped the tooth back at me and I fumbled the catch, dropping it to the mud below. Slamming the hatch shut, he half hissed, half snarled from behind the shutter.
“Shop shut. Take it.”
My fingers scooped the bone out of the sludge and I hammered away at the doorway to bring him back. I needed him to take it. For Clara’s sake.
“Olwin, mark me. One regrets words. One needs it.” I hoped I sounded contrite. The hatch snapped open and Olwin blew a cloud of blue smoke my way. Damn mashweed addict, but he was good, he was the best.
“Hah. One knows where One got that from, anyway.” I sighed and handed the tooth over, placing it in his thick, scaly claw.
“Deadlord tooth. Only one place to get this. One has been on the Boneyard again.” Boneyard, Graveyard, Necropolis. Different words for the same place. A thousand acres of ground where cultists idolised the dead, and the dead . . . well, the dead wouldn’t stay dead until you turned them dead again. Spend too long in the Boneyard and death would find you. That cursed land would drain the life out of you.
I nodded. Every waking minute that I wasn’t caring for my little sister was spent in the boneyard, searching for treasure and troves to spend on the medicine. Medicine to fight the Big JuJu. It was taking stronger hold, and it wouldn’t be long before she succumbed and went into the darkness.
“One will take it. Thirty pieces of gold. No more, don’t be greedy.”
I shook my head and withdrew my own coin purse.
“No, Olwin. One misunderstands. I am not selling it - I need you to grind it, for Clara. Big JuJu and the darkness are gonna take her soon. Only a Gondu Panacea can keep her with me. She won’t survive without.” I threw my coin purse through the little hatch.
“That’s thirty crowns, the amount you would have given me for it. Please, One implores you, help me. Help my sister.” The Croc raised the bong to his maw and sucked another breath down, savouring the flavour before exhaling.
“This one will help fight the JuJu.”
I breathed a sigh of relief until the alchemist spoke again.
“But this One needs more.”
“Gold?” I questioned, my heart sinking.
“Both gold and tooth. Not enough!”
I sighed again, hefted my sword to my shoulder and trudged in the direction of the graveyard.
I prayed I would be in time.
I leave the village, passing through the wooden pallisade thrown up to protect us from whatever unholiness that creeps or slithers from the marsh. I don’t look back - already I am feeling the lure of relative safety tugg at my shoulders, even if it does condemn Clara to the darkness of the Big Juju. I fear just one look from a neighbour, one glance of home, or one of that nefarious drinking hole, The Black Dragon Inn, will convince me that my journey is sheer madness.
And so I march on, the crushed brick that formed the road within the pallisade turning to trodden dirt, scattered with worn stones and paving. Before long, even that disappears and that is left is the ruts of carts and wagons that carve their way into the marshes. A treacherous path through an even more tracherous place.
The ruts carry on, winding their way into the gloom, threading a path between the Babo trees and undergrowth. Ahead, perhaps an imperial mile into the distance, is a solitary watchtower. A handful of imperial guardsmen keep watch on the boundary between the empire and the Boneyard. This path carves it way through the edge of the Boneyard, towards the Nemnurian Mountains far beyond.
To my right, is a narrow trail that leads further into the marshes, heading towards the direct centre of the Boneyard. It looks muddy and wet, and I assume it was made by hunters or smugglers wanting to hide their passage from whoever travels what is left of the imperial roadway.
Our hero can:
A) carry on along the path past the watchtower.
B) take the hunter’s route into the marsh.
Let me know in the comments below, or even by DM, and I’ll look to add another instalment…