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Fable : Fall of the Guild	By : Samson Category: +A through F > Fable Views: 8222 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
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Last Respects.
Fable : Fall of the Guild

Part IV - "Unrest Among The People"

By: Jesse Racine AKA Samson

Original Date Written: October 21, 2011

Gibbons felt like he had floated along that river for hours. He had lost track of time during the night, and simply floated along with nothing to break his view but the stars above. He had escaped the Anti-Hero League mob, narrowly. He had swam like mad under the surface of the water, despite the injury he had sustained to his shoulder. The mob had continued to fire at him for terrifying moments as he fled, but they never managed to hit him again with their weapons. Eventually, the pain in his shoulder became intolerable, and he had resigned himself to simply floating. Fortunately, he had lost the mob shortly before that point, so giving in to his injury didn't put him in mortal peril. As slugs of firearms zoomed around him in the water, Gibbons felt like he were getting chances at life. With every slug that went for him and missed, he felt like an angel had safeguarded him from harm. Still, in those perilous moments as more slugs came, he felt like someone was constantly testing him, to see if he really deserved the life he had, to see if he'd struggle and fight for it.
At first, as he swam for his very life, he had been able to ignore his shoulder despite it's cries, it's pleas for peace, and force it to do as he bid. But eventually, it grew fed up with how he ignored it, and turned up the pressure to try and force him to stop. It succeeded, and Gibbons stopped swimming. He felt too weak from the exertions of his escape to try and swim against the current, to try and reach a bank to crawl up on without being swept away, so he decided he would have to rest for just a bit to regain some of his strength. There were dangers other than the Anti-Hero League mob that he would have to overcome, however. For one, his wound had never stopped bleeding. The blood could act like a shining beacon, displaying his injured presence as loudly and clearly as a gong smashed with a sledgehammer to any and all predators that could try to make a meal of him. He was safe in the river, nothing there was big enough to try and attack him...But if he made it to the ocean, that would all change, and fast.
With blood constantly leaking from him, there was the possibility of becoming too weak to move, no matter how long he floated and waited to try and regain strength. He didn't know if he'd bleed to death from a mere shoulder wound, but he assumed that he'd have to fear that possibility, as well. In a situation such as his, one doesn't take chances by deluding themselves with hope; if there's even a small chance of something happening, small enough that at any other time it could be ignored, facing it and keeping it in his mind could mean the difference between life and death. There was the chance, for instance, that something small from the river water could get in his wound, cause infection. That infection could leave him too weak to get much farther than the river's edge, it could even kill him. Gibbons thought about giving in in the face of such threats. With so many things stacked against him, giving more chances for his life to be extinguished, he felt a bit of despair reach him, thoughts of simply letting his struggle come to an end.
But, no. He hadn't even tried. He hadn't even swam for an edge of the river, yet. Would he give in, give Anti-Hero League members the satisfaction of finding his bloated corpse float by, of laughing at his swollen and distorted face? No. Not without trying. Not without a fight, so if he found himself in the beyond being chased by Screamers, he'd at least feel comforted by the knowledge that he had done all he could. Float. He was just floating, and would continue to float for a while longer, just enough to give himself energy to swim again, to try and reach a bank without the current sweeping him away from it. The stars above were the only ones watching him, seemingly interested in whether he'd fight for life or die a pitiful death. As Gibbons rested, he slipped into unconsciousness, the light of the moon above simply vanishing as his eyelids fell.

"Waking up, dear?..." He heard a woman's voice reach him as his eyelids opened a crack. Instantly, he realized that he wasn't in the river anymore. He couldn't have been, water didn't slosh around him anymore. Now, he felt...Warm. Comfortable. Protected. Safe, even. He felt what seemed like the sheets of a bed reach up to his chest, a pillow under his head. He heard a nightly wind run against the walls of a house, Gibbons within that house and safeguarded from the elements, apparently. His eyes moved over to his apparent saviour as he asked "Where am I?..." in a groan. The woman sitting on her knees by his side reached over to his forehead comfortingly, feeling her fingers through his bangs as she cleared them from his forehead. "You're in my home, of course..." She had an ominous little smile on her face as she said "I found you washed up on the little beach just down the path from my home...When I saw the wound in your shoulder, I decided I'd have to bring you back here..."
Gibbons felt concerned by this woman. Did she drag him all the way to her home? She didn't appear strong enough to have lifted him, not even close. Did she use something like a cart to transport him? She looked like she was in her early thirties, maybe. She had dark brown hair that was tied back completely in a tight bun over the back of her head. Not a single strand of her bangs hung on her forehead, leaving it bare, nor did she even let her hair hang down by the sides of her head. It was all tied back. Gibbons felt oddly frightened by her eyes, despite the comforting touch she gave him, despite the warm tone of her voice. Her eyes seemed almost flat, lacking life. They almost had no light, like she was viewing him devoid of emotion. Her eyes were brown like her hair, but just barely. They were such a dark shade of brown that they were bordering on colour that made Gibbons think of blackness. The smile on her face didn't comfort him, it only made him feel a little nervous about her.
She was wearing a rather conservative dress, the dress reaching her ankles. The neckline was so high that it could almost be considered a turtleneck, and the sleeves even went past her wrists, nearing the tips of her fingers. The dress was completely plain, lacking any and all pattern or otherwise shred of fanciness, just plain faded blue all throughout. The woman wore no jewellery, and from his position, he couldn't see her shoes or even tell if she wore a pair within her home. Her skin was light like his, not pale, but definitely not tanned, not by any stretch of the imagination. By the pain still throbbing in his shoulder, dulled slightly from his time resting, he could tell that she had done nothing for his wound. The room he was in was dark aside from a little lantern by the woman's side, it's light only illuminating her and himself. "How long was I out for?..." He asked groggily. The woman kept her little smile on her face as she said "I don't know, I only found you an hour or so ago...You were unconscious when I found you, but I don't know how long you were asleep before that."
He tried to sit up, groaning out "Do you have any medicine?..." The woman pressed down on his forehead, laying him back down. When the back of his shoulder thumped down against the blanket beneath him, fresh pain throbbed through him. It also revealed that he was lying on the floor, not in a true bed. That made sense to Gibbons, after all, the woman was sitting on her knees beside him. If he was in a bed, how would she do that, hover in the air on her knees? "I don't have medicine..." She said lightly, almost apologetically. "What's your name?" He asked. Her smile didn't falter as she said "My name's not really important, but if you want, call me Jolene." Gibbons felt another pang of nervousness. Why had she reacted that way about her name when she was keeping him in her home? "I need to get going...I need to get something for my shoulder..." The woman stroked along his forehead, saying "No...I can't let you leave...I saved you, you owe me..."
Gibbons' blood ran cold, but he didn't show reaction on his face. She wanted to deal? Fine. He'd deal with her. He wasn't worried. He was growing curious over just how mentally stable the woman was, sure, but he was a Hero. He was nervous about her trying to keep him prisoner in her home, but that didn't mean he couldn't break out. "What do you want?" He calmly asked. The woman's smile grew a little bigger, then. She must have been pleased with how he had immediately turned to appeasement instead of struggling. "All you have to do...Is lie there with your eyes closed. That's it. Do that for long enough...And you'll be free." Gibbons' mind began to race. "What the hell?..." He thought. "I don't mean to offend, but...That sounds strange. To be honest, it sounds odd. Why do I have to just lie here? More importantly, why do I have to do it with my eyes closed?" The woman's smile disappeared from her eyes. That's when Gibbons realized, with a start, that his clothes were gone, along with his dirks. He was defenceless.
The woman took her hand from his forehead. "I could've kicked you back into that river and let you drown. Instead, I took you to my home for a place to rest. I have just one request in exchange, and you call it "strange"? Do you make a habit of being disrespectful to people who save your life?" Gibbons raised an eyebrow at her, beginning to sit up. The woman's eyes remained lifeless as she said "Lie back down. You can't leave, the weather's too bad, you'd never make your way through it at this time of night." Gibbons still had an eyebrow raised as he reached for the woman's lantern, saying "Then I'm sure you wouldn't mind parting with your lantern for me, so I can have some light on the way back to Bowerstone." Her hand whipped over, and she slapped his hand away from the lantern, accidentally hitting the brass handle of it with the back of her hand. The lantern fell over, the woman urgently saying "Don't touch that! I need it to see at night!"
Gibbons' eyes caught something. As the lantern tipped over, the flame from it's candle began to flicker into nothingness. Before it did, Gibbons saw something illuminated behind the woman that made his blood ran cold, shock clearly on his face. Lying on the other side of the room was another woman, lying on a little makeshift bed like he was. Her head was turned towards him, her eyes wide open, her mouth gaping as if she were silently screaming. Her skin was ghostly pale, and a trickle of dried blood was evident down the left corner of her mouth, encrusted on her cheek. Because of Jolene's position, Gibbons couldn't see anything more than the woman's shoulders. Beyond that, her body was hidden from view behind Jolene. Because the woman's shoulders were bare, Gibbons assumed that she, too, had been stripped of everything by Jolene. Thinking fast before Jolene noticed him looking past her with his shocked expression, he made his expression useful.
He looked back to the lantern with his shocked face, urgently saying "Pick it up before it catches something on fire!!" The woman grabbed her lantern, picking it up before the fire died, the light within the lantern slowly resuming normal strength. Gibbons sighed softly, as if with relief. The woman looked at him a little suspiciously, Gibbons' face becoming pained as his shoulder cried out in alarm. He looked cautiously at the woman, purposefully letting her see he was as suspicious of her as she may have been of him at that moment in time. "Where's my clothes? Where's my dirks?" The woman was silent for a moment. "I have them in a safe place." She finally murmured. Gibbons stared into her eyes for a few seconds, not saying anything, his expression not changing. The woman looked back into his eyes that whole time, her small, ominous smile slowly coming back to her. "I saw the woman behind you." He eventually muttered, deciding he was finished playing around with some lunatic woman.
The woman's expression didn't change, not even for a second. She reached off to the side, softly saying "I know that." Gibbons' heart gave off a thump as he saw the woman pull out one of his dirks from the darkness at her side. Suddenly, she lunged for him, stabbing into the right side of his stomach before he could react. He grit his teeth, his eyes going wide, the woman grinning when she saw his pained expression. Her face went surprised, however, when the rage burning in his eyes sunk in to her consciousness. He grabbed her by the throat, pulling her closer to him, ramming his head forwards at the same time. The woman screamed as his forehead cracked into her nose, Gibbons violently pushing her back to the floor as she screamed. He got up to his feet, stumbling slightly at the blinding new pain in his stomach. He grabbed the dirk and, with a shout, yanked it out of his abdomen. Blood flowed frighteningly quickly down his body, running down his right hip and thigh in seconds.
Holding the dirk steady, he fell upon the woman, the woman kicking and screaming like a child throwing a tantrum, clawing at his face with her nails. Gibbons smashed his fist down into her nose, surely causing it to break horribly, blood suddenly gushing down her nostrils. She screamed at the top of her lungs, but Gibbons, enraged over his new wound, silenced her. Raising the dirk, he brought the point down towards her throat, slamming her with the blade so powerfully that the tip must have hit bone, striking her spine. The woman gurgled blood, her eyes wide and pained, her body going limp under him. Gibbons grit his teeth hatefully as he put his weight down on the dirk, forcing it through her neck. Her eyes stayed locked on his face as the dirk went through. He moved it to the sides, severing her head quickly and bloodily, her vitally important arteries, now cut, spraying up crimson at him. Panting, he released the dirk and fell to his hands and knees, feeling blood flow from his stomach wound.
He was becoming weaker and weaker all over again, this time at an even faster rate. Grabbing Jolene's lantern, he raised it, aiming the light at what he saw behind her corpse. The woman he had seen before was already dead, something he wasn't very surprised by. She looked to be in her early twenties. Lying nude, her abdomen was split open from nearly her chest down to her groin, her innards pulled out and sickeningly spread out in all directions like she had been killed ritualistically. The corpse didn't have a stench to it, leading Gibbons to believe that it was still somewhat fresh. He looked to Jolene's severed head, tempted to spit on her face, deciding it was more urgent to spend every second looking for a way to escape.

He had made his way through Jolene's home until he found the front door, finding his clothes and second dirk neatly piled on a stool near the door, his pack of supplies beside it. Jolene's home was dark aside from the light his lantern offered, and while what he saw looked normal enough, he didn't try exploring. He didn't know what Jolene's motives could've possibly been for murdering the woman in the room he had woken in, he couldn't see her motives for trying to kill him either, but he didn't much care, in the end. Jolene was dead, and he would be too, if he didn't get proper help. Now that he had his pack, however, he felt he had a chance of surviving. Opening his pack, he grabbed his Guild Seal. Silently, he cursed himself for being so distracted by circumstance that he hadn't thought of escaping through his Seal while he was still floating in the river. He took solace in the knowledge that he had at least stopped someone like Jolene before she hurt more people like the slain woman he had shared a room with.
He pulled on his pants before squeezing the Seal, thinking of the Guild. A blue glow surrounded him for a moment before he disappeared in a shimmer of light. Appearing within the Guild, by the Map Table, he grit his teeth and collapsed to his hands and knees, blood beginning to run into his mouth as his dirks and pack scattered across the floor in front of him, his bundle of remaining clothes landing in a heap. At that time of night, nobody was around the Map Table, almost everyone would be asleep, surely. Gibbons began to crawl, his legs beginning to feel numb, trying to find someone or something that could help him.

Calvin had searched high and low for Brute since he had come to Knothole Glade, and he had had little luck in finding him. Asking around about him didn't help; nobody seemed to know who he was talking about. Calvin began to wonder if Brute had been killed, his corpse secretly hidden by Anti-Hero League members. Eventually, however, he ran into another Hero, a woman named Pyre. She smiled when she heard Brute's name, saying "Yeah, I know him. Met him a few days back, during a balverine attack. Don't know where he is, but I can help you find him." Calvin accepted her help, and together, they eventually tracked Brute down early the next morning. When Calvin saw Brute, he hastily approached him, saying "Brute! It's about time I found you!" Brute looked over curiously, taking his attention away from the suit of armour he had been glancing over at the blacksmith's. He was surprised to see Calvin, and it showed on his face.
He glanced to Pyre as he asked "Calvin, what're you doing here? I'm surprised to see you." Calvin glanced left and right before stepping close to Brute, muttering "Look, we need to go somewhere private. I have no idea how many of them could be around Knothole Glade. It's about the League, and our future. Our lives, even." Brute looked at Calvin curiously, glancing at Pyre. She shrugged. "What about it?" She asked. Calvin glanced at her before looking back to Brute. "Not here, someone could hear us. We need to get somewhere private, alright?" Brute nodded, though his face was curious. "Pyre, c'mon, you might want to hear this, too." Calvin said, glancing at her. Pyre shrugged, saying nothing in protest. The trio walked off, heading for any spot Calvin thought appropriate.

Gibbons was found shortly after his arrival to the Guild by Grimm, the Hero that had bought Timoteo and Darrah's chainmail shirts for them. Staying up late, reading in the Guild's library, he had departed to find Gibbons' trail of blood leading up a nearby set of stairs. Following the trail and finding the wounded Hero of Skill, he hastily fetched help, very likely saving Gibbons' life that night. Calvin warned Brute and Pyre about his fears, that the Anti-Hero League would assault the Guild one day and that it wasn't a safe place for them. Brute disagreed with Calvin, Pyre thinking the same as him, the both of them thinking that the Guild was the safest place in Albion. Calvin said that the Anti-Hero League was increasing in size and strength at an alarming rate, and firearms were being produced faster and faster to meet demand, prices for them slowly dropping so the manufacturers could achieve even greater profits. More and more people were flocking to the Anti-Hero League banner, and with Weaver advising Merlin to not take action against the League, nothing was being done to stop the League's growth.
He was afraid that, with the firearm, the people of Albion would grow cocky and think that Heroes weren't necessary in the slightest, that the entire land would turn against the Guild and Heroes. With firearms, they would be bold, and they would think that they could kill Heroes with as much ease as they could a giant beetle, and rightfully so. Firearms were ridiculously powerful, and at the rate tensions were escalating, Calvin predicted that the fall of the Guild could take place in a matter of weeks, maybe less. Brute asked just what it was that Calvin aimed to do. Calvin suggested that he, Brute, perhaps Pyre if she would take his warning to heart, along with Timoteo and the others find a spot to hide, to wait things out. A place where the Anti-Hero League didn't have weight, a place where they can't try and hunt for Heroes. Pyre laughed at the idea of Anti-Hero League members hunting Heroes, remarking that Calvin was making it sound like Heroes would become little more than ants with the widespread use of firearms.
Calvin simply said that he wanted to warn all of his comrades before he, himself, departed for Snowspire, one of the most northernly territories under Albion's control. He was certain that the Anti-Hero League wouldn't have weight there, and wanted the others to come with him. Brute said he would think about it, but in truth, he had no intention of heading all the way up to Snowspire. To him, Snowspire was a totally inhospitable region, constantly covered in snow and ice and filled with some of Albion's most hostile creatures. If things really became as bad as Calvin feared they would, Brute figured he could either slip away into the rest of his home island, or simply take a ship across the ocean to whatever lands he could find.

Calvin left then, leaving Brute and Pyre to themselves. He tried contacting Darrah, managing to get a hold of her through his Seal. Communicating via Seals, he tried warning her again about the League, asking her to head north with him to Snowspire. She, like Brute and Pyre, still thought that the Guild was the safest place in all of Albion, and refused to head north to the bitter cold of Snowspire, or even meet up and talk about Albion's future situation. If things became insanely dangerous, she remarked, she could just head home to her father's estate. It's not like he'd throw his daughter to the wolves, right? Calvin then contacted Marst, told her of his fears, and while she thought the Guild was immensely safe, she agreed that the League was rapidly growing in strength, that the prospect of it eventually growing strong enough to take on the Guild was a very real possibility. She didn't think she'd like life in Snowspire, and though she made it clear that she wasn't promising to head north with him, she did, at least, promise to meet with him in Knothole Glade and talk about things once he had finished contacting the others.
Calvin contacted Gibbons then, getting a hold of him just as he departed from the Guild. Healed with potions, Gibbons was in top condition again, and he also agreed that the League was a threat, but he believed that it needed to be stopped, not avoided. Calvin tried to convince Gibbons to come north with him or at least meet with him in Knothole Glade to talk, that any attempts to stop the League would only hasten their rise to power. Gibbons grew irritated with Calvin, asking him why it seemed like he had abandoned the Guild, left it behind like it was doomed. Calvin admitted that firearms terrified him. They were too powerful, and in the hands of people willing to kill Heroes, it simply seemed impossible to fight without being slaughtered. Gibbons agreed to meet and talk, though he didn't say he would head north. Calvin attempted to contact Timoteo, reaching him through his Seal. He asked Timoteo to meet with him and the others, explaining his fears about the Guild, and Timoteo readily agreed to meet.
There was only one catch. He had to go to Lychfield first, he wasn't prepared to abandon it when he had apparently been traveling towards it for days. Also, he said he would be coming with another Hero, but he wouldn't explain who they were. Calvin asked if Timoteo would be prepared to head north for Snowspire, and after a slight pause where he seemed to be discussing things with someone else, he said that he'd have to get back to Calvin about it. In truth, Bianca was against the idea of heading to Snowspire, since it meant that she wouldn't be able to search for her mother around Albion. Also, if Calvin intended to head north immediately, that would mean that Bianca might never see Grizelda again. She couldn't just disappear without at least saying goodbye. Timoteo, on the other hand, had nothing keeping him from heading to Snowspire with the others, but he didn't want to part from Bianca, nor did she want to leave him, in turn.
Timoteo asked Bianca if, should things become dangerous in Albion due to the League, would she head north with him to remain safe. Bianca didn't like the idea of delaying her quest to track down her mother, but she agreed that, if it ever became so dangerous that she couldn't even spend a day looking for her mother without fear of being hunted by the League, that she'd head north to Snowspire with him. Satisfied, Timoteo and her continued their trek to Lychfield, heading through Headsman's Hill. Eventually, their destination finally came into sight. Lychfield Graveyard came into view on the horizon.

The region around Lychfield was somewhat chilly, the land one of the closest settled areas to Snowspire, the frigid island that marked the most northern spot of Albion's territory. Lychfield wasn't cold enough for one to see their breath appear before them when they exhaled, but it wasn't far off from that. The trees had all withered up as they approached Lychfield, lacking foilage. The sky never seemed to become bright over Lychfield; at night, it was pitch-black, but during the day, the sky became gray, at best. The sun's light never shone over the graveyard, it appeared. There was a light noise that was always evident in the distance, like a wind that blew through the skeletal limbs of the trees, but there was never a gust of wind to be felt. Most of the grass on the ground disappeared, and what was left turned a dark, menacing shade of green, lacking any and all brightness. Neither Timoteo nor Bianca saw another living soul as they entered the region of Lychfield, and the graveyard itself seemed devoid of visitors.
Once they had entered the region, it didn't take long for the path to lead to the graveyard. "This place reminds me of Darkwood. The trees are all dead...The sky's shadowed...It's not very warm..." She smiled a little. "It's like being back at home." She added. Timoteo smiled, looking over to her, rubbing his thumb along the back of her hand. The two had been holding hands for a little while, staying close to each other's side as the sky had darkened upon entering the region. "Are you ready for this?" He asked, looking over to her face. Bianca nodded slightly. "I can face Travis' grave...I know what I'll say when I see it." Timoteo looked forwards, to the black metal gate surrounding the graveyard. It was gothic and foreboding in appearance, with sharp spikes all along the top and only thin openings between bars. The gate was tall and seemed to stretch completely around the graveyard, forbidding any from entering without having the gravekeeper open the gate for them.
The two headed up towards the gate to the graveyard, the gate's tall arches seeming to warn them from approaching, that they were entering forbidden territory. Walking up to the gate, Timoteo let out a light sigh, raising his free hand to one of the cool metal bars of the closed gate. Glancing upwards, he tried pushing on the gate, but it wouldn't budge. "Look. Is that a bell?" Bianca murmured, releasing his hand and stepping over towards his left side. She raised a hand, pulling back her hood as she moved. He looked over, curious, noticing what Bianca had seen. Her eyes may have made it difficult for her, but her guess had been correct. Off to the side, by the gate, stood a metal bell. A dark metal pole stuck up from the ground before doing a small curve, coming back from the curve like a hook. But instead of a sharp point at the end, there hung a dark metal bell, a thin metal rod hanging down from within the bell. "Yeah, it is. Maybe it's used to bring out the gravekeeper?" He said, lowering his hand from the gate.
Bianca walked up to the bell, reaching to the thin metal rod that hung down from inside. Rapidly moving it left and right, loud "clangs" sounded out, Bianca ringing the bell for a few seconds before stopping. Timoteo, meanwhile, looked past the gateway to whatever was inside. The dirt path they were on continued past the gate, moving down to what must have been the graveyard, itself. A slight fog was evident down the path, the path leading right into the thick of it, but through it, Timoteo thought he could see the heads of a few tombstones. Something in his peripheral vision caused him to glance to the left. He was surprised to see a small cottage of sorts, made of pale stone, having a dark brown tile roof. The windows to it were dark, the door shut, but as Bianca had rang the bell, a light had suddenly come into existence in one of the windows. "Hey, I think the gravekeeper heard you!" Timoteo said, raising an eyebrow, a half-smile coming to him as he glanced over to her.
Bianca stepped over to his side again, reaching over, threading fingers with him as they held hands again. They both waited nearly a minute before the door to the cottage swung inwards, the light from the window disappearing. A figure came into view in the doorway, and a second later, it was lit up with light. A man, looking fairly elderly, was slowly making his way towards the gateway, a lit lantern held in his bony left hand. He was wearing a black top hat, a long white beard on his face reaching nearly his chest. He was thin, unhealthily so, and the black coat wrapped tight around him did little to hide it. His pants were black, his big boots a light leather-like brown. In his right hand, he held a large metal ring, at least a dozen black keys hanging from it. As he approached the gate, he called out "What business do you two have in Lychfield, eh? You're not here to bury a body, are you?" Timoteo said "No, we're here to visit a grave. Someone we know is buried here. A Hero."
The elderly gravekeeper approached the gate, his feet shuffling against the dirt path beneath him. "Is that so? What's the bugger's name?" Timoteo ignored the insult, but before he quietly said Travis' name, Bianca spoke. "Don't insult the dead, gravekeeper. They have a nasty habit of hearing you and taking offense. We want to visit the grave of a Hero, and we are Heroes. Do not waste our time, if you value your life." Timoteo felt a little surprised by her words, the cold tone to her voice. He looked over to her, but she didn't look to him, her eyes staring right into the gravekeeper's eyes. The gravekeeper stared at Bianca for a few seconds, his face not very fearful. After a pause, he stepped closer to the gate, looking to his keyring and fiddling with the keys in search of the gate's. "Didn't mean any offense, ma'am. No need for threats. Besides, you touch me, I'll put out a Quest Card for your head. I've got a lot of friends in the Guild, friends who owe me favours for things I let them do in the graveyard, and some of them wouldn't mind knocking an evil Hero down a peg or two."
"Do not test my patience, gravekeeper. Threaten me again, and I'll awaken horrors in that graveyard that'll have you weeping in your sleep for years to come." Bianca said, slowly and quietly. "Bianca..." Timoteo said with surprise, raising an eyebrow slightly, still looking to her. She glanced at him, blinked, then looked back to the gravekeeper. The gravekeeper found the key to the gate, pushing it into the thick lock found on the other side from the Heroes, on the gravekeeper's side. As he unlocked the gate, he was silent, but as he brought a hand to a bar to pull the gate open, he said "Just don't dig up any bodies, hmm? And don't disturb any of the tombstones or crypts, either. There's a lot of wisps out there, and a damn near endless supply of bones for them to possess." The gravekeeper's face went cold as he muttered "Do not make trouble, or you won't leave this graveyard in one piece, if you even leave at all." Bianca didn't respond.
Timoteo, however, said "Can you show us to his grave? His name's Travis. Died only a few years ago." The gravekeeper looked to Timoteo, glanced at Bianca for a second, then looked back to Timoteo with an almost mocking little smile. "No, I think you can find him on your own." The gravekeeper began to pull the gateway open, walking backwards with it as the large metal gate swung inwards. Timoteo knew that the gravekeeper didn't want to help because of Bianca, but he didn't see how he could change the gravekeeper's mind, not without bribing him with a lump of gold. Bianca stared coolly at the gravekeeper as the gateway opened, walking through once the gate was opened enough. Timoteo stepped across the threshold, entering the graveyard.
The two began to head towards the fog, towards the graves. "Did you have to talk to him like that? This would've been a lot easier if he showed us to Travis' grave, now we've gotta hunt for it." Timoteo said. Bianca was silent for a moment before reaching over, holding his hand. "When he..." She trailed off and was quiet for a few seconds. "...I'm sorry..." She eventually mumbled. Timoteo smiled a little. "No, no need to be sorry. I'm not annoyed, just...Well, if we're gonna meet up with Calvin, spending hours searching through a graveyard won't exactly make our arrival prompt." Bianca gave his hand a little squeeze, a little smile coming to her face as he said he wasn't annoyed with her. "It won't take that long. We'll find him." She said, softly. They walked into the fog, heading past a small stone fence that separated the graves from the rest of the yard. When they entered, Timoteo felt a chill of uneasiness come over him. He couldn't see far in the mist, but in what limited vision he had, he could see dozens of tombstones of varying shapes and sizes.
There were dead trees scattered around, their skeletal limbs reaching towards the sky as if they desired freedom, an eery sight that made Timoteo think of skeletal hands scratching against the ceilings of coffins to try and escape. Worst of all, Timoteo almost felt as if he was being watched, like the remains under the ground, mere feet from him on either side of the dirt path, could somehow see him, could watch him through the ground with envious eyes. "This place has a reputation for being infested with Hollow Men, right?" He asked softly. Bianca glanced at him before looking around. "Yes...Hollow Men tend to rise here quite frequently. The gravekeeper wasn't lying when he said that we'd have to be careful. Nobody really visits here because it's too dangerous. There must be hundreds of wisps hidden here and there, just waiting for something to take their anger out on." Timoteo gave Bianca's hand a light squeeze as they walked along, feeling her give him a little squeeze in response.
They continued along the graveyard path, the air cool and keeping them from feeling properly warm, even under their clothes. The fog kept Timoteo from seeing just how large the graveyard really was, but he began to get a sense as the two passed by more and more graves, keeping an eye out for Travis' name. The graveyard must've been massive, truly fearful in size. Timoteo was sure that the two had passed by hundreds of graves as they took winding paths through the graveyard, and although they never saw Hollow Men, the uneasy feeling of being watched never disappeared. The menacing sound on the distance, like wind running through dead tree limbs, continued as they trekked through the graveyard. Timoteo noticed one particular tombstone that caught his eyes. It looked like some sort of woman wearing a hooded cloak, the face invisible as black paint had been brushed over the opening of the hood. The statue of the hooded figure had it's hands together like it was praying, it's head bowed down slightly in apparent reverence.
The name on the tombstone read "Mary Bowen, sacrificed to Skorm by fiends, her life ended too soon." Beneath that, there read a date, when she was born and when she had died. Timoteo looked away as he and Bianca continued on. They searched for around half an hour, when finally...
"Tim...I think I've found him."
She released his hand, stepping over to a tombstone nearby. He looked over, his eyes thoughtful, his face otherwise peaceful. Sitting nearby, a tombstone shaped into a cross was evident. Inscribed over the front were the words "Travis Oppenheimer, slain by the Will. May you find peace, innocent child." Beneath that were the dates of his birth and the day he died by Bianca's hand. Timoteo and Bianca gazed down at the tombstone for several seconds, neither of them speaking or moving. Timoteo couldn't help but think that, with a last name like "Oppenheimer," it seemed very unlikely that Travis had been a native of Albion. "Perhaps he came from across the sea, like Marst? Or, maybe the Eastern Kingdom, or the Cities of the West? Long way to go, just to get to the Guild." He thought. A few seconds later, Timoteo noticed Bianca drop to a knee. Timoteo looked to her. She had gotten down on her right knee, looking down to the dirt that Travis was surely buried under.
She reached her right hand over, slowly brushing the tips of her fingers across some of the dirt before her. She began to murmur. "I'm sorry, Travis...I'm sorry for hurting you...For killing you. You didn't deserve death. I just...Panicked when you took my bracelet. I don't know why you did it...Maybe you thought it was pretty and wanted it for yourself. But it doesn't matter. Taking a bracelet doesn't deserve death...Taking away my life's goal, though...That spurred me into action, and I'm sorry for that. I know I didn't show it...If I had shown how much the bracelet meant to me, maybe you would've given it back, and then...Maybe you'd still be with us." Timoteo remained respectfully silent as he listened to her speak. Bianca rested her hand down against the dirt, pressing her palm to it. "I don't deserve forgiveness...I understand that, and I'm sure you agree with me. You were a child...A fellow mage."
She was silent for a moment before she continued with "If it's any consolation...I never forgot you. I've dreamt of you. And I've never been comfortable with what I did. I should've stayed calm...I know I seemed calm, and that might've made you think you could get away with the bracelet...I should've just explained things. But...After my mother...After the people at my home...I guess I didn't think there was any other choice, at the time. I was...I was just a different person, back then." Timoteo felt curious over her words. "After the people at my home"? What did she mean by that? Timoteo remembered the warning Weaver had given him about Bianca, when he had asked the elderly mage where Travis had been buried. "You don't know her history, Tim...Before she came to the Guild, she did something terrible..." Timoteo remembered Darrah's accusing words when she had seen Bianca for the first time since her exile. "It's obvious that you've done great evil. Shows in your eyes, in your complexion."
Timoteo's brow furrowed slightly. Darrah had never lied, Bianca's appearance wasn't normal. Pale skin and red eyes, pitch black hair sometimes appearing as well, were all signs of a Hero that had done many evil acts, or at least one huge evil act. Timoteo had always seen past her appearance since she was friendly with him, but he had quickly forgotten Weaver's warning in his desire to know where Bianca had gone, in his thoughts about the location fo Travis' grave. Darrah's words had always seemed cruel and catty...But Weaver had tried to warn him, too. All signs pointed towards Bianca having done something horrid before going to the Guild...But what could it have possibly been? Would she tell him, if he asked her? "Couldn't hurt to at least ask, right? Have to be gentle, though. Don't want to make her uncomfortable by making her think Darrah's got me all paranoid, or something." Bianca continued, his thoughts his own.
"In the end...My mother is the cause behind your death, and who knows how many others. If it weren't for her, I might not have even gone to the Guild, and if I had, I wouldn't have had my father's bracelet. It wouldn't have been there for you to try stealing, and I wouldn't have panicked enough to think that I had to kill you. I don't know if there's anything I can truly do to make amends for your death...But I can find the woman behind it all, and send her down to join you." Bianca went silent, then. She slowly raised her hand from the dirt, turning it over to look at her palm. Her skin was a little dusty with loose, powdery dirt, and she slowly brought her other hand over, rubbing her hands together and brushing away the dirt. She slowly stood back up, then. "...I'm finished..." She murmured, not looking at Timoteo, continuing to look down to Travis' tombstone. Timoteo gazed at Travis' name, chiseled into the stone of his grave marker. "I don't know how you must've felt in your last moments, Travis..." He said, lightly.
"With all of us around, but none of us stopping it in time...You must've felt like we had abandoned you. Or, didn't care about you enough to try and save you. Maybe you thought we just didn't like you." He was quiet for a second, Bianca slowly reaching over and holding his hand, threading fingers with him. He held her hand back, giving her hand a gentle squeeze. "We cared...You were our friend, a comrade. A fellow Hero. I'm sorry that you died the way you did...Nobody thinks you deserved it. If I could go back and change things, I would. To tell you the truth, we were just too much in shock to do anything. We didn't think...We didn't think that one of us would kill another, especially not at that age. We were just kids..." Bianca's eyes fell towards the dirt, her expression slowly filling with regret. "It doesn't matter why you wanted the bracelet...That's not important. What's important is...Bianca's sorry for what she did. And we're sorry for not doing anything. We've never forgotten you...And I don't think even a few days have gone by in a row without me thinking about you. I hope you can forgive us...I hope you're in a good place."
Bianca spoke a second later, in a hushed, sad tone. "The dead, they sleep a long, long sleep...The dead, they rest, and their rest is deep...The dead have peace, but the living weep..." Timoteo was quiet, but he thought that her recited poem, while depressing, was fitting. They stood looking to Travis' tombstone for a little while longer before he quietly said "Are you ready to leave?..." Bianca nodded gently, looking over to him. "Yes...I think so." She reached into her cloak, pulling out her improvised Guild Seal made of black and red stone. "We need to collect our stash of obsidian cleavers before we meet up with Calvin, though...Provided, of course, that Darrah didn't believe her entitled share was the entire cache." A ghost of a smile came to Timoteo's lips. He unshouldered his pack, pulling out his Guild Seal. "Teleport to Bowerstone, then walk up to find our stash?" He asked, nodding at her Seal. She smiled a little and nodded. The two squeezed their Seals and thought of Bowerstone, the two of them disappearing in shimmers of light, Timoteo's blue while Bianca's was red. Lychfield Graveyard was, once more, left alone to the dead.
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Fable : Fall of the Guild