Sidequest: Second Skin / The Diary of Jane
1 Trembling Witch, 2 The Delicious Bride, 3 Flames of Force, 4 The Girl’s Flame, 5 The Names of the Nobody, 6 Planet in the Tales
1 Trembling Witch
Making trouble in the woods a warlock sets a trap by turning a tree cold and cosmic, but wounded himself in the hexing and for his vexing limped to the nearest den of witchery at recent his home, screaming internally at the unknown effects of the blue electric willow, could it be of poison or insanity, the coven witch makes quick to tend to him, and inspecting him says little, fortunate son of the dark arts uses enchanted rings to halt the effects, the magic of the ring draws from her spellbook, or for his quick self-preservation, brags and now or underlying offense she knicks her finger and bleeds, and now they both are wounded, she slows, but with his attention widened his curse excites and his pain gets loud, she wavers, she asks to look at his palm, she trembles, and stabs his palm with an isosceles dagger, fire from his pupils, light from the wound, as she pushes his head down he slinks dead to the floor, tearing away the knife stays stuck in the table.
2 The Delicious Bride
She quickly runs and gathers her tools of crude medicine, in ceremonious listing the songs of his blood and bone, slowly mixing a concatenation of preparation by small cauldron on iron hook by the fireplace, carefully adding the potions of moondust and charm, cautiously stirring with the knife and the dead warlock’s blood, her potion is strong and glides from knife clean but a drop atop her tong, the nails on her hand in the shadow of fire and coals, grow long not unlike knives, in witless instance pushing the hot cauldron aside toward the flames, without burning herself, and finds herself waking at a meal of the warlock, with the unhealthy meal, immoral thoughts, and unseemly theme she’s taken aback, in fear of every thought, but drawn back into the unscrupulous plot, finishes her meal, ignoring the coming storm heavily falling over hills.
3 Flames of Force
The falling of rain, the sounds of distant thunder, the sound of drums, the hooves of horses, horsemen of the first horsemen, the roving kings, fireheads shot from bolts of alluvium steel, torches thru windows, dismounting only to brash and thrash their black steel thru doors and weak walls, armor with sharpened seams protection from burgeoning flames, only to find her digging into the dead warlock, for her the vitality ingredients to reverse her curse, for them a guleh, still a venerated witch she blocks blades with armor of light, throwing wind and feeding flames biting at the threads of her black wedding dress, they beat her with one torch and then another and by the third she moves fire as a chorus and the stars shine on her as the roof of the home opens, a fallen rampart reveals an artifact she uses against herself and in their pause her suicide doesn’t make her feared and they attack again, but now she doesn’t bleed and with flash of light blinded soon seeing herself at their leader’s neck and now their fear begins, and in some way her doubts, and in a rage defeats them, finding her skin doesn’t burn but her clothes are about to do, and reveals her intents escaping takign the book from under the table in the center and walking over the burning walls barefoot, for some reason a horse comes and offers ride.
4 The Girl’s Flame
She wakes standing in the forest at the wicked willow glowing blue like night and sky and cold like water and wind, the traces of the hexing, after looking she learns what pieces were missing that made his spell go tragically wrong, but finds herself against the tree, her hand raised to it and listening with somber gentle hymn to comfort it, needing to know if the dead warlock had the cure or if the tree held a potent potable extract, but with it knew nothing else as he had taken his wisdom to the next life, and with it the methods of the roots of her curse and the starlight willow, she takes the iconic blade of these tales and stops before cutting the willow hearing tears in its voice, and in defeat depression claims to rest staring at the skies, twirling the knife at her side the stars align, she notices the dagger has magnetism pushing the stardust away in a circle, and remembers the moondust she had, panic tearing thru pages carefully each the next at a time her eyes finding elements of old magic matching then a graven curse and cursed earth, explaining her condition as ten parts zombie and one part vampire on account of the thirsting death root taxonomy of this variety of red willow, in blinding memory she stares at the tree, the blue light, the red leaves, the brown bark, blinds her eyes with colors from the future, hypnotized enthralled by it.
5 The Names of the Nobody
She wakes in a tavern blood handed, enemy branded by the fireplace weapons and angry innsmen, short taunts and steady attacks in processioned fashion, thrown and angry she in turn angrily rises and ragingly throws them, she makes short work of it, a youth watches w studious eyes and in march she scares the student only to grab a haggard butterknife, and carves out a heart as the townsfolk gather, heartbeats in her hand the blood in timed waves washes away the ghoulish skin and makes talons brittle, she rests in sight and dreams of combat then raises the heart and drinks, the spilling blood at best for thirst in mess washes away the death from her lips, in the chaos the fallen candles broken lanterns douse in the beer and blood, she sees it’s day and with stamina marches across the chaos to bash a skull open and go for brains, renewing her zombie state and ruining any chance of cool, next to the door her fight breaks the door and the first thru it, quickly taking a horse and running away with the herdsmen to follow with three other horses, she arrives at the path near the shadows of the willow forest with three heads at her side and leaping to the ground the horse fears the dark like the devil at dinnertime, and strutting double-thoughtedly drops them and then herself and eats, never opening the book, sure to clean it and go into the black and quiet forest.
6 Planet in the Tales (Niðavellir)
She reads her book of spells in a very old town in the very old mountains where a lawman arrests her, and for her book is charged with witchery, and with her hands bound releases herself and tears into them, quickly second is the lawman who had revenge due him, and quickly fleeced him for his metals, the rings and ringlets and coins and quarter chits, and in her trusted tavern quickly moved to pull a clear stone from a medal, she’s asked about the precious metals and intrigued and intimated at her perception and something of nonplussed, about to discard it she asks about a wine and a meal and bets the rest toward her credit, and murders the knave delivering it, then finds herself appearing at a single appellate court or bursar or bookkeeper dwarf of broad shoulders and arms for warship oars, she is in iron shackles with the dwarf raising hackles of her litany of crimes, the floorboard rattles with the cutout of a square, she asks for a sword sharper than fear, it can’t shy from only the glow of wicked willow, the dwarf moves his hand, each fingerprint made of dusty and coarse callouses like rows of a sewn hill farm, and touches her book, his look old and pained and with the strange voice of birds and mud that all dwarves have he orders her uncuffed, pointing to the guards in the shadows and pushing her book to the edge, not letting her take it he whispers with the cup of his hand where impish magic echoes the creaks and planks of the room, opening the book and pointing to something.
The dwarf slams the book shut, waking her up with blood on her talons and fangs, unable to speak, but able to scare with screams of gore and fete.
/ch
/cast
Tree: Salerel (voice)
Warlock: Emet Hart
Witch: Jane Doe
Horseman_1/Sheriff: Bogi
Horseman_2: Sólskin
Horseman_3: Dagan
Horseman_4: Duna
Barkeep: Geron
Barback: Zaac
Fence: Sasha Rathmor
Knave: Rouland
Deputy: Halun
Dwarf: Erim Oxbraide