But then- oh Gentle Readers, but then! Last month we were having lunch with a couple of his friends who Game, and the three of us were bonding over it, and they said I was welcome to join them any time and in fact the DM had a one-shot he'd created but never used... and Nathan agreed to give it a try! I tried not to shriek my glee, but I, uh... may not have succeeded at that.
Anyway, we're playing this upcoming Sunday, and for the first time ever I whipped myself up a Ranger. The backstory I wrote (because I'm pretty sure I literally cannot create a character without also writing a Compelling Backstory) is nearly 3800 words long, so I decided to break it up a bit for you, especially since I'm spilling all this digital ink on the intro-to-the-backstory.
When constructing a Ranger you get to choose your "favored enemy" from a list, and when my eyes fell on the "undead" option I decided to initially pattern my character after Buffy Summers (hence the name Tawny Highsun). She's nowhere near a perfect copy (nor is she meant to be) but it was a good starting place for creating a fun character, and it's why I chose to make her Human instead of a Half-Elf (which would have made more sense from a strategic standpoint but oh well). I also chose the "Folk Hero" background for her, so I had to write something that would reflect that. It's pretty dark as far as Defining Events go, although Tawny has not let it turn her into a Dark and/or Brooding Character. I definitely look forward to playing someone with cheerful nature and unflagging optimism, in spite of her personal demons. And I really hope that Nathan has a good enough time that he wants to repeat the experiment...
***
If the monster had not come during the Festival of Angels and Demons, they might have recognized it sooner. But it did come during Festival, when everyone wears costumes, and no one thinks twice about seeing a twisted visage. If the monster had not come during Festival, they might have realized their children were being stolen. But it did come during Festival, when children run wild in packs, often staying at one another’s houses and not returning home for the entirety of the week. And so the children were taken, in ones, and twos, and groups, by a beast that walked casually through the crowds of men.
By the fourth night of the Festival, people had begun to realize that something was wrong, and by the end of the fifth day there was a decided panic in the air as parents ran from house to house in the waning light, hoping to find their littles ones.
The Highsuns, woodcarvers by trade and beloved members of the town council, were among those parents searching. Not because their own children were missing- no, their own six were safe at home- but rather to provide moral support to their fellow townsfolk- and more importantly, protection in the form of greater numbers. The Highsuns didn’t want to frighten their own children, so when they instructed their eldest daughter, Tawny, to keep the younger ones in the house no matter what, they didn’t tell her why. Instead they emphasizing that the youngest Highsuns had already had too much excitement, and needed to rest if they were to properly enjoy the final days of Festival.
At fifteen Tawny was generally a cheerful, obedient daughter, and she did her best to keep her siblings entertained as they whined about missing the penultimate night of Festival. At long last, however, the younger children settled down and fell asleep- even ten-year-old Aurora, who worshipped Tawny and tried to emulate her in all ways, up to and including staying up late. Once the last of her siblings’ breathing evened out into that of true slumber, Tawny (mindful that her parents had not told her to stay inside) decided to slip out and join in the Festival for an hour or two.
She put on her costume first- a flowing white gown fit for an Angel, with small but elaborately carved wooden wings fitted over her shoulders. It had taken nearly a week to craft them, in between working on apprentice projects for her parents, and Tawny was extremely proud of her work. She’d have finished sooner if she hadn’t decided to add a spiraling pattern of silver wire inlay, but was hoping that when her mother saw them she would agree that they were worthy of journeyman status. Tawny grabbed her tool pouch and attached it to her belt: in it she carried a variety of carved charms she could sell for a bit of spending money, and perhaps bring home a few pies as a breakfast treat for the other children.
Tawny was surprised by how quiet the streets were- strangely empty for a normal night in the town of Devas, let alone a Festival night. It was an eerie, unnatural stillness, and it put Tawny on edge. The quiet was so complete that as she paused at the intersection of two streets, wondering if she ought to turn back, she heard a soft footfall behind her. She whirled around just in time to see a flutter of white disappear around a corner.
“Hello?” said Tawny. “Who’s there?” Heart thudding in her chest, she walked quickly back the way she’d come, hoping to catch one of her friends playing at being a Demon to her Angel. But when she rounded the corner, she saw two figures, and only one of them was familiar to her; Aurora, eyes wide with terror, was being restrained by a man wearing a terrifying mask, one black-gloved hand pressed tightly over the child’s mouth.
“Let her go- you’re scaring her!” Tawny said sharply, and moved to retrieve her wayward sister. The man smiled broadly at her, and Tawny realized suddenly that it wasn’t a mask at all.
***
Tawny woke dizzy and with an excruciating pain in her head. She pushed herself awkwardly to a sitting position and found that her arms hurt, too- specifically her wrists. The ground beneath her was cold stone, rough against the naked flesh of her shins.
“Wha-” she muttered, and found that her throat was parched. She swallowed painfully, trying to bring the world around her into focus by blinking repeatedly. Gray- and darker gray- everything was shifting shadows- until she noticed a lighter smudge out of the corner of her eye. She turned towards it slowly, painfully, trying to make sense of what she was seeing, of where she was, of what had happened. The last thing she remembered was the stranger’s eyes, glowing red and holding her still as a mouse before a snake.
The lighter smudge had moved closer to her, and Tawny realized it was a shaft of sunlight, home to a host of leisurely spinning dust motes. A sudden draft caused a flurry of movement in the tiny dancers, and she followed the slant of the ray upwards to a small opening in the rock.
“You’re awake!” the voice was familiar and strange all at once, and Tawny’s eyes flicked to follow it to the darker corner beyond the shaft of light. The voice, the beloved voice she’d never heard so cold before, continued with odd delight, “I knew you weren’t going to die!”
That voice- Tawny squinted into the darkness, willing it not to take recognizable form. Willing it to be just her imagination.
“Au-” she started, but could not get her sister’s name out. Her throat was too dry.
“I wanted you to be awake when I bite you again,” Aurora said conversationally. “I didn’t want you to die never knowing what you’d done.”
“Done?” Tawny whispered, fighting nausea. Aurora had- bit her? Is that what was wrong with her? She looked down at her wrists and realized the source of their pain: both had raw wounds, as though an animal had worried them. She flexed her blood-stained fingers and the pain flared up in response.
“You led me straight to the vampire!” Aurora laughed and stepped forward just enough for Tawny to see her, but still keeping her distance from the light. “Your littlest sister! Mommy and Daddy told you to keep me safe, but instead you delivered me into the claws of a monster who snatched me up and drained my blood until I was white white white as a winding sheet!” She did a little pirouette, her nightgown fanning out around her. There was a dark brown spray across the bodice that hadn’t been there before. Tawny’s eyes burned as though she was crying, but no tears came.
“It’s so silly the Angels dress in white, when really that color belongs to the dead,” Aurora said knowingly. “Which means it belongs to me, because I’m dead, and it’s all your fault!” She laughed again, clapping her hands. “Anyway,” she added soberly, “your dress is nicer, so once I’m done with you I’ll have it for myself. He said I took too much before, and that you weren’t going to wake up again, but you did!”
Aurora crouched down and scuttled a little closer to Tawny, right up to the edge of the light, her movements strangely articulated, more like a spider than a little girl. “Do you want to know what I’m going to do?” she asked, her voice breathless with excitement. “I want to tell you!”
Tawny shook her head. What she wanted was to wake up from this nightmare, wake up and run into her parents’ room for comfort, wake up and laugh at the idea of her sweet sister ever speaking in such a cold, taunting voice.
“Mommy and Daddy will invite me in, of course. They won’t be able to tell that I’ve changed! But they’ll realize it eventually. I’ll kill Leaf first, make it look like an accident. Babies die all the time, have you noticed? And oh, how they’ll weep for him! And then I’ll kill Dandelion and Buttercup. I’ll have to do that at the same time,” Aurora muttered, as though to herself, “because they’re always together and they might tell. Mommy and Daddy will start to suspect then, and I’ll make sure they keep suspecting but never really know. They won’t want to believe it, so they won’t! Not until I kill Finchy. And then I’ll make sure to tell them you’re the reason I got changed, so they can die hating you, too! Maybe I’ll tell Daddy that I’ll let Mommy go free if he just stabs himself… but then I’ll kill her as he bleeds out, so he can watch! Won't that be wonderful?”
The child looked expectantly at Tawny, who said nothing. A look of annoyance crossed the younger girl’s face, and she glanced over her shoulder, deeper into the cave. “But I have to wait for him. He can’t wake up as long as the sun is up,” she rolled her eyes. “He says someday, when I’m as powerful as he is, it will affect me, too, but not yet. Not yet. So I have to wait. The others decided to sleep the day away, lazy things, but I knew that I should spend it with you, so that you would know just exactly what you’ve done.”
“...others?” Tawny choked.
“The other children, stupid. We’re all going to go home tonight, with stories about playing hiding games and getting lost in the caverns. And they’ll all let us in. And then what fun we’ll have!” She bared her teeth at Tawny, and Tawny saw that there was flesh caught between them, dried blood on the upper lip.
“Do you want to see how strong I am now?” it asked eagerly, moving closer still. “I’m so strong. I could probably even pick you up! I could probably snap your neck, but you’d die too quickly, I think. Come here and I’ll pick you up!”
Tawny looked the creature in the eyes, noticing the beginning of a red glow in its pupils. How could I have thought that thing was Aurora? She thought, dimly. Aurora is dead. And this is what killed it.
Tawny didn’t think- she just lunged, grabbing at the creature, who seemed too startled, at first, to react. That didn’t last long, and Tawny realized that it had been telling the truth- it was much stronger than Aurora had been. But Tawny had already pulled part of it into that shaft of light, and now it was shrieking with pain. Tawny held it there, limbs twining around it in a terrible parody of an embrace, held it until it stopped shrieking, until it stopped moving. The smell of burning flesh and hair overwhelmed her, and she rolled to her side, dry-heaving.
Tawny lay there, face pressing into the dirt, for what seemed like a small eternity- but it couldn’t have been that long, because the shaft of light had barely moved. She half expected the “others” to come, but no one did. It said they were sleeping, she thought, dully.
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