Oliver wakes to the sound of a child’s scream.
He jumps out of bed into a standing position before he’s even fully aware that he’s awake, and receives an abrupt reminder of reality as he tries to put his weight on a leg that doesn’t exist. He flails, trying to catch himself but succeeding only in slamming one of his elbows into the corner of his nightstand and falling into an undignified heap on the floor.
Oliver grumbles curses as he rubs his -now sore- elbow. The stinging pain waking him up fully.
A dream, then, he realizes. A deep breath in, then out, then another, trying to calm the ringing panic in his ears. After a few moments he can finally hear the ticking of the clock on his bedroom wall. He latches onto the familiar rhythmic noise, distantly noting the lack of any panicked sounds outside. He sighs, forcing his muscles to relax.
Another few breaths, a final sigh before he pushes himself upright.
Other sounds return to him, one by one. First, the sound of mid-summer frogs singing to each other, then, the quiet rustling of his neighbors getting ready for their days, finally, the tapping of raindrops against his roof.
It had rained after all, just a little later than he thought.
Well. No point in opening the shop today, then. But, there’s no point in staying on the floor, either.
With exactly the correct amount of grumbling, Oliver stretches to reach for his leg. He had left it laying at the foot of his bed after tearing it off haphazardly yesterday before climbing in. He pulls a new sock for his stump out of the drawer of his nightstand. Making sure it’s fitted properly, he begins the tedious process of aligning the socket, making sure his ‘toes’ are pointing the right direction. Satisfied, he tightens the buckles, soft leather straps familiar in his hand.
Putting his shoe on his other foot is much easier.
With that finished, Oliver uses his bed to prop himself up from the floor, cursing his dreams for putting him in this position, and the weather for making everything ache.
Oliver takes another few minutes to stretch, hoping to convince his body to stop complaining. It doesn’t work, but at least he can say he tried.
Oliver finishes getting ready with the calming backdrop of rain.
It’s after leaving his room that Oliver notices that Marianna either left before he woke up, or she never came home the night before. Both options means she’s not resting properly, he notes with no small amount of fond annoyance.
It seems it’s time to go bother his studious little sister.
Oliver pulls on his rain coat, and grabs his dagger from its hook by the front door and straps it around his waist.
Wind buffets him as he trudges down well-worn paths between houses. He takes a moment to greet their neighbor, Martha, who’s on her way to pick up her husband at the guard house near the village entrance. Oliver commiserates with her over their respective fetch quests, and makes some idle small talk until their paths diverge, bidding her farewell with a polite nod.
Elise’s workshop is quiet as he makes his approach, and Oliver lets himself in without fanfare.
These little visits had become somewhat regular over the years. After the first few times Oliver woke both of them up by knocking, Elise had told him to ‘knock it off with that polite bullshit, you and your sister are practically family anyway.’ Well. Oliver would be more touched by that if she’d said it when she was more than half awake and wasn’t immediately making her way back to her own bedroom to fall back asleep.
The workshop is dark and cluttered. Various tools hang from the walls, supported by hooks, and every available flat surface is dotted by bits and pieces of machinery or blueprints.
He can make little sense of the method behind the chaos in front of him, but he’s seen both Marianna and Elise navigate the clutter without difficulty, pulling the smallest parts from the piles without preamble. He navigates the mess with light footsteps, mindful of the noise.
Oliver finds Marianna exactly where he expects her to be, asleep at her work bench, face covered in charcoal and grease. He sighs, shaking his head fondly.
“Hey sleepyhead,” he murmurs, rubbing her shoulders absentmindedly, knowing she’ll be sore from her horrible sleeping posture, “It’s time to go home Mari. You fell asleep again.”
She shifts, just a little, then she whines a quiet ‘no’.
“Oh don’t give me that, c’mon, your projects will wait for you.”
“Don’t wanna,” she complains, opening one eye blearily to glare at him, “It’s almost finished. I just need… just need one more thing…” With that, she nods off again.
Really, what will Oliver do with this girl.
“Marianna. You’re too old for me to carry you home like this. Not to mention- you had the gall to get taller than me while I wasn’t looking.” He settles for pinching her cheek. Much to her chagrin.
She swats at his hand, “Ow. Ow ow OW- Okay okay. I get it. You can stop now.”
Oliver laughs quietly, watching her finally sit up fully and stretch. He helps her put on her own raincoat -holding out the sleeves for her out of habit- and they start their walk back to their shared home. Oliver listening indulgently as Marianna explains her current project, sleep leaving her voice gradually as passion for her work takes it’s place. He’s found that sometimes she prefers when he just listens and nods along, letting her explain everything to him so that she can reorganize it in her own head.
The front door bell jingles overhead as they duck inside, coats dripping.
“So, while I was working on the logistics of making sure the movements are conveyed correctly the damn thing fizzled out on me again and-” Oliver unties his hair from it’s usual bun, trying to shake out some of the moisture. His hair is long enough now it will never dry tied up like that. He walks to over to the side door that leads to their kitchen. Marianna follows behind him, taking her place on one of the four wooden stools tucked under the table. Her voice fills the room as Oliver gets the stove fire lit, starting with kindling and his usual flint and steel.
Moments like this, he thinks, are what he’s really here for.
The fire catches, and Oliver breathes life into it. Encouraging it to grow stronger before he adds more fuel. He’s extra careful to avoid smothering the flame.
Satisfied, Oliver turns, adding water to one of their cooking pots, setting it to boil with a nod.
He drops a few cleaned potatoes onto the cutting board, alongside a few other tubers and herbs he collected in the forest, he pauses, looking at the ingredients. It feels a little too light. He opens one of the other cabinets to his right and pulls out the dried meat he’s been saving. It’s something he bartered from Alain, one of the newer hunters in the village, he’s a bit younger than Oliver, but he only moved in recently.
Oliver is okay with a bow, but he’s never been very good at curing meat.
Oliver sets down a piece of dried rabbit meat alongside the vegetables. Resolving to find Alain later on today to see if there’s anything he needs. In case Oliver can find it the next time he ventures into the more dangerous parts of the forest on a survey.
The fire pops and crackles peacefully, and slowly, his sister’s chatter dies out.
“Wait! That’s it!” Wood screeches against wood, and she dashes up the stairs to their bedrooms. Probably for a piece of paper.
The water begins to simmer, and in goes the dried meat, then the cubed up vegetables and diced herbs, alongside a pinch of salt for flavor. It’s not too long before the smell starts to permeate the room, his stomach reminding him that he forgot to eat dinner last night before he tumbled into bed.
He hadn’t meant to, of course. He’d just gotten caught up in chores after his conversation with Jean yesterday. The rhythmic motions of preparing firewood and washing clothes soothing his mind. By the time he noticed how dark it’d gotten, he was too tired to cook anything for himself.
Footsteps, down the stairs this time, “Oliver, did you know that you’re my favorite brother in the world?”
“I’m your only brother.” he deadpans, “What do you need?”
“Well, here’s the thing-“
Oliver hates the gods.
He can’t blame his parents. He was raised to believe that the gods would send their champion to save the world, after-all.
He knows better now.
He knows that nobody is coming to save them. The Wasteland grows more vicious as the years fly past them. More and more people are left to wander, their homes and families consumed while they patiently waste their time waiting for their Hero to come.
Oliver realized at some point along the line everyone he loved would die, probably well before their expected lifespans. Becoming an orphan at nineteen just cemented it, really.
The gods gave up on them a long time ago.
He sees no reason to worship beings that abandoned them. But wallowing in self pity isn’t going to help anyone, so Oliver does what he can. He’s long come to terms with his fate in all this, resigned himself to his boring life.
He accepts that in a few years, they’ll be uprooted too, forced to flee from the inevitable.
Oliver isn’t blind. He knows the way they live is unsustainable. He can see the exhaustion etched into his neighbors. They’re all getting older. It’s been years since the last child was born.
After what happened, he can’t blame them for not wanting to allow more children to suffer. Who would want to bring a child into this hellish world? Everyone remembers what happened seven years ago. Oliver himself will never forget the blood on his hands-
Never mind that train of thought. Oliver fidgets with the worn handle on his dagger, counting the familiar grooves carved into the wood.
The kingdom provides rations for the village as thanks for their service in surveying the Wasteland. They won’t starve if they’re smart, and that’s much better than others might be able to say.
Oliver’s watched plenty of desperate people pass through. Whether they were ousted from their homes by greedy nobles who demand more than people can afford to give, labeled as criminals- forced to run or be captured by the guards- friends and family members who have been turned against them. Or simply people who could no longer support themselves and believe the Wasteland’s hidden treasures will save them, somehow.
Some of those desperate few had even chosen to stay with the village, once they found Oliver’s little no-named settlement. Really that’s the only way their population ever grows, these days. Years ago, Elise was one of the new folk. Ousted from her home by people who didn’t understand the work she did, cut off from the network of supplies she needed for her research and chased out of the city. She’s never gone into too much detail, but Oliver knows she hates the cold, now. Her hearth is one of the most impressive parts of her home, powered by mana to never extinguish, no matter what happens.
So Oliver knows in some ways, that he is lucky for what he has. His home, as unstable as it’s future is, has never been stolen from him.
He is lucky, yes, but that could change at any moment. The village is caught in a precarious balance. His little adventurer’s shop has helped; and Patrice’s Inn is good encouragement for travelers to stay a while before their expeditions. A lure, cloaked in warm beds and food before the harsh life they’ll face inside the Wasteland.
Marianna and Elise’s creations are another form of income for the village. As superstitious as some of the others are about the two of them.
Oliver may not understand the finer details of what they do, but he’s more than willing to help where he can.
Which is exactly why he finds himself in the forest today.
The stones he was sent to look for are something of a by-product caused by the Wasteland, and as such, tend to be more common the deeper one ventures. The device Marianna entrusted to him should emit a series of clicks whenever he gets close to a deposit.
“It’s really simple,” she’d said. “It reacts to places that have an excess of mana. Where there’s too much mana, that’s where you’ll find the conduit crystals!”
Few people aside from the hunters or scavengers come this far, so Oliver relies on the game trails, and his own sense of direction to navigate.
It was convenient that the rain had let up earlier, though the sky remained stubbornly overcast. Oliver quickens his pace. This part of the forest was not particularly dangerous, but that would change during storms or come nightfall.
He tries to avoid being caught outside in bad weather. Aside from the obvious reasons, it always weighed down his clothes, and his prosthetic tore at the skin on his stump more viciously when it was damp. He couldn’t always avoid it though. Especially during the summer, when the weather changes at the whim of the gods. He’s wearing his rain coat today, but even so, he would prefer to make it back to the village before it starts again.
As though in direct contradiction of his thoughts, the smell of petrichor hits his nose, and it begins to rain.
Without any warning, the forest grows dark and quite.
The trees around him seem to lean. Their once neutral presence becoming overbearing. It’s a subtle thing. Oliver wonders if they, too, want to escape the sudden onslaught. Or, if they instead sought to trap whatever finds itself below their shivering boughs.
Many of the creatures that live here avoid the rain. Though he hasn’t had the chance, nor the lack of sanity, to question their behavior too closely.
Visibility is especially low. The sun never reached very far into the forest in the first place, but the heavy mist kicked up by the humidity doesn’t help. The ground becomes sticky almost immediately.
Oliver is so distracted with keeping his feet in front of him- that he doesn’t see the hidden edge of a ravine until he’s slipped over the edge.
Really, the fact that there was a ravine that he’s never seen before- directly in front of his path, was a bad sign for his navigational skills.
His survival instincts kick in. He slams the blade in his hand down to catch in the crumbling stone. The momentum causes his head to crack into the wall and wrenches at his shoulder with a sickening pop. His lifeline slipping from his fingers before he can try to reach with his other hand- dashing his hopes of saving himself.
As Oliver’s falling, he can’t help but think hysterically that Marianna is going to laugh at him for ruining yet another shirt. If he makes it back.
The last thing he hears before he passes out is a sharp snap.
Sword of Famine 