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Meegan · Adventurer Joined: 19 Oct 2010 Posts: 52

Plated, thin, and light brown the ponytail drooped across the leather on her left shoulder. Drenched sheets and soggy wood supported her weight as she stared blankly at the ceiling of the Modest Damsel. It had taken all of twenty minutes to soak through the clean linen's. Less than a week into her stay and the help had already decided it pointless to maintain her room. And so the sheets had remained unchanged with the stagnant smell of mold permeating the baton walls and escaping into the hallway.

Few moments had seen her beyond those same walls. Face to face confrontations were usually followed by wrinkled hands held over rounded mouths and hushed whispers when she passed. Placing her arm to the side she took her opposite blue-gray tinged hand and gripped the soggy leather twisting it in a clockwise motion. Once more the wooden floor was pooled with bacteria infested water. Dropping it back on the bed she returned her gaze to the ceiling. Disconnected images trickled through her minds eyes. Names she was supposed to know. Faces she was supposed to remember. Every one of them unfamiliar and distant.

Starting quietly just beyond the window of the room she heard it then. The creak and shatter of breaking wood.

Meegan · Adventurer Joined: 19 Oct 2010 Posts: 52

The sound of splintered boards reverberated along the hallway just beyond the walls to the tiny room. Rising she crept to the entry and turned the handle just as the noise stopped. Emptiness greeted her.

Nothing Broken.

Nothing Bent.

Nothing there.

Silent and stoic she stood a moment in the open and waited for the noises to begin once more. Her head tilted slightly in observation, her oxygen deprived skin giving off an almost iridescent glow in the moonlight.

One bell.

Turning round, she closed the door behind her. Sitting back down on the dank mattress she remained upright with her eyes open as they had been since she stepped out of the water and onto the beach.

Meegan · Adventurer Joined: 19 Oct 2010 Posts: 52

Five Bells.

Convoluted pathways laced themselves sporadically through her mind. Blood red brick and mortar at the end of what she thought to be heated leads and ice coated patches at the tip of solid beginnings. Deadened sensation coupled with fixed emotion and tainted with frustration coated the outsides like the hard surface of dark chocolate on a truffle. Truffles? Did she remember what they tasted like anymore? Standing she made her way to the dresser and stared into the mirror. Hallowed cheeks met with purple circles amidst the storm swept coloring of the rest of her face and neck. Absolutely no indication of the fire that once resided within was visible. Extinguished.

Calm and silent it was easy to hear when the creaking began anew. Lightly splintering at first she turned her head from her own face to gaze at the door. The reflection did not. A small smile crept eerily over the backwards version of herself, the eyes emptying to reveal nothing but black holes. The teeth were pristine and even save for the traces of kelp growing within the gums.

Pulling her hands off the dresser, her attention still on the door, she strode over and slammed it open.

Meegan · Adventurer Joined: 19 Oct 2010 Posts: 52

It watched... as she walked out into the hallway.

It watched... as her hands fell to her side and her expression remained a mix of bleak and stun.

It watched... as she walked downstairs, leaving the door wide open for any and all to enter.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Having flung the door open what greeted her was anything but empty. Above her head, schools of fish darted in and out of the deep blue-green. Starfish and coral etched the outline of the horizon and somewhere in the distance daylight sliced through a tiny section, illuminating the sight directly before her. There, less than 10 feet from her the partially broken porthole and midsection of a ship remained steadily sinking.

Creaking.

Cracking.

Breaking.

Huge staggered shards of wood ripped and tore at each other as the boat came apart before her eyes, sinking farther and farther down past her vision into the dark expanse of ocean. Her hand reached out, discolored fingers blending with the water so that a seamless line extended. There was something at the top of the mast. A flag of some sort. Squinting, she tried in vain to decipher.

9 Bells.

Meegan · Adventurer Joined: 19 Oct 2010 Posts: 52

The air was tinged with salt and sulpher. The two didn't mix well and the resulting fragrance burned her nostrils. The creaking had stopped now. Embedded in the sea, thousands of of pieces jutted out from the ocean floor. Tilting her head up she gazed at the bow turned precariously on its side for eternity. Slowly she allowed her eyes to rake upward.

Up past the wood.

Up past the waves.

Above, the setting sun was beginning to caress the edge of the water sending shimmering darts of red and orange across the glassy surface. What was the old adage...

"Red at night Sailor's delight."

If this was a prelude, the night was going to be anything but delightful.

Two Bells.

Meegan · Adventurer Joined: 19 Oct 2010 Posts: 52

9 Bells

Out of the water she emerged. The fog of blue-green lifting and dissipating leaving only a dusk colored, cloud ridden sky. The architecture, shadow stone stacked in various archways met her halfway. High and lean, turrets from the south west beckoned, the shadow colored road solid beneath her feet.

North-West her direction.

Nearly comatose her movements were even and forward.

Somewhere beyond was a destination her body craved and her mind followed. And she would go where they both willed. For all intents and purposes she was in this until the end. Her own soul a passenger of circumstance.

Meegan · Adventurer Joined: 19 Oct 2010 Posts: 52

Kelp.

Crab.

Lobster.

Blue Grouper.

One by one they scrawled and slid from various parts of her body onto the tile floor in Mazewood.

Three Orcs, at least she recognized that much, had surrounded and commanded. In no position to argue and unwilling to even if she could she had watched from outside herself as her she was drug by her hair and into the establishment. Her current form, blue tinged and water logged did as they commanded. Tile by tile she scrubbed.

Ransom.. she had heard right. What remained to be seen was whether or not Magincia would pay it.

4 bells.