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The Wild Girls (chapter story)

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YuBiusk Ink

YuBiusk Ink

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This story concerns the trials faced by two young women coming of age in the most perilous region in all of Runescape: Mudskipper Point The Wilderness. One was raised by bandits and is desperate to prove herself; the other has raised herself and doesn't even know a land beyond the Wilderness exists.

It updates on Sundays , though not all Sundays, and contains violence, injuries such as a broken bone, bullying of an implied autistic character, some PG-13 swearing ("piss" and "crap", for example), and some very subtle indications of lesbian romance. Okay, they're not subtle at all. These girls are gay as heck. Whether it ends well remains to be seen.

Also, chapter titles are named for Runescape songs. I liked to use them as mood music while I was writing, and you might find them nice to listen to while reading. Not gonna lie, Runescape's put out some serious bangers over the years.

22-Oct-2020 23:34:18 - Last edited on 14-May-2023 22:36:31 by YuBiusk Ink

YuBiusk Ink

YuBiusk Ink

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CHAPTER ONE: UNDERCURRENT

“Keith, slow down!” The tips of Heather’s toes kicked up little ash clouds as she raced across the dunes after her friend. “Keith, Donny can’t keep up!”

“Well, damn,” Keith called back, "I guess he gets eaten, then!" He gave his signature dolphin cackle and only seemed to pick up speed.

Heather spared a glance back at Donny. ‘The Lad’ was panting for breath, his cheeks puffed up and as red as the morning haze. Unlike Heather and Keith, he was wearing a pair of heavy boots to shield against the occasional cinder, and Heather could tell it was all he could do to avoid tripping over them in the ash. Those were not running shoes.

“You alright, Donny?” she asked, tossing her umber-brass ponytail over her shoulder. She didn’t slow down.

“F… F-Fine! ” Donny gasped, shielding his eyes with an arm as Heather inadvertently sent a shower of ash right up towards his face. “But… but we should… turn back… soon...”

“Callous up, Donny.” Heather grinned and turned back to the path before her, leaning forward to give herself some extra speed. “What are you, scared for your mommy?”

“I-I’m more scared of her!” Heather heard Donny burst out after her, and she laughed. “If they find out how far we went out tonight, o-or we're not back before—”

The rest of Donny’s words were lost to Heather not really caring as she left him in the ash.

Donny’s mother and the other adults usually insisted on them wearing shoes, or at least the bandages, when wandering outside the camp. But being slow was generally a lot deadlier than some minor burns.

Especially when you were venturing towards Level 30 of the Wilderness.

22-Oct-2020 23:35:32 - Last edited on 02-Apr-2023 21:23:14 by YuBiusk Ink

YuBiusk Ink

YuBiusk Ink

Posts: 2,904 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Heather feared neither beast nor burn, of course. Her fifteenth birthday had just been yesterday, and her heart soared with the confidence of one practically on the cusp of adulthood and ready to join in the raids—as far as the people of the Camp were concerned. Her feet had long since developed tough protective callouses, and she almost didn’t feel the cinders anymore even when she did step on one.

Keith was sitting atop a large boulder when she caught up with him. His smile was brash—and she could already tell he had a snide remark ready, so she decided to not slow down.

“I see you finally ggGYAH !” Keith went tumbling into the ash as Heather raced up and gave him a hard shove. She grinned, watching him sputter as cool ash billowed around him.

He glared up at her, covering his mouth against the ash. “Was that—was that really necessary , Heather?”

“Eh.” Heather hopped up onto the boulder and perched there like a gargoyle, smiling down at him. “You slowed down.”

As Keith coughed and grumbled and brushed ash out of his hair, Heather turned to regard where he’d led them. The boulder stood at the edge of a sharply-cut chasm—maybe as wide across as a grown man was tall at its widest, a deep, jagged scar in the rock.

She chewed on the inside of her cheek, scratching her chin, grimacing as a bit of scruff reminded her she still had a lot to learn about shaving with a dagger. “So, um… why’d you bring us here, anyways? What is this place?”

“I dunno.” Keith straightened, still dusting himself off. “Cool, though, right?”

“It’s just a crevice.” She folded her arms and shot him a narrow glance. “We live next to a lava lake.”

“It’s not just a crevice, it’s a crevasse .” Keith paused his cleaning to point firmly down the ravine. “See?”

“You just said the same thing twice.”

“It’s—no, see, it’s—” Keith seemed to scramble for a moment. “Look, a crevasse’s bigger, okay? Besides, there’s something down there. Just look!”

22-Oct-2020 23:35:48 - Last edited on 02-Apr-2023 21:25:08 by YuBiusk Ink

YuBiusk Ink

YuBiusk Ink

Posts: 2,904 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Heather sighed and turned back, leaning over the edge of her boulder to peer down into the ‘crevasse’. She squinted and let her eyes adjust. Okay, there was something down there. The chasm seemed to open up towards the bottom at its very narrowest into some sort of cave or hollow.

She turned back, blinking up at Keith. “What’s down there?”

“No idea,” Keith admitted. “But I figured you’d be able to get down there and check it out.”

“Haha. No.” Heather rolled her eyes. “Not another Heather-crawls-into-a-hole plan. Why do all your plans involve me crawling into crevices and crevasses and crawlspaces and—”

“You’re the smallest!” Keith protested. “And you’re the bravest, and you aren’t afraid like, um, like Donny always is—” He kicked the dust, flushing. “And I thought you wanted to know what’s down there?”

Heather swallowed. Her dark eyes darted between Keith, the approaching figure of Donny, and the ravine.

Heather was the smallest of the three, and the bravest. She was also the most curious and the most susceptible to being flattered, and they both knew it.

“I’m not gonna do it because you asked,” Heather said firmly, as she started climbing down the boulder and easing into the chasm. “I just want to get a quick look.”

“... Um, well, I mean, hang on, Heather.” Keith suddenly sounded a bit nervous. “I mean, wait for Donny to get here, at least.”

“I don’t do what you tell me,” Heather chirped, and dropped herself into the ravine.

“Heather!”

Heather’s toes dug into the jagged rock, finding a foothold to slow her descent. This was a tight fit, even for her. The ravine got narrower fast, its walls more jagged and sharp. Her hands would be getting sliced apart if her gloves weren't made of tough mammoth leather.

“Heather, wait.” Keith's voice was unsteady. He was spooked now.

Heather rolled her eyes. The boys talked a big game, but sometimes it seemed like she was the only one with any follow-through. “I’m already almost there. Relax."

22-Oct-2020 23:36:01 - Last edited on 02-Apr-2023 21:29:31 by YuBiusk Ink

YuBiusk Ink

YuBiusk Ink

Posts: 2,904 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
The ravine wasn’t a clean cut. It was more like someone had split in half a still-green branch, with plenty of splinters left to impale an unwary climber. Every little ledge was like a long serrated knife jutting from the cliffside.

Heather hissed in pain as she felt the rock cut a shallow slash along the joint of her big toe. Oh, this had been a bad idea.

She twisted her body, taking advantage of her long neck to lean as far down as she dared. She wasn’t even a little claustrophobic, but she also didn’t want to break anything pivotal on the way back up.

The fissure definitely opened up towards the bottom. Heather squinted. Her night vision was the best of the trio, but there was almost no light to see by right now.

“Hey, Keith!” she called. “Can you get Donny’s lantern and—”

“Sure.” Keith sounded suddenly intrigued—as Heather had known he would be, for all his complaints.

There was a pause.

“You there, Keith?” Heather asked. "Where's Donny?"

“Heather." Keith's voice was suddenly uneven, “something’s wrong.”

Heather went still.

It hit her suddenly what a bad position this was for her. They were at a high level of the Wilderness. They were unarmed. They were alone. And she was halfway crammed into a narrow crevasse with no light. Stuck fast and at her idiot friends' mercy. The bandits had a phrase for relying on loyalty in the Wilderness:

Swimming in the undercurrent .

And as she heard Donny’s distant yells—and knew in her curdling gut just what it meant for him to be willingly making that much noise this far north—she knew this could get worse very, very fast.

“ Donny! ” Keith cried. “Heather, you idiot, get out of there!"

“I can’t ! I’m in—”

She heard a soft rustling, the quiet beating of bare feet against ash. And then there was silence.

Heather was left alone in the Wilderness, stuck in a deep, narrow cranny in the rock.

And she was starting to get a stitch in her side.

22-Oct-2020 23:36:14 - Last edited on 02-Apr-2023 21:37:32 by YuBiusk Ink

YuBiusk Ink

YuBiusk Ink

Posts: 2,904 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
CHAPTER TWO: NO WAY OUT

Heather had heard that one of the first things to get to people in the Wilderness was the quiet.

Everyone south of the Ditch expected there to be constant noises. Shrieks. Growls. Hisses. Roars. They expected to cross the Ditch and immediately be beset by a dozen howling revenants, each screaming the secrets of a million dead men’s nightmares.

But they were never prepared for the quiet.

Silence could be like a fungus. It started small, growing in the ear canal, a dull, dead emptiness that the victim often wouldn’t even notice. Then it spread, as subtle as a knife. It grew deeper, heavier, filling its victim with clouded thoughts and grimy despair. The victim wouldn’t even realize they were going mad from it until it was too late. Everyone at the Bandit Camp knew loneliness was the Wilderness’s deadliest beast by a longshot. That was why even the roughest and toughest of them never strayed far in the end. They feared being alone more than anything. The worst punishment the leaders of the Camp could inflict was exile, not death.

Heather had only been trapped in this fissure for a couple minutes. The silence pressed down on her nonetheless.

Heather squirmed. She couldn’t hear the boys anymore. That wasn’t surprising—they wouldn’t want to attract any other dangers by shouting and screaming. The real peril to the silence was how seductive it could be to fill it, and how easily a single cry could echo over the empty wastes.

But she was worried.

She’d already tried to climb back up. She was nestled in too tightly. Without someone to tug on her, she was worried about breaking a bone, or cutting something she was going to need. She just had to hope that they’d gotten away.

26-Oct-2020 15:37:09 - Last edited on 30-Apr-2023 19:18:06 by YuBiusk Ink

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