RuneScape Forum Archive | The Writer's Refuge

Xereva

Posts: 7,589 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

"Once, yes, I think." The Wolf pulls back. "But god, you've gotten different! What are these clothes? And what did you kill him with, I must have one."

Behind them two of the guild members are hauling the body out the door, heaving it unceremoniously into the street. Draken strides forward to mingle with the crowd, ordering a drink from the man behind the bar. The guild is old and worn, and in places it is like The Golden Pen, nearly see-through, translucent; walls flicker with moonlight, and overhead, in the right moment, one can see clouds. But when the guilders roar with laughter the place is real enough, solid as foundation stone, and the drink served at the bar is still strong.

Xen pulls his pistol out again, ejects the magazine, and refills it with three more rounds before sliding it back in. He holds it up to the Wolf.

"A gun," he says. "Something from my world."

"Ah, you're one of the transients. Might've known." He looks at the weapon carefully, respectful of its power, and then at Xen, as if watching for some tell of madness. "You look well enough for it, apart from the clothing. No cloak! A man without a cloak is not a man, you must take something, it is cold in the nights. Take your old mantle, it is on the peg by the door."

He gestures, and Xen looks. There is a row of short cloaks hanging by the door, all fur, all white. He spots his immediately, the corner ragged and caked brown with old blood, and laughs.

"Who was I fighting that wounded me?"

"No one. He only clipped your cloak, and you tore his throat out for it. Have a drink now, come. Catch me up on the ways of your world, on your writing."

Xen smiles.

Something cracks.

His view distorts, rights itself. There is no bar. There is no crowd. No guild. The Wolf is gone. Behind him he hears footsteps and turned to find Draken with a small glass in hand, frowning.

"It goes away, sometimes."

19-Jun-2013 04:12:16 - Last edited on 19-Dec-2013 20:11:28 by Xereva

Xereva

Posts: 7,589 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

"You should have told me," Xen says, and his voice echoes down the street. Where he stands is the center of a ruin, the floorboards rotted, the walls long since crumbled. Roof timbers lie shattered at his feet. In the corner, where shelves once held bottles of fine wines and spirits, there is only a small pile of shattered glass and a dark stain on the floor. When he looks to his feet there are several other stains, too, and a single splintery bullet hole.

"Did I imagine it," Xen asks, "or was it happening? What is this place? Is Guilder Street only smoke and shadows now, a home for ghosts?"

"You imagined it, and it was happening. I was there, and I saw, did I not?" He throws back the drink in his hand and grits his teeth, then tosses the glass to the side. There is no sound of breaking glass, and Xen cannot see it hit the floor. "Your mantle still hangs by the door. Your rank is still on the wall. Close your eyes, listen. Breathe. It is there."

Xe* obeys and for a moment the Wolf's voice sounds again in his ears, rumbling and satisfied, and he smells the tang of strong alcohol, the iron sharpness of blood. Gunpowder, too, the slightest whiff. And then he opens his eyes and his short cloak is indeed hanging by the broken doorway, still stained.

"There should be more than wreckage here."

"So build." Draken coughs. "Build something new, as you always did. Past ruin never stopped you. How many guilds did you try? Nexus, the Onyx and Ruby, the Academy. They are all here. The Academy will always dwarf the others, but they are all here, some still fine and strong. You built them well."

"But I left them when the summer ended." Xen strides to the door and drapes his mantle across his shoulders, scattering dust. "I wanted to leave a legacy, but I never invested beyond the summer months. There was always too much, too many tasks, too little time..."

"Then try again."

19-Jun-2013 04:12:21 - Last edited on 19-Dec-2013 02:40:48 by Xereva

Xereva

Posts: 7,589 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Xen shakes his head. "There have been enough attempts."

"And all came to something. Who knows to where those many members have gone, to what fates and futures? What lessons they have taken, the stories they now tell to others? Listen to the clamor, to what was."

He walks through the shattered door and out into the street, and Xen follows.

Into light, into life. A throng of hundreds among the buildings, carrying sheaves of parchment, bundles of pens. Ink by the jug. There are recognizable silhouettes of buildings again: The Golden Pen in full glory of gilt, an amethyst spire beyond. And others. The Academy in regal splendor, all columns and steps, Onyx and Ruby simpler, smaller, ornamented only by the namesake stones themselves, fine examples of each set in a crest above the door. And the dozen nameless others of old, so many the streets are narrow between them, and too few still to serve all that seek them.

Xen steps out further and a passerby rushes through him, parting like smoke.

"The old days," Draken says.

There are fights on the streetcorners, with words and weapons both. Groups in conversation outside every door and more within, others solitary with their parchment, writing, pausing, writing again. And others reading aloud. They stand on pulpits of their own making and proclaim their work to the street, some drawing crowds, others let alone until they cease.

"Was it so good then?" Xen says.

"It was, and it was not. There was greatness, but there was also fire. There were all the strange restrictions placed on us, the uncertainty of our fate. We were never the largest."

"No. We never were."

Draken walks out further into the street, back toward the main road, and Xen follows. Through crowds that grow as they push on, none of whom touch them. None are even aware.

19-Jun-2013 04:12:25 - Last edited on 25-Mar-2017 04:12:28 by Xereva

Xereva

Posts: 7,589 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

And Xen sees all that he has known in life again. Sigurdur holding court before The Golden Pen with his epic, Crystal with hers. Torpeh to the side critiquing in public, holding before a group a page that bears the red marks of his editing; Xen sees the piece is his own.

And there are all the others too. Eternal in memory and more vivid still then they were afirst. Fellows whose names he has forgotten that go by still young and fresh with stories on their lips or ready in the ink they carry, guilds whose bells ring for those newly promoted to rank. He sees himself go by a half a dozen times in different garb: in armor, in a learner's robes, in a teacher's. First young, and then older.

"Then you will not try again?" Draken says.

"No."

The crowds are gone, the buildings are gone. In their place a bare street where grass grows among the cobblestones and moss and ivy have colonized the remnants of the guilds. In place of conversation there is only wind.

Xen is alone. A spare few figures in the distance that pick among the wreckage, but none he recognizes.

"Draken?" he calls, but there is no answer.

-

He goes back through the streets toward the Refuge, but there are no crowds at all now, no city night. Stragglers going home in the early morning, the plaza empty, the fountain dry. A haze of gray fog hangs over everything and those few who remain move about like spirits. When he finds the Refuge again the light from within is dim, the sign slipped partly from its hanging chain.

51 is still behind the bar and raises a hand in greeting, still polishing the same tankard.

"You're back."

Xen looks around the room and there are no bodies any more, no occupants of the tables. The room is spotless but unoccupied, and 51 does not preside over it so much as observe.

"And how do you like our new world?" he says.

19-Jun-2013 04:12:30 - Last edited on 25-Mar-2017 04:34:38 by Xereva

Xereva

Posts: 7,589 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

The room changes. The tables are rotted, the walls show holes. Half or more of the stories that hung on the walls are gone, lost or taken elsewhere. Outside there is a glimmer of daylight and again there are mountains beyond the windows, and fields before them.

Xen takes a long look around the room.

"I think I'd like to leave," he says, very quietly.

51 nods. "Then I'll keep what you've made," he said. "Until its time."

Xen walks again to the doorframe. There is no door in it now; it was taken long ago. At the threshold he pauses to look out into the early morning. It is spring now, and there are robins already in the grass, and the scent of rain. The sun is coming up in the place where two mountains meet, and the sky is ablaze with it, the clouds radiant from one end of the horizon to the other. He takes a moment to nod to 51, but there is no longer any one there. Then he turns and walks forward, onward, into the light.

19-Jun-2013 04:12:34 - Last edited on 25-Mar-2017 04:41:48 by Xereva