RuneScape Forum Archive | The Writer's Refuge

Xereva

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Xen cracks open an eye, takes in the sight of the bar, then closes it again.

He counts to three in his head and then heaves himself up off the floor, swaying on his feet until he steadies himself on the wall. A great cloud of dust billows off of him, and as he shakes his head more of it leaks out of his black hair, gone grey at the roots. He hasn't opened his eyes yet. When he does, he stops moving.

There's no one around. The tables sit empty, covered in the same dust that covered him. The ink has hardened in the inkwells, and the nibs on the pens have all rusted. The windows are hastily boarded over, and crooked shards of broken glass poke through, reflecting hazy daylight.

There are bodies littered around. Cloaked figures stained with ink, some nearly black with it. All asleep or dead.

He walks slowly and carefully to the window and peers out through the shattered glass. It's sunset, and just above the mountains there's a golden glow that lights the new-grown leaves, and he knows that spring is close. Beneath the mustiness of the tavern there's the smell of rain in the air and the promise of growth, and he snorts the last of the dust from his nose and turns.

51 is there, behind the bar, leaning back on a stool and polishing a tankard. The surface, after all this time, is worn nearly to mirrorshine. He raises a hand briefly in greeting and then returns to his polishing.

Xen stands for a long moment in front of the window. It will be dark soon, and the crowds will come. He pulls a lighter from his pocket, an old Dunhill worn and scratched with time. Then he pulls down the great wrought iron chandelier, flicks the top from the Dunhill, and lights a candle.

19-Jun-2013 04:02:42 - Last edited on 25-Mar-2017 04:38:23 by Xereva

Xereva

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The Refuge originally started out as a roleplay, a place where those native to the Stories forum could post as characters of themselves in an environment where the forum was a tavern, their stories parchment on the walls, and the Page 51 Monster was the bartender. It got a little attention, but I had too much fun writing about the environment and the crowd to get involved with a true roleplay. So I decided to re-make it as a story.

But this isn't a story like others on the forum. It's not going to have a plot as such, or well-defined characters, or even a point. It's a continuing exercise in the exploration of an environment, the extended metaphor of the forum as a tavern, and a place for me to have fun hashing out ideas that will come to me at random times throughout the weeks and months. If this isn't your cup of tea, feel free to give it a pass. But if you like what you read, give it a skim, drop a comment, come say hello.

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19-Jun-2013 04:02:55 - Last edited on 25-Mar-2017 04:38:39 by Xereva

Xereva

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"'bout time one of you woke up."

51's voice is gravelly with age and lack of use. *en finishes lighting the chandelier before hauling it back up with the chain, then turns to 51.

"What happened? Everyone pass out but you? And for how long?"

51 grins. In the gaps between his teeth, a blackness shows that is unnaturally deep, unnaturally dark.

"Could call it passing out. You left, is what you did. Everyone else, too."

Xen frowned. "Left?"

"Your bodies." He sets the tankard down at last, somewhere beneath the bar, and pulls out a rag instead, which he tosses to Xen. "Help me clean up?"

"Yeah." Xen nods and sweeps the rag across one of the tables, and the dust doesn't just move, it vanishes. In a few swipes the table is more than clear, it's shining. The old ironwood has a depth to it that Xen never saw in his time at the Refuge before, and he turns over the cloth before realizing that it is crammed with spell characters.

"Where'd you get something like this?"

"Made it." 51 snorts. "You run a place like this, see if you don't want one."

"But for the kind of magic that you would need..." He trails off, sweeping the dust off the long benches, trying to calculate the binding strengths and power requirements. 51 smiles again, showing the emptiness at the back of his throat.

"A lot of power. Yeah. Don't think too much on it, it won't do you much good."

Xen nods and finishes the table before moving on to another chandelier and lighting it, candlewicks sputtering in the melted wax before they finally burn true. The old ironwork rattles as he hoists it up, but the light burns bright, and the tavern is starting to look more comforting. More like home.

"You never got lonely in all the time you spent here? After all us writers just up and left?" He glances around meaningfully. "And you never cleaned up any?"

19-Jun-2013 04:03:00 - Last edited on 19-Jun-2013 05:01:19 by Xereva

Xereva

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"Didn't need to. Knew no one was coming in." He shrugs casually and turns from the bar, toward the cellar door. "Going to go get some new windows, mind that you don't open the doors just yet."

Xen nods and pulls down another chandelier as 51 opens the door and disappears down into the darkness, lighting the candles and watching the fireglow play across the floor. As he hoists it back toward the ceiling he sees a familiar shape crumpled in the corner, ink spilled like blood across its chest.

"Damn."

He says it softly, almost reverently. Walking over he kneels next to the man, cloth in hand, and wipes the ink from his clothes. Under the shirt chain-mail rings softly, and as his arm flutters limply a tattoo is revealed on the inside of his wrist. Branded in neat black lettering is his name:

GRANDEH

Xen finishes cleaning him up before standing smoothly, glancing around at the others who are variously resting against the wall, sprawled on the floor, or curled up in corners. Some he recognizes, old regulars of days past. Smeeze, Torpeh, Ippeh, Wolfeh. Giants all, storytellers true to the old blood, the old days.

He glances around further and finds one of the still figures armed with weaponry he doesn't recognize, smooth chrome nestled into a black holster. He turns the figure over and there is no name on its wrist. Frowning, he drags the man against the wall and leaves him. Before long he is dragging all the former regulars into sitting positions, wiping the dust out of their hair, slapping one or two of his friends—Sigurdur, Draken, Warro—just to see if they'll snap out of whatever trance they've lapsed into. Neither of them do.

"Back."

Xen swivels, and 51 is just shutting the door behind him, four windows in his arms, frames and all.

"You just had those sitting down there?"

"There's an awful lot 'down there'." 51 grins, and in the gap between two of his teeth there is that blackness again, as if there is only empty space behind his mouth.

19-Jun-2013 04:03:07 - Last edited on 19-Jun-2013 05:02:21 by Xereva

Xereva

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"Mind telling me how you keep coming up with these things?" Xen finishes dragging the last of the crowd to the wall, making sure to keep them away from the hanging inkwells and quills. "Seems like you've got everything you need. Strange for such a small place."

"Got a strange definition of small. We're large as we need."

51 walks over to the two front windows and sets the replacements down. Xen turns to survey the sleeping crowd again, and when he turns back the window has already been replaced, and the old one removed. He blinks for a moment, wondering if he should ask a question.

"Who are you? Not just what do you do, but who are you, where do you come from? You're not human."

A statement, not a question. 51 smiles his smile again, and for a moment the darkness takes his face and his eyes, and the grin grows wider. Much wider. Then his face pulls back to its old weathered look and he turns toward another window.

"I'm old." He pulls the broken window out of its frame with a wrenching /crack/, and suddenly it is gone, as if it had never been there at all. "Didn't make this place so much as it made me, you could say. See the scrolls, all across the walls?" He gestures and Xen follows his sweeping arm, taking in all the sheaves of parchment nailed haphazardly to the oak planks that lie over the building stones. "I started where they end."

"How's that?"

51 sets the window into place and pushes, and it is as if nothing had ever happened, as if the window had been there from the Refuge's beginning, whole and complete. When he picks up the windows and looks at Xen again the darkness is in his eyes, and his skin peels in diseased grey flakes as he smiles with teeth suddenly too big for his mouth.

"There is only so much room for stories." He gestures to one of the scrolls, and his fingers have talons, his back has wings. "There. There is the end. Beyond that no more may exist."

19-Jun-2013 04:03:11 - Last edited on 19-Jun-2013 05:02:35 by Xereva

Xereva

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And then he is himself again, and Xen is frozen, knife left sheathed, gun left holstered. It is only rarely that he has been struck motionless, and now is such a time. Slowly he recovers, unholstering his gun, a miniscule Beretta, and holding it out in front of him in the flat of his hand, safety on.

"I don't suppose this would do anything to you, then?"

51 laughs roughly. "I wouldn't try."

Xen nods, and holsters the gun, and the two continue their work in silence.

Once he sets the windows in 51 moves on to un-board the doors and sweep the layers of dust off the floor, returning quills and ink bottles to their ironwork holders. Xen wipes tables and retrieves glasses and tankards, marveling at some of the old conversations carved at knifepoint into the tables. He knows the names, one an old pseudonym of his, and chuckles at the casual threats of violence passed back and forth between friends.

"We open soon."

51 runs his rag across the bar, the long stretch of thick-grained oak on which legendary tales have been inscribed, the place where Grandeh and Zero Maxwell penned their twin masterpieces. It is under glass now, and the words are never to be changed, but there are echoes of their voices still, the deep tones of Grandeh that once echoed through the Refuge and held everyone in thrall; the fast, half-manic chatter of Maxwell as he burned through saga after saga. Xen sighs long and loud into the still air.

"Where did his stories ever go?"

51 turns and smiles sadly. The black depths of his mouth are the answer.

"There is only so much room for stories. The rest..." He lets his lip curl back to show his teeth, and Xen notices only then how dirty they are, parchment stuck between them and streaked black with ink.

"Now." 51 strides to the left hand door and rests his palms against it. He motions for Xen to take the right, and he does, with one final glance at their handiwork. At last, together, they remove the bolt bar and throw open the Refuge to the night.

19-Jun-2013 04:03:42 - Last edited on 19-Jun-2013 05:03:53 by Xereva

Xereva

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Though the view out the windows before was mountains and fields, the doors now open to a roaring city crowd, hundreds moving through the cobblestone streets to taverns, theatres, inns. Men in armor or in fine silks, women in breeches or dresses trimmed in gold, children tagging along with their parents in the crowds or else finding their own way, orphans made half-feral by the harsh life of the alleys. It is loud and beautiful and Xen had forgotten it, the rich medieval thrum of Varrock, left so long ago for other places.

"Give a hand?"

51 gestures upward, to the quill, inkwell, and parchment that make up the Refuge's sign. Xen unhooks it from its hanger easily, bringing it down for 51 to take, but he shakes his head.

"We ought to put the name on the sign. It’s not right that a place for writers doesn't have it written."

"Couldn't you...?"

51 shakes his head. "Can't read or write."

Something about the way he bows his head strikes pangs into Xen's heart, and he clasps 51's arm firmly and fast.

"I'll teach you one day. Now what do you want me to write it with?"

51 grins. "Think I'd like that. Behind the bar there's some brushes and paint, I'll get them."

In a moment he returns with a calligraphy brush, firm and sharp, and a leather pouch of what can only be paint. It's a rich gold, the kind made from the element itself. Xen carefully dips the brush and in broad, precise strokes paints the name:

THE WRITER'S REFUGE

51 looks at the lettering with evident satisfaction and smiles, for once without showing the blackness. With no words exchanged Xen re-hangs the sign and the two make their way back into the bar, one to its front, the other to its rear. The noise from outside is loud, but as 51 pours a finger of whiskey for each of them the toast Xen makes is clear:

"To a new age."

They drink. Around them the new-lit candles shine, the tables fairly glow, and the new parchments wait, empty, on the walls.

19-Jun-2013 04:03:49 - Last edited on 19-Jun-2013 05:04:07 by Xereva

Xereva

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The first into the inn is a man—a boy, really—who clearly looks as if he belongs in the Refuge. He's short but not unusually so, with a businesslike face contorted with the effort of having run the long distance to the inn. In his pockets are stuffed all manner of writing instruments, from quills and inks to a slim, brushed-aluminum keyboard. He winces, feeling at the stitch in his side, and then straightens to stare at 51.

"Here to apply for a job, sir."

51's mouth quirks at the edge as he takes in the boy's exhaustion. "And what would that be?"

"Scribe, sir." He pants out the words, his sentences cut as he draws breath. "I ran here from... from the fountain, sir. Once I heard that... that the Refuge had... had opened again, I had to come and see..."

51 holds up a hand and turns to Xen, giving him a quizzical look. Xen shrugs.

"Let him try his hand, I say. He was first."

The man bows deeply, blowing out a long breath. "Thank you, sirs."

He sets up at the far end of the bar closest to the wall, unrolling a sheet of parchment before thinking twice, rolling it back up, and pulling out a flat electronic slate and the slim keyboard. Unaware of the bodies lined inches away from his boots, he lets his hands hang over the keyboard. Xen raises an eyebrow at 51.

"Can anyone else see them?"

Scribe's hands flicker over the keys.

"No." He chuckles. "Only the ones who've been here before."

Scribe looks up, but 51 waves him back.

"Just write out what we say."

The boy nods sharply, attention refocused to the slate laid before him. Xen nods his approval before motioning to 51 for another finger of whiskey. The bottle is barely out for a second before it's gone again, and he huffs in disappointment.

"What're you pouring, anyway?"

19-Jun-2013 04:03:54 - Last edited on 19-Jun-2013 05:07:29 by Xereva

Xereva

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"Glendronach. Scotch. 19 years. Good, yea?" He whisks the bottle out for another moment, sniffs deeply, and then sets it back. "Cost me a tidy sum. Worth it though, for the burn if nothing else."

Xen nods, and the two drink in silence for a moment.

Quickly enough, the crowds make their way from the streets into the Refuge: writers and poets, playwrights and lyricists. There are some who are none of these, those who come to listen but not to speak. The floorboards creak and bend, and as guests make their way up the corner stairs to the rooms above the ceiling shakes as well, sending dust through the cracks.

51 turns quickly away from Xen and busies himself with the customers, collecting coin and filling drinks. At the tables old gangs gather around sheaves of parchment, dipping their pens and quills and scribbling out first lines or titles. Some scrawl ballads, one man composing the music on a lin or lute while another writes lyrics. Others pass the parchment from one sentence to the next, making each line more ridiculous than the last, laughing uproariously all the while.

Xen scans the room for familiar faces, but all the ones he knows are piled against the wall asleep. The rest are shadows to him, living lives in other worlds.

"Problem?"

51 sets the Scotch back on the bar, but Xen waves it away.

"Just thinking. I don't know anyone here any more, they're all strangers."

"They don't know you." He puts the bottle away, but not before tipping a swig into the cap and swallowing it down with a grimace. "They knew you better, might talk to you. Might help if you dressed like them too."

He gives Xen a meaningful glance at his worn jeans and t-shirt. Xen rolls his eyes.

"Don't suppose you've got a spare cloak?"

"Mm. Only black." He draws it out from under the bar and hands it over, an Xen pulls it over himself with a flourish, drawing closed the silver clasp.

"Fits well."

19-Jun-2013 04:03:59 - Last edited on 19-Jun-2013 05:11:55 by Xereva

Xereva

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"Cloaks will do that."

A twinkle in 51's eye adds humor to the moment, and Xen smiles and turns around to face the crowds, bobbing his leg to the music that hums in his head. It is a good night. A fine night for writing, for talking, for sitting and imagining what might be. The Refuge is a place for such things, a haven for all kinds, from all times and backgrounds. At some tables there are men dressed in the local fashions, and Xen can recognize Thessalia's work, often as he's worn it himself. She's still at it , he thinks. Even through all these years.

But there are others who wear more modern clothes, others still that are blatant anachronisms: men in segmented armor patterned with digital camouflage, sporting firearms years beyond those of Gielinor; women in dresses cut far too short for the times, earning the looks of many; and creatures who simply do not fit in the world, odd hybrids or species that attract more stares even than the women. The Refuge is a crossing-place, changeable and strange, but of those that enter few question it outright. They are used to it.

Over near the start of the long line of parchment, there is a gaggle of younger men and women forcing their way to a long stack of pages that has been pinned to the wall with a knife, affixing it permanently to its place. Above it, carved inexpertly into the wood, there is the title:

STORY DISCUSSIONS

The stack is so thick that it has been bound together with cord, and even so it still drops pages from time to time, fluttering down like the feathers of some molting bird. But those that scribble on the pages set them almost reverentially back before putting down their messages and walking away, eager to hear responses from those that come on other hours, other days.

"Going to take a walk around Varrock, I'll be out a while."

51 nods, taken up with another customer. Xen slips off the stool, cloak swirling, and heads for the door, out into the night.

19-Jun-2013 04:04:03 - Last edited on 19-Jun-2013 05:08:30 by Xereva

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The Writer's Refuge