And Then the Ground Shook…
October 20th, 2007What is this white light? Where is Stiggy? Where is my cousin? Where is my sister?Where is that Elvaan Woman? Where am I?
I looked around and found I was still in the Throne Room, where we had made what I thought was our last stand. My head hurt and the bright white light wasn’t helping it any. I don’t know who the being who is engulfed in it is, but she is pretty enough.
I sat there looking around. This room was so much prettier in the white light. The ornate carvings looked almost delicate in nature. I closed my eyes as the being moved across my vision to where the body of one of my fallen comarades lay.
Startled, I stood up as a shock wave cracked the wall between me and the door. I ran toward where my cousin had fallen.
“What was that?” I asked my voice trembling.
“I am forever in your debt, Altana,” Stigmus spoke softly as he knealt respectfully before the Entity that was engulfed in the white light.
“Who is Altana?” I felt like the more I remained in Vana’diel the more questions I would have.
“That felt like a shockwave of some sort, Dusti,” my cousin answered me as he rose to his feet.
“Duski!!! My name is Duski… as in D-U-S-K-I if you actually learned to spell when you were growing up.” I crossed my arms.
“Don’t mind him,” Stiggy said as he waddled up behind me. “He thinks he is something special…”
My cousin helped the Elvaan female to her feet… …and then the ground shook!
“What in Heaven’s name was that?” I shouted as rubble began to fall from the wall near the door.
“Save Yourselves!” I thought I heard shouted from outside. I began to scrabble my way to the door.
As I reached the doorway, I noticed that the entryway was no longer attached to the bridge where we entered. We all stood in the doorway as the tower creaked and listed further away from the bridge.
“So, how are we to get out of here?” I asked a bit irritated.
“Down there,” the Elvaan woman pointed at a bridge lower down on the tower. “With the way the tower is tilting we should be able to walk down the exterior walls to that bridge.”
“Ok,” Stiggy headed out the door. The Elvaan woman followed close on his heels.
“You aren’t going to stand here all day!” Stigmus looked down at me. “Get moving!”
“If my father heard you talking to me like that he would…” I looked up at my cousin and scowled.
“If you plan on being able to tell him, you better get your backside out that door and down that wall, runt!” Stigmus shoved me out and then followed quickly on my heels.
We walked down, or should I rather say that Stiggy and I tumbled down as the two elvaans slid down the wall. I found it more unnerving than the fight for me. The whole time in my mind I could see myself tumbling down past the bridge and into the darkness. I knocked a piece of a stone loose as I fell and it tumbled down towards Stiggy and the Elvaan woman.
“Look Out!”
The words had no more crossed my lips when the Elfaan female grabbed Stiggy and tossed him towards the bridge. I had to stiffle a giggle at the glimpse of what I saw as I tumbled closer to where the Elvaan Female had wedged herself.
With the Elvaan female making her way more cautiously down the incline towards the lower bridge, my cousin and I soon closed the gap between us and them. As we reached the bridge, I realized that the gap between the lower bridge and where we were had widened since the Elvaan Female had crossed.
“I can’t jump that,” I stammered as I wrapped my arms and legs around my cousin’s leg.
“You don’t have a choice, runt!” Stigmus roared as more rocks came tumbling down from the crumbling walls of the tower.
“But the gap is too big, I can’t jump that far!”
“You either Jump or I will throw you myself! And I can’t promise my aim will put you on the bridge!” Stigmus looked cross when I looked at him pleadingly. “Alright throw it is!” Stigmus wrenched my hands from his leg and positioned himself in such a way as to throw me towards the bridge.
I hit stone at the middle of the bridge and slid across towards the edge near the open doorway. I stopped sliding just shy of falling off at the wall. I scrambled to my feet as I saw the tower list futher. I couldn’t see my cousin.
“Stigmus? Are you there?” I couldn’t hear over the noise that was reverberating back from the stone tower collapsing into the chasm. I made my way through the rubble that had fallen on the bridge to the edge that had once attached to the tower.
“Do you need my help?” I asked as I saw him hanging by his finger tips on the jagged edge of the bridge.
“I think you have helped enough, runt! Don’t you?” Stigmus struggled to reposition himself onto a more secure stone.
“I can go get Stiggy and That Elvaan Woman.” I offered.
“Her name is Darling, and you do that!” he managed back, his voice tight with the strain of his exertion. “And be quick about it why don’t you!”
I scurried off towards the door. In the doorway I could hear the clash of metal against metal and the grunts of deflected blows. As I rounded the corner in the corridor, I found that Stiggy and The Elvaan Woman were fending off an ambush. They weren’t going to be much good to Stigmus until they were done with those creatures.
How was I going to help? What could I use to get my cousin up on the bridge? How could I help those two defend our position until we were all together again? What if I couldn’t get my cousin up on the bridge?
Just then I heard the clammor of a metal weapon as it was dropped from the claw of one of the newly defeated monsters.
‘That’s it!’ I thought to myself. I snuck into the fray and dragged out a great big sword but I found that I grew tired as I tried to drag it back to where my cousin hung precariously from the edge of the bridge. As I reached the opening in the bridge, I decided I would have to go about this a different way or I wouldn’t have the strength to help.
I dropped the big sword and made my way to a crack near the center of the bridge. I shoved the sword I carried that I had brought with me from the other realm into the crack all the way to it’s handle. I took the rope that I wore around my waist and tied it to the handle of the blade and the other around my waist.
I closed my eyes. “Altana I know I am not one of your children, but I am trying to help them, Please protect me,” with that I ran and jumped over the edge of the bridge. I heard a distant scream as I reached the end of my rope.
I opened my eyes and looked around beneath the bridge, my cousin was gone. Where was he? Did I put myself in danger for nothing? Would I have the strength to pull myself up again?
I grabbed ahold of the rope and began to climb it like the vines that clung from the dome in my father’s audience chamber. I guess being an inquisitive child that hated being religanted to ignorance was finally going to pay off. Hand over hand I climbed until I reached the top of the ledge.
I looked up to see my cousin with a foot either side of the rope. He reached down and pulled me up. When I began to protest about leaving my sword and rope, he grabbed them both and threw me like a sack of meal over his shoulder.
He ran with me over his shoulder to where the other two waited after clearing the ambush.
“Grab the runt and let’s go!” my cousin shouted at the Elvaan Woman.
“What about my father’s saber?” I screamed above the rumbling of the falling walls.
“What? That Puny Dagger?” my cousin shot back. “Don’t worry Runt! I got it.”
The two Elvaans ran down to the gates of the keep before they stopped and rested.
My cousin wrappped me up in the rope and growled at me as he wedged the blade I had carried between to stones. “This is so you don’t go trying anymore heroics that make me have to go rescuing you again, Runt!”