Pathfinder AP: Hell’s Rebels. Night Vision.
A Dream of Devoted Saranites:
Voices all around me making small talk mixed with the clinking of glasses and plates at a warm evening party with the patio doors all open. A hundred people in absurdly expensive outfits admiring one another. One voice rises above the others, simply exclaims the word “Look!”
Rising to gaze over the crowd and out the veranda doors away Southwest, I see huge columns of black smoke, even in the failing light they are plain to see. Many small ones, and three larger than the rest. The docks are the nearest. An entire pier must be ablaze.
The second great fire is across the River, downtown in the shop district. A huge plume of smoke 50’ wide. Alarm bells began to ring across the city. Staring hard again at the shop district, my heart begins to pound in my chest.
I sprint for the balcony. Knock over a waiter. Shove an old fat lady aside.
As the balcony rail comes at me fast, I see the fire blocks away. I dive off, four-floors-up, glide to the outer wall designed to keep the riff raff out. I barely grab the edge of it with my fingertips. “GO” I yell at myself out loud. I pull myself up and race across the wall, again diving over the side to glide down into the streets below.
Running hard now, scimitar banging against my hip. The fire is straight ahead but the main street is blocked for construction. I know which alley to take. I sprint through a small market knocking over chairs and tables. Through someone’s front yard. I’m on the street again now, there’s bright light ahead.
The building is consumed. It flows up the outer walls, bursts out of the windows. A forty foot wide pillar of black smoke churns out of the roof and up into the night sky. People are running away from it. I can’t see inside, the fire is too thick. I cut left around a neighboring building to try to see the front entrance on the dock side. It has completely collapsed.
Across the river to the South, I see a huge burst of fire rise up into the night and become a smoke cloud over the city. My stomach clenches. I can’t breathe. Tears are coming. I race to the end of the burning dock. Voices yelling around me, at me, as I dive full speed into the river.
I shape my dive perfectly to slice through the calm flow. I see the reflection of a beautiful silver-haired elven woman with dark lines streaming down her cheeks and a crazed look in her eyes coming straight at me and then cool water surrounds.
The water smells foul, death and ash choke me as I try to breathe it, but it’s too foul. Holding my breath, I surge ahead. I hit the surface on the other side so hard I launch all the way onto the sidewalk and start running as water gushes out of my clothes and concealed armor.
In a few steps it’s fallen off me and I’m at a full sprint again. I can’t breathe but I’m not tired, I run on pure terror.
I cut through the dense neighborhood on the South shore of the river, cutting left and right until I get to the square. I burst out of a side street, straining to see to the West.
“No, no NO” I hear myself say as I see which building is burning. The surrounding buildings are caught too. It’s all on fire. I’m running straight at it. The heat knocks me off my feet and I sit on the stones in the middle of the street as the upper floor collapses down into the first. I struggle to my feet, hands shaking. Tears stream down my face. I can’t breathe. I’m trying to inhale and I can’t.
I feel hot, inside. My hands and feet are tingling. I feel like I’m on fire. I don’t notice the heat of the blaze anymore. I finally gather a deep breath. I scream.
I feel a hand on my shoulder, turning me around. I look into the faces of four armored men. They wear red sashes with the symbol of a red cross in a red circle.
“WHY?!” I spit on them as I say it. They reach for their belts. Maces or clubs or some other slow heavy thing hanging there. The scimitar is in my hand and sweeping across my body before they even raise their weapons. I take off the hand of the nearest soldier, his scream drowned out by my own. I dance through their clumsy attempts to strike me. Two more hit the street dead as I cut the shoulder tendons on the last.
Laying on his back in the street clutching his limp arm, I hold my blade an inch from his face as fire courses down the hilt to its tip. “Where is your Lord?!” I struggle to say to him, my voice wavering. “Opera house” he spits through clenched teeth and a look of terror.
I am running harder than I ever have in my life, straight down the middle of the street. People I pass are yelling at me. Some try to follow but they can’t keep up. Every part of me feels like it’s on fire but I feel energized.
I see more soldiers ahead in Aria Park, in front of a huge grey building on my right. Four men on the street and two more at the doors.
Through clenched teeth, I whisper “Celeb Yavie Cuar” and my scimitar changes into a longbow. Silver arrows with shining silver tips conjure directly into my hands as I draw, each one bursting into flame as I fire. Six shots, six hits. Two guards fall dead, the others retreat around the side of the building with their wounds.
“Celeb Yavie Salka” and the bow changes back into a scimitar and then splits into two blades. I kick the front doors open and charge into the foyer. Two more guards are dead before they hit the floor. I enter the main hall, race down through the cheap seats yelling “THRUNE, FACE ME!”
Four guards appear at the balcony 20’ above me with crossbows pointing down.
“Celeb Yavie Lindur” as my swords become a violin and bow, I begin to play and the archers freeze just as they take aim. “Celeb Yavie Cuar.” They stare at me in horror as the violin changes back into a bow and I put a burning silver arrow through each throat. They fall into the orchestra pit with a terrifying crash one by one.
Running boots and armor turn me around in time to see a huge woman coming at me from the side hall. Black hair, clothes, and armor, but solid white eyes. She leads with a huge polearm and has a running start. “Celeb Yavie Salka.” Bow returns to sword form and sparks fly as her blade scrapes mine in passing.
The strength of her blows is jarring, I cannot block them so I deflect and dance around them. There is a foul white fire smoldering in her eyes and a savagery to her movements that suggests she is more than she appears. Again and again she brings her weapon around in long sweeping strokes and thrusts that destroy the seats around us as if they were paper.
I am on my heels. I fake a stumble after her last swing and she lunges hard at the false opening. She quickly regains her footing and turns with another killing stroke but my hand holds the back of her neck and my sword has passed through her heart before she can bring her huge weapon around.
I tear the scimitar free of her as she growls and stares at me from the ground, somehow still alive. I feel the spell hit me before I see a bald man in grey plate standing on the balcony above me with his outstretched hand. A thousand invisible bricks build a wall around me. I cannot move, I still can’t fucking breathe.
I hear wings. The flapping of small leathery wings behind me. Something sharp stabs me in the leg, then the hip, then the neck. The heat drains out of me and numbing cold seeps in. I feel frozen and heavy. The only part of me that still moves is my heartbeat. It slows, and stops.
Dreamer wakes up in a panicked sweat with a burning need to feel their own heart, which is indeed still beating.
