#original nerds

It was strange to be back. 

She’d been at this place a week before she’d met the others and they’d gone chasing what felt now like some sort of wild goose chase. As Nilsa and her made their way back towards the centre of town, Nilsa striding ahead in what seemed equal parts determination and concern, the latter tinged with a little fear; Mithra found herself casting a look across much of the settlement, still scarred from the goblins that had purportedly raided a few days previously. 

The small town of Boroford had been less alien than a larger settlement might have been when she first arrived to meet that cursed emissary of the Queen, Bromm. She’d camped outside for about a week, arriving early to get the lay of the land, her brain too accustomed to monsters in the shadows to simply assume all would be well on arrival. But on the surface it seemed like a simple town, similar to where she grew up, if a tad larger. She’d enjoyed its rustic charm almost in spite of herself, ignored the curious looks and loitered in various spots throughout the town, simply enjoying the presence of people again; even if they were ignorant strangers, they were people, easing an ache for company she hadn’t known she’d had. 

Even then though, something had seemed strange. 

Back then some of the folks in town had only ever smiled, no matter the situation or insult given by others; even the hunter who had accidentally shot her in the forest when she’d been exploring the area cheerfully stated they’d both learned a valuable lesson that day before strolling away whistling. At the time she’d been wrapped up in her own problems and put it down to her own decades-long semi-isolation in the Verdant Thicket leaving her socially inept in this new environment. Now though…

She was no expert on humans beyond those she’d known growing up, and those memories seemed like they’d happened to a different person now, but she was pretty sure that they didn’t cheerfully smile and laugh about their mother lying slaughtered and unburied in the abandoned tavern next door. The words of Amelia the baker echoed in her mind as she chased after the agitated paladin.

“You should buy these cakes, the last my mother ever made! Aha!”

“Well you know, we’ve all got to die some time!” 

Then there was Nilsa, seemingly convinced that this ‘David the Caretaker’ they’d heard of was her brother, a bit of questioning had revealed that he could be human or aasimar, that Nilsa was not on great terms with her family and a joint agreement that whatever had happened in this place something was very wrong. 

Things only got worse when they arrived at the town hall. 

The woman behind the desk had the same smile, the same casual attitude; Nilsa was scary to most people or at least mildly off putting when angered. She approached problems like a charging bull with about as much tact; and the smiling old woman seemed only to become nicer, as if she were intentionally provoking the increasingly frustrated and distressed paladin. 

Watching her mannerisms and attitude though, the idea that the deceased caretaker, (verbally acknowledged to potentially be the deceased brother of the angry and heavily armed woman in front of her), was dead seemed to be an annoyance, something that simply caused more work. It was as if the woman was incapable of empathising or caring, or had been rendered unable to do some by whatever had happened in the town. As she delivered the news that the caretaker named David had likely been killed and left in the tavern they’d passed earlier; the smile, wide and horrifically cheerful, never left her face. 

“You didn’t even bury him?!” 

Nilsa’s sharp anger burned openly for a moment, a shift of tone that would have rung alarm bells in a sane person’s mind, Mithra was immediately on edge as she saw Nilsa grasping the hilt of the blade on her belt. 

“What kind of people do not even bury their dead and leave them to rot!?!”

The old woman’s smile never faltered, never moved; there was only the slight tilt of the head as if the question was foolish. 

“Well the caretaker hasn’t been doing his job has he? Clearly we need to find one that is better at what he’s supposed to do.” 

The blade began to leave its sheath as Nilsa’s face darkened and fury played across her features, her mismatched eyes burning into the older woman behind the counter. Mithra wanted to be disgusted and felt for Nilsa’s potential loss; but they couldn’t start something here. This town, these people: they were either mad or magically compelled and confronting either situation with their companions scattered across much of Boroford would only end one way. 

Her hand reached out, hesitating for a moment before gently resting on Nilsa’s shoulder in an attempt to both check her actions and reassure her. 

“This isn’t worth our time right now, this isn’t normal. We should go.’ 

Mithra was grateful when Nilsa released a breath and nodded, offering an irate comment to the woman before turning sharply on her heel and leaving the building, Mithra a few paces behind her. Before crossing the threshold of the town hall she gave one last glance over her shoulder. 

The walls felt as if they were closing in. 

Mithra wasn’t sure how she got here, it had sounded pretty simple: work with a few mercenaries or other interested parties, do a favour for the queen and in return gain the information that could help her home that she desperately needed. Instead, in a short period of time she’d been attacked by orcs, met a man claiming to be a god, visited an impossible mansion and got trapped in a vampire’s castle. 

For all her own pride in her abilities, she’d felt increasingly out of her depth since arriving at the town outside the estate of Lord Cartwright, the eternal night the vampire seemed to have conjured around the town and area, the tortured prisoners they’d found and escorted to safety and the bizarre time magic that kept everyone who spent too long on the estate trapped in some sort of loop; a fact they’d only recently discovered when electing to temporarily leave. It went entirely beyond her own experiences, she’d felt increasingly caged, something that the circle of the moon within her railed against in the back of her mind. It had taken a surprisingly understanding Nilsa to snap her back to reality earlier when she’d dropped into a panic; now she was here on the top floor, looking at the dead bodies of her friends. 

No, not my friends, some…  vision of the future perhaps. Gods this must be hard for them, how do you even comfort at times like this?

The smell of mold and decay hung in the air throughout the library, both musty books and the aroma of rotten flesh; the dead paladin’s skeleton was slumped against the wall, the ominous barred door led to the greenhouse and more bodies. The dark corridor their new companion refused to let go down altogether, shaking her head frantically when traversing it was suggested. Their new companion was an enigma too; an older version of their warrior friend Fiora, older, tired and worn, seemingly unable to speak or communicate beyond the written word and frantic gestures, the last survivor of a group that failed. 

That had died. 

Around them the ghosts of the Lady Celeste and her killers played out their repeated macabre performance, the same murders and fights over and over again, every hour. Even with all kinds of insanity around them, Lilli dashed off to a side room and Mithra intended to follow but found her eye resting upon a body in the greenhouse with the remains of Zenn, another companion. When she saw it, all thoughts of everything else deserted her mind as a creeping suspicion and fear began to gnaw at her chest. 

That figure; the garb looked elven, druidic even, but it wasn’t what she wore; as the wraiths wailed and argued she tuned them out, even the conversations and frantic questioning of this strange future version of Fiora failed to register as she looked the skeletal remains over. Patting down the body, gently at first, then more frantically as she became more and more sure that the body was not her own.

Another might have felt relief to avoid the sight of their own remains, but not Mithra. Death was not the worst thing that could bring an end to a druid from the Verdant Thicket. She found a token, a simple cast leaf denoting rank within her circle, but it wasn’t hers. 

A heavy weight set on her stomach as around her the ghosts played out their argument, the daughter and father who’d come here to save her, even if she didn’t want to be saved, the looting of the mob that accompanied him. To Mithra it was as the wind in the grass, of no importance and mere background noise as she made her way back to the older version of the tiefling she’d met only days ago.

She nodded at the paper in her friend’s hands, her eyes meeting Fiora’s directly, almost unblinkingly as she kept her voice level, Nilsa a spectator as the two women gazed at one another.

“Fiora, was that me in the greenhouse?” 

She already knew the answer as the older Fiora scribbled down something frantically on her paper before holding it up. 

‘NO’

“Am I dead? Is that why I’m not here?” 

A solemn nod was all she received in answer as the tall tiefling woman looked at her, eyes full of pity, loss and more, a sense of loneliness; Mithra was used to solitude, but the type she saw looking out of Fiora’s eyes chilled her. As much as she felt for this lost soul however she also felt the creeping dread rise from the pit of her stomach, like a weed, choking her level breathing as it came. 

“Did.. Did something take me? Is that why I’m not here?”

‘YES’

Nilsa looked on, concerned and confused and tired at the back and forth, opening her mouth as Mithra turned, her head spinning as her fears seemed almost confirmed. Walking, or was it staggering, five paces back towards the centre of the room. That sick feeling grew, reaching her lungs and biting down her fears she turned again. 

“Was it my home? Did the sickness, the curse of my home take me too?” 

A pause. 

‘YES’

After that, Mithra didn’t register a lot of what happened next, it was like everything happened at once, their friend of the future had been waiting, waiting for Lady Celeste and her father to be near the window and then threw both them and herself out of it. Ending the loop, the curse all of it; saving both herself and her friends, even if it wasn’t the same friends she’d been through hell with. In the aftermath, everyone took a moment to recover, but Mithra could stand to be in the house no longer. 

Catching Nilsa’s attention while the others took a few moments, Mithra smiled a pained mirthless smile that hid none of her internal torment. Her words tumbled out of her mouth at a rapid pace, uncertain and troubled; in her core fear had seized her heart and wouldn’t let go. 

“I.. I need outside, I can’t be in here, sorry but I have to breath fresh air. Or as fresh as it gets here.”

Nilsa looked at her and then said something that she didn’t expect, the steely gaze meeting her own. 

“That’s fine. I can come with you, if you need it.”

And Mithra said yes.

Minutes later Mithra was sitting on the grass, staring at the dark sky and opening up a part of her history and soul to the paladin beside her. She told her of her fellow druids, the curse that affected not just land and tree but animal; how the druids had feared that their connection to animals, to the forest might leave them vulnerable too. 

How it looked like at some point, she was going to turn into a monster if she did not find a way to negate its effects, find a way to save her home. 

Nilsa gripped her shoulder and promised to help her, a gesture from the taciturn paladin that was not lost on Mithra, but even in that moment a cold feeling settled inside the druid. 

Despair. 

She had no idea where to start, she was not powerful, she was not wise and she was out of her depth.