Break of Dawne: Chapter 4
We spend the first hour of the next morning digging through the rubble of our home. The wind took half of our patchwork roof. The central support beam that ran the full length of the house now lies in several splintered pieces. Everything is sopping wet. I’ve never seen this much damage.
The cellar is the least damaged from the storm, but it’s covered in purple goo. As if that freaky blob didn’t cause enough trouble. Most of my kata scrolls are ruined, with the exception of a few introductory tomes I haven’t looked at in years. Maybe Hope could use them. Or Sorrowe, if she ever develops magical powers…
I hear Hope sniffling in her room. When I check on her, she’s holding a doll that was torn in two. Her eyes and hands glow with soft yellow light as her gentle movements trace every rip and tear, mending the doll’s seams stitch by stitch. Her sniffling shifts to a lullaby as she sings to her doll while repairing it.
Sorrowe spends half the time digging through the rubble in the den to find Dad’s old, rusty adventuring knife. I’m not sure what good that’s going to do us now. He hasn’t used that thing in ages, but he loves to tell stories of when he used it while he was an adventurer, before he met Mom.
One of my favorite tales involves him throwing the knife at a leaping snarlbeast. According to Dad, he hit the monster square in the eye. After shaking the dagger out of its eye socket, the beast ran away, leaving a trail of blood. He tried to track it down to no avail. He always ends the story by saying he’d love to find the old thing some day and make a winter coat out of it. Good luck with that, Dad.
We pack as much food as we can from what’s left of the pantry. We find a decent cache: two dozen strips of bunnylug jerky, a bag of dried fruit chips, a couple loaves of bread, and some butterbug jelly. This should last us a couple days at least. We have to keep food stores year-round since we rely on our own crops for food, and we never know when traders will pass through our area.
Our unusual appearance gives “normal” folk enough of a reason to avoid us. Dad said we were born this way because his great-grandfather, Darius Dawne III, made a deal with a powerful evil entity. Except ole Darius didn’t keep his side of the bargain, so he and his entire bloodline were cursed, including anyone who joined the family through marriage.
Mom must really love Dad to take on that kind of burden. She was born into a wealthy family that I’ve never met. According to her, they wanted her to pursue a career path that she wasn’t interested in, and when she decided to become an adventurer, they cut ties with her. She always says her greatest adventure has been raising me and my sisters. Countless battles with dangerous beasts could never have prepared her for the gauntlet of parenthood.
My parents — where are they?
This isn’t the first time we’ve been alone at the house. They’ve taken multi-day trips to the city to trade or into the forest to hunt, but they’ve always prepared us for trips like that. Last night, they just disappeared. Something’s not right. If they left us here without warning, then it must be serious.
Sorrowe said she saw one of those sludgy blob creatures in the forest. Maybe they stopped to fight it while looking for her. Surely seasoned adventurers like them would wipe the floor with that thing. But it was raining really hard last night, and that rain was unnaturally cold. If they were stunned by the cold and that creature attacked them… I don’t wanna think about it.
After gathering the food and packing some supplies, we meet in the den. Tired from a restless night, we sit quietly for a while. Hope breaks the silence.
“Joye, are Mom and Dad coming back? I miss them.”
“I know, sis. I miss them too. They would know what to do, but for now we have to try to be brave. I don’t think it makes sense for us to stay here without them. Normally it’d be ok, but I’m still a little freaked out by the creepy sludge monster that attacked us last night. If we can make it to —”
Sorrowe butts in. “We destroyed that thing. Why does it still freak you out?”
“Don’t you think it’s weird that the strongest storm we’ve ever had was freakishly cold, and the sludgy blob was freezing cold, too? Right before it showed up, we heard a roar from the sky, just like you did before you saw the blob in the forest. What if something is summoning those things? We killed one of them, but what’s to stop another one from showing up at any time?”
After watching her expression shift from condescension to concern, I continue.
“I think we should go see Uncle Thenarius. At least we’ll have a roof over our heads.”
Hope backs me up.
“Ooo, Uncle T! Yeah, let’s do that!”
He’s not really our uncle, but we’ve known him for as long as I can remember, and he’s one of the few normal folk that doesn’t seem to mind our monstrous appearance. He and Dad have taken several hunting trips to the mountains together, and every time they’ve brought back a giant flying creature. That was some of the best meat we’ve ever had.
“It’s at least a day’s walk from here, so we need to leave soon if we want to make it before dark. Sorrowe, do you have everything you need?”
She’s carrying a small satchel on her shoulder and Dad’s knife on her belt. Is that really all she’s going to pack? She has a distant look in her eyes as if she’s thinking about something else.
“Yeah… I think I have what I need… A change of clothes and some food… Oh, my spear!”
Her eyes light up as she takes off toward her room.
Sorrowe never developed the ability to use magic, so she focuses on weapon training instead. Dad says a good adventurer needs both mental and physical stamina. Sorrowe has me beat there. Despite never being able to use even the simplest of forms, she makes up for it with cunning and strength.
I turn to my little sister. “Hope, do you have what you need?”
Her face beams with an excited smile as she holds up her backpack. Her doll dangles half way out of a pouch on the side.
“Great! Let’s get going.”
Sorrowe returns with her spear. Crafted entirely from a single chunk of galviron, this spear is the most expensive thing in our home. Dad recovered it from an abandoned galviron mine in the mountains many years ago. Adventurers far and wide seek the power and finesse of galviron weapons.
Sorrowe nicknamed it Snarlbane after killing her first snarlbeast with it two years ago. Since then, she’s gone on every hunting trip with Dad, and she always brings back at least one large game.
We step outside only to be greeted by a harsh wind. Looks like the cold from the storm is still affecting the weather. I produce a utility flame orb for each of us to keep us warm on the trip. I can’t imagine traveling through this bitter cold without heat. Sorrowe can have her martial prowess; I’ll take my magic any day!
Next Post in this series: Break of Dawne: Chapter 5
Previous post in this series: Break of Dawne: Chapter 3
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