This month I've been busy on many fronts, and while I have made a start on the next playthrough for this blog, I'm nowhere near far enough in for it to be worth posting what has been written.
Instead, here's a little exclusive. When I wrote Return to the Icefinger Mountains almost 12 years ago, I did it for National Novel Writing Month. The target word count for NaNoWriMo is 50,000, and the completed Return came in at around 42k. Not wanting to force unnecessary padding into a mini-gamebook that was due to be published in Fighting Fantazine, I made up the missing word count with a selection of 'deleted and alternate scenes' - prose passages expanding on or providing alternative perspectives on sequences from the adventure, none of which ever got published anywhere.
Until today.
So here are a few bits of the supplementary material I wrote to help me hit the target. If there's sufficient interest, I can publish more at some later date.
The dream
It is the worst day of your life.
You are six years old, nearly seven, and you and your
parents are travelling north to visit your uncle and his family.
The carriage in which you are travelling comes to a sudden
stop. The road ahead is blocked by a fallen tree. The driver asks for help in
moving it, and your father is one of those who volunteer their services.
You know that this is a trap, and long to warn him, to tell
him not to go, but you can do nothing, say nothing except what you did back on
that terrible day, and then you knew nothing of the waiting danger, knew only
the impatience you felt at the delay which would mean less time for playing
with your cousins. You have learned, you have changed, but the tragic events
about to occur remain the same every time you have the dream.
You watch, bored yet inwardly screaming, as the driver, your
father, and a couple of other passengers bend over the tree. You cry out in
surprise and terror at the horribly familiar sight of the arrows hitting them,
and the Orcs and Neanderthals bursting from cover. You wince in anticipation
even before your mother's shriek splits the air, watch helplessly as she tears
open the carriage door and begins to run towards the brutes that menace your
father, cannot even shut your eyes to keep from seeing the arrow taking her in
the back, or tear your appalled gaze from the sight of her falling to lie in
the mud and get trampled underfoot by the raiders as they charge towards the
carriage.
Repetition has not diminished the terror you feel as an Orc
looms up in the carriage doorway. Aware that there is no escape, you still
cower away, hiding your face as if not seeing could mean not being seen, yet
unable to block out the creature's vile stench, and feeling somehow betrayed by
your nose as a warty green hand seizes your ankle.
And then you are dangling head downwards, being carried on
the back of a hairy Neanderthal, your mouth gagged with a foul-tasting rag.
This is one difference: originally you fainted when the Orc grabbed you, and
regained consciousness to find yourself in this position, but the dream will
not permit you that brief oasis of oblivion between horrors.
The ground across which you are being borne is rough, and
covered in snow. From time to time the ends of your fingers pass through the
top of one of the powdery white mounds, and you weep from the cold. That part
of you that is aware this is a dream, a memory, aches with the knowledge of the
far worse sorrow and suffering yet to come.
The snowy ground is replaced by an icy floor, on which you
are soon dumped, and an Orc forces a metal collar around your neck. "Now
you do what we say," the Orc growls. "If you not obey…"
The collar tightens, starts to hurt, makes it impossible to
breathe. Pathetically, you claw at it, but can do nothing to keep the pain from
growing. For several seconds the Orc watches you choking, and your vision
narrows to the ugly grin on its hideous face. That, too, becomes hazy, and then
the grip around your throat eases and you can breathe again, the cold air
burning your aching windpipe as you gulp it down.
After that, the dream becomes vague, imprecise, jumbling
together the worst of your experiences from the two-and-a-bit years of horror
that follow: forced into a narrow crevasse in the wall to dig it wider, kicked
and pummelled by your brutish captors, not to punish resistance or make you
work harder (the collar takes care of them) but because they enjoy inflicting
pain, treated just as badly by fellow slaves who seek an outlet for their frustrations
by picking on those too weak to fight back, watching in terror as the statue of
the beast worshipped by your cruel masters comes to life, being forced to
grovel before the monstrous woman who reigns in this hellish place while she
decides which of the slaves before her to feed upon, seeing the walking corpse
of her chosen victim and realising that the same fate could befall you the next
time she grows hungry…
Usually it is at the sight of his dead eyes, staring dully
at nothing, that you wake in a cold sweat, but tonight the nightmare persists a
little longer, ending in a vision that matches no memory, yet seems no less
real than all that has preceded it.
(Segue into the vision of the awakening Snow Witch in the 'Background' of Return)
Death in the village
The knock at the door had an unfamiliar rhythm. Curious as
to who might be calling round at such an early hour, Reniso crossed the floor
of his hut to see who was there. The worn face disclosed as he opened the door
was not one he recognised, yet there was a faint hint of familiarity.
"Reniso?" asked the stranger before he had a
chance to speak. Without waiting for confirmation, he continued, "I'm
Denati."
"From Salamonis! I didn't expect you so soon."
Reniso beckoned his visitor in. "It's good to see you here, though. There
are strong indications that something is afoot. These last two nights, dreams
of the Snow Witch, too vivid to just be ordinary dreams."
A flicker of emotion, perhaps fear or concern, passed over
Denati's face. "Then it's good that I got here when I did."
"Oh, absolutely. And I'm not the only one. A young
friend of mine, another escapee, has been having the dreams too. He's agreed to
come along on the expedition – in fact, he was all set to start without
you." Reniso chuckled. "The impetuosity of youth, eh? But it'll be
good to have someone strong along, to help out."
"Indeed." At his host's invitation, Denati sat.
"So how soon will we be setting off? It sounds as if there's not a moment
to lose."
"My friend should be calling round again later today,
and then we can start making all the necessary arrangements for the expedition.
We might even be able to get going this afternoon."
"At last. You have no idea how long I've been waiting
for this. To explore lost Cyrantis…" The visitor smiled, his thoughts
clearly going elsewhere.
"I'm rather more concerned with ensuring that the Snow
Witch stays dead, or goes back to being that way, if she's already risen."
"Yes, I suppose you would be. Different
priorities." He smiled again, less warmly.
Again the sense of familiarity. "Excuse me, but you
don't have family in these parts, do you?" Reniso stroked his chin.
"There's just something about you reminds me of somebody, but I can't
think who."
Denati frowned. "Not that I'm aware of. I seem to have
one of those faces. You're far from the first person to tell me I bear some
resemblance to an acquaintance of theirs."
"Fair enough. Well, we might as well make some use of
the time while we're waiting for my young friend to return. Last night he and I
started to draw up a list of equipment we're likely to need for the expedition,
but your knowledge of the Cyrantians' city and culture might highlight a few
omissions. Things that would have seemed perfectly ordinary, maybe even
essential, to the people who lived there, but which would seem out of the
ordinary to us, here and now."
"You must understand that being one of the experts in
the field doesn't actually mean that much. My ignorance of Cyrantian ways is a
little less than that of the people working the fields outside, but the amount
that I don't know is still vast. I'm hoping to learn a lot more when I get back
to the city."
Reniso frowned, puzzled. "Back to the city? I thought
you said you'd never been this far north before."
Denati fidgeted, tugging at each finger of his right glove
in turn as he blustered, "Obviously I've never been there before, but you
and your friend were, and I chose to speak from the viewpoint of the majority
of our party. It is a common mannerism in academic circles…"
His voice tailed off as the sceptical expression on Reniso's
face grew more pronounced, and a glimmer of recognition appeared in the former
slave's eyes. Unhurriedly, Denati continued to pull at the glove until it came
off.
"You were there. In the caves. I remember now. One of
her favoured servants, a bard…" Reniso began to rise to his feet.
"A minstrel, to be precise," noted Denati.
"Though my profession has genuinely been that of scholar for the past few
decades. Nevertheless, my musical skills have not entirely deserted me."
Even as Reniso lunged at him, the seated man brought the
ring he wore to his lips and blew into it, producing a high-pitched note that
caused his would-be attacker's muscles to spasm. Convulsing, Reniso fell to the
floor.
Dispassionately, Denati watched him writhe. "I shall
have to choose my words more carefully when dealing with your friend. I have
already lost one guide and protector, and while I dare say that my music will
be just as effective against any hostile denizens of the mountains, there are
certain to also be naturally occurring dangers not easily overcome without the
assistance of another person."
Reniso had fallen still. With a sigh, Denati stooped to
grasp his wrists. "Even this exertion is something I would rather leave to
another, but of course that is not an option. Your friend must not be allowed
to learn that I am responsible for your tragic fate, or he would become
unwilling to help me."
With some difficulty he dragged the limp body of his victim
across the floor to the supporting pillar at the centre of the hut. After
checking that it would still be some time before Reniso could regain control of
his limbs, Denati began to search the hut, flinging the contents of cupboards
and bookcases onto the floor. At one bound volume he hesitated for a moment.
"A pity to destroy my own handiwork. But sacrifices must be made."
With that, he seized several pages and ripped them from the
spine, scattering them about the debris-strewn floor. The last one he retained,
crumpling it in his hand as he crouched down beside the appalled owner of the
hut. "In case you should regain your voice inconveniently soon."
Pinching Reniso's cheeks to force the old man's mouth open,
he then stuffed the ball of paper into it and pushed the jaws back together.
Further searching turned up a length of thin rope, unsuitable for
mountaineering, but more than sufficient to restrain a man in his sixties, and
even to haul him upright for tying to the pillar.
Mingled fear and anger showed in the immobilised Reniso's
eyes as he watched Denati extract a slim dagger from a sheath on his belt.
"This is probably going to hurt. A lot. But it should
be quick. I do need to have you properly dead by the time your friend gets
here." Reniso felt a sudden sharp pain in his side. "And one final
detail ought to convince him of the urgency of the situation, so he will be
eager to escort me – his last hope of learning the secrets of Cyrantis, with
you gone – to the city."
Cleaning the dagger's blade on Reniso's jerkin where the flow
of blood should soon erase all traces, Denati stepped back and waited for
enough blood to pool on the floor that he could spell out the words that burned
within his heart.
The awakening (includes potential spoiler for the endgame)
It had been no great surprise that there was pain at the end
of her life (if being a Vampire still constituted life). And when her spirit,
preserved by safeguards she had prepared in advance, had contended with her
killer in an attempt to win back a corporeal existence, and had been defeated a
second time, then the pain was also to be expected. But that the return to life
should also be accompanied by exquisite agony seemed somehow unfair.
Yet that was how it was. The return of her consciousness to
her reconstituted, revitalised body brought such excruciating pain that a
lesser spirit would have fled the flesh, returned whimpering whence it came.
Shareella fought through the agony, clung onto her new life (or un-life),
forced her essence into every atom of her body. As her spirit reasserted its
hold on her rebuilt flesh, the pain receded, dwindled. By the time she had
enough control of the body to be able to scream, the need had passed. Existence
was no more than a dull ache, and even that discomfort soon faded.
Mistress of her own body once more, she sat up, looked with
eyes around herself. Close by were two living creatures, and the warmth
radiating from their bodies stung her skin, yet awakened a raging thirst and
hunger within her.
One of the creatures, the men, was, she now perceived, the servant she had charged with bringing her remains to this place. Time had chewed him up and spat out the gristle, and the life that burned in his veins was but a dim flicker, scarcely worth the tasting. The other, though, still had vigour, and Shareella rose to her feet, determined to feed, and then to let a little of the power flowing through her transform the husk that remained into something that would serve her, become the first member of the army she needed to wage war against the living on her behalf.
