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16 — Alone and Cold
🕑 Added 2025-06-12 09:01:58 +0000 UTCRennia had woken up damp, certainly cold, and she was sure she stunk. She was definitely sweaty, and her share of clothing was well overdue for a wash. A good thing she had packed accordingly. The rotting wood and mud-caked ground outside of the tavern didn't help much with her nasal comfort.
Standing up to go stare in a mirror in a corner, she gawked.
This was no way for a woman to live, much less any human. What made this different from camping out in the woods or some dungeon was that she was alone—all alone. No party, no Lyanna next to her, no person to cuddle with in the cold of the night. No one to have clitty sex with.
She needed to stop these thoughts.
Deciding that wallowing in her self-pity would set her up for a horrible time, she had immediately started to explore the inside of the kitchen in depth. Beyond the kitchen utilities, cutlery, and sinks, what immediately got her attention was the hearth in the corner of the kitchen. She hadn't seen it yesterday or paid much attention to it.
There was an old rusted pot nearby and a broken foldable chair. Some unused containers contained a bag of ground coffee and what smelled like and looked suspiciously like normal water, but she couldn't be sure.
Someone had been here, maybe a few weeks ago.
She took one of her bags, the one with her food in it, and unrolled and unpacked it. She had about three days' worth of consumable food and some long-term necessities that could probably get her to live on her supplies for the rest of the month. But it was an ill-fitted idea, and she knew it. Disasters could strike at any time.
Firewood wasn't hard to find. There was wood stacked in an under-cupboard, and by the looks of it, it was freshly stacked, pointing to more evidence that someone was here. She had stacked the wood, cut off little pieces with her knife, and then threw in anything disposable but flammable, such as a newspaper which lay dormant on one of the kitchen counters.
She did feel ominously disturbed seeing the date of the paper had been published five years ago. But she shrugged it off as she stuffed it into the fire. While she seemed to have lost the intrinsic ability to cast a fire spell, she could still imitate it enough to get the fire going. Sparks were enough. That was about all she could do anyway—the echo of a spell.
"Fuck!" she swore up and down.
The fire had prematurely burned out twice at least, but two more tries had gotten the job done. She decided to go with something light but healthy. She sliced the bread and smeared and coated it with butter and toasted it on the grate. Two preserved sausages cooked over the fire, spiced, with some cut-off pieces of cheese. Cheese she didn't know how long it would last. It wasn't much of a meal altogether, and though she had a few chicken eggs, she'd run out of protein by the third day if she ate it now.
Best to leave it for later.
The meal did sate her biting hunger, but it had done nothing to quench her thirst. She had taken a few sips out of her water canteen, but the cold just made her uncomfortable. She decided to take a wild risk. It could have been poison for all she knew, but she had started to boil water over the fire and mixed it with the ground coffee. She took a few sips. It tasted horrible but made her lucid. Burnt and very acidic, probably mixed with ash or something. She still drank it.
The heat—that was what she was after, not the taste.
When she was done, she started speaking to herself. "No proper shelter, no master either, probably never even was here. Skeletons and wet mud everywhere. I'm going to fucking die here."
If she didn't start moving... She was wedged in between a border, on an off-beaten path people wouldn't just stumble upon, and yet the presence of the tavern made it clear that people came here often. She could wait here maybe a week or a month for someone to come, for Tiamael to possibly come back. Or she could move. Sneak into one of the neighboring countries, pass herself off as a refugee.
One thing was clear: staying would mark her for death. It's one of the unwritten rules of adventuring, never stay in abandoned places for too long, without large numbers.
Rennia grew fidgety. Her instinct had commanded her to seek out the surrounding structures. There could be anything lurking in empty spaces, and she didn't want to end up with nasty creatures stalking and potentially maiming her.
The windmill was unremarkable. It was cracked and crumbling in a lot of places. The gears of the machine itself were completely broken off. It was rotting, likely due to a lack of maintenance. The sacks of grain that were inside were long rotten. Some shattered furniture and cobwebs everywhere assured her it was vacated. She saw no want or reason to search any further.
Nothing useful in here. No food, no warmth, just an extra hiding spot if she needed it.
She jogged on over to the nearby shed. There was nothing inside from the outside view, just some hay. The whole structure creeped her out, but she couldn't risk something living in it. Monsters had a tendency to occupy human spaces.
Rennia kicked the door down.
There was nothing, just the calm of the wind. She'd seen monsters. She was pretty sure there was nothing here, and yet why were her senses tingling? Why did it feel off?
Why did that skill, [Sixth Thread lvl 1] make her body tingle.
The ground shook below her, and she took a step back. Underneath the hay, a giant fat rat stuck its head outside, snout sniffling. Her heart started pounding and she drew her sword as the creature spotted her, scratching its way out, screaming and squealing.
"RATS!"
It lunged at her. A creature probably three feet long, with red eyes. She rolled backwards, slashing the blade wildly to parry its claws—a raw but immature defense. Before it could lunge at her again, she pierced its face as it squealed louder.
Blood and sinew tore from it. She mustered her newfound strength and pierced deeper, then pulled the sword out, causing long streams of blood to spill and splatter onto her legs and even her face.
"Aarrrghhh!" She shouted, a small war cry, half disgusted scream.
She was covered in rat guts. Two more had emerged from the wall and she started to panic, screaming and running backwards as they came for her, slashing and trampling the pair of beasts. One had taken a bite into her calf and she had pierced it in its brain.
She threw the other one a few meters away. It stopped warily. A fourth had appeared, mad and berserk, and attempted to rush her down. She slashed it across its back, immobilizing the creature, and then started kicking down with her boots.
The creature stopped moving. And the third started fleeing back inside the shed.
[Sixth Thread lvl 1] > [Sixth Thread lvl 2]
[Pathfinder Level 1] > [Pathfinder Level 2]
Rennia panted heavily, the living system spoke to her—but the battle wasn't over. She stood over the small tunnel where the creatures had come from, then started finding anything in the vicinity that could close the hole. A nearby shovel gave her the idea to at least fill the hole slightly. Some rocks at the top, and the hole was nearly and totally closed.
She left the shed, staring at the dead scavenger beasts. She fell on her knees and started screaming.
"Goddess's naked tits, fuck this place!"
The heavens did not answer, and if they did, they had long forsaken her.
