VIRIDESCENT SHADOWS III

GEMMA CHRONICLES

BY DARING D.D. DANGER

LOG SEVEN: GEMMA'S PACT

I opened my eyes. The flower field was silent. I was lying on my back. I raised my right hand, only to find it wasn't there. The end of my arm was dripping in ooze. Last I recalled, the Alp had swung at me. My left hand was still present. I pushed myself up, causing a new wave of ooze to come up my throat. I retched several times and the ooze ran down my chest. I was finally able to look at myself. I tried to scream and only vomited again. I was missing everything below my chest, sitting in a pool of ooze.

"Shit, shit, shit." I looked around as best I could. I wasn't in the place I'd been severed. The flowers now towered over me.

"What the hell happened!?" My vision turned black from pain as I pushed myself onto my chest. I reached forward and dragged myself a few feet forward, my hand scraping through the dirt.

"I can't die here! The girls won't even know what happened!" I pulled forward again, "I don't even know what happened." I pressed forward again and got a face full of bitter mud. Suddenly, my hand fell on something hard. I grasped it and pulled it towards me. The Alp's sword, covered in ooze. My body had to be here. I propped myself up a few inches from the ground, causing more vomit to spill from my mouth. The ooze was one of the worst things I'd ever tasted. So sour it made my face want to shrivel.

I let myself drop again as I set eyes on my other hand. It glowed ever so faintly through the dirt and ooze.

"It looks like a starving Marra, weird." I lined it up with my arm stump, but nothing happened. I wrapped my left hand around it and began chanting. My hand lit with fire, burning the two limbs back together with a pain that made me want to never see my hand again. I let go, but found I couldn't move the limb. The glow began to fade, which told me it was attached again. Perhaps movement would come with time. I used the other hand to prop myself up and over another few inches of flowers. I repeated a few times before I came upon the aglow lower half of my body.

"Now how the hell will this work?" I tried my right hand again, and with a crack I gained a little movement. I reached out and grabbed the bottom half of my dress and began ripping. The fabric separated into frayed bits. It was destroyed anyway, what did I care? I laid the fabric on the ground, grabbed my lower half with all the might my arms could muster, and tugged it onto the fabric, and followed up by doing the same for myself. I tied the fabric around myself, lining both halves up, and pulled it so tight I winced. I guess I just had to wait until I could feel something, sitting on the cold ground.

Hours seemed to pass before I could move. I'm not even sure how long I'd been laying here. I just knew I could move my toes. I put all my focus into flexing and was able to raise my legs, at which point I remembered I was short a left foot still. Right. It hurt to sit up, but at least I could again. My hair fell in my face as soon as I did. It must've come untied. I spent a few moments haphazardly braiding my bloodied and muddied hair before taking to crawling on my hands and knees. At least I could really look over the flowers if needed now. A large section of the field had burned away, and was still smoking a little. That must've been me. I began chanting and held out my right hand, which my magic wand quickly flew into.

"At least I don't need to replace this yet," I mused to myself. At the moment, the sun hit something a short distance away from me. I crawled over and found the bottom half of my sword sticking from the ground. "If only Marra healing abilities worked on you." I pulled out the blade and marveled at how clean the break was. I stood and attempted to use the sword as a cane, which seemed to work. The wind had picked up and the remaining flowers moved like water in the ocean. Perhaps it was a matter of having no clothes below my chest, but for the first time in many years, I felt cold. I turned around and noticed something else. The Alp. I approached the motionless creature, and found it laying in the dirt. It was charred to a crisp, and certainly had passed on. Did I do this… after being sliced in half? How did I not remember.? I stumbled over to its sword, and returned it to the corpse.

"You fought honorably, Alp." I pulled out my wand and set the creature ablaze. Better than letting it rot in this field. At that moment, I noticed something odd. The area the corpse was in had no plant life whatsoever, and was a perfect circle. I walked a bit and noted that there were other circular areas nearby that matched. I whispered a revealing spell, and suddenly all I could see was green. The entire circle I was standing on was aglow.

"Alma"

The characters floated on the edges of my vision. This was where the first Enneagram spell took place. I moved along a glowing green line on the ground to a large opening. The word 'Huld' entered my mind.

"This is where we burned Huld," I whispered. The ground in these spots was barren and dead, cursed from the spell I'd performed hundreds of years prior. I walked back to the Alp along the green line, as the spell began to fade. Just before it did, I caught the word that entered my vision next to its corpse. 'Gemma'.

"Gemma!" Cicily ran over as I exited the warp fire. I must be a sight, no foot, no clothes, covered in blood, mud, and scars.

"I'm fine, Cicily." My sword clanged along the ground as I stepped with it.

"You are not fine! What the hell happened!?"

"I did my goddamn job, like we promised in the pact." People were staring as we went.

"I should've gone with you."

"I'm alive, it's fine."

"It's not fine! Why don't you rest?"

"I'll rest when I'm done."

"What do you mean done!?"

I held out the compass. I'd found it on the ground with the remains of my bags in the flower field. It pointed to the east.

"I mean done."

"You can't go hunting again now!"

"I can handle it. Just need clothes."

"No, you can't. You're not going."

"Yes, I am." I stabbed the ground with my sword.

"No, you're not," Cicily said sadly. By the time I turned, she'd already finished the spell with her wand. The light blinded me, and everything faded to black.

This log certified accurate by the High Witch Gemma Oket