Re: Chapter #7b: Two Tired Acolytes (Liseth)
Liseth had not expected one of the other girls to show up so soon after Kerr left to go do his own cleaning up. She had assumed that everyone would be too busy with the preparations for the funeral; but maybe they were close to finishing. Or Elsbet took a break in order to try and satiate her curiosity about what Liseth and Kerr had been up to today.
"Oh, hello Elsbet," Liseth said, her mild surprise detectable in her voice. Or that could just be her weariness. The short blonde looked down and fidgeted with her hands when Elsbet mentioned her excusal from helping at the Cathedral, "I'm really sorry about not being here to help everyone..." But, as it turned out, Elsbet wasn't interested so much in Kerr and her being gone as she was in why they were gone.
Watching the other girl get out of her dress, Liseth figured that she must be finished with her own set of work preparing for the funeral. The diminutive girl glanced once more at her filthy quilted dress when her raven-haired companion mentioned it; and the blood staining it in places. "Well, I...I wouldn't say it was terribly romantic..."
There were so many things more romantic than fighting demons and monsters in a dark ruin dedicated to Lamashtu that it would be impossible to catalog them all. She could have spent the whole day on the beach with Kerr. Or they could have gone on horse ride together with Heily. Or a picnic. Liseth wished that it could have been that simple.
Finally she sighed and Liseth struggled out of her thick, heavy, filthy, stained dress. There was plenty of time left to wash up, and she was sure that Elsbet wouldn't be satisfied by a simple response. Or with Liseth trying to avoid the question. Word was going to get out eventually, and Liseth couldn't lie to the other acolyte; not when asked directly.
Dressed now in her own underclothes, Liseth let her quilted dress simply fall to the ground in front of her bed. Then she turned and sat on the edge of the bed before flopping over backwards and stretching out with a long sigh. "I'm so exhausted. The last two days took everything I have just to help everyone make it through alive; including myself." The weary blonde stared up at the ceiling, "I feel like I could lie here forever."
"Yesterday we stumbled on the goblins sneaking in the glassworks. Pisca was nearly killed, even Kellan fought to the limits of his endurance." Liseth grimaced, "And I got cornered by some goblins. I tried to defend myself like my brother showed me, but they still slashed me and cut me so many times...then when I finally got away from them another one shot me with an arrow." She felt her shoulder, "I never felt anything so painful before in my life, and there was so much blood everywhere. Even then I was too exhausted to do anything about trying to heal myself..."
It felt good to share her horrible experiences of the last few days with somebody. Like a little bit of the burden she was carrying around had been taken from her. Liseth hated secrets anyway and always had trouble keeping them. It just felt almost the same as lying to her, and she was too honest a person to keep things like that away from everybody. Liseth continued.
"But those goblins were only the beginning. We had to go back to the glassworks again today. Cato and Kellan and Pisca and me. And Kerr too." The blonde turned her head to the side to look at Elsbet now, then continued speaking. "Desna and Iomedae asked Kerr to protect me, since they know he's a hero. That's why Kerr came with me when we had to go back to the glassworks."
She paused, uncertain whether she should share about the demon. But Liseth was too tired, and had already told so much already. "We found out that a demon was hiding under the glassworks. It had been there for thousands of years, according to Cato." Liseth looked back up at the ceiling, "It was going to help the goblins attack Sandpoint, so Mayor Deverin asked all of us to defeat it before it could do that." She closed her eyes; even though it was just a little past midday, Liseth could fall asleep right there.
"It was terrifying down there, under the ground." She opened her eyes again, "There were savage mutant rune dog monsters everywhere, and the demon summoned a devil monster that nearly got me with its horrible claws. And..." Liseth shuddered, "and there was undead zombies down there, a whole bunch of them. One of them even clobbered Kerr while he was keeping them away from me, and a mutant three-armed goblin slashed Kerr with its evil glowing sword." She frowned, "I couldn't even heal him to help; I had used up all of my divine energy again."
Liseth didn't think that she could do the entire ordeal justice with her words alone. Elsbet could probably fill in the holes though. "We just finally made it back out, after the demons and monsters and undead were...dealt with." Thinking back on it all, the small teenager felt sick to her stomach. "I don't think I could have done it if Kerr wasn't there. Not just to keep me safe from the monsters. Every time it was getting too much he would hug me and hold me and reassure me. I was scared the whole time but Kerr was fearless." She looked across at Elsbet again, "You should have seen it when everyone was fighting that demon and its minions. It was more scared of Kerr than I was of it. It tried to hide from him, even using its magic to become invisible; but Kerr saw right through it's evil magic and he and Kellan managed to slay it together." The diminutive blonde sighed and swooned.
"But even now I can't rest too long. We have to meet with the mayor again to tell her what happened, and then attend the funeral." Slowly, wearily, Liseth struggled back into a sitting position on her bed, "Oh...please don't tell everyone what I said!" She suddenly hoped that Elsbet wasn't the sort of girl who enjoyed spreading rumors; with the town preparing for a goblin assault, this kind of news could be received poorly. Especially when given second and third-hand. "I don't think Mayor Deverin wants everyone to know just yet; I'm sure she'll find a good time to tell everyone about it."
This message was last edited by the player at 19:22, Fri 13 June 2014.