Chapter 3 - waking up - you had to be there
24
DEC/21
“Sora!” His mind called out longingly as he awoke, but she was gone. He looked around groggily, as if emerging from a deep slumber. Something was wrong. No. Not something. Somethings. Plural. First things first though, so he said “Where is all my stuff?”
He was laying almost naked in a tent, Oni and Vashir looking down at him. As he moved, what little covering he had slipped aside.
“By the light of Lathander!”
Jokes were cracked, there was lots of laughing, something about “needing brass balls” and “Dragon’s Bane, more like Dragon’s thang!” but you had to be there.
David covered himself and after a while the laughing died down. David came fully out of his fog and he noticed Ixen was also ‘waking up.’ Yet Ixen had all of his clothes so David asked again “Seriously, where is my stuff?”
Both Oni and Vashir turned their heads and nodded to the man outside. He was dressed in David’s clothes, carried David’s shield, but he had his own thin blade. He squinted in the sunlight uncomfortably, a man clearly not used to its harsh glare.
“Ok, first problem solved,” he thought. “Next, why is it so quiet in here?” He asked himself as he continued to study Walder. “Kruger?” He called out in his mind. “FastStaff?” No answer.
“Where did they go?” He wondered. Had being dead severed his connection? Had Tiamat done it as a parting ‘gift’? And by gift I mean more torture. David was hooked on the guys in his head, the thought of not hearing them anymore was not a relief as it might have been when it first started. He laughed a little of the memory of Kruger freaking out about the water in the pyramid. “We’re drowning!” he had shouted, first alerting David to his presence.
David kept looking at Walder and suddenly he just knew. The whole thing. This was his replacement. Well, was supposed to be his replacement. That’s why the group had let Walder loot his body so easily. They understood on some level as well, whether they wanted to admit it or not. And looted it thoroughly he had. David turned his head and looked as much as he could at his back. “Not surprising that the tattoo had moved on, Bane members usually stay dead.” He thought. “Time to get it back”
Walder saw David looking at him and approached. Without speaking Walder reached out his hand and David reached back.