Even though I stayed up way too long to write it, I can't post the chapter yet, as I submitted it for mod review first.
Sadly the gory bits are rather relevant to the story, so I can't post it without.
Hey, it'll work itself out. If nothing else works, you'll just have to rewrite things until you'll manage to keep it just below the allowed goriness treshold and still have kept in (most of) the story relevant bits. Heck, I'll help if you want me to.
The Name vote will be repeated, as there was no clear winner and it is too important for me to decide myself.
[][Name] Dorothea
[][Name] Beatrix
[][Name] Elise
No write-ins this time.
[][Heart] Patterns, you soon notice, exactly matching your own heartbeat. You chose not to be the Grinch.
[][Religion] You dismiss the thought immediately. Whatever the little man was, he was certainly no devil and even less something a god would permit to exist.
[][Dream] Fire that burns, but also whispers gently.
Let the blaze burn your form and name,
to flee from danger, oh so dire.
Enter the fields of ash and flame
with a skin of coal, marked by fire.
After you awaken, the first thing you do is to check your surroundings for danger, a vital habit, as you have learned quickly after first coming here. To your relief, the small cave you are in is still empty of any other beings, though you doubt it will remain so for long.
Finding it had been your greatest luck in weeks, the ever changing landscape making it hard to find a place to sleep, let alone to find it first. The cave is big enough for you to escape even if the opening begins to close, too small for the bigger creatures to enter and even close enough to the fires not to be completely frozen over.
Still, no reason to stress your luck, the smaller creatures, especially those you suspect might once have been people, are just as dangerous and always searching for places like this. You suspect two or three bells have passed while you were asleep, this will last you for a while and any more is too big of a risk.
Stepping out onto the ash fields, you immediately regret this decision. A group of three - you refuse to call them devils, there is no way these, yes, things have ever been angels - are standing not ten klafter away from you, doing whatever they do, when they do not hunt you.
Running is pointless, they would just hear you and catch up shortly after. Hiding is sometimes successful, but there is nothing around to take as cover. Only the endless seeming ash, your cave which is literally a hole in the ground and of course the fires, some burning steadily in irregular patterns, others randomly erupting from the ground.
Hiding behind a pillar of flame is an option of course, you have done so before. However, the closest are behind the three beings, no, things, and they can tolerate the heat better than you anyway.
Two of them you recognise as the same brawny, red giants you have seen here so often, looking like a cross between a bull and a particularly burly man, and twice as tall as either has any right to be. They often walk through the flames, their reddish-brown fur barely even singed.
The third is one you have not seen before. Small - at least for their standards, it is still taller than you - and almost human looking, elegant even, except for its deathly paleness and pointed ears.
As you stand there, still trying to decide if you could enter the hole undetected or if you should make a run for the fires, the pale thing looks in your direction. It does not move and neither do you, in fear to make it chase you.
An ugly smile full of sharp teeth forms on its face, before it spreads its arms and asks, "Why do you want to run, little one?"
At the sound of its voice the other two turn in your direction, but are held back by the first thing, which speaks again, "Do you not know that He misses you? I am sure he will be happy if you come back with me."
While it is talking, it slowly walks in you direction, you taking careful steps back, trying to prevent it from closing the distance without looking like you are fleeing.
"Think of all the things he might offer!", it continues, "Real food! A place to sleep weekly, maybe even every two or three days!"
The manic expression on its face showing who might get these things, if at all. Apparently it is not very good at the double speak many of the inhabitants of this place are so fond of.
There! The ground is bubbling close behind you, a fire might erupt soon!
Meanwhile the thing starts to look desperate and begins to walk faster. "Have you maybe lost your way? I can show you! His dwelling is not far!"
Now. You jump over the seething ground, just before a gigantic flame bursts out to bar the way between you and the things, and, more importantly, also blocks the line of sight. A short sprint brings you to a gap in a wall of flame you spotted earlier and you jump through, for now ignoring the slight burns you inflict yourself.
Before you stretches a veritable labyrinth of fire, one you have seen before and never dared to enter. This time you have no choice, the first path you see you take and not a moment to early, as you already hear the things behind you, stomping through flames as if they were not there, but luckily not seeing you.
For a while you just try to avoid your pursuers, the always changing paths forcing you deeper and deeper in, until you reach what can only be the centre.
The fire before you is enormous, dwarfing the tallest building in Vienna, if not the city itself. Not even the thick-furred bullheads would be able to walk through this.
Unbidden you remember something you heard while you were still kept in His dwelling. Something you had tried to ignore, as a contract was what forced you into this place in the first place.
A sound behind you, distinctly not caused by fire, reminds you that you have no choice.
"Fire, I call upon thee!", you proclaim, not to the fire around you, but to the very concept itself, "I demand access to the first of the Contracts of the Elements! Grant me the Cloak of Fire!"
Nothing happens. A sound behind you, are you caught?
You turn and only then notice the flickering of the flames has slowed, their crackling and sizzling even begin to make sense.
"What", they seem to say.
"Do you give", it sounds from your other side.
"For this right?", crackles the first again.
Now comes the part you dreaded, nothing is ever free and you did not hear what was usually offered.
You try anyway, otherwise you will be brought back and no matter what the fire takes, it cannot be worse.
"For the right to never again be burned by you, I shall bear your mark upon me, this I swear on my true name!"
Absolute silence and no movement at all is your answer, until less than a moment later, all flames around you surge to your body.
They race along your arms and legs, blisters forming before giving way to charred flesh. Slower they burn your body, lines of pain along your back, as if it is burned deeper even than the rest of you. Eventually they reach your head, reducing the features of your face to indiscernible, blackened flesh and your hair to nothing but ash.
Strangely the ragged bits of clothes you still have remain untouched.
As you collapse to the ground, the tremendous centre of the labyrinth itself seems to speak. "You have been forever marked by fire, the Cloak shall henceforth protect you."
Time resumes, as with your last strength, you drag yourself into the inferno.
It feels like weeks have passed since you entered the fire, the pain of your burns finally fading, though your flesh remains as charred as it has been ever since, the only parts of your skin not blackened are the blisters showing at many places and, you assume, your eyes.
Weeks in which you have slept more than ever since you have been taken, but also weeks you have spent without any food but the ash beneath your feet.
Every day you walk, trying to keep going into the same direction. At first you wanted to get away from the spot where you entered and to leave soon after, but by now you are unsure if you would even be able to find this spot, let alone any other exit.
You had tried to listen to the flames, the crackling and rustling and sizzling all about you. It told you nothing.
You had tried threatening, but what could you do to harm fire?
You had tried bargaining, but you have nothing more to give.
Until finally you remember, there is one more thing you have. There is much you do not know about this world, but the worth of this you have been assured of.
The only question was, what do you want to ask for? The only contract you know of, you have already been granted.
Again, you do not really have a choice, so you just have to try.
"Fire", you whisper this time. "I wish for you to guide me, to help me find my way and to stand at my side. For this I give the wood I have always carried with me. For this you may burn Dorothea Holtzer¹."
Around you the crackling begins to sound like cackling laughter and a blazing voice intones, "Your offering is accepted. You have the rights to the Contracts of Communion, Dorothea Ascher."
When you wake up, the drapes at the windows have been pulled back, admitting the evening sun to stream in, the curtains around the other bed, whereas, are closed now.
Whispers of your dream remain, and while the details elude you, you still remember the pains of burning, how fire will never try to hurt you anymore, and that it has become your sworn ally. You even still know what you have to do to find fire and how to talk to it, though you think there was more.
Anna is next to you, she woke you up apparently, and is gesturing to the ropes still sticking to your skin. You think she wants to remove them.
[][Ropes] Let her.
[][Ropes] Try to remove them yourself.
[][Ropes] Just shake your head.
[][Ropes] Write-in.
Write-ins so far:
[][Ropes] Deliberately give her access to them so she can remove them more easily, try to communicate (mainly through gesture, but also through word) that you want them removed.
A bit different from just letting somebody remove them.
What will you do after?
[][Later] Try to communicate with Anna some more.
[][Later] See if they let you explore the place you are in.
[][Later] Gesture that you want something to eat.
[][Later] Write-in.
Write-ins so far:
[][Later] If your ropes do end up removed, try to get a hug.
[][Later] If you do try communicating with Anna, try to learn some more words - what is bed? Walk? Try the tried and true method of charades and pointing to improve your vocabulary; also include other vital words like "eat", "I", "you", etc. Enough you'll be able to start getting by.
[][Later] Touch all the things. Aside from maybe the small man's domain, you have never seen or felt fabric this light before - it is neither linen nor silk. Same for the glass in the windows, it is more even than you have ever seen. And the frame of the bed? You are sure that you have never worked with this metal before you left your former life.
Please write more options! I might add some later myself.
Depending on time constraints, I will probably pick multiple options from the winners, as long as they don't contradict each other.
This chapter was betaed by esktasy, who receives an ashen hair in thanks. Because they do not have enough of those already.
A chapter about fire and in the first paragraph I talk about frozen caves... And hey, look at that, the Religion vote actually already influenced something.
A certain reader knows all about walking through fire to catch some changeling, barely singing your fur, don't you?
I'll be rather busy until Monday evening, so that's when I'll write the next chapter at the earliest.
[1][Ropes] Let her.
[3][Ropes] Try to remove them yourself.
[4][Ropes] Just shake your head.
[2][Ropes] Deliberately give her access to them so she can remove them more easily, try to communicate (mainly through gesture, but also through word) that you want them removed.
A bit different from just letting somebody remove them.
What will you do after?
[3][Later] Try to communicate with Anna some more.
[2][Later] See if they let you explore the place you are in.
[6][Later] Gesture that you want something to eat.
[1][Later] Touch all the things. Aside from maybe the small man's domain, you have never seen or felt fabric this light before - it is neither linen nor silk. Same for the glass in the windows, it is more even than you have ever seen. And the frame of the bed? You are sure that you have never worked with this metal before you left your former life.
[5][Later] If your ropes do end up removed, try to get a hug.
[4][Later] If you do try communicating with Anna, try to learn some more words - what is bed? Walk? Try the tried and true method of charades and pointing to improve your vocabulary; also include other vital words like "eat", "I", "you", etc. Enough you'll be able to start getting by.
[1][Ropes] Let her.
[2][Ropes] Try to remove them yourself.
[3][Ropes] Just shake your head.
[1][Later] Gesture that you want something to eat.
[2][Later] Try to communicate with Anna some more.
[3][Later] See if they let you explore the place you are in.
I still think Beatrix, as Wanderer/Traveler, works best as a True pseudonym. It's a name, but it describes her situation.
[2][Ropes] Let her.
[3][Ropes] Try to remove them yourself.
[4][Ropes] Just shake your head.
Write-in:
[1][Ropes] Deliberately give her access to them so she can remove them more easily, try to communicate (mainly through gesture, but also through word) that you want them removed.
A bit different from just letting somebody remove them.
[2][Later] Try to communicate with Anna some more.
[5][Later] See if they let you explore the place you are in.
[4][Later] Gesture that you want something to eat.
Write-in:
[3][Later] If your ropes do end up removed, try to get a hug.
[1][Later] If you do try communicating with Anna, try to learn some more words - what is bed? Walk? Try the tried and true method of charades and pointing to improve your vocabulary; also include other vital words like "eat", "I", "you", etc. Enough you'll be able to start getting by.
[2][Later] Touch all the things. Aside from maybe the small man's domain, you have never seen or felt fabric this light before - it is neither linen nor silk. Same for the glass in the windows, it is more even than you have ever seen. And the frame of the bed? You are sure that you have never worked with this metal before you left your former life.
We will need to learn enough of the language to get by, best to get that out of the way soon-ish. Also, physical comfort is nice and comforting. And I like hugs.
[1][Name] Beatrix
[2][Name] Dorothea
[3][Name] Elise
[1][Ropes] Let her.
[2][Ropes] Try to remove them yourself.
[3][Ropes] Just shake your head.
[1][Later] Try to communicate with Anna some more.
[2][Later] Gesture that you want something to eat.
[3][Later] See if they let you explore the place you are in.
[2][Ropes] Let her.
[4][Ropes] Try to remove them yourself.
[3][Ropes] Just shake your head.
[1][Ropes] Deliberately give her access to them so she can remove them more easily, try to communicate (mainly through gesture, but also through word) that you want them removed.
[4][Later] Try to communicate with Anna some more.
[2][Later] See if they let you explore the place you are in.
[5][Later] Gesture that you want something to eat.
[6][Later] If your ropes do end up removed, try to get a hug.
[3][Later] If you do try communicating with Anna, try to learn some more words - what is bed? Walk? Try the tried and true method of charades and pointing to improve your vocabulary; also include other vital words like "eat", "I", "you", etc. Enough you'll be able to start getting by.
[1][Later] Touch all the things. Aside from maybe the small man's domain, you have never seen or felt fabric this light before - it is neither linen nor silk. Same for the glass in the windows, it is more even than you have ever seen. And the frame of the bed? You are sure that you have never worked with this metal before you left your former life.
Right, I don't quite want to risk a fully false name. A misleading but true descriptor or our true name is one thing, but a full false name might be trouble
[2][Ropes] Let her.
[1][Ropes] Try to remove them yourself.
[3][Ropes] Just shake your head.
[3][Later] Gesture that you want something to eat.
[1][Later] Try to communicate with Anna some more.
[2][Later] See if they let you explore the place you are in.
Gonna stick with my previous stance on the name stuff, and prefer not to lie to her. I'll take Beatrix over Elise though, since @veekie 's explanation of why Beatrix fits Dorothea better than Elise makes sense, so I'd prefer to use that over just a religious name meaning "God is my Oath". (Thanks @Nevill for pointing that out!)
[1][Ropes] Let her.
[4][Ropes] Try to remove them yourself.
[3][Ropes] Just shake your head.
[2][Ropes] Deliberately give her access to them so she can remove them more easily, try to communicate (mainly through gesture, but also through word) that you want them removed.
She obviously knows more about the ropes than we do, so I'd just let her do what she needs to do with them rather than mess around with them or deny her access to them. If she's taking care of us, the least we can do is try and make her job a bit easier.
[2][Later] Try to communicate with Anna some more.
[6][Later] See if they let you explore the place you are in.
[5][Later] Gesture that you want something to eat.
[4][Later] If your ropes do end up removed, try to get a hug.
[1][Later] If you do try communicating with Anna, try to learn some more words - what is bed? Walk? Try the tried and true method of charades and pointing to improve your vocabulary; also include other vital words like "eat", "I", "you", etc. Enough you'll be able to start getting by.
[3][Later] Touch all the things. Aside from maybe the small man's domain, you have never seen or felt fabric this light before - it is neither linen nor silk. Same for the glass in the windows, it is more even than you have ever seen. And the frame of the bed? You are sure that you have never worked with this metal before you left your former life.
@Crimson Square raises a good point that learning the language is important, and the sooner we do that, the sooner we'll be able to be able to communicate with people, beyond necessities. I don't want to explore the place just yet, because of the language barrier interfering with our ability to understand other people, and the fact that we should probably rest up a bit first.
[2][Ropes] Let her.
[3][Ropes] Try to remove them yourself.
[4][Ropes] Just shake your head.
[1][Ropes] Deliberately give her access to them so she can remove them more easily, try to communicate (mainly through gesture, but also through word) that you want them removed.
A bit different from just letting somebody remove them.
What will you do after?
[2][Later] Try to communicate with Anna some more.
[5][Later] See if they let you explore the place you are in.
[3][Later] Gesture that you want something to eat.
[4][Later] If your ropes do end up removed, try to get a hug.
[1][Later] If you do try communicating with Anna, try to learn some more words - what is bed? Walk? Try the tried and true method of charades and pointing to improve your vocabulary; also include other vital words like "eat", "I", "you", etc. Enough you'll be able to start getting by.
SV is just a little addicted to hugs...but Dorothea here should not have a hug impulse, due to her disguised life. A simple hug could have blown her cover wide open.
SV is just a little addicted to hugs...but Dorothea here should not have a hug impulse, due to her disguised life. A simple hug could have blown her cover wide open.
I mulled a bit about it, and I came up with something I find interesting.
Write-in:
[][Later] Touch all the things. Aside from maybe the small man's domain, you have never seen or felt fabric this light before - it is neither linen nor silk. Same for the glass in the windows, it is more even than you have ever seen. And the frame of the bed? You are sure that you have never worked with this metal before you left your former life.
Doro's been taking the real world being weird very calmly until now, I think.
Since we have already decided that we are not in Heaven, Hell or Small Man Land, there is some cause to think about what the hell happened to the real world, my job is mostly done by robots now.
As expected, I'm a bit too tired to write an update today (and we only had 8 votes so far anyway).
Soo... Voting closes somewhen tomorrow evening (CEST).
[][Later] Touch all the things. Aside from maybe the small man's domain, you have never seen or felt fabric this light before - it is neither linen nor silk. Same for the glass in the windows, it is more even than you have ever seen. And the frame of the bed? You are sure that you have never worked with this metal before you left your former life.
