Luke, Halfling Fighter: Part 8 – The Shadow Over Trademeet
(
Side note: Some weird things happened to me in Trademeet and got some funny screenshots. I decided to make the story bit around it. Tried to do a bit more horror-ish/Lovecraft entry with Luke inside it)
From the moment Luke crossed the weather-worn gates of Trademeet, he knew something was wrong. Not the usual “oh no, animals are attacking the city” sort of wrong, but the
deep kind. The kind that sits under your skin and whispers in a language you’re sure you’ve never heard but somehow understand.
The merchants stood half-hidden behind warped shutters, their eyes pale and unblinking when they dared glance out. Most didn’t speak at all — and those who did offered words slow and uncertain, as if their tongues had forgotten the shapes of speech. They’d summoned him, a stranger, to solve their troubles with beasts run amok. But now that he was here, it felt as though they feared his very presence. Windows shut when he passed. Children were pulled indoors without a word. Luke could feel the weight of eyes on his back — cold, collective, and wholly unwelcoming.
After a terse meeting with Lord Logan, whose gaze slid past Luke as though he were an unwelcome shadow, Luke resolved to handle the “Djinn problem” first. The creature stood outside its tent, swathed in silks that moved against the wind. Luke, brimming with Oil of Speed and armed with his best darts, struck first. The djinn struck back harder:
Something strange happened in the melee — the guards turned their weapons not on the monster, but on him. Their movements were jerky, as though their limbs were not entirely their own. Luke caught flashes in their eyes — a depthless darkness, like staring into the open sea at midnight:
He felled one djinn, but two more slithered from the tent, their voices ringing with alien harmonics. Luke ran, darting into the crooked streets in search of help.
“Rasaad! I know we’ve had our differences, but I could REALLY use a hand right now. Remember Nimbul? Be a tank, take a hit!” Luke cried.
Rasaad’s reply was not anger, but something worse — indifference. “Farewell,” he intoned in a voice drained of warmth, then turned away. That was not Rasaad. Not the Rasaad Luke knew. Luke felt his stomach drop:
Still, after a grueling fight, the djinn were slain. But the guards still came for him, silent and relentless, their armor whispering against itself in an oddly insectile rhythm. Luke slipped past their arrows, out through the city gates, and into the Druid Grove:
He crept through like a shadow with potion of invisibility in him… until he slipped on a root and fell face-first in front of a family of bears.
Say one thing about Luke — say he’s stealthy:
After clawing through beasts and druids alike, he reached the archdruid. He didn’t ask questions — just threw darts until she dropped. He wanted this nightmare to be over with. With her final breath, she rasped:
“You… don’t understand… we were trying… to
save the town… that town… is not… what it seems…”
Her words crawled into his mind like cold worms. Returning to Trademeet, Luke was lauded as a hero — but the praise was hollow, the smiles brittle. His skin prickled with unease.
Then came the request to retrieve an heirloom from a local tomb. Foolishly, Luke agreed. He needed the money. The tomb was not empty. Its interior yawned before him in cyclopean gloom, stone walls slick with some cold, unwholesome damp that seemed older than the town itself. From its depths came a tide of skeletons, their movements jerky and wrong, as though driven by some eldritch will far beyond mortal reckoning. Luke bolted back into town. “Logan! Guildmistress Busya! HELP!” he shouted. But they stood frozen, staring past him, lips moving faintly as if in prayer — or as if mouthing something that wasn’t their own words.
He strained to catch a syllable. What he heard was not Common, nor Elvish, nor any tongue that should be spoken under the sun — a wet, bubbling sequence of sounds, as if the sea itself were trying to speak. It was a name… something like
Cthulhu… something?
That was enough. Luke carved through the skeletons — and a few guards — without hesitation. The crowd watched without sound or motion:
Looting what he could, Luke found a letter buried in a desk: Mind flayers. The word alone made his skin crawl. It all made sense now. He didn’t wait:
A woman named Jenia caught him on the way out. “My son says his betrothed was attacked by… someone not what he seems. Like a person wearing another’s face.”
Luke didn’t break stride.
You got that right, lady, he thought, heading for the gate. At least he wasn’t dead. At least he wasn’t mind-controlled. Gorion had always told him to look on the bright side. He wondered, not for the first time, where Gorion was now.
Later, in a dim tavern far from the stifling air of Trademeet, Luke overheard two old sailors whispering over their ale:
“They say the folk of Trademeet ain’t quite… right anymore,” one muttered, eyes darting to the door. “Look too long into their faces, and you’ll see it — that blank, fish-eyed stare. Like they’re listenin’ to something deep underground.”
“Aye,” the other replied, voice low. “And if you hear them whisperin’ after dark… best you keep walkin’. Some voices ain’t meant for mortal ears.”
Luke drank in silence, pretending not to listen. But the memory of those faces still made his skin crawl.
