Captain Cannonfists
Nuisance of the High Seas
Awakening
You've been in the dark for what feels like forever, floating in an abyss, void of all sensation. Your mind has been just conscious enough to wonder if you're asleep or awake, but after a while you realized it doesn't matter. You can't do anything to leave this blackness either way. Finally, just as you begin to think it must be a nightmare of some sort, you feel yourself beginning to rouse from the stupor that has muddled your thinking. You still can't see anything, but you can feel your mind bubbling up into full consciousness. There's a sudden release of pressure, as though your head finally broke the surface of a pool to come up gasping.
Your eyes snap open, and the brief feeling of relief at being free vanishes, replaced by confusion. You're lying on your back, at the bottom of a deep, rectangular hole. You sure didn’t go to sleep several feet underground. As if in answer to this assertion, a chunk of earth falls free of the wall and scatters dark soil across your face. You splutter and jerk up to a sitting position. You're picking yourself up and brushing away the last of the dirt when a sudden voice above you makes you jump.
"Hm. Well, you woke up a bit earlier than I expected."
Glancing up, you see a young man in a charcoal suit leaning on an ornate wooden cane. He's looking down at you with an odd expression. You can tell he expects you to do something, but his neutral expression and slouched posture make him seem largely uninterested in whether you do it or not. After several seconds of silence, he asks, "Well? Are you coming up?"
You look around at your confinement. The hole extends well above head-height, and the walls are almost entirely sheer. The few scraggly roots that jut from them look like they’d come loose if you so much as tugged on them. It'd be a hell of a job to climb out on your own. You look back up at the man, who chuckles to himself.
“Little joke at your expense. Come on up,” he says, extending his cane down to you. You take hold of it, and are caught off guard when you’re immediately lifted out of the hole and deposited on the dewy grass just beside it. Did he just lift your entire weight one-handed? That question disappears from your mind when you glance at the hole you woke up in and realize it wasn’t just a hole. You’d been laying in an open grave, with a blank headstone of rough, gray stone. Your new position isn’t exactly better, either. You sit in an ancient, overgrown cemetery, with moss-covered headstones and a rusted wrought iron fence. Beyond that, a ring of unnervingly large trees surrounds you and…whoever this person is.
Your gaze shifts to the man, who is looking at you with that same confusing mixture of disinterest and expectation. You’re about to thank him for pulling you out of the grave, however you ended up in it, when he speaks.
“Look, I know this probably isn’t where you expected to wake up, but I’ve got places to be, and things to not be eaten by. I’ll keep it short…” he pauses and extends his cane again to help you to your feet. “I don’t care one way or the other whether you believe this is real; you’ll decide for yourself pretty quick. I’m getting out of here, and if you’re smart, you’re going to follow me.”
He turns with a sudden, fluid motion, catching you in the knee with his cane, now tucked under his right arm. Before you can complain, he’s off through the ankle-height grass. You have to hurry to keep up with his brisk pace. As soon as you catch up and fall into step beside him, he starts up again before you can interrupt with a question.
“It will be faster if I just explain things and you keep your mouth shut. Safer that way, too, but that’s more of a concern for you than me.” He pauses for a moment. You guess he was giving you a chance to ignore his advice, for whatever reason. In the almost dead silence that follows, the only sound stands out: The dead leaves crunching softly under your feet. You can’t tell for sure now that you’ve matched his step, but it almost sounds like it’s only the ones under your feet crunching. Before you can break step to test it, he apparently accepts your silence as cooperation and begins again.
“I can’t tell you where we are, other than the fact that most here call it Sinner’s Wood. Not that it matters; nobody’s found a way out yet. It’s best if you assume that the rules you knew don’t apply here, because odds are you can find at least one place that breaks each of them,” he explains as he leads the two of you along a twisting path between the close-set trees. His voice is lower now, and you notice he’s constantly scanning the trees around you. Despite this, he never stumbles or catches his impeccable suit on any of the bracken patches that constantly snag at you, even on the occasions when he looks almost directly up.
“That goes for living things as well as the forest itself. Don’t trust the people, because plenty of them have been here way too long to remember how make pleasant conversation, to say the least. Don’t trust the anything not human, either. Never know what they want out of things...”
You almost interrupt to ask what the hell he means by “not human” but a long, low howl from somewhere far off in the forest reminds you of his rather ominous advice regarding safety. You decide to hold the thought for later. You’re still looking in the direction of the howl when you run smack into something. You jump back before realizing it was just the young man, stopped short rather suddenly. He’s halted at the edge of a wide clearing, near the center of which is a chateau that must have been worthy of royalty at one time. Now, it looks fit to collapse in the slightest breeze. You turn to look back at the man when you hear the rustling of fabric on fabric. He’s digging through an inside pocket, and, as you look at him, he extracts a scrap of paper. He holds it up, offering it to you.
“Well, nice meeting you, newbie,” he says, grinning at you for the first time. “As I said, I’ve got places to be, and the only place you’re gonna wanna go right now is up there.” He jerks his head towards the ramshackle building. As you take the parchment, he adds, “Give that a good read. Anything that doesn’t answer, one of the more experienced Dwellers in there can. Show them that when they open the door, they know what it is. Lastly, fill out the little form on the back and toss it into the wind when it comes by next. Happens pretty regularly.”
You look up at the “house” again, your skepticism obvious in your expression. When he doesn’t add anything, you turn to voice your disbelief that anyone could possibly be living up there, only to find him…well, only to not find him. The man’s disappeared on you somehow. You sigh and think guess that answers the footsteps question.
As you make your way up the small hill on which the chateau sits, a rather stiff wind twists around you. You stop and look around at nothing in particular. There’s nothing to make the breeze swirl and twist almost playfully about you. You sigh again and continue on, ignoring the wind as best you can. As it’s dying down, though, you swear you hear the young man’s voice float by with it.
“Welcome to the Wood, sinner. Enjoy your stay…”
You've been in the dark for what feels like forever, floating in an abyss, void of all sensation. Your mind has been just conscious enough to wonder if you're asleep or awake, but after a while you realized it doesn't matter. You can't do anything to leave this blackness either way. Finally, just as you begin to think it must be a nightmare of some sort, you feel yourself beginning to rouse from the stupor that has muddled your thinking. You still can't see anything, but you can feel your mind bubbling up into full consciousness. There's a sudden release of pressure, as though your head finally broke the surface of a pool to come up gasping.
Your eyes snap open, and the brief feeling of relief at being free vanishes, replaced by confusion. You're lying on your back, at the bottom of a deep, rectangular hole. You sure didn’t go to sleep several feet underground. As if in answer to this assertion, a chunk of earth falls free of the wall and scatters dark soil across your face. You splutter and jerk up to a sitting position. You're picking yourself up and brushing away the last of the dirt when a sudden voice above you makes you jump.
"Hm. Well, you woke up a bit earlier than I expected."
Glancing up, you see a young man in a charcoal suit leaning on an ornate wooden cane. He's looking down at you with an odd expression. You can tell he expects you to do something, but his neutral expression and slouched posture make him seem largely uninterested in whether you do it or not. After several seconds of silence, he asks, "Well? Are you coming up?"
You look around at your confinement. The hole extends well above head-height, and the walls are almost entirely sheer. The few scraggly roots that jut from them look like they’d come loose if you so much as tugged on them. It'd be a hell of a job to climb out on your own. You look back up at the man, who chuckles to himself.
“Little joke at your expense. Come on up,” he says, extending his cane down to you. You take hold of it, and are caught off guard when you’re immediately lifted out of the hole and deposited on the dewy grass just beside it. Did he just lift your entire weight one-handed? That question disappears from your mind when you glance at the hole you woke up in and realize it wasn’t just a hole. You’d been laying in an open grave, with a blank headstone of rough, gray stone. Your new position isn’t exactly better, either. You sit in an ancient, overgrown cemetery, with moss-covered headstones and a rusted wrought iron fence. Beyond that, a ring of unnervingly large trees surrounds you and…whoever this person is.
Your gaze shifts to the man, who is looking at you with that same confusing mixture of disinterest and expectation. You’re about to thank him for pulling you out of the grave, however you ended up in it, when he speaks.
“Look, I know this probably isn’t where you expected to wake up, but I’ve got places to be, and things to not be eaten by. I’ll keep it short…” he pauses and extends his cane again to help you to your feet. “I don’t care one way or the other whether you believe this is real; you’ll decide for yourself pretty quick. I’m getting out of here, and if you’re smart, you’re going to follow me.”
He turns with a sudden, fluid motion, catching you in the knee with his cane, now tucked under his right arm. Before you can complain, he’s off through the ankle-height grass. You have to hurry to keep up with his brisk pace. As soon as you catch up and fall into step beside him, he starts up again before you can interrupt with a question.
“It will be faster if I just explain things and you keep your mouth shut. Safer that way, too, but that’s more of a concern for you than me.” He pauses for a moment. You guess he was giving you a chance to ignore his advice, for whatever reason. In the almost dead silence that follows, the only sound stands out: The dead leaves crunching softly under your feet. You can’t tell for sure now that you’ve matched his step, but it almost sounds like it’s only the ones under your feet crunching. Before you can break step to test it, he apparently accepts your silence as cooperation and begins again.
“I can’t tell you where we are, other than the fact that most here call it Sinner’s Wood. Not that it matters; nobody’s found a way out yet. It’s best if you assume that the rules you knew don’t apply here, because odds are you can find at least one place that breaks each of them,” he explains as he leads the two of you along a twisting path between the close-set trees. His voice is lower now, and you notice he’s constantly scanning the trees around you. Despite this, he never stumbles or catches his impeccable suit on any of the bracken patches that constantly snag at you, even on the occasions when he looks almost directly up.
“That goes for living things as well as the forest itself. Don’t trust the people, because plenty of them have been here way too long to remember how make pleasant conversation, to say the least. Don’t trust the anything not human, either. Never know what they want out of things...”
You almost interrupt to ask what the hell he means by “not human” but a long, low howl from somewhere far off in the forest reminds you of his rather ominous advice regarding safety. You decide to hold the thought for later. You’re still looking in the direction of the howl when you run smack into something. You jump back before realizing it was just the young man, stopped short rather suddenly. He’s halted at the edge of a wide clearing, near the center of which is a chateau that must have been worthy of royalty at one time. Now, it looks fit to collapse in the slightest breeze. You turn to look back at the man when you hear the rustling of fabric on fabric. He’s digging through an inside pocket, and, as you look at him, he extracts a scrap of paper. He holds it up, offering it to you.
“Well, nice meeting you, newbie,” he says, grinning at you for the first time. “As I said, I’ve got places to be, and the only place you’re gonna wanna go right now is up there.” He jerks his head towards the ramshackle building. As you take the parchment, he adds, “Give that a good read. Anything that doesn’t answer, one of the more experienced Dwellers in there can. Show them that when they open the door, they know what it is. Lastly, fill out the little form on the back and toss it into the wind when it comes by next. Happens pretty regularly.”
You look up at the “house” again, your skepticism obvious in your expression. When he doesn’t add anything, you turn to voice your disbelief that anyone could possibly be living up there, only to find him…well, only to not find him. The man’s disappeared on you somehow. You sigh and think guess that answers the footsteps question.
As you make your way up the small hill on which the chateau sits, a rather stiff wind twists around you. You stop and look around at nothing in particular. There’s nothing to make the breeze swirl and twist almost playfully about you. You sigh again and continue on, ignoring the wind as best you can. As it’s dying down, though, you swear you hear the young man’s voice float by with it.
“Welcome to the Wood, sinner. Enjoy your stay…”
