Somewhere under the rainbow. Diary of an occult resolution assistant
Friday 19:50
Out in the open it was as quiet as the grave, gone the invisible string quartet of Hal and in with a numbing sound robbing wind.
The mound was just off the path, stood about waist height and as broad and long as small shed and covered in scrappy grass and weeds. Squares of masonary I imagine came from long forgotten farmseds or retaining walls littered the area around the localised area. The sky above was grey and commentless other than 'depressing' and it infected the land with its dowerness.
My new watch, feeling alien on my wrist and far too large for personal preference, flashed and vibrated as I climbed the mound to be rewarded with a slightly larger view of a vast nothingness and the tiny sight of my transport dissapearing into the horizon.
O.K, to business. Go into the mound and pick up a package. Don't say anything and don't touch anything. Pick up the package and come back out. Easy.
There was no door, a loose arch of abandoned masonary could look like a door frame from a distance but the strength of wind ravaged weeds had moved them and turned them until you had to really look at them to see the shape they may have once been. But of a door, there was no sign just scrubby grass and unidentifyable short green leafy things. The watch seemed to be very ken for me to be here, the arrow spinning on its imaginary computer generated axis like a compass tormented by kids with magnets. I hopped off the mound and stood in front of the door and with nothing else to hand I raked at the grass expecting a thin covering of dirt to hide warpped and ancient timbers of a door, hopefully with a big dor latch that would, after years of corrosion and abuse from the elements, be really easy to open. Unfortunatly what was under the toil soil was mud.
Well that wasn't going well and I began to think I was dropped off in the wrong place or Harahel had deliberatly made a mistake and Xanthic's message a fake or a joke.
To make it worse it started to drizzle.
'' It's not all bad you know.'' A voice made me spin on he spot and there in near skeletal glory sat a very old man, white wiry hair sticking out of almost ever available patch of exposed skin and eyebrows as wild as the surrounding countryside.
''Look, there's even a rainbow.''
I was caught off guard and looked up at a vivid arch of colour blazing across the sky directly above me. I had only ever seen rainbows from a distance, displaying their trade stretching into the distance and miles away, far past the limits of my sight, the pot of gold at the farthest end. This one was as close and wide as if a big top tent had been errected over me to cover the entire moor.
''Why is it so close?'' My question wasn't answered, the old man had snuck up on me and pushed me hard on my chest with a strength and force I wouldn't have thought possible from such a slight and aging frame, sewnding me flying backwards, arms flailing for anything to steady my falling body. The first solid point I made contact with was to my misfortune one of the masonary squares which had in a previous rain rolled to the bottom of the mound and caused my backwards tragectory to change into a curving decent: The second solid object I made contact with to my growing misery was another cut stone brick round about head height upthe mound; no make that exactly at head height if you were to fall onto the mound. It struck the back of my head and a searing whie lighted pain glances round from my head through my bones and grounding out of my toes.
The white blindness evapourated and the world around me was spining into a lazy focus; it was darker than before, was I knocked unconcious and the sun had set? It was also warmer and the air had a thick stale taste to it.
Soil under my fingers and much to my annoyance, in my hair too, was rich and brown and as far removed from the well used and abandoned moor soil as could be. Now my sight was adjusting to the new light levels I could see tree roots reaching out like tenticles from ceiling to floor making a small cavern where I was slowly sitting up. I had steaking lightning pains screatching through my brain and I thought for a second I might be imagining all of this in some kind of concussion induced episode; but I knew enougth of the greater weirder world that Xanthic had introduced me too when I accepted his offer of employment to know I wouldn't get off that easily.
Out in the open it was as quiet as the grave, gone the invisible string quartet of Hal and in with a numbing sound robbing wind.
The mound was just off the path, stood about waist height and as broad and long as small shed and covered in scrappy grass and weeds. Squares of masonary I imagine came from long forgotten farmseds or retaining walls littered the area around the localised area. The sky above was grey and commentless other than 'depressing' and it infected the land with its dowerness.
My new watch, feeling alien on my wrist and far too large for personal preference, flashed and vibrated as I climbed the mound to be rewarded with a slightly larger view of a vast nothingness and the tiny sight of my transport dissapearing into the horizon.
O.K, to business. Go into the mound and pick up a package. Don't say anything and don't touch anything. Pick up the package and come back out. Easy.
There was no door, a loose arch of abandoned masonary could look like a door frame from a distance but the strength of wind ravaged weeds had moved them and turned them until you had to really look at them to see the shape they may have once been. But of a door, there was no sign just scrubby grass and unidentifyable short green leafy things. The watch seemed to be very ken for me to be here, the arrow spinning on its imaginary computer generated axis like a compass tormented by kids with magnets. I hopped off the mound and stood in front of the door and with nothing else to hand I raked at the grass expecting a thin covering of dirt to hide warpped and ancient timbers of a door, hopefully with a big dor latch that would, after years of corrosion and abuse from the elements, be really easy to open. Unfortunatly what was under the toil soil was mud.
Well that wasn't going well and I began to think I was dropped off in the wrong place or Harahel had deliberatly made a mistake and Xanthic's message a fake or a joke.
To make it worse it started to drizzle.
'' It's not all bad you know.'' A voice made me spin on he spot and there in near skeletal glory sat a very old man, white wiry hair sticking out of almost ever available patch of exposed skin and eyebrows as wild as the surrounding countryside.
''Look, there's even a rainbow.''
I was caught off guard and looked up at a vivid arch of colour blazing across the sky directly above me. I had only ever seen rainbows from a distance, displaying their trade stretching into the distance and miles away, far past the limits of my sight, the pot of gold at the farthest end. This one was as close and wide as if a big top tent had been errected over me to cover the entire moor.
''Why is it so close?'' My question wasn't answered, the old man had snuck up on me and pushed me hard on my chest with a strength and force I wouldn't have thought possible from such a slight and aging frame, sewnding me flying backwards, arms flailing for anything to steady my falling body. The first solid point I made contact with was to my misfortune one of the masonary squares which had in a previous rain rolled to the bottom of the mound and caused my backwards tragectory to change into a curving decent: The second solid object I made contact with to my growing misery was another cut stone brick round about head height upthe mound; no make that exactly at head height if you were to fall onto the mound. It struck the back of my head and a searing whie lighted pain glances round from my head through my bones and grounding out of my toes.
The white blindness evapourated and the world around me was spining into a lazy focus; it was darker than before, was I knocked unconcious and the sun had set? It was also warmer and the air had a thick stale taste to it.
Soil under my fingers and much to my annoyance, in my hair too, was rich and brown and as far removed from the well used and abandoned moor soil as could be. Now my sight was adjusting to the new light levels I could see tree roots reaching out like tenticles from ceiling to floor making a small cavern where I was slowly sitting up. I had steaking lightning pains screatching through my brain and I thought for a second I might be imagining all of this in some kind of concussion induced episode; but I knew enougth of the greater weirder world that Xanthic had introduced me too when I accepted his offer of employment to know I wouldn't get off that easily.
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