Tulip

Let’s see, Tulip’s story...where shall I begin...

I could begin with her childhood, how her family had long been friends with the humans who lived just beyond her forest’s edges and she had grown up best friends with two of the humans there, “More Awake than the Sun at Midday” and “Wandering Mind” the latter of whom she sometimes tried to call by his name, Thorrin, but usually defaulted to ‘Thorn’. I could explain the games they played and the bonds they shared right up until the two younger, but technically more mature, humans set out to become Paladins, But that was nearly 15 years before the events leading her to the dungeons, so I will refrain.

I could start with the sudden lack of letters, how her two friends who had consistently kept her up to date on their adventures and misadventures suddenly stopped writing, no warning, and then a month or so later, the news that Thorrin had died in the form of his order visiting the human Village. But Even that is not the reason why she left. She had considered leaving, but always worried she’d miss More Awake than the Sun at Midday, and so she stayed, and so she continued to learn her mother’s alchemical trade and waited and hoped.

And that’s when her real motivation hit, or more accurately, carved a path through her forest so destructive yet meandering, it almost seemed to be the whole goal was to injure it irreparably. It had been years since humans or any other race had disrespected their forest so, but her family was ready to fight off the desecrator s with misdirections and trickery. The mere misdirections did not work, and so the most skilled, and some who had never had to do these things so they could learn, went to steal the bandit’s things and generally cause them trouble. 

Tulip had managed to grab a ornate metal wristband, obviously of some monetary worth and likely to infuriate the intruders that may finally realise the forest does not want them here. Her task was to keep it on her, and drop it off in their path the next day so they will know they are deliberately being given a warning.

—-

However, that night she had dreams. In it there was a jumbling of what felt almost like memories, from different times, places, different people. The colors would change. Sometimes she could see past the light into the shadows, others the colors were muted and strange, some seemed like she was nearly crawling along the floor and others she was somehow taller than she ever remembers being. Amongst all the memories a theme emerged, “Find something for me, and I will reward you, find someONE for me and you will be rewarded,” As she began to understand she thought, confused,’Find what? Or who?’ No sooner had she though it than the memories cleared to reveal a sword, born of shadows and in an odd spiraling three pointed star shape. The sword then spoke to her in an unsettling, unnatural tone. Like the sound of dozens of voices and pronunciations made up its voice,”Come and find me, and I shall give you power to overcome those who have wronged you.” Tulip was very skeptical of this, but never one to stop before she got the whole story, she asks,’Where are you?’ 

And the memories turned to nightmares. 

Towers, worn with age and known to move even to those far from them, she sees them from a dozen different perspectives, floors are a blur as she fights in countless different ways: Magic, bow, sword, pike. The horrifying visions of monsters killed and crumbled to dust, the heartbreak of companions lost and left to die, their screams echoing through the stone chambers. Most of the memories had no connection to each other, rarely did faces pop up more than once, but there was one thing that tied them together, the ending as a triple bladed sword plunges into them, into her, and she can feel something being sucked away from her, no matter how she tries to hold on to it. And all through it, the sword begs her to ‘make me stop’
—-
She wakes in a cold sweat, still murmuring,’Make me stop’ though she did not know when she’d taken up the swords words. She stops a moment, breathing heavily, breath catching in the back of her throat as she tries not to wretch and both hands go up to hold her spinning head, the moonlight glinting off the bangle that had somehow slipped onto her wrist, catching her attention as it flashes in her eye. She pulls her hand away and looks down at it for a beat before ripping it away from her, it’s glimmering form landing a few feet from her.

Somehow her nausea got worse, she suspects whatever had done this to her had been trying to mitigate her negative reaction, but now everything is coming up and she’s just glad she’d been too excited about her first forest defense to eat much that night, or I suppose the night before, as it was now early morning. As her thoughts and stomach began to settle again she looks at the bangle and makes a fateful decision. Taking a thin cloth, she wraps it and tucks it away in a bag. Still shaky, but feeling rested enough and not willing to spend anymore time with the jewelry than needed, she leaves to go and drop the bangle off near the camp it had come from, be rid of it. Her family would understand she knew...but she could not bring herself to tell them until they woke on their own.
—-
The rest is unfortunately predictable, the bandits catch her in her mentally weakened state, and she in a moment of desperation, uses the power offered in order to survive. Barely holding on to life, she and the corpses of the men she’d killed are found by her family as they’d gone to follow their movements for the day. They are understanding, it was self defense what could she do, though they chided her for going on her own. They were surprised that she wished to return the affects of them to their guild but had seen it as a noble desire, a kind of repentance for escalating things as quickly as she had, even if it was unintentional.

They didn’t know the real reason she traveled to the dungeons, to free the blade who had saved her life from the hell it lived in.