Session #5, Part 1 as told by Finn

“Grease and Grudges”

 

Somewhere deep within the innerwalls of the Eastshore prison Finn has hit a wall with a grunt. Solid stone where there used to be space. “Lovely,” he mutters. “Someone’s been doin’ renovations.”

 

He slumped, back against the stone. “Well, Ross, that’s it then. Either I go out in front of a crowd, swingin’ in my best shirt, or I crawl back and wait for plan bloody B.”

 

Rosslyn squeaked and curled around his hand.

 

He closed his eyes. “Back to the cell it is. But not to stay.”

 

He turns back, shoulders aching from the crawl. Twenty minutes lost pokin’ about some fool hope of a tunnel. He just wants to get back to his cell before the guards count noses.

Rosslyn chitters on his shoulder. “Yeah, yeah, I know. I should’ve left a sock in my bunk. Or a decoy rat.”

 

He eases open the old kitchen panel—just wide enough for a halfling and a whisper. The place should be empty. The scent of bland prison stew in the air. Along with something worse.

 

Boots. Heavy. Sloppy. And then—“Who’s in my kitchen?” growls a voice like gravel in a piss bucket. Finn winces. Griggs. Mean bastard. Prisoner. Used to be on kitchen detail until he tried to beat a lad to death for using his ladle. Wasn’t supposed to be here.

 

Finn ducks behind a sack of flour. Griggs stomps past, dragging one leg and breathing like a bellows in a fire. He stops, sniffs. “Smells like rat piss and cowardice.”

 

Rosslyn bristles. Finn mutters, “Don’t rise to it.” But then Griggs does something worse—he turns toward the pantry hatch. Right towards the hidden way. If Griggs sees it, if he figures out someone’s been sneakin’ through—he’ll run straight to the guards. And worse, he’ll smirk about it.

 

Finn weighs it. No time. No space. He can’t risk the man talking.

 

The room’s dim, but Finn’s eyes find something useful: a slab of congealed grease on the stone floor, slick and shining. Right next to a meat hook, left dangling from a nail.

 

He stands. “Oy, Griggs. Thought they banned you from kitchens.” Griggs turns, eyes red and wild. “You.”

 

He charges. Finn sidesteps. “Mind the floor.”

 

Griggs hits the grease patch head-on. Both legs shoot out. He crashes down, skidding into a bucket and denting a pot with his skull. Dazed.

 

Finn’s on him fast. Hook in hand, quick thunk to the side of the head. Not too hard. Just enough. Griggs goes limp.

 

“Sorry, mate,” Finn mutters, hauling him into the corner. “You’ll wake up with a headache and an alibi. Could’ve been worse.”

 

He grabs the nearest bowl—porridge, maybe—and a crust of bread. No time to savor. Just enough to line his stomach and not look suspicious.

 

He grabs a mop and bucket and strolls through the hall past a guard towards the mop room, joins the other prisoners on work detail and makes it back into the cellblock. No questions asked—if you look like you belong, people think that you belong where you are.

 

His cell’s still undisturbed. Rosslyn leaps off his shoulder and noses into the bedding.

 

Finn sits down hard. Breaks the bread in two. Hands half to Rosslyn.

 

“Could’ve been worse,” he says, chewing. He swallows, wipes dust from his brow, and sighs.

“At least we earned ourselves a breakfast.’

 

“Now, you wanna hear about the time me, Inez, and that long-faced holy boy fought a mountain with arms?”

 

So the sun pokes in through the tent flap like it owns the place, and I wake up face-down, mouth full of canvas. Brain’s full of fog. Stomach’s makin’ a sound like an angry badger. Somewhere out there, I hear crunchin’—something’s eatin’, and I feel left out.

 

I sit up, rub the gunk from me eyes, and right on cue—boom boom, there it is again. That damn phantom marching sound. Ghosts of a war telling us to be off, at least that’s the message that I got. Grab me medallion to keep out the Harrows. Still warm. Too warm. 

Add to that a low rumblin’ in the earth and the occasional twitch beneath me arse like the ground’s got gas. I hate this forest, Rosslyn. Hate it like I hate damp socks. Nothing good here. Shoulda left yesterday.

 

I step outta the tent, morning fog’s thick enough to butter. Stretch, I feel better than I deserve, which is always suspicious. The owlbear cubs gnawin’ on what I think is a lump of meat. One of the cubs waddles past, lookin’ like it took a bath in a blood fountain. I holler, “Your chick, your problem!” at Inez. She doesn’t laugh. Probably too busy makin’ eyes at her creepy rock idol again. Jon’s playing dead in the grass. I shuffle off to take a piss in peace.

 

Anyway, I’m standin’ there, whistlin’ a tune only half-forgotten, when I look down and—oh, what’s this? Blood. Guts. Bits of beast strung along like somebody’s idea of a trail mix. My brain wakes up proper, like a kettle hittin’ boil. I look back and realize—oh no, that ain’t just meat the cubs are munchin’. That’s a giant. Antlers and all. Elkzilla. Torn clean in two. Not chewed. Split. Which means something sharp, strong, or cursed did it—and we’re just sitting here like bait at a banquet

Right then, Ross, I made a decision. And that decision was: Time to go.

 

But not Inez. No, she’s over there pokin’ at the corpse with a stick, sayin’ fancy words like “Cervus maximus giganti” or “Antlered apex fauna” or somethin’ else that won’t help when whatever did this comes back for dessert. Jonathan’s noddin’ along like a lad at sermon. Neither of ‘em’s got a lick o’ sense. She’s got that “let’s investigate the creepy forest trail covered in blood” look in her eye. Like it’s a Sunday stroll.

 

I check for a trail—nothin’. Could’ve been dragged in. Could’ve crawled. Or maybe it just appeared. Either way, no sign of what killed it, which is somehow worse.

 

Jon and I exchange that look that says: Can we just go home already? I say we pack up in case we need to bolt. She pouts. Wants us to go back into that mad room underneath the idol to look for more stones. Ross: “you should have seen her face, when Jonathan compared her to his mad gran’father in the robes. Hahaha.” That seemed to annoy her and set her back right. We said we’d leave—Jon needs his little prayer, then he’s ready. I’m already packed. Inez too.

 

And then—curse the stars—those two tree-huggers decide to bring the bloody cubs. I tell ya, Rosslyn, if some monster’s bringin’ meat to feed its babies, and we’re sittin’ next to the buffet? That’s a problem. And if those cubs realize we killed their mum? Well, I like my eyes where they are.

 

As I’m thinkin’ that, we hear a noise. Stone on stone. Or maybe claw on stone. Scratchin’ behind the monolith. Of course Inez decides to go take a look. Because she’s clearly immune to basic survival instincts. Jonathan follows her. 

I’m torn between following them and maybe becoming breakfast to some giant monster or doing the sensible thing and leaving these deadweights behind.

I go ‘round the side, flankin’—smart, yeah? But by the time I catch up, she says she saw some cloaked figure bolt into the trees. I see nothin’. No rustle. No tracks. No nothin’.

 

But there’s a message carved into the monolith now. It looked like scribbles to me, but Inez reads it out with a face of a halfling reading the menu at a pie store. Says it’s a summons to a contest or duel. Skips a few lines, I think. Her poker face is terrible. I say we leg it.

 

Too late.

 

The earth has another tremor, like my uncle’s gut after eatin’ cabbage. The monolith shifts. Cracks. Bits fall off. And then—boom. Giant bloody golem, big as a barn and twice as ugly. Stone fists the size of ponies. Inez yelps. Jon panics. I consider my life choices. The thing raises its arms ominously.  I don’t wait. I shout, “Run!” and I run.

 

Wind wooshes past me head—barely missed. I hear a thud behind me, where Jonno and Inez were standing. One of em got hit, maybe. I look over my shoulder, the others waited around to see what the deal was. Like there is anything three smallfolk can do against that.

 

Inez starts screamin’, “Throw the moonstones!” I yank at me bag, trip like a fool, land flat, and the moonstone pops out like it’s got a mind o’ its own. I grab it, roll, and chuck it in one smooth toss. Should’ve been on stage, Rosslyn.

 

Just as it’s sailin’ through the air, I see the golem’s already got a hand on a stone behind it—drawing it into an awkward position. It makes a grab for my stone with its free arm and seizes too. And just like that—it stops. Eyes go dark. Whole thing locks up tighter than a miser’s coinpurse.

 

Jon and Inez are haulin’ each other to safety. Golem turns back to stone, like it was all a dream. And the moonstones? Look like regular rocks now. Bastards.

 

Then me stomach growled loud enough to startle birds. “I’ll make breakfast,” I say.

Because if the day’s startin’ like that, Ross, I need eggs. And possibly liquor.

Finn leans back on the cell wall, breaking off another crumb for Rosslyn, who curls tighter in his lap.

“We’ll get out, little mate. One way or another. Not today, maybe. But soon. Sun’s got no business shinin’ this long on rats like us unless it means to light the way.”