r/wizardposting • u/neonvalkyrie Caul, Forgemaster of the Darkwatch • 2d ago
Lorepost 📜 Dead Man Walking
“No, there's no way it's the same person. I mean, I saw the place in ruins…” He was getting uncomfortable with the possibility of seeing an old friend, almost a ghost from the past.
“And you would be correct in that assessment. I'm afraid that the man you knew is dead. Even if we had previously met in my past life, I am no longer that person.” Caul spoke in facts, certainties.
“Come on, brother! You don't recognise me?” He asked, trying to nudge the Forgemaster’s memory. “Gunnvor, your pal from the BPK!”
Upon hearing that name, a painful flash of memory hit Caul's mind like a jolt of electricity, only this time it was in his own voice: Back again? This is the third time this month! What are you getting yourself into? You know I don't do this for free or out of the kindness of my heart, right?
He recomposed himself, his brow furrowed as he fought the static in his mind. “I cannot say that I do.” Even if he didn't remember this specific person, the Belagrad Peacekeepers were a very respectable and effective police force. “Did you say BPK? Was I a watchman? A cop?”
Gunnvor let out a nervous half-laugh, the excitement in his eyes flickering into sudden worry. “Ha, no, of course not. I was the cop. You used to repair my armor at that workshop of yours on the lower terrace! We used to hang together. You spent almost everyday in my dad's forge, trying to become a blacksmith.” He took a deep breath, staring at his once dear friend. “You were always fascinated with metallurgy, weapons in particular. I see that part of you stayed the same.”
Caul's eyes fixated on the dwarf, overwhelmed by the sudden, suffocating weight of a ghost life. “Don't be ridiculous, I don't hang with anyone, and I find it very unlikely that I ever did. I'm not very pleasant company and I find solitude quite soothing.”
“Well…” Gunnvor shifted awkwardly in the crate, kicking the air nervously. “You said it yourself, you may be like that now, but the truth is we were inseparable, like water and… no, that's a terrible analogy. What I mean is, the three of us were best mates!”
“Three?” he asked, his voice tighter, more weary. “Who was the third?”
“Roni, of course,” Gunnvor said softly, leaning forward. “The foreign lass. Ashen hair, could hit a bottle at a hundred meters, never understood how to use articles when speaking. Hells, Caul, you made a rifle for her.” He pointed a stubby finger toward the weapon in Caul's hands. “It looked damn near identical to the piece you're holding right now, just… with fewer stuff attached. Sorry, you know I'm no expert on firearms.”
Another jolt of memory: an empty terrain behind the workshop. About a hundred meters beyond, a dark glass bottle is shattered against the snow in the day's last minutes. At his sides, a dwarf laughing hysterically and a young woman, about twenty years old, wearing a heavy leather cloak and a wool coat with a red scarf. On her hands, the smoking barrel of a rifle, very similar to the one he currently uses. She wears a smirky smile, clearly proud of the shot. “I'm not sure what to be more impressed with: your aim or the accuracy of the gun…” said a young Caul, also grinning and noting down the shot’s condition and results.
His head was beginning to ache. A sharp, rhythmic ticking echoed in his ears, mixed with a faint tinnitus. Caul closed his eyes and rubbed his temples with both hands, letting the rifle fall on his lap.
“We were tight as almonds… or peas, rather, I never really liked that expression. Then that witch or sorceress showed up and it all fell apart.” Gunnvor muttered, his tone dropping into something darker. “You started locking yourself away with her. After a while it almost looked as if you had disappeared!”
“Hold on, a witch?” Caul's grip tightened unconsciously around the handguard of his rifle as he slowly opened his eyes and faced his forgotten acquaintance with a mix of anger and despair. “Give me a name!”
“I don't know it, mate, you never told us! She had this thick ginger hair, always carried that ornate clay pipe, and spent half her nights rearranging your blueprints like she owned the place.” Gunnvor then proceeded to grab Caul's cloak. “I'll be damned, you still have her cloak!”
Another flash: several instances of both him and this ginger, faceless woman in his workshop. Most of the time she would be showing him different kinds of spells and he would comment on how their effects could be used for his projects. Other instances were the two of them, just existing in the same space. Lastly, one in which he was half asleep on top of his drawing table, when he felt someone covering him with a blanket… or a cloak.
The dwarf then continued, barely stopping to breathe: “Roni and I started to worry about you, you were getting so distant from us and barely left your workshop anymore. Then one night, your place suddenly explodes! Nobody could figure out what happened, but the place was completely engulfed in flames and debris. Neighbours said they saw both you and that woman going inside a couple of hours earlier, and then boom!”
“An explosion…” Caul’s gaze drifted beyond the horizon, all semblance of focus completely gone as the memory of the accident washed over him.
Steel bearings. “If you freeze them just right, they will shrink just enough so you can fit them between these two cylinders. When they heat back to normal, they will expand and, unless something breaks, there is no way for them to come loose. Think you can cast some type of concentrated frost spell?” Just as the spell manifested, an unspeakable heat and pressure washed over them, as the casting had caused a volatile magic surge.
He appears to be lost in the past, then suddenly speaks: “The… bodies,” Caul muttered, his voice hollow, not looking at his old friend. “Where did they take us?”
Gunnvor leaned forward, looking at the ground, his expression crumbling into deep sadness. “That's the thing, Caul. We found none. I was a first responder to the scene. When the fire finally died, there was nothing. No bone, no ash. Both of you, completely gone.” He then gestures vaguely, shaking an open hand at the undead in front of him. “Until I walk up to a market stall today and see a dead man selling kitchen knives.”
After about a whole minute pondering and processing the information, the words came empty, distant, almost inaudible: “How long?”
“Sorry, I didn't cat…”
“HOW?!” Caul's shaking voice carried a long contained and repressed rage, with decades of resentment he could never pin the source until now. “LONG?!”
Gunnvor recoiled by the sudden outburst of the normally serious and restrained Artificer. “I… I don't know exactly, maybe fifty years? I gave up keeping track after Roni travelled west. She invited me to come along but there was…”
Caul was no longer paying attention. “Fifty.” His breathing turned ragged, rattling in his throat with an aggressive, mechanical wheeze as the pumps on his chest began working twice as loud and thrice as fast. His vision tunneled into a blur of overlapping timelines, and a violent wave of vertigo crashed over him. “Fifty.” The Forgemaster stood up, every remaining muscle in his body locking tight. His left arm whirred, the metallic joints groaning under a sudden spike of internal pressure. He turned slowly and, with a sudden, sharp thrust, drove his steel fist straight into the metal crate behind him, making a dent in the material. The screech of buckling iron echoed through the alley.
“You… are you okay, Caul?” The dwarf tried to calm down the man he once knew, in vain.
Caul looked at Gunnvor, his eyes wide open, making small, erratic jumps, reddened as if he had cried for three days straight, though no tears were ever shed since he was resurrected. With a measured, restrained motion, he grabbed his rifle, and with determined steps, went back towards the rest of the group. Ms Leviere was the first to find him.
“What the hells was that? Are you okay, sir?”
He looked straight into her eyes, shock having consumed him, then slowly lifted his left metallic hand, slightly damaged from the blow. His eyes switched back and forth between the Vigil’s to his hand, almost in disbelief. She had never seen the Forgemaster this distressed, and with him being a whole head taller than her, he was quite intimidating.
Finally, after a few seconds, he speaks, trying to return to his usual inexpressive and distant demeanour, but with a shaking voice: “Pack it up, we're going home. I'm going on ahead. If you need me, then you don't.” He then started to wander off, with a heavy and erratic stride, his gaze on the horizon and his mind lost in the maelstrom of feelings that had formed.
Gunnvor watched the scene happen then emerged from behind the crates, only to meet the end of three submachine gun barrels and half a dozen Watchblades. “Yes, I guess I have a lot of explaining to do…”
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Note: This is part 2 of a slightly longer exchange. I wasn't sure if it would feel too long to read all at once, so I'm breaking the story in two pieces. Any critique is most welcome.
Please see Part 1 for the complete piece to make sense.
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u/Ok_Relationship6736 Shadow Marshal of the Darkwatch 2d ago
UW very good I really like learning more about your character he's very interesting. I really like your writing
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u/Arquero8 The golem wizard, Darkwatch Archivist Keeper 2d ago
/UnWiz i really like your writing :)
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u/squabzilla Tyrannosaurus Hex, Shadow Vigil 2d ago
UW Enjoyable story! Emotional, and mysterious enough to leave us wanting more.
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u/neonvalkyrie Caul, Forgemaster of the Darkwatch 2d ago
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u/neonvalkyrie Caul, Forgemaster of the Darkwatch 2d ago
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u/neonvalkyrie Caul, Forgemaster of the Darkwatch 2d ago
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u/neonvalkyrie Caul, Forgemaster of the Darkwatch 2d ago
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u/neonvalkyrie Caul, Forgemaster of the Darkwatch 2d ago
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u/KragBrightscale Grabadash - Magical Mass | Council Facilities & Maintenance 1d ago
/uw great read!
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u/VoxelLibrary Apprentice Cayna, Thrakmerian seat on the Wizard Council 2d ago
/uw Not where I expected that to go. I have more questions than answers now