KMS S&S 0.0.2

 

[458 terrible words. content - I suppose you could pretend there's a sense of menacing suspense, if you squinted? trying very hard to keep going forward and not go back and edit, despite there's some setting details to edit in that could maybe be an excuse. written in November for NaNoWriMo and that's as far as we got.]


The streets were more crooked than she liked, little windings and snaking curves, crooked and the occasional cul-de-sac confusing her. Never would have been allowed back home, she thought. Fortunately the place was not far and the windings not so serious as to lose her, and she found her way to the corner place just as the lights were being lit.

The Corner Place. That's what it was called. Odd name, Kermit thought. She couldn't decide if the proprietor were unimaginative, or clever about it. But she definitely did not approve of the haphazard table layout, or what she was almost sure were traces of grime on the windows. Never would have been allowed.

But she needed somewhere to sleep and this would surely be better than the road. Not too crowded, which perhaps was understandable given the town's monster problem. A scattering of humans, who might well have been locals, and in one corner an elf, who was likely no more a local than Kermit herself, all eating their evening meals. A woman who Kermit supposed to be the proprieter approached her immediately.

"What's it like out there, still quiet? Wall up yet?"

Kermit nodded. "Quiet. Wall's not finished. Helped where I could on my way in."

Not best news to bring. The woman bolted and braced the door behind Kermit. "Hope you're planning on staying the night."

"What if I can't afford it?"

No response, just the shuttering and boarding of the one remaining clear window in the common room. It was a big, flat lump of wood that had been on the floor beside the window; Kermit figured it must have been taken down during the day to let some light in.

Finally she turned back to Kermit. "Dinner?"

"Please."

That turned out not to be Kermit's best decision. She was only just sitting down to her plate when it stopped being quiet out there.

First footsteps, then yelling. The sounds of steel on flesh, claws on flesh. Guards and desperate or spirited townsfolk battling the nightly horde.
It went on, and no one dared eat meanwhile. Most of those who had been still in the common were gathering to the back, where the stairs were, fearful eyes fixed upon the door. Some ventured to creep upstairs already; Kermit thought that sensible of them.

The sound of fighting quieted, but not much. Something tried the door, found it locked, and began hurling itself bodily against the wood. Then the sound grew, another creature joining it. Alternating, so that the door sounded almost continuously with a deep thud, and after that the thuds were accompanied by ominous sounds of splintering. Kermit took up the axe she had laid beside her when the battering began.