by Crystal Lee
Workshopped by Zelin Chen and Paul Young
Format:
CHARACTER-NAME: Talk talk.
More speech from same character.
Ditto.
[SPACE]
Narration.
[SPACE]
CHARACTER2-NAME: More talk.
|| - New line inside the same dialog box.
Contact Crystal Lee with any questions.
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SCENE ONE
*CREAK* || (Tap to continue.)
You step over the threshold of the house.
The Jarl built his home to be big, to receive people in need at any time of day or night. You know it as a place full of a warm, comforting, kind of chaos..
It’s crowded now, too; you can’t even see past the door.
But the air is cold on your skin, and no one makes a sound.
Something is wrong.
Yrsa, one of the Jarl’s chief advisors, meets you at the door.
YRSA:…The Jarl…
She stops. || You’ve never seen Yrsa struggle to say anything.
YRSA: The Jarl is dead.
What?
YOU: The Jarl…is dead?
The crowd parts.
There is a body in the Jarl’s bed.
Its familiar face is now unnaturally white, frozen in a grimace of rage and pain. And there is a horrible second smile ripped into its throat.
You recognize the face, the body, the clothes, but it can’t be real. You just saw him. Just this morning, at breakfast. He stole potatoes from your plate…
The Jarl–Frode–Frode is dead?
YRSA: Revna, tell them what you saw.
You swallow the nausea and turn towards Revna as she steps forward. Frode’s ward. Her face is defiant, but her hands are trembling.
She speaks in short, clipped sentences, like every word hurts.
REVNA: He wanted–he wanted to see if the ocean had thawed yet. He wanted to go out on the boats again.
We were at the harbor when something appeared on the ocean horizon. It moved so fast…
REVNA: Even from that far away, there was a smell, like rotting meat.
He told me to hide, quickly. He was going to fight it. I told him not to–
She’s interrupted by a low, frantic beat getting louder, fast.
You turn, and your eyes lock with Yrsa’s.
War drums?
...
Something rotten this way comes.
SCENE TWO
As the last of the wave of undead dissipates, the ringing of the fight fades from your ears.
As one, you and your fighters brace yourselves for another round.
But all is quiet...
You and your villagers wait one minute.
You wait another.
Even the cold statues seem to be waiting, in their distant way.
You wonder where the gods are now...
…
Yrsa is the first to turn and look at the eastern sky.
It seems like a trick at first, an illusion dreamed up by your exhausted souls.
But first one ray of light streaks across the sky, then another, and another.
REVNA: ...We're...alive?
Bathed in the gentle pink light of the sunrise, she begins to cry.
...
YRSA: You've done well.
Is she talking to Revna? But when you look, your eyes meet. She smiles.
YRSA: Thank you.