Diary of Pip Rippon

The Legend of Loxley Bottom (The Gabbleratchets of Sophie Hinchcliffe) Chapter five: End.

An animated body with no life force is a strange thing. It will shamble along seemingly forever. But, as we know, nothing can go on forever. Without fuel, a machine, an engine, a human body, will fail. Forget anything that you may have watched or read about those things in your world that are known as zombies -- they need live meat to survive, that is their fuel -- or so we are told in those old stories, sometimes they seem to survive on magic. But there is no magic in this world. And Sophie had no appetite for fresh meat -- if she had, she'd have attacked that slipperman -- but she didn't.

The relentless rain continued its ceaseless descent, as if nature sought to cleanse this most macabre of scenes. Sophie, a mere shell of her former self, devoid of life force, pressed on with an unsettling determination. The landscape, drenched and disorienting, mirrored the internal disarray of her vacant form.

She walked steadily along the banks of that Loxley river, it flowing downstream, her walking towards its source. That rain continued to sile down, the ditches and dykes and sykes filling with fresh water and rushing fast past her legs and feet, disorientating whatever inbuilt tracking mechanisms continued within her.

The water broke the banks of the sykes and the river, but did little to impede her relentless journey.

The water flowed this way and that, the Loxley draining away towards the Dun, but the dykes and sykes being sucked into the hungry mouth of the Damflask. The deluge overflowed the banks of the waterways, creating an environment that confused any remaining tracking mechanisms within her. The Loxley's currents swirled, joining the relentless flow away from the Damflask, a hungry reservoir awaiting its next offering.

The beating rain and the unforgiving murk blasted the body of the vacant form that used to be Sophie Hinchcliffe, driving her into the ground. With no fuel, that walking cadaver eventually failed and slumped, sliding into the mud and was washed in the flood into a syke. She was now near to the Damflask, and her body was sucked into that great body of water.

Her lifeless form, the semblance of existence that lingered within her expunged, collapsed into the mud. The Damflask, a voracious maw, welcomed her lifeless body into its depths. Now no longer moving, her prone form was pulled under the water. It floated on the surface for the briefest of moments, and then sank, dropping to the bottom of that stormy miniature ocean. The nutrients of Sophie Hinchcliffe would't be wasted. The water would break her down and she'd become protein for the feeding of the inhabitants of Hellsborough.

The silt and muck and the bones of a thousand dead fish at the bottom of the Damflask cushioned her naked frame as she sank into the depths. The mud ate into her every crevice. It coated her breasts, it seeped between her tiny cleavage, it entered the holes between her legs, it filled the gaps between her fingers and toes.

The storm persisted, a malevolent symphony of rain and hate, as Sophie's body sank into the reservoir's abyss. The mud and silt, mingling with the bones of countless fish, embraced her form, cushioning her descent. Naked and motionless, she became a part of the aquatic ecosystem. The silt invaded every inch of her, coating her body with the remnants of decay. Her descent into the Damflask became a gruesome ballet, with the water breaking down her remains, converting her into sustenance for the aquatic denizens below.

Sophie Hinchcliffe came to rest in the dark and haunted depths of the Damflask. D'divi protect her.

Above, the storm still raged, an unforgiving onslaught, torrents of water cascading down the hillsides like lava from a volcano -- a flowing miasma of putrid hate.

Slippers nudged about her mud clotted frame; the odd one had a nibble -- already they found nourishment coating her skin. Then a shoal of sticklebacks entered her eye sockets and began to nibble at her brain. The soft tissue sucked away in moments. Then other varieties of slipper began to enter her other orifices, following the paths that the mud and silt had previously laid.

There, these slippers found a veritable banquet. Whilst the gabbleratchets had had Sophie's eyes and mind, whilst they had raped and defiled her, they left so much more for the slippers of the Damflask.

Her internal organs, her heart, her lungs, kidneys and liver, ovaries; the eggs of her unborn children -- all were slowly and softly devoured.

Even the secretions the gabbleratchets left behind.

The slippers fed for hours, when they were finished, Sophie was nothing more than brittle skin encasing filth encrusted bone.

The organic network watched all of this activity, relaying a live stream to the nascenti headquarters which lay beneath the Damflask.

The motion detectors had sensed her body descend to the bottom of the reservoir, this macabre scene had not gone unnoticed.

The organic network, had tracked her long before that. They knew when the gabbleratchets discarded her at Loxley pond. They knew when her body had been violated of all worth. They had tracked her progress along the banks of the Loxley as she shumbled along, every detail had been monitored.

The nascenti, didn't know who she was, but they had been anticipating this opportunity.

The grotesque transformation into nutrient-rich filth beneath the stormy surface of the Damflask triggered a response.

The nascenti. Their moment had arrived.

Being driven by money is a horrible way to live your life -- just stop and ask any jellyhead -- they all seem to hate their lives -- a bit like Van did back when he first entered the wisewood all those years ago.

My advice to them (whether they want it or not), is don’t focus on the money. Money is a paradox. Whatever society tells you about money is usually the opposite of the truth.

Forget about results, don't stress about the future. Since I've been here (in Hellsborough), I’ve forgotten about my career. I’ve lived in the moment. I have zero regrets.

I used to suffer from bad anxiety. I’d spend a silly amount of time living in some fantasy world. Now I live in the moment.

I let the future take care of itself.

You spend so much of our lives obsessed with the future, you forget about the here and now.

The future is impossible to control, just live for the moment, and get on with it -- The Exacid might be knocking on the door tomorrow.

The Legend of Loxley Bottom (The Gabbleratchets of Sophie Hinchcliffe) Chapter six: Search.

Hellsborough is close to the wisewood, and to the North and West, it encroaches on the city landscape.

Often creatures from the wood lose their way in the murk, finding themselves wandering through the streets of Hellsborough, terrorising unsuspecting residents.

Many an over-intoxicated jellyhead has been found by the exacids at the bottom of a ginnel or on some lonely lane, half devoured with horror in his or her wide and starey eyes.

Naval wasn't scared, he had a mission -- he would find his girlfriend, wherever she was and whatever mess she had gotten herself into, and he would bring her home -- back to their home in Winn Gardens.

Despite the amount of drink he'd taken on, he felt sober, and he knew his feet would carry him forwards with purpose. His mind was set and his body was ready -- he was on edge, sure, but he was focused and knew what he needed to do.

The Loxley pond -- that is what one of the stragglers who'd left the last bar had said. It was but a few thousand paces away, and so that was where he headed. He knew where to go, he'd been there many a time -- but never when the murk was so thick or the dark was so black. He covered his face with a shroud; he knew his psycmask would allow his to breath freely, but the extra warmth of the snood gave him comfort -- and he needed some comfort from something at that moment.

As a child, he and friends had ignored their parents advice and headed out in the direction of the pond, messing around in the muck and mud and water, not worrying about what might lurk beneath its surface.

He had no fear then, none of them did. But when he thought back on those friends from those days -- few of them were still about. One, Ellen Gobsthwaite had made a name for herself -- she had become someone in the Farantees retail empire, but many other names that he remembered: Phil Turner, Ronnie Sykes, Jim Savage, Davey Hawley -- there were all long gone. Suffering some unexpected demise for some terrible, yet inexplicable reason.

It was always an inexplicable reason -- always a tragic accident -- always something that shouldn't have happened.

But they did happen. Those names were gone now. Laid to rest. Just gravestones in the grounds of Wadsley church or Wardsend cemetery.

Naval tried not to dwell on the gory details. He tried not to think about what might have happened to those old childhood friends.

He tried even harder not to think what might be happening to his Sophie, or might have already happened while he fumed and raged around the Middlewood bars.

All that he cared about now was finding her and rescuing her. His little love, his precious girl.

Got any ¢hits fella?

A beggar looked up from the filth, nestling a drainpipe that spewed filthy water onto the flagstones by the junction.

Naval's lip curled upwards -- what was a beggar doing on the streets of Hellsborough?

Surely the exacids wouldn't put up with this?

Yet here he was, this decrepit individual, asking for a hand-out.

Naval bit his tongue, not answering, just staring at the hobo.

#### HMM::OUT('Transfer 5 ¢hits to him')

ask:: Oakey, Naval // stat:: accept[ok]__ // src:: 2001:0db8:85a3:0000:0000:8a2e:037g:7334 [loc::hellsborough//middlewood_road//4259]__ // now:: 79.rain-rooter.13.15.0.22.49

HMM::IN('..5 ¢hits delivered to 2001:0db8:85a3:0000:0000:3492:fd31:abfe__')

Grateful fella, grateful! The beggar said, snoughing into his filthy lapel and clutching the drainpipe for support. I'll not forget thee fella. Tha is a diamond tha is!

---

Ten minutes later Naval was at the Loxley pond. Now, after midmurk, all was quiet. The flat surface of the pond reflected the murkmoon like a dirty mirror.

How does it feel to be on your own, baby? Naval knew Sophie was here or hereabouts, he felt her presence was here -- or at least had been. Something on the breeze, something in the air. He could smell her, he could sense her, she had been here.

But Naval knew he was by himself now. All was quiet on the pond. Even the quackers and the clownfeet were sleeping at this hour.

But he knew Sophie had been here.

He searched in the darkness for signs of her, stumbling along the edge of the pond -- that narrow runway that splits the pond and the Loxley river itself.

He picked a fragment of cloth from an ensnaring tree branch that grew into the pond.

It was hers, he was sure.

It could have been anything, it was filthy and wet, covered in grime and silt, but he knew it was hers, of her. He could feel her presence if that scrap of material.

When a lover walks out the door forever, the short-term pain is enormous. When Sophie walked out of their door on Winn Gardens this morning, it was with a kiss and a gleeful wave, the full shock of it all hadn't hit him yet.

As Naval followed that narrow tract of land, he saw more bits of stuff -- detritus, fragments of garments, scraps of this and that -- all he felt sure were evidence of Sophie's existence previously at the pond.

He had no choice now.

He was on the edge of the wisewood and the only way was forwards.

He couldn't turn back. Tha can't turn back now, he said to himself.

The hairs on the back of his neck began to stand erect, his fear palpable. His heart beginning to race. And, there's no such word as "can't" -- the words of his mother echoed through his confused thoughts.

Naval felt the presence of another. It wasn't Sophie. It was someone else.

Naval turned around, peering into the blackness and the murk.

There was a shape -- A shambling form behind him, maybe a hundred paces back, maybe less -- it was hard to tell in the lack of light.

Who's there? Shouted Naval.

There was no response, but a tell-tale snough was enough to inform Naval that the beggar from the crossroads had followed him.

What do you want? I know who you are.

Aye fella, tha knows who I am, I is just 'ere to 'elp.

Help? How can you help?

Sophie is deed, tha knows that reyt?

The beggar came closer, hobbling through the murk.

Dead? What do you mean dead?

You've seen the evidence fella, you've seen her bits and bobs strewn about -- ain't that evidence enough that tha Sophie is no longer in t'land of t'livin'?

She's alive! I'm searching for her now, I'm going to rescue her! I have provisions, I'm going to get her home safe!

She's gone fella. Them gabbleratchets took her and brought 'er 'ere. I saw 'em carry 'er off mesen from t'crossroads. And them things doant leave nowt much behind. Them scraps of cloth that thas 'olding close to tha chest, that's all that's left of 'er, believe me, I knows about these things.

You're wrong, my Sophie is still alive. I know them things have done her wrong, but she is stronger than that, she is stronger, she is stronger, I know she is, I know her, I'm gonna save her, I'm gonna take her home.

She's gone fella. Doant enter that wisewood -- that's all I 'as to say to thee.

I have to go in, that's where she's gone. I have to go in and get her back.

She'll come back fella, when she's good and ready. Tha doant need to go in there looking for her.

You're wrong. I have no choice. I need to go into the wisewood.

Do as tha pleases then. I 'as said me piece.

Wait, what? -- how do you know she'll come back?

I's milting fella, I maybe old, but I's seen all this an 'undred times before.

Milting? What's milting? Naval shouted into the darkness. Naval had never heard the word milting before.

But the beggar had turned his back and was gone, away from the wisewood, back towards the grime and filth of Hellsborough.

Indignant and annoyed, Naval ran down the towpath -- The only thought in his mind now: Finding his Sophie.

Up the steps by the weir, past the pumping station -- he and it running at full pelt in the torrential rain that slewed from the murky night.

Up above the pumping station, on that dirty and discarded track, lives the Gosava tree.

The Gosava tree eats meat. A rapacious predator, albeit one that is rooted to the ground; but one that extends its reach into all corners of this part of the wisewood, it's tangle of dark dripping branches blackening the canopy, cutting out what little light the murk allows to enter.

The Gosava tree is hungry. The Gosava tree is ravenous. It hasn't eaten for days, weeks maybe. As Windstrom turns to Bleak, pickings in the wisewood are few and far between -- there isn't much meat to be had here or hereabouts at this time of year.

It has extended its roots and rhizomes searching for nourishment -- clawing and climbing into every gap and fissure in its hungry search.

The gift of live human flesh doesn't come along very often. Maybe once a season, maybe less. Rarely at this time of year.

Ensnared by those tangling dendritic threads, the Gosava tree brought Naval down, encasing him in its spiralling web of tendons and branches.

Naval could no longer move, his legs gripped by the voracious plant. One of his arms was pinned to his side, his other grasped at a tender stem.

Behind him, Naval heard the most horrid of moans -- subsonic it was -- a deep, penetrating growl.

Naval has never felt fear like this before. The darkness, the murk, the sudden cold of the wisewood making his teeth chatter in his head. He pulled the sapling towards his mouth with his free hand and put it in his mouth, his teeth bouncing up and down on the springy twiglet.

In his mind he remembered the legend of Van Hallam, and he resisted biting on the twig.

He shouldn't have resisted; worse things happen by resisting.

The Gosava tree forced itself on him, into him. His remaining free arm captured, and his prone form splayed into a cruciform.

Dunlockslyn thanked Naval for his sacrifice to nourishment of The Dark Peak.

An extra celebration today here in Hellsborough town. Today is 79.drizzle-flufftail.0.0 -- that's the first day of the new year, but not only that, the weather stem of the date system has restarted, which only happens once every ten years. The year's designation points to it being a good one for everyone -- drizzle is only the lightest of rains, and flufftail is one of the most docile and kindest creatures on the date system's bestial branch -- so everyone is hoping for a lenient and productive year that will multiply everyone's reserves of ¢hits and keep us all going through the harder times, which will inevitably follow. That's the hope anyway, the feeling is buoyant -- the feeling is jubilant. Read more about The Dark Peak calendar.

The Legend of Loxley Bottom (The Gabbleratchets of Sophie Hinchcliffe) Chapter seven: Nascenti.

The nascenti clicked and clacked. That is their mode of communication: Clicking and clacking.

If you're on the hivemind, you'll get a translation -- that's what the hivemind does, it converts the language of the insectoids, or in this case the langoustides, into a common language -- if you're not on the hivemind, then, forget it, you ain't going to understand what they're talking about.

The clicking and clacking was because the nascenti had observed -- or rather the organic network had observed, and tracked -- the dead body of Sophie Hinchcliffe sinking to the bottom of the Damflask, and her internal organs being devoured by the fish who called The Damflask home.

The nascenti had no need of Sophie's internal organs.

The nascenti were only interested in one part of her.

The nascenti needed Sophie's DNA.

The absence of brain, liver, lungs, kidneys, ovaries, that made no difference to the nascenti; the fish could do what they would with those. As long as a scrap of Sophie's skin or bone was retrieved from the Damflask, the nascenti would be happy with their haul.

The quiddity of Sophie was dredged from the dank depths, the mechanical arms of the nacenti machine juggling the slimy husk, a putrid lump of meat.

You wouldn't recognise as what was left of Sophie as human, just rags and tatters skin and gnawed bone. A wet soaked mass of protein.

But that protein, that flesh and bone, contained the DNA the nascenti needed to rebuild her.

---

Deep in their laboratories, they grew Sophie anew.

They started with a strand, they grew a pupa.

A new organism so small, it was invisible to the human eye -- but not to their advanced equipment.

They grew an embryo. An embryo that was a combination of human and nascenti: Of Sophie Hinchcliffe and the great lord B'enderclaw, a revered deity of the nascenti from many a year passed, whose own DNA had sat it wait for an occasion such as this.

The nascenti scientists had many attempts and many failures, often a little lifeform would last no longer than a few moments.

The nascenti scientists -- these bio-formers, these creators of new life -- were under great pressure of their own. The DNA of their former great leader had laid in wait for many generations, but was not in unlimited supply.

The controllers of the scientists -- the vegahorn -- as they are known, who the scientists worshipped as the nascenti embodiment of Dunlockslyn, kept a close control over the scientists successes (which were few) and failures (which were many).

A number of the scientists gave their lives to their research, as one after another of the tiny lifeforms withered in the nascenti equivalent of test tubes and petri dishes.

Gradually, painfully slowly, the nascenti scientists began to lean on the mycelium of their fungal "friends" to provide a framework for growth. They managed to culture -- and stabilise -- new life.

And so, the nascenti cultured a new Sophie. A new B'enderclaw.

They knew what hey had.

A new and special species. A precious new species. The infusion of human and nascenti. The ultimate species, they said.

The vegahorn didn't agree.

But, they allowed the scientists to continue their work.

The new Sophie grew quickly.

There are reasons for that: Not just the help of the fungal network, but the nascenti are as adept as any species in the The Dark Peak in the medicinal use of rockcrust.

And advanced quantanic technology, far beyond the understanding of anyone in the off-world.

From a foetus they grew her. They grew him. They grew them. This new species, forever now conjoined.

In looks, the new creature was a double of Sophie, but she was better than the Sophie that passed at the Loxley pond. Her brain was larger. Inside her, beat the many hearts of B'enderclaw.

Like B'enderclaw, she had larger lung capacity. Like B'enderclaw, she could regenerate.

In a few more days, Sophie was a fourteen year old "woman" again.

They had to teach her to breath. Out at the Damflask, the murk is heavy, and this embryonic new Sophie had to learn to deal with the murk, but of course, her DNA was now part nascenti, so she was able to breath the murk unaided, without the need of a psycmask, like the one those disgusting gabbleratchets had ripped from her face.

Outwardly, to anyone looking, she was human. Inside her body, and her head, she was nascenti through and through. Human on the outside. Nascenti on the inside: Nascenti blood coursed through Sophie's veins.

Her head was empty for now, that's to be understood. How wouldn't it be? The nascenti were just rebuilding her body, her mind would come later. A fully developed brain, waiting to be filled with facts, information, experiences, details. Eventually, she would be taught to speak Ing, like any human in Hellsborough or the netherlands, but that would come later.

But she would always think in the nascenti dialect of The Dark Peak language. She would dream nascenti dreams. Her indoctrination was nascenti.

The Legend of Loxley Bottom (The Gabbleratchets of Sophie Hinchcliffe) Chapter eight: Remade.

The physical work was done. Anatomically, Sophie was complete -- better internally, but externally whole -- a fully functioning human body.

Now, the nascenti scientists started in earnest on what they knew could be a more demanding task -- that of cerebral work, of filling Sophie's brain with the knowledge that would allow her to become the powerful new creature that they knew she could be.

It was constant, gruelling, grinding, back-aching, hard work, and again, the scientists' masters, the vegahorn had set stringent deadlines of what they considered to be positive and necessary progress.

The nascenti scientists turned to their old "friend" the fungal network in their quest to inject the required longing and curiosity that Sophie would need to jump start her learning.

Plugging her brain into the fungal network was a trivial affair -- the fungal networks' mycelium was allowed to mesh with her neurons and infiltrate he brain, filling her with knowledge of the environment via the fungai's connections to its organic network -- its eyes and ears, that saw and heard, its fingers and tongues that touched and tasted and smelt the environment without: The colours of the sun and moon through the murk, the sounds of the wisewood and the Damflask, the feel of the fishes and the grubs and the flits, the growl of the grizzler, the howl of the ripperthroat: The beauty of all of Dunlockslyn.

Sophie absorbed deep knowledge of the forest floor and the contents of the murk, she was at one with the nature of The Dark Peak -- an inginous warrior able to melt into her surroundings like a backflit melts into the gloaming, like a syncarid or the dun bog beast melts into the murk.

The fungal network guided Sophie's learning, atuning her to her environment, filling her, flooding her with electric impulses of the world.

The next step was exposing her to the hivemind. This, the nascenti scientists expected to be the hardest and most dangeous task they had undertaken since they had synthesised life out of her passive DNA many days before, and the vegahorn watched on with interest about how this stage of the process would pan out.

Too much exposure to the hivemind is well known to induce fear and repulsion. This the scientists feared more than anything else, and secretly the vegahorn knew this was the riskiest part of Sophie's journey to date. It was feared that all the hard work thus far acheived could be for nothing if Sophie's immature brain simply went into overload and spasm -- she would likely be rendered nothing more than a shell, a fully functioning body, a barely functioning brain -- and in fact, the scientists and the vegahorn had been to this point before, with another subject, many decades past, when they had last tried this procedure:

In similar circumstances, a young boy -- about Sophie's age, history doesn't remember his name -- had been resurrected with nascenti blood in his veins (admitedly, it wasn't B'enderclaw's, but the DNA of an exacid -- the exacid are the the genetically engineered enforcers for the nascenti, originally bred from their own selves, but the principle was essentially the same). The boy was exposed to the organic network with no ill effects. His body was strong, he was fit and his organs operated perfectly. It was only when the fungal network jacked into the hivemind that the boy began to contort and convulse, his neurons exposed to supercharged frequencies that fried his brain from the inside and rendered him nought more than a hulse of flesh and bone. Just dead staring eyes. A useless cadaver, much as Sophie had wandered through the wisewood after the onslaught of the gabbleratchets.

The scientists and the vegahorn remembered that last experiement well, and they knew that the answer to the conundrum was likely redily available -- The missing element then, was rockcrust. Rockcrust, synthesised from a type of lichen only found in The Dark Peak and capable of opening the mind to the wonders of scerm and the glory of Dunlockslyn. Known also for its healing capacity, rockcrust, whilst being a substance that can be used, and often is used to "get out of ones skull", it can also act as a tranquiliser and a calmative substance when the mind is faced with the social onslaught of the hindmind -- with its rich colours, loud techno sounds and in your face advertising.

And so, Sophie was aclimatised to the hivemind by first pumping her body with as much rockcrust as was necessary for her to be calm, whilst the hivemind was introduced steadily via first her mouth, then eyes, and then later via her ears and other senses.

Sophie reacted well. Or, she didn't react at all, depending on which accounts you read -- but the important thing is, she didn't start to react against the incoming data from the hivemind, she just absorbed it.

I have a couple of experiences of my own that back up Sophie's experience:

Diary entry: 79.hail-ripperthroat.4.2

"And then my eyes were open again and I breathed, fitfully at first, then deeply, from the psycmask (as I now know it) that covered my face, purifying my air supply, and filling my thoughts and brain with strange images and sounds that made me feel like I had been transported through some new portal and to a world more alien that I could ever expect to experience.

I passed out again from the sensory overload.

When I next awoke, the psycmask's sensitivity must have been reduced, since the sounds and pictures that now flooded into my mind had a calming effect. Rivers and hills, trees, flowers, birds and creatures of the forest -- familiar sights to someone not unused to doing a bit of exploring of my locale."

Chronicles book one, chapter 10

"Hah what happened there then? It stopped. Thing is, I didn't say anything, I did that with my mind... I willed it to stop, and it did -- maybe I'm somehow tuning into this hivemind thing. How is that possible? Is it the rockcrust maybe? Ah-ha, maybe this is what Van meant when he said I needed to find a way to stop them targeting me, a way to put it off the scent.

Job done then Van, no more distractions. He nodded knowingly and winked. Told you fella, he said without moving his lips, like he'd filled my consciousness with his other-worldly-worldliness: Told yer it'd make yer go blind otherwise young'en.

I'm not blind -- I grok Van! I howled like a ripperthoat, like a murker."

Yes, according to my research, Sophie reacted better than I did!

Sophie was almost ready. The nascenti scientists had succedded. They had built her anew. They had grown her body from mere cells, from her structural DNA, and that of the great B'enderclaw. They had grown her (their) fledling mind and nourished her (them) on the organic network. They had been matured with the hivemind. Now all that remained was to provide education on a wide range of subjects and disciplines, and fulfill the endless curiosity of a mind unleashed. Give her ideas and an endless quest for further knowledge.

The starting point is always this: Everything in life is connected. It's all about understanding and finding the connections. And so they took more from the fungai, used its knowledge of humankind to fill her with important human literature and political thought, economics and business, carefully tempered history of her species, and theirs, and the wonder of inventions from antiquity, through modernity and into the future of space and time and parallel worlds, of dark matter, of unheard of advances in material science, of fashion and the future of science at the boundaries of the unknown.

And finally Sophie was ready. They clad her in what looked like a smart business suit, which it was, but it was also an exoskeleton that performed in a similar way to the nascenti's own armour -- a carapace to protect her on her journey forwards.

It was fearsome night, long before murklight. The murk swirled with an anger.

They sent her back into the murk in the direction of Hellsborough.