Shaker

"Adventurer who showed up early." - Making Up Adventurers, Cohost, 2024

CWs: child abuse mention.

Damien...

Walking slowly, sullenly down the path home from the village, Damien shook his head aggressively, trying to ignore the voice that called from the old well. He had heard it's whispers for weeks now, and tried to pretend nothing was happening. He couldn't tell anyone, he didn't want his parents to whip him for a liar again.

Damien, come... Help me, Damien... Help me, and I can help you... No one will ever be able to hurt you again...

The youth stopped, and couldn't help glancing at the well, his back throbbing from the numerous switch marks, bruises and cuts. Despite himself, he found himself trudging off the path and up the overgrown hill, till he was looking down over the slumped, moss covered stones, into the darkness. The cloudy day seemed to grow cooler, darker.

"What do you mean, you can help me?" He asked into the darkness. "What do you want from me?" The echoes came back, longer and louder than seemed right.

want want want you you you YOU YOU

Pull me up, Damien. Pull me up and I'll help you hurt them. And anyone else who ever made you sad.

The voice came out of the dark, but not like a real voice, seeming to come from below and behind him and just at his ear. Damien felt as though he were dreaming. He found himself reaching out and grasping the thick, rough rope hanging down, pulling it laboriously up in great heaves.

He toppled over as the bucket finally reached the top, spilling it on the grass as he fell backwards. Laying on the ground was a gauntlet, black and angular, with too many fingers. A black gem with a white flaw glinted on the back of the hand, like a dark eye. It was heavy and gigantic, but Damien knew instantly that it would somehow fit him perfectly.

Pick me up, Damien... Put me on. You were born to carry me...!

The youth's hand trembled as he climbed on to his knees, reaching out to place his hand into- he was seized suddenly by the shoulder, a woman's strong hand grasping him and pulling him backwards till he was sat on his bottom, restrained with his back against her chest.

"Nuh uh uh, you don't need any of that thing, kid. Don't touch it. Is this the one?" She asked over her shoulder.

"The very one." A wiry man with a long thin little wisp of beard coming from his chin came into view, with a massive hammer and a pair of tongs. "Looks like we made it here by the skin of our teeth, but we made it!"

HOW DARE YOU FOOLS

"Now, now, now. None of that." the thin man said. "We're just taking care of this now, instead of letting you use this poor boy for decades before someone kills him and starts the cycle over again."

IT IS MY DESTINY TO RULE ALL, AND HE IS THE TOOL BY WHICH I SHALL SEIZE THIS EARTH

"Let's shut this vile thing up," grumbles the woman holding Damien. "Stay back, my love, we won't let anything hurt you. You're safe with us."

The boy, still feeling lost in a dream, couldn't seem to move as the woman let him go, taking the heavy smith's hammer from the man as he carefully, carefully used the tongs to drag the gauntlet onto a flat stone.

I WON'T BE DENIED MY DESTINY! DAMIEN! KILL THEM, YOU MISERABLE FOOL! KILL THEM! KILLTHEMKILLTHEMKILLTHEMKILLTHEM-

The woman swung the hammer with a tremendous grunt of effort, and the words changed to a horrid shriek as the eye in the gauntlet cracked. The third blow shattered it, and it went silent.

The silence that followed seemed deafening, as the man carefully lifted the broken remnants of the gauntlet into a lead-lined wooden casket, which he slapped a stout lock onto afterwards before shoving it into his heavy pack. The woman tossed the hammer down into the well, and returned her attention to the boy, kneeling down beside him and gently taking him by the chin, drawing his gaze up to her face. "Are you alright, my love? You never touched it?"

Damien shook his head, feeling numb. The man joined them as well. He took off his pointed cap and set it aside, his balding head gleaming in the light as the sun began to break through the clouds. He had a kindly expression. "It promised you something, didn't it? What did it offer you, Damien?"

"It... It said it wouldn't let anyone hurt me again. And it would let me hurt them back."

"Is someone hurting you, my love?" the woman asked, her voice kind, but her eyes glinting with growing anger.

"My.. my parents, they..." he tried to say more, but suddenly found himself struggling to hold back tears, his chest hitching with sobs. The man placed a gentle hand on his shoulder, and whispered softly to the woman, who nodded.

"My name is Nettle, Damien. And this is Thistle. We have been looking for you for a long, long time, my boy. And if want to, you don't have to go home. You can come with us." He used the handle of the tongs to scratch the mark of the Redeemer into the ground, to show his sincerity. "We won't allow anyone to hurt you again."

The boy nodded, uncertain, still gripped with the sensation that none of this was real. "I... I would like that."

The woman, Thistle, gave him a gentle squeeze, and as she stood up and dusted herself off the boy saw how powerfully built she was, despite barely being taller than himself. She made an odd pair with the wiry tall man. "I'll go to his home and retrieve his things. I'll... Explain the situation, to his parents." She practically spat that last word, her hands creaking as she balled her fists.

"We're going to start back to the village, then. We'll walk slowly, so you can catch up to us," Nettle said, and Thistle was off and marching down the hill, cutting an angle towards the path to Damien's cottage. Damien and Nettle began to slowly walk in the other direction, the youth's knees weak, leaning on the unusual oak staff the man lent him.

Nettle spoke quietly about the nature of the thing that had called from the well, explaining cycles of terror and quiet as it seized people and made them into tools of death. Dreadlords who brought ruin and despair. Damien swallowed.

"It said it was... My destiny. Is it?"

The man but his lip before answering. "It might have been, before. But not any more. That fate has been broken."

"Then what will I become?"

"Anything you want to be, Damien. You're free."

A little later, Thistle came calling as she strode up the path behind, and the three of them walked away, together.