What was your first memory? Green grass under your feet? A summer day? Your mother’s face? Something trite, I bet. This thing you take for granted? That all your kind appreciate? Vermlings must earn, and not all do.
I bashed her head in with a rock. I remember seeing it amidst our squabble, knowing what I could do with it, reaching out. After I’d secured my prize, I wondered why she didn’t do the same, it was right there, after all. Somewhere in the gibbering bits of bone and flesh I saw things I didn’t recognize, things I knew I didn’t share with her. There was a darkness behind my eyes, a darkness that spoke in my own voice.
Others in my pack noticed something different in me immediately, and I too could tell who had darkness behind their eyes as well as who didn’t. Those that did not, we treated differently, poorly. I’m certain I was among the unthinking flock, but I have no recollection of the treatment, just instinctual remembrances; pain, food, safety, leadership. Where in the sewers beneath Gloomhaven were our territory, and where others tread freely.
In the pack, together, we all feel another voice that guides us, moves us, forms and sharpens our emotions. We called it “Taat”, and it is our will collected. Even those lacking the darkness feel its pull and sway. The pack leader claims to have a closer connection to Taat, and has shown mastery over it, we saw him use it many times to call upon our animal brethrens, to force punishments upon wrongdoers and crush enemies to our pack and his rule. So when I began to feel my own voice shout louder within the Taat than others, when I could feel the presence and feelings of others, I fled, knowing I would be put down. I fled to the places I knew were not safe to skitter.
Vermling lives are a short, brutal fare, and above the streets was no different. No one offers charity to a rat, no one sees a partner or a friend, at best one sees opportunity and exploitation. Fortunately my gift made it easier to navigate the social circles of this new “underworld” and avoid traps laid in golden offers. Work was assured, Gloomhaven is a city of vice and greed, and it needs its rats.
However, I’ve discovered a place, a place that feels like the old safe hovels below the streets. And a man, with a darkness like I’ve never felt before, genuine, kind. He offers hope freely, and what wealth he has he does not hoard, but uses to assist the needy, the hopeless, the ones like me. He sees a different world than I, he knows something we don’t, hears a voice we’re deaf to he can see and shape something larger than us, invisible and ever-present.
The world I survive in now is no different than the muck-filled hole I ascended from. To him and his fellowship, I am no different than the hapless vermlings preyed upon by those thinking below. We are pitiable creatures, I’ll do anything to escape once again, to ascend once again, I merely need an offering suitable, an offering to show my commitment. Then they will show me, show me what gives them peace, what quells their anger, what they see that I can not.
Written by Chris
Published with permission
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