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Mountains and Valleys - A Qud Story | Chapter 3

Chapter 3 Kemu brings her to the hut where Dehla lays, sleeping now as the night waxes in its depth. Avira draws up a stool, simple wood burnished with a black dye and sealed against the elements. Dehla lies awkwardly on thick covers nestled in a round cot. Her upper torso is twisted so that she is on her back, and a thick wool blanket, woven in intricate pattern, covers her at an angle. The makeshift rag which Avira had tied around her hoof has been replaced with proper bandaging, red spots seeping through the white. Avira can see, across her arms, a thinly spread green paste that covers the scratches. Her head too is bandaged, the nubs of her horns poking out through the gauze. She is relieved to see her breath is easy, aided by the medicine. “Stay here a while,” Kemu says, bass voice quiet. “I must call council.” “What must I do?” Avira asks. “Watch,” Kemu commands. “Pray. Erikind is our small god of healing. You can make an offering come dawn if you have anything to offer, but pray...
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Mountains and Valleys - A Qud Story | Chapter 2

Chapter 2 In the high hours of the night, she begins packing. Her cloak - threadbare as it is - is draped across a table in the corner of the room she woke in. She presses on the bulb beside her, feeling it give way under her touch and then build resistance as it fills partly with the luminescent fluid. The dim orange glow casts a muted shadow by her movements. She gathers her few belongings; her goggles, gloves, and moccasins are bundled in her shirt, tucked in a chest at the foot of the bed. When she carefully unfolds the wrapped package, her dagger gleams up at her, catching the light on its sinewy edge. It seems to shiver in the rippling shine, slithering into the palm of her hand. The raider it had belonged to had not given it easily. They had struggled over it, rolling down the salt dune that she’d tucked herself against to sleep. She still felt the sting of white grains in fresh wounds, still smelt the metal tang of his blood as he’d stared up at her from the shadow of the ridge...
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Location: London, UK
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Mountains and Valleys - A Qud Story | Chapter 1

Chapter 1 A wanderer stumbles, chastised under the blinding sun. Her limbs are heavy, full of sleep, her mind clouding as the simple release of dreams swim to her vision. Mirage-images flicker, all too promising. A crowd of people in the desert. The absurdity makes her laugh, like a harsh bark - a sound from deep inside that pulls her weary body and distressed mind into the waiting darkness of exhaustion. It is cold, down here. Away from sensation. Her dreams are not peaceful as they chase her back into the recesses of consciousness. All sharp angles and buzzing talk. Intelligent things. Above that, behind the gnawing metal prongs strangling her mind; something dark and twisting. There is pain, a familiar pain, the shock running through her. Around her, coalescing; a shifting vision - the salt desert under high sun and crumbling, vinestreaked ruins meshing inexorably until the strange dream-clarity takes over and she is plunged icily into the scene of flesh rending and reknitting, shak...
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Location: London, UK
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Beginnings

Where to start? That's the big question. Sharing something you've created, are creating, is terrifying. In writing, it's impossible not to bear your heart - every character you conjour comes from an undeniably twisted world, the world which exists chewed up and processed through your own perception. The beauty I find in science fiction and fantasy is the creation and imagining of new worlds from the pulpy remains of this one. With these new worlds, new ways of being are born, and from the new ways of being, we learn more, in turn, about the world-which-encompasses-us . Writing has been particularly difficult for me, I've found fragments of thousands of worlds which never saw much light, and across the years I've stopped and started the process of exploring them. What prompted this project is a labour of love by Freehold Games that has repeatedly brought me back to the space of imagination and play when I needed it most - Caves of Qud. Caves of Qud is a world of epic...
Location: London, UK
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