High Rollers - 'The Lightfall' - Episode 1

Chapter 9 - Tomas

Cautiously and quietly, Jiutou began making her way down the corridor. The flame on her torch flickering, it's light bouncing off the walls. As the corridor began to open up into the next room, Jiutou stopped. She slowly held her torch further out in front of her, casting its low light into the next room. Alcoves lined the walls, each one home to a still, unmoving body wrapped in various cloths and linens. More vines coated the walls, but none of them seemed to be moving or out of position. The corpses remained wrapped up, undisturbed. Lowering her torch slightly, she then saw the blood, streaks of it, glistening across the floor. Stepping into the room, she then noticed something odd. More bodies lay around the room, in various positions on the floor, but they weren't human. They were like the creatures they had fought earlier, in the room with the mosaic. Beings comprised entirely of vines and twigs, animated by some foul magic. They were quite clearly dead. Moving even further in, that's when she saw him. Leaning up against one of the walls, bleeding heavily, arm twisted at a very painful-looking angle, one eye blackened with blood pouring from it and wielding one of the torch sconces like a makeshift club was an elderly human, still barely alive. He had thinning, pushed back grey hair and a grizzly beard to match. His clothing was black in colour and all tattered and was just as weathered as he looked. It was Tomas, the caravan master.

He was breathing heavily and nursing his wounds, groaning, seemingly unaware of Jiutou's presence. Cam slowly sauntered up behind Jiutou, followed by Elora, with Trell bringing up the rear. Jiutou kept her torch slightly behind her, dimming the light. Tomas moaned and shifted where he sat, still oblivious to the party's arrival. They whispered quietly amongst themselves.

"Is that...is that Tomas?"

"It would appear so."

Tomas looked around, slowly, due to the pain, now aware of the hushed voices and gentle light.

"Ugh...who's there?" he called out into the darkness, turning his head.

"Tom! Buddy," Cam called back, "Are you a vine zombie?"

"Urk....what? No, I'm not, you damn idiot." Tomas replied, furrowing his brows in confusion.

"I think that's hardly appropriate right now." Jiutou sighed.

"I...I need help."

At that, Cam gently pushed past Jiutou, stepping forward to kneel down next to Tomas. He assessed the wounds, hoping to stabilise him. Pulling aside some of his torn clothing, he stared, wide-eyed, at his wounds. Tomas had sustained some seriously heavy injury. There were deep claw marks raked across his side. He could now see that Tomas' arm had been very badly broken. His leg was torn up in several places, with muscle even being exposed. The left eye socket area was deep red; the eye was practically gone. Cam, holding back the retching, sprung into action, tearing away at what was left of Tomas' garments and repurposing them as bandages. There wasn't much he could do for the broken arm, but he tried his best to splint it, at least. He quickly dashed over and broke off some wood from the dead creatures lying around. He fashion a makeshift split and straightened out Tomas' arm. He snapped it into a place to straighten it, as Tomas let out an almighty yelp of pain.

"Sorry Tomas, it's the best we can do."

Tomas nodded, his eyes scrunched together in pain. He winced, but let Cam continue his work. To top it off, Cam finished by managing to get some sort of bandage wrapped around Tomas' head and eye. He stepped back, brushing his hands together.

"There we go. Best we can do for now."

"Ugh...thank you. Thought I was a goner."

Cam gestured for the others to follow him in.