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Tight Spaces

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High ceilings.

Leona always liked those.

Originally the Broken Barrel was a boggart property that was eventually abandoned in some kind of raid. Then after the Conquest of The North it was left at the very edge of nymph country, settled in the shallow end of The North, beyond the reach of most commoners but along a few ideal trade routes and adventuring paths. It was a piece of civilization in uncharted territory that was easy to traverse. Ideal for living. And lucrative for those who wanted to do more.

Leona bought the failing trading post off of two brothers a few years prior. Though technically there were more economically sound options, the fact that this was a boggart's den originally, adorned with higher ceilings and bigger doorways, made her feel right at home. Sadly the nymph brothers had built a few more additions onto the building to their scale, meaning Leona still found herself having to find creative solutions to simply getting from room to room. The tilting, the turning, the constant crouching. She hadn't the gold to really do any major woodworking at that moment, but she would make do with the space she had.

It was rather odd, Simon often noted. The inn was build for two different scales of people. Nymphs, on average, stood two or three heads above him. And boggarts nearly doubled him in size. No one could really match Leona, though. So there they were, with one door big enough to fit both Claire and himself at once, and another fit for both them and the old-timer. 

The asymmetry taunted him.

The pantry was a strange case. It was originally a large closet for the boggart family, but was then abandoned and made into a stocking room for the nymph brothers. The thing is, they had found the time to actually redo the doorway, meaning that Leona constantly had to crouch into the room before she could find herself in an actual open space.

Except for today.

When a certain pendant decided to rear it's ugly head once again.

Always. It seemed.

They could lock it up. Bury it. Hide it away. Toss it in the river.

At one point the old timer brought his hammer down upon the stone. And all they got was a massive explosion of arcane energy that struck like a bomb and rang out like a thunderclap. With a burst of electricity and smoke and  wispy blue flames, spiraling upward into the sky as it split the clouds and kissed the sky. Simon, standing a few feet from the old man, was blown backward into the air. Leona and Claire, some distance from him, took shelter behind a nearby rock to avoid getting blown away by the concussive blast. Leona held the girl tight, and Simon flew right past, tumbling onto the earth a few hundred feet away. He was okay.

The old-timer, taking this apocalyptic reaction at point blank, noted the a very minor indention in the face of his hammer, and proclaimed that he had no idea what they were dealing with.

Whatever this damned stone was, it was persistent. Always around her neck as the most inopportune moments. 

Like today. When, while in the pantry, Leona felt her chest rise, her stomach light on fire, and her very being alight. And next thing she knew her head was pressed against the boards of the ceiling, dust and splinters scattering amongst the spices and spilled tree nuts.

Claire, standing outside, had ran back down the hallway and cowered behind the corner, only then receding once Leona has assured her the worst was over.

The pendant was off. Leona was calm. And the Broken Barrel was in no danger of spontaneous demolition.

"Are you okay?" Claire scrambled out from behind the wall, wide-eyed and trembling lightly.

"I'm fine, sweetie. Are you okay?"

"Mm-hm." Claire nodded.

Leona sighed and tried looking around, then feeling the boards creak agains her newfound size and threaten to snap. She opted to stay put. And stay still. "Not hurt or anything?"

"Nope."

"Alright. Then we're good." She looked around at the items in the pantry and gritted her teeth in irritation. "Alright. Maybe you should get Simon. We need to take care of this thing..."


Lore. Characters. Broken Barrel. The how and the why. Growth. Whatever. Got not much to say.

Sadly this isn't really an effort to flesh out Leona much. It was a nifty idea pawned off of something that's been done a million times, and often better. But whatever. Giants and boobs, amiright?

Also, the Leona-Claire dynamic is overall pretty simple. She's a natural born caretaker, and Claire's a child with a pleasant personality and demeanor that has enough to learn and enough she isn't physically able to do. It sort of writes itself. At one point I was thinking of shooting for something more like "sisters" but that doesn't show through as strongly. The brother-sister idea between Claire and Simon still stands, so we'll see where that goes.

I sure do give a fuck about my characters...
Image size
2401x2708px 8.12 MB
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