The Legend of Loxley Bottom 9

A new diary entry on hellsborough.com is coming soon:

Also known as "The Gabbleratchets of Sophie Hinchcliffe", this is a work in progress based on research that I have undertaken into the recent modern age of the history of Hellsborough under the rule of the nascenti. A local girl and simple shop worker, Sophie Hinchcliffe, who -- inexplicably -- becomes the first CEO of the DPDC -- that is the first Chief Executive Officer (the original boss, if you will) of the Dark Peak District Council, the local government that administers Hellsborough and The Dark Peak for the nascenti overlords.

Sophie is a major character in the forthcoming sequel to "Dark Peak -- Hellsborough Chronicles book one", so it is only right that I do the research to uncover her backstory, most of which I have gleaned from the local library in Hellsborough -- an awesome resource for research, because, as you would expect, those nascenti overlords want the populace here and hereabouts to understand the importance of local characters that have helped to define their rule.

It will be serialised here, as well on on Twitter/X in short form.

Read Chapter one, Chapter two, Chapter three, Chapter four, Chapter five, Chapter six, Chapter seven and Chapter eight.

Chapter nine: Return.

The murk was thick and cloying as Sophie entered the wisewood on her return to Hellsborough, but the rain had stopped.

The antithesis of the wandering, mindless Sophie that had headed in the opposite direction on the way to the Damflask after the attack of the gabbleratchets, this version of Sophie strode with intent -- focused on forwards motion and purpose, driven with a sense of resolve.

It was so dark a normal human wouldn’t be able to see easily, would easily stumble into the grasping branches of the myriad trees that had fallen onto or otherwise blocked the shabby pathway.

Sophie brushed away the tendrils as they grabbed for her, jumping over the fallen trees, they offered no hindrance to her.

She could see well enough, not through her human eyes, but using the heightened senses of the nascenti to guide her.

Sophie's knowledge of the environment, of the woods and the creatures that lay within it, made her an adept explorer -- able to move through the wisewood like one of the Wood clan of the netherlands, able to see between the trees and spot danger and opportunity as it arose. 

She pinched an eightleg from its web and bit down on it, severing its head from its abdomen.

Sophie still needed to eat, still needed to fuel her body, but how that nourishment arrived in her stomach, she was less fussy about.

She could hear a low moaning from a way off, and before long, she came across the Gosava tree. The source of the low moaning now was obvious, it was the low sub-sonic moaning of the Gosava tree itself, its own hunger for blood and meat, a drawing call to lull prey into a sense of comfort and ease -- it was an hallucinating, hypnotic sound, designed to disorientate potential sources of food, so they could be ensnared on the tree's sticky branches before being sucked of nourishment.

There in the branches, splayed in a cruciform on the forest floor was Naval. Sophie looked at the boy, a sense of recognition stirring in her mind, but no emotion and no ties, no memories of who this thing might be. She recognised what was left of him as human, a source of protein, but of her former life, Sophie had no memories about these remains that laid in the dirt at her feet.

Somehow Naval managed to get his torso vertical, he screamed in soundless pain, his voice box already removed by the tree. He was barely alive. Naval was pain. He saw that he no longer existed below the waist. He had aged well beyond his years. He was an old man now. Near to death. Sucked of moisture.

His barely functioning mind saw that he was engorged by the Gosava tree, that he was consumed, that he was already eaten alive.

He looked old beyond his years, whereas Sophie looked youthful and almost angelic, not that she could be. Maybe Naval was paying for his previous jealousy.

Disfigured growths, things sprouting from his skin and the breeding ground that was his body. Transforming him, turning him into something that he wasn't; regenerating his human flesh into something else entirely.

Naval was virtually dead, his arms and legs, his bowels and stomach already absorbed by the Gosava tree in its thirst for nourishment, flesh, bone and the tasty soft easily ingested parts.

His chest huffed up and down in short gasps, his face contorted into a scream, his mind frozen with pain and fear, his eyes bulging from their sockets, his remaining skin pale and flaccid, coated in a sheen silvery wetness.

Sophie approached the almost dead form with no passion and placed her left hand on his skull. She clutched his temples and cognitised what was left of his thoughts, absorbing those impulses into her brain.

The job complete, Sophie stopped and let Naval's head slip to the floor.

The Gosava tree would finish him off at its leisure.

It was only then that Sophie recognised something of the thoughts that she had cognitised, and a flicker of what might have been emotion briefly lit her eyes, before the emotion left again as quick as it had arrived and any glow of humanity, extinguished.

All that was left was a dull and intense darkness of the soul -- if any soul had established itself within this human shaped cyborg shell.

But Sophie now had something more.

She had a glimpse of human emotion. She had some practical skills that could be used -- practical skills that came from Naval's training as a gruizer mechanic: An ability to get into the guts of an organic machine, to diagnose a faulty drive unit, to fix a diseased control system, the knowledge to coax a sick machine back to health.

He, he... You have done well gurl, cackled a maniacal voice from the shadows.

Sophie didn't flinch. Flinching was not an emotion that Sophie had been taught, nor understood. She didn't speak, so far, she had never spoken. Her throat box was dry.

Speak then gurl, said the voice. You have come to me, and you are strong.

For a moment, nothing happened. And then she did speak:

And who's thee like? A crackle from her throat, emanating like an ache.

And whom am I? Said the voice from the shadows in response. Tha, thee, needs t'improve tha vocabulary if tha is about to take on the world, gal. Tha needs to enunciate proper like. Tha needs to start talkin' in strict Ing to be where tha's gooin' -- So I doant want to 'ear no more o'that pidgin Ing that tha's talkin' now gal -- does tha understand me?

Sophie checked herself. This was something new. She wasn't scared, far from it, her brain latched onto a learning opportunity.

And how should I address my unseen new friend? She said.

Me, ha! I am the weaver of worlds, said the voice.

I started out as a shell, just a wizened little boy with no mind and no body to speak of, I was cast out to die, to be disposed of in this vile place, just a misfit, a canker attached to the underworld. But somewhere in the depths of my nascenti brain, I had this need to survive -- not just survive, but to build and learn, to deceive and grow.

Slowly, through my friend Jason here, I was able to hang about in the shadow the the Gosava tree and cognitise until I was able to think for myself.

I was strewn aside as a failure, but I am no failure now. I am powerful. I should cognitise you, but you have more power than I, and I recognise that.

I am Lomas. And this, Lomas indicted a shadow within the shadows on his shoulder, is my symbiot, Jason.

Jason was an orphan -- like me, cast into this place to die -- but we found each other and became one, and that was the saviour of us both.

I it were boss, it were. Why tha no symbiot Sophie? Said Jason.

I have no symbiot, because I have never met one, said Sophie. I didn't know what a symbiot was, until right now, when I met you.

E'ryone 'as symbiot. Said Jason.

No wait. Said Lomas, that's not true. Everyone we know has a symbiot Jason.

Things are different out here in the wisewood and the netherlands, but where Sophie came from and where she is going, they don't really do symbiots.

A symbiot would give her away, so let's leave that line of thinking for now.

Lomas stepped out from the shadows of the abandoned industrial unit, the bare murklight illuminating his scarred face. You'll be wondering how I know your name, Sophie? He said.

But then there was a noise to his left and he retreated.

Lomas was used to moldenke, he came across them all the time in the wisewood and the netherlands. Mostly they kept themselves to themselves -- but this was different.

Smeln – just like moldenke always travelled in twos, but this brace was angry. They knew about Sophie -- how they knew about Sophie is anyone's guess, but the organic network has eyes and ears that extend beyond even the reach of the nascenti.

This pair -- these heinous smeln -- barely human, resembling more the boggarts, maybe the smeln were the product of such a freak experiment of the murk, a human/boggart hybrid: Knuckle dragging parasites, hairy armed and hairy backed, no intelligence to reason, just basal instincts, opportunists. Bottom dwelling scum of The Dark Peak.

Smeln though, like all opportunists, are cowards. They thought the odds were in their favour: A lone female, out here in the wisewood.

huh, huh, it's just a gurl Shoj, she ain't gonna giv us no bother. They approach her, spreading their arms wide like the monsters of the dark they were.

But Sophie showed no fear. Fear wasn’t an emotion that she had been gifted, and she had no interest in being defiled (not that she remembered the gabbleratchets, but, there was something stirring...)

The smeln tried to rape her.

It was a trivial exercise for Lomas and Sophie together to cognitise them, not that their brains contained information of any worth: Junk thoughts, work avoidance, get rich quick schemes and lottery ambitions.

Scum! Said Lomas, allowing the one called Shoj to be enveloped by the rhizomes of the Gosava tree. You go now Sophie. You can handle yourself, but the sooner you get on your way, the sooner you can start your great work – the work for which you will become legendary!

Jason come with thee, said Jason, Jason ‘elp thee!

Sophie ignored Jason, she had no need for standing out.

All was quiet as Sophie approached the outskirts of Hellsborough.

The wisewood encroached on the outlying buildings, some of them taken into its grasp, broken down and consumed by it, but the larger, more stable buildings breaking away and establishing their own sense of self.

Sophie walked like an automaton -- focused -- onto the Loxley road, finding herself at watersmeet on the Malin bridge, at the confluence of the Loxley and Rivelin rivers.

In other news, Hellsborough Chronicles book one “Dark Peak” is now available on Kindle and paperback.

I am also tweeting on a daily basis, and you can follow me here.

If you can leave a review of Dark Peak on Amazon, I'd be more than grateful.

Cheers, until next time,

Pip :)