To Walk the Green Earth: Part 1, The Funeral
Image by Brett Sayles
Part 1 - The Funeral
The job’s simple. Someone dies, and we dig a hole for them. We stand and wait as the priest jabbers and pontificates on the great mysteries of life and death, and then we enact said mysteries.
We put the body in the ground, and then it rots. Strange, right?Life as I see it—or used to see it—was just one more lucky coincidence. These days I’m not so sure how lucky it really is.
The funeral was normal, for the most part. A cart bumped up the road with a boxed up body in the back. Mourners, maybe a dozen and a half, followed behind dressed in black and weeping.
Only unusual thing was the lack of a priest. It was a lost soul, then, someone whose sins were so blatant there wasn’t even a point in the normal words of encouragement and the final priestly rites. I wondered sometimes if there would be a priest at my own funeral.
The last time I went to the temple the statue of Melisei fell backwards as I walked by. The prophetess said it was a sign of my putrid soul offending the pure daughter, and urged me to repent. I couldn’t have told you there was anything I needed to repent of in the first place, so I’m waiting to figure it out before I go back, if anyone asks. I wouldn’t want to offend the daughter again with… whatever it was.
As I stood there, pondering the state of my soul and leaning on my shovel, the cart stopped. A few strong men pulled the box from the back, and hauled it over to the open hole, setting it atop a contraption of ropes and boards that held it up until it was time to put it down for good.
The mourners approached, staring at the casket, tears in their eyes. One fellow, maybe in his early forties, looked plain angry.
I could just make out what he said over the clanging of sobs and crying. “Someone should say something.”
I still don’t quite understand that. What is there left to say at this point? “He was a good chap, and let’s hope the gods have pity on his mortal soul, and make it one with themselves, as we will all someday be one”? That was the usual priestly admonition. I’d heard it enough times I probably could have given it, if they’d asked.
They didn’t, of course.
A woman approached. She had been standing near the angry man a moment ago, and looked about the same age. A couple, perhaps? They didn’t seem terribly romantic, but who does at a funeral?
“Could we take a last look?” She asked me. Ah, well… I never understood that desire either. Isn’t it better to remember the moments of life? Still, it wasn’t as though I had anything to lose. Bodies never did bother me much.
“Of course, ma’am.” I said, and set the shovel resting upon my wagon of tools.
I approached the wooden box, a fairly simple one, and undid the latch. The lid lifted easily, and I took in a mostly normal sight. Mostly.
The body was that of a young man, free of wrinkles, dressed in a fair suit, his curly hair cut to around his shoulders.
But my eyes were quickly drawn away from his gray face to his hands. They rested across his chest in a position that I’ve never considered to look comfortable, but is for some reason the preferred state of the dead.
On his right hand he wore a ring, a simple silver band stamped with an intricate rune. And as soon as I set my eyes on that little loop of metal, I felt a strange compulsion.
I wanted it.
More than anything I have ever wanted in my life, I wanted that ring.
Now, I will gladly confess that I am not a lover of “simple pleasures,” as some call them. I enjoy fine things, and my limited but memorable exposure to them has always left me desiring more of those things. I expect this is a more common reality for human beings than we are comfortable confessing.
However, what I felt as I looked at that ring was no simple animal desire for something that shines. It was as though my severed finger rested in the casket, and if I could but pick it up and put it on the stump from which it came, I would be whole again.
Someone coughed behind me, bringing me back to the moment.
I stepped aside, and the woman looked down at the boy. Her son? I didn’t ask. Not my place. Still, it was plain that she cared for him.
The upset gentleman stepped forward as well, placing his hands on the shoulders of the now weeping woman. She reached forward with her right hand and placed it lovingly on the cold cheek.
“May the gods forgive you, Jasper.”
She wiped her eyes, stood, and gave me a nod. She and the man turned, and began to walk away. When no one else approached I returned to close the lid.
Even as I approached, I knew what I was going to do. I hated the thought of it. I dreaded what might happen if someone saw. My heart pounded with such force I was sure the mourners would hear. What if the dead boy came back to life and murdered me for stealing something so precious?
I couldn’t.
I shouldn’t.
But I took it.
Just as the box was closing, I reached in and slipped the ring off the dead boy’s finger. It came loose easily, as if it was all too eager to escape its fate. What was damnation to something so beautiful, but to never be seen again?
The remainder of the funeral was short. When it was apparent that there would be no grand speech, no flowers, and no singing, the handful of strong young men assisted Quintin and me as we lowered the body down, then took turns shoveling dirt back over the top of it.
Quintin, my business partner, is a thin fellow. He tends to be jovial, as grave diggers go, but is quite professional on the job. Few grieving families care to be entertained by strangers at such a time. That’s alright by me. I can hardly stand his continual puns and jibes on the days when it’s just the two of us tending the grounds, pulling weeds, and lighting blessed candles to keep hungering spirits away from the bodies.
When the grave was mostly full, and the others were beginning to tire, I felt the little ring in my pocket again. I desperately wished to put it on.
“I need a drink of water, if it’s all the same to you.” I said. Quintin shrugged, and the young fellows remained strictly silent.
Odd. Normally friends of the deceased tell stories. They laugh a little as they remember, and sometimes even cry. Funerals are one of the few occasions men feel free to do so. For all our talk of honesty and truth, it takes quite a blow to crack our shells and find out what’s really hidden inside.
And yet these fellows didn’t seem to care to remember. They looked stern. Angry, even. Strange.
I was glad to be away from them for a moment as I walked back to the shed. It was a cool day in early autumn. The trees were just beginning to show yellow on the edges of their leaves, and I was looking forward to the end of the heat and the promise of rain, even if it did make digging a bit messier.
Inside the shed, I took a seat at the workbench and dug the ring out of my pocket. In appearance, as I have said, it was a simple silver band with a wide area, and upon that wide area a single complex symbol was engraved. I could not reproduce the design even if I tried, as each time I looked at it, it seemed to shift slightly, like a banner tossing in the wind.
With an eagerness that had been building since the moment I saw it, I slipped the ring onto my right hand, and felt the cool touch of it embracing my finger.
It was more than just the joy of re-attaching a missing limb. It was as if I had unknowingly been born blind, and was now presented with a view of the emperor’s garden in full bloom. Breezes rushed across my skin, though I was inside and no wind stirred the trees. Flavors sparkled on my tongue like the first drop of champagne on a wedding day. A strange, jaunty tune played in my very soul, and if I were not paralyzed with delight, I’m sure I would have started to dance. Surely lovers at play know no such ecstasy.
And then, stranger still, there came a desire to speak. Like a cup filled and then overflowing, what was within me demanded to be free. And, unable to stop my stammering tongue, words I’ve never heard before filled the little shed.
To this day I cannot remember the sound or pattern of those words, but I instantaneously felt my eyes grow hot. My vision blurred for a moment, and then snapped into a strange sense of clarity. Everything grew sharp, and I fixed my eyes on a single mote of dust and watched it without blinking as it settled on the floor among other individual specks.
Stumbling to my feet, I stepped outside.
The sky, though soft and gray a moment before, seemed bright blue. In the vast expanse, now deeper than I’d ever imagined, I saw points of light, and if I fixed my eyes on those points of light, I could see individual colors, even miniscule fluctuations in the light’s intensity. Stars dotted the midday sky.
I could not help but drop to my knees in wonder.
“Are you all right, Clovis?” Someone asked.
I looked up into Quintin’s face, seeing each pore and hair as clearly as the stars above.
“Just… um, praying, Quintin.” I said. Partially true, I think. At least, I’m not sure what prayer is supposed to be if not an expression of absolute wonder. Though I can’t say I was praying to any of those cold statues in the temple. If there are gods, they must be insulted by our efforts to name them.
“In front of the shed?” He asked, a skeptical eyebrow lifting upwards.
“Yes, I’m feeling quite thankful to be alive, is all. The boy we buried today, I’m sure I’m older than him by years. Look at the trees, at the sky, Quintin! Can you imagine being down beneath the dirt, never to see them again?”
Quintin looked up at the sky.
“Sure, Clovis. But I suppose I won’t have to worry about it when I’m dead. I hope it will be peaceful, like falling asleep. I think it sounds kind of nice, really. Not that I’m in a hurry, of course.”
His words stung, though I can’t say I’d thought much differently before. I had no horrible greeds, no terrible desires that the priests said were the origin of the hungering spirits. I had no cause to roam after death. And if the gods didn’t want me, surely I would just slip away, deeper and deeper into the cool earth, where no one would bother me again.
But as I knelt there, staring at the sky, I was torn by a sudden grief. To die, to never walk the green earth again, to never see the stars, or taste the first apples of fall, or hear the sounds of song and laughter, to be cold, and alone, and plunged into everlasting darkness.
The thought terrified me.
“You’re right, of course.” I said to Quintin as I rose to my feet. “Sorry. I don’t know what struck me.”
Quintin shrugged, “No harm done. Just the job. Makes you think about these things once in a while. Once, I wondered if dead people feel pain, you know, as the worms chew them up.”
My skin began to crawl.
“Let’s hope not,” I said, “or else you and I are gatekeepers of the most terrible fate imaginable.”
Quintin looked around at the clipped grass, trimmed trees, and polished headstones.
“Doesn’t seem bad from up here, at least.” He said.
“No,” I answered, “Up here doesn’t seem bad at all.”
Only unusual thing was the lack of a priest. It was a lost soul, then, someone whose sins were so blatant there wasn’t even a point in the normal words of encouragement and the final priestly rites. I wondered sometimes if there would be a priest at my own funeral.
The last time I went to the temple the statue of Melisei fell backwards as I walked by. The prophetess said it was a sign of my putrid soul offending the pure daughter, and urged me to repent. I couldn’t have told you there was anything I needed to repent of in the first place, so I’m waiting to figure it out before I go back, if anyone asks. I wouldn’t want to offend the daughter again with… whatever it was.
As I stood there, pondering the state of my soul and leaning on my shovel, the cart stopped. A few strong men pulled the box from the back, and hauled it over to the open hole, setting it atop a contraption of ropes and boards that held it up until it was time to put it down for good.
The mourners approached, staring at the casket, tears in their eyes. One fellow, maybe in his early forties, looked plain angry.
I could just make out what he said over the clanging of sobs and crying. “Someone should say something.”
I still don’t quite understand that. What is there left to say at this point? “He was a good chap, and let’s hope the gods have pity on his mortal soul, and make it one with themselves, as we will all someday be one”? That was the usual priestly admonition. I’d heard it enough times I probably could have given it, if they’d asked.
They didn’t, of course.
A woman approached. She had been standing near the angry man a moment ago, and looked about the same age. A couple, perhaps? They didn’t seem terribly romantic, but who does at a funeral?
“Could we take a last look?” She asked me. Ah, well… I never understood that desire either. Isn’t it better to remember the moments of life? Still, it wasn’t as though I had anything to lose. Bodies never did bother me much.
“Of course, ma’am.” I said, and set the shovel resting upon my wagon of tools.
I approached the wooden box, a fairly simple one, and undid the latch. The lid lifted easily, and I took in a mostly normal sight. Mostly.
The body was that of a young man, free of wrinkles, dressed in a fair suit, his curly hair cut to around his shoulders.
But my eyes were quickly drawn away from his gray face to his hands. They rested across his chest in a position that I’ve never considered to look comfortable, but is for some reason the preferred state of the dead.
On his right hand he wore a ring, a simple silver band stamped with an intricate rune. And as soon as I set my eyes on that little loop of metal, I felt a strange compulsion.
I wanted it.
More than anything I have ever wanted in my life, I wanted that ring.
Now, I will gladly confess that I am not a lover of “simple pleasures,” as some call them. I enjoy fine things, and my limited but memorable exposure to them has always left me desiring more of those things. I expect this is a more common reality for human beings than we are comfortable confessing.
However, what I felt as I looked at that ring was no simple animal desire for something that shines. It was as though my severed finger rested in the casket, and if I could but pick it up and put it on the stump from which it came, I would be whole again.
Someone coughed behind me, bringing me back to the moment.
I stepped aside, and the woman looked down at the boy. Her son? I didn’t ask. Not my place. Still, it was plain that she cared for him.
The upset gentleman stepped forward as well, placing his hands on the shoulders of the now weeping woman. She reached forward with her right hand and placed it lovingly on the cold cheek.
“May the gods forgive you, Jasper.”
She wiped her eyes, stood, and gave me a nod. She and the man turned, and began to walk away. When no one else approached I returned to close the lid.
Even as I approached, I knew what I was going to do. I hated the thought of it. I dreaded what might happen if someone saw. My heart pounded with such force I was sure the mourners would hear. What if the dead boy came back to life and murdered me for stealing something so precious?
I couldn’t.
I shouldn’t.
But I took it.
Just as the box was closing, I reached in and slipped the ring off the dead boy’s finger. It came loose easily, as if it was all too eager to escape its fate. What was damnation to something so beautiful, but to never be seen again?
The remainder of the funeral was short. When it was apparent that there would be no grand speech, no flowers, and no singing, the handful of strong young men assisted Quintin and me as we lowered the body down, then took turns shoveling dirt back over the top of it.
Quintin, my business partner, is a thin fellow. He tends to be jovial, as grave diggers go, but is quite professional on the job. Few grieving families care to be entertained by strangers at such a time. That’s alright by me. I can hardly stand his continual puns and jibes on the days when it’s just the two of us tending the grounds, pulling weeds, and lighting blessed candles to keep hungering spirits away from the bodies.
When the grave was mostly full, and the others were beginning to tire, I felt the little ring in my pocket again. I desperately wished to put it on.
“I need a drink of water, if it’s all the same to you.” I said. Quintin shrugged, and the young fellows remained strictly silent.
Odd. Normally friends of the deceased tell stories. They laugh a little as they remember, and sometimes even cry. Funerals are one of the few occasions men feel free to do so. For all our talk of honesty and truth, it takes quite a blow to crack our shells and find out what’s really hidden inside.
And yet these fellows didn’t seem to care to remember. They looked stern. Angry, even. Strange.
I was glad to be away from them for a moment as I walked back to the shed. It was a cool day in early autumn. The trees were just beginning to show yellow on the edges of their leaves, and I was looking forward to the end of the heat and the promise of rain, even if it did make digging a bit messier.
Inside the shed, I took a seat at the workbench and dug the ring out of my pocket. In appearance, as I have said, it was a simple silver band with a wide area, and upon that wide area a single complex symbol was engraved. I could not reproduce the design even if I tried, as each time I looked at it, it seemed to shift slightly, like a banner tossing in the wind.
With an eagerness that had been building since the moment I saw it, I slipped the ring onto my right hand, and felt the cool touch of it embracing my finger.
It was more than just the joy of re-attaching a missing limb. It was as if I had unknowingly been born blind, and was now presented with a view of the emperor’s garden in full bloom. Breezes rushed across my skin, though I was inside and no wind stirred the trees. Flavors sparkled on my tongue like the first drop of champagne on a wedding day. A strange, jaunty tune played in my very soul, and if I were not paralyzed with delight, I’m sure I would have started to dance. Surely lovers at play know no such ecstasy.
And then, stranger still, there came a desire to speak. Like a cup filled and then overflowing, what was within me demanded to be free. And, unable to stop my stammering tongue, words I’ve never heard before filled the little shed.
To this day I cannot remember the sound or pattern of those words, but I instantaneously felt my eyes grow hot. My vision blurred for a moment, and then snapped into a strange sense of clarity. Everything grew sharp, and I fixed my eyes on a single mote of dust and watched it without blinking as it settled on the floor among other individual specks.
Stumbling to my feet, I stepped outside.
The sky, though soft and gray a moment before, seemed bright blue. In the vast expanse, now deeper than I’d ever imagined, I saw points of light, and if I fixed my eyes on those points of light, I could see individual colors, even miniscule fluctuations in the light’s intensity. Stars dotted the midday sky.
I could not help but drop to my knees in wonder.
“Are you all right, Clovis?” Someone asked.
I looked up into Quintin’s face, seeing each pore and hair as clearly as the stars above.
“Just… um, praying, Quintin.” I said. Partially true, I think. At least, I’m not sure what prayer is supposed to be if not an expression of absolute wonder. Though I can’t say I was praying to any of those cold statues in the temple. If there are gods, they must be insulted by our efforts to name them.
“In front of the shed?” He asked, a skeptical eyebrow lifting upwards.
“Yes, I’m feeling quite thankful to be alive, is all. The boy we buried today, I’m sure I’m older than him by years. Look at the trees, at the sky, Quintin! Can you imagine being down beneath the dirt, never to see them again?”
Quintin looked up at the sky.
“Sure, Clovis. But I suppose I won’t have to worry about it when I’m dead. I hope it will be peaceful, like falling asleep. I think it sounds kind of nice, really. Not that I’m in a hurry, of course.”
His words stung, though I can’t say I’d thought much differently before. I had no horrible greeds, no terrible desires that the priests said were the origin of the hungering spirits. I had no cause to roam after death. And if the gods didn’t want me, surely I would just slip away, deeper and deeper into the cool earth, where no one would bother me again.
But as I knelt there, staring at the sky, I was torn by a sudden grief. To die, to never walk the green earth again, to never see the stars, or taste the first apples of fall, or hear the sounds of song and laughter, to be cold, and alone, and plunged into everlasting darkness.
The thought terrified me.
“You’re right, of course.” I said to Quintin as I rose to my feet. “Sorry. I don’t know what struck me.”
Quintin shrugged, “No harm done. Just the job. Makes you think about these things once in a while. Once, I wondered if dead people feel pain, you know, as the worms chew them up.”
My skin began to crawl.
“Let’s hope not,” I said, “or else you and I are gatekeepers of the most terrible fate imaginable.”
Quintin looked around at the clipped grass, trimmed trees, and polished headstones.
“Doesn’t seem bad from up here, at least.” He said.
“No,” I answered, “Up here doesn’t seem bad at all.”
Footnotes
And so a new adventure begins! Welcome to the blog, and thank you for reading. My hope at this point is to create a blog that not only talks about Solo TTRPGs, but acts as a record of my own and a place to review different TTRPGs by playing a session or two in them.
At the end of each session I'll record these footnotes, which offer my own insights into the process of playing and running games.
My own belief about solo RPGs is that they're best played hot. That is, without too much prep. If we intend to surprise ourselves we should give room for that to happen. As such, I follow the old adage, "Don't prep plots, prep situations."
In this case, I decided that a strange magical ring would be stumbled upon, and then I used the rules from Maze Rats to roll up the character who would find this ring. The rest is just "role-playing" on paper in the form of a journal, which helps me to speak "in-character" instead of being a monotonous narrator.
Maze Rats
Now, I've got to be honest, I didn't immediately think of Maze Rats (By Ben Milton) as being a "Victorian-esque" game about a grave-digger. It struck me as an interesting but typically-flavored dungeon crawler. However, within its pages I found a ton of really unique roll tables that sparked my imagination, and for my own games there's absolutely nothing that really gets me thinking and playing so well as an engaged imagination. The Solo Counterpart "Maze Rat" also includes some excellent oracle tables that inspire imaginative interpretation as well.
In this first part of Clovis's story I used Maze Rats to generate characters, names, and a few yes/no answers. Maze Rats also uses an interesting magic system that lets the players and the GM, or just the player in solo play, generate a random spell and then decide what it does. As I'm sure we'll see in later chapters, the ring gives it's wearer one random spell per day. Will Clovis use it wisely? Probably not...
If you're interested in Maze Rats, you can get it and it's solo companion Maze Rat at DriveThruRPG.com
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