And thank YOU! This is the most complete art depiction this character of mine as received, and I cannot stop marveling at how good he looks here, especially the tattoos, like WOW :D
Behold, Gossamer Trostark! He is, in character, damn awkward as hell, but he looks amazing here!
HardyGal’s DnD Experiences (Roughly) Retold
Session 4: Claustrophobia
yay I finally got a chance to allude to Gossamer’s backstory :]
WARNING: tight spaces, panic attacks, and vague childhood trauma
—
The walls of the tunnel were narrow enough that they had to walk single file. Narrow enough to make Gossamer slightly nervous. But not nearly so unsettling that he was unable to shove his nerves aside.
They trekked on, and on, and on through the dark, Queenie leading the way with her darkvision. There were no other sounds besides the rustle of clothing, the clinking of Vyalda’s chainmail, the steady tap, tap, tap of boots on the stone ground, and the occasional audible breaths. Gossamer remained aware of Queenie’s presence ahead of him and Vyalda’s presence behind him, tracing his hand over the grooves on the wall to his right in an effort to ground himself in the seemingly infinite darkness.
At some point Fredrick, who took up the back of the line, grumbled about the ceiling getting lower.
Gossamer did not know at what precise point his nerves began to slip. Perhaps it was when Vyalda’s horns began to scrape intermittently against the stone ceiling, the dragonborn joining Fredrick in needing to hunch over as they continued forward. Perhaps it was when the rasp of cloth against stone was added to the shuffling ambience as Fredrick was eventually forced to kneel in order to keep moving. Perhaps it was when Gossamer finally felt his hair brush against the ceiling.
Regardless, Gossamer soon found himself feeling rather dizzy. His breathing had become very audible. The urge to push Queenie in an effort to make her move faster was dangerously high, hand in hand with the urge to simply start yelling.
“Hey, Gossamer, you doing all right?” said teifling called out blithely from in front of Gossamer.
Was he doing all right…? Gossamer took a moment to swallow down his rising panic. No, he decided, he was definitely not doing all right, but he was not about to start screaming. (Yet).
“No, I’m–” Gossamer swallowed hard, trying to ease his dry throat. “It’s fine, it’s fine, I just… Let’s keep moving, please. I don’t wanna stay here for longer than we have to.”
“Just… find something to distract yourself,” Fredrick called from the back of the line.
The goliath sounded annoyed. Gossamer definitely couldn’t blame him.
“Yeah, yeah, that’s a good… Yeah…” Gossamer shoved his hand into his belt pouch and pulled out the first item he wrapped his fingers around. “Let’s just keep moving…”
They pushed on through the tunnel.
The ceiling was low enough now that both Queenie and Gossamer needed to hunch forward.
Gossamer fiddled with the item in his hand. A broken and slightly rusty padlock it felt like, one of many from his pouch full of arguable junk. He twisted and pulled the shackle with all the barely contained franticness of a caged animal, his breaths hissing out through grit teeth as he put one foot in front of the other.
‘Calm down… Calm down… We’re gonna get out of here soon.’ Gossamer clenched his hand around the padlock. ‘Keep it together, dammit.’
Then,finally, they reached the very literal light at the end of the tunnel. Up a slope, some one hundred feet ahead, sunlight peaked through a small cave opening.
“Looks like we’re almost out,” Queenie said slowly.
“Oh, thank the gods,” Gossamer gasped, in time with Fredrick’s relieved exclamation of “Finally…!”
Queenie continued forward, but at a noticeably slower pace. Her silhouette was hunched lower than was necessary to bypass the low ceiling, and her hands hovered over the handaxes at her sides.
It was all Gossamer could do not to push her.
“Can’t you move any faster?” Gossamer said tightly.
“I’m moving as fast as possible,” Queenie replied, her usual blithe tone carrying a bite of annoyance.
“I just want to get out of here as fast a possible…”
“Look, we don’t know what’s waiting for us outside. I’m just tryin’ to be cautious.”
“That is a good point,” Vyalda spoke up from behind Gossamer.
“I would also like to get out of here as fast as possible,” Fredrick grumbled.
“Be patient,” Queenie said casually.
“Perhaps we should come up with a plan first,” Vyalda suggested. “Just to prepare for whatever might be out there.”
“We don’t even know what might be out there,” Fredrick pointed out.
“Everyone quiet down,” Queenie hissed.
The slow forward pace had come to a halt by this point. The voices of his companions debating on what to do filled the tight space, yet they sounded muted underneath the increasingly frenetic rate of Gossamer’s heartbeat. It was getting harder to breathe.
‘Let me out…’
His eyesight blurred. He didn’t even realise he had been clutching the front of his shirt until he moved to press one hand against the right wall. Had… Had the tunnel always been this narrow…?
“Let me out…”
His neck and shoulders ached, but there was no room for him to stand up straight. A presence in front of him prevented him from moving forward. A presence behind him prevented him from moving back.
‘No, please…’
“Let me out, let me out… Let me out! Let me out!”
Stone turned to wood beneath his fingertips. His arms and chest and back itched and stung beneath the tattoos.
“Please, please, please…! Let me out! Please! Please let me out!”
Where was he now? What was happening? People were talking around him. They sounded annoyed. Oh, gods…
“Please,please…! Let me out!”
No, this wasn’t right…! He wasn’t supposed to be here! But he was too small, too weak, too fragile - a child’s hand slammed against the stone wooden wall and the voice of a young boy dared to scream for mercy.
“Let me out, let me out, let me out! Please! Let me out!”
A muscled arm wrapped around his middle. He cried out, had the audacity to try to pull away, but his struggles meant nothing. The arm pulled him back against a solid surface and pinned him there, his arms trapped at his sides.
“Please, please, please, please, please, please… Let me out, please!”
He was going to cry soon, he knew it, just as much as he knew that it would do no good. His tears meant as little as his struggles. He was supposed to have given both up a long time ago.
“Please let me out…”
A low, soft voice vibrated through the surface at his back. A slow melody drifted through the pounding of his heartbeat, pausing his rising tears.
“Please…”
Words registered in his ears. He recognised them - the lyrics of a draconic lullaby, soothing a mighty warrior to rest. He hadn’t heard it in years, but he still remembered every word.
‘Mom…? Dad…?’
No, the voice was too low to be his mother’s and too high to be his father’s. Nonetheless, every line of draconic acted to dismantle this waking nightmare. He could see light beyond the confines of this wooden(?) box. The arm around him was not restraining, but comforting. He felt scales beneath his fingertips as he grasped it.
‘I’m not… This isn’t before. This isn’t before…’
Another strong arm maneuvered beneath him. He could feel himself being carried. A child took solace in the strong yet gentle presence.
(An adult knocked on the edges of his nightmare addled mind, asking what exactly was happening.)
The voice trailed off, but he continued the lullaby in his mind, murmuring the words silently. Light struck his eyes as he finished the song, and he grimaced, curling in on himself slightly. The arms began to place him down, and–
Gossamer inhaled sharply as his arms came into contact with the unmistakable sensation of grass. He sat upright and looked around to see himself in a woody clearing, just outside a small cave entrance. Queenie was pacing along the edges of the clearing, one hand on her axe, Vyalda was stretching out her back and shoulders just beside Gossamer, and Fredrick was just crawling out from the cave, looking immenselyrelieved.
They were finally outside.
“Oh, my gods…!” Gossamer flopped back onto the grass, arms spread out, eyes staring at the sky. “Ohhh, my gods…! I have never been so happy to be outside before!”
“Yes, yes, we’re finally outside,” Queenie said placatingly, still pacing along the edge of the clearing. “Now you can quiet down a bit.”
Gossamer barely heard her. His chest rattled with a high pitched laugh, an edge of hysteria mixed in with overwhelming relief.
“Gods, look at that sky,” he breathed. “Damn, it looks gorgeous.”
Long buried memories tugged on the edges of his mind, urging him to search them. He ignored them and continued staring at the sky with a (likely) dopey grin.
