The Battle of HemsHollow - endlessm/threadbare GitHub Wiki

"We'll need every rope in town...and all the PomPuffs I own." -- Peg PomPocket

The Battle of HemsHollow was the night a pack of [Storyvores]] came for the small border town of [[HemsHollow]] and its Lending Library, and were lured into a cage with [[PomPuffs]], fed until they fell asleep, and lowered into the [Void by the whole town together, where cage and Storyvores alike faded away. It is one of the very few Storyvore stories in Threadbare in which not a single story was lost.

At a Glance
Type Key Event
Location HemsHollow, on The Fraying
Led by Peg PomPocket, the PomPuff Collector
Defenders The townsfolk of HemsHollow, Hattie HardBack of the HemsHollow Lending Library, and The EverAfters
Against A pack of Storyvores
Outcome Every Storyvore unravelled in the Void. No story lost

The Storyvores Come

HemsHollow is a town that never stops telling stories. Day and night, the EverAfters, the travelling storytellers who settled there, tell tales from their wagon stage in the town square, because their telling is all that holds the Void back from the East Wall. But to a Storyvore, a town that never stops telling stories is a feast that never ends.

Despite its proximity to the Void, HemsHollow had never had an issue with Null's creations - Storyvores, InkDrinkers and MemoryMoths had never bothered the town before. One autumn, a pack of Storyvores came creeping in from the Fraying, drawn by the smell of all that telling. They began at the edges of town, chewing the endings off bedtime stories and the punchlines off jokes, and every night they crept a little closer to the HemsHollow Lending Library, a crooked little building stacked with every story the town has ever told. Doors were bolted and shutters were drawn, but Storyvores can smell a story through a keyhole.

The EverAfters could not stop to help. If their stories faltered for even a moment, the Void's tendrils would come over the East Wall. So on the third night, when the Storyvores reached the Library steps, the town's librarian, Hattie HardBack, barred the door and spent the whole night inside, plonking pots and pans on their heads if they managed to break a way in.

Peg's Plan

Peg PomPocket knew something about Storyvores that almost no one else in HemsHollow did - Storyvores love PomPuffs even more than they love books, and a Storyvore that eats too many PomPuffs falls fast asleep, for days.

So Peg asked for help building a cage large enough to hold a hundred Storyvores. The Threadlings of HemsHollow worked day and night to build her one. Every household gave something - bedsteads, fireguards, birdcages, garden gates, iron railings, broom handles, and the bars from the bakery's bread racks. The town smith bound it all together in a single day, and by evening it stood in the town square.

Peg collected every PomPuff she could, from her garden, and every patch she knew for miles around. She put a pile gently into the cage. She heaped it to the roof with PomPuffs of every colour. And as the sun went down, she walked backwards from the Library steps, through the town square, past the EverAfters' stage and out through the gate in the East Wall, laying a trail of PomPuffs behind her, one every few steps, all the way to the edge of the world.

The Night of the Battle

The Storyvores came out at dusk, as always, and began to patrol the walls. Tasting the EverAfters stories on the night air, they began to try to find a way in to the town. Here they found the PomPuff trail. They gobbled the first PomPuff, and the next, and the next, puff...pom! puff...pom!, all the way from the Library steps to the edge of the world, where they found the cage, heaped and glowing with more PomPuffs than they had ever seen. Every last one of them squeezed inside.

Peg pulled the door shut behind them, and tied it with her scarf.

By midnight, the Storyvores had eaten so many PomPuffs that they could not keep their eyes open, and one by one they curled up and fell asleep. Then the snoring began. It was the loudest snoring HemsHollow had ever heard. It rattled the windows, shook the shutters, and it went on all night long. No one in HemsHollow slept a wink, and no one minded at all. On the wagon stage, the EverAfters told their stories louder than ever, so that the Void would hear them over the snoring.

Lowering the Cage

Once the last Storyvore was asleep, the whole of HemsHollow came out through the East Wall, carrying every rope they owned. Washing lines, skipping ropes, bell ropes, kite strings, apron strings and the bunting from the summer fair were all knotted end to end into one enormous line, and tied to the top of the cage.

Then, together, with Peg at the front, the townsfolk dragged and pushed the cage through the town and out to the very edge of the fraying landscape. They lowered it, hand over hand, down into the emptiness of the Void. They lowered it until the ropes ran out and the snoring faded away to nothing. When at last they hauled the ropes back up, there was no cage on the end of them. There was only the rope itself, tattered and grey where it had touched the Void, its last few knots worn to wisps. The cage, and every Storyvore inside it, had faded into the Void, as everything in Threadbare does in the end. Nothing is beyond the Void's reach: not Elders, not Threadlings, not trees or towns or hills, and not the Children of Null either. Peg had known it all along, and that was the genius of her plan. Not one Storyvore has troubled HemsHollow since.

Not a single book in the Library had been lost.

Remembering the Battle

HemsHollow hung the tattered rope in the town square, beside the EverAfters' stage, and it still hangs there today, with PomPuffs growing all along its knots. Hattie HardBack gave Peg the first library card ever made of gold thread, and HemsHollow made her its first, and so far only, Keeper of the Rope.

Every year on the anniversary of the Battle, the people of HemsHollow gather around a large fire at the centre of the square and the EverAfters tell the story of the Battle of HemsHollow.

Threadlings across Threadbare tell the story to Patchlings who are frightened of the dark, because it is one of the few Storyvore stories in which nothing is lost at all.

Narrative Function

The Battle of HemsHollow shows that the Children of Null can be outwitted rather than fought. The town wins not with weapons but with knowledge, generosity and everyone pulling together: every household gives something to the cage, and every rope in town is needed to lower it. It is a natural model for gentle, clever encounters with Storyvores in the game.

For Contributors

  • Outwit, don't fight. Storyvores in the Battle are lured, fed and lulled to sleep. No one lifts a hand against them. The Void does the rest, as it does to everything. Keep their fading gentle and in the world's own language: they unravel, fade, or are taken by the Void. See Content Guidelines.
  • Everyone helps. The Battle is won by the whole town. Retellings should keep the sense that every Threadling had a part to play.

Connections

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Images

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Audio and source files

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