Wren

Wren is a character in The Opulent Quarrel.

Description
Wren is a hunter of Varalica, a type of trickster demon which vary wildly in physicality and ability.

Wren is a tall, muscular lady sporting short, messy, hazel hair parting to one side. Pale skin with a smattering of freckles across her face. Grey eyes that are completely done with your bullshit, eye colour/shape subject to change with various drug use. Has a long, wooden smoking pipe casually hanging out of her mouth 90% of the time. Wears a long, olive coat with lots of little pockets and buckles dotted around. Underneath that is standard dark blue jumper and black jeans ensemble. She walks around in large, heavy boots that have seen years of wear and tear. Her various layers of clothing hide the fact that she is ripped as fuuuuuuck.

Wren is exceedingly deadpan in both mannerisms and conversation. Her mode of talking is rather monotone and nonchalant, rarely raising with emotion. Similarly her movements have a very deliberate slowness to them, walking around in a rather lackadaisical fashion. These traits are not to be mistaken with apathy or a lack of emotion however. Her rather disinterested personality hides a relentless joy of fucking with people, mainly through telling constant lies right to their face. Her facade of disingenuousness hides that fact she does enjoy people's company and genuinely cares for for their well being. Her tolerance for bullshit is rather small, but she is fully capable of playing along and going with the flow, knowing full well that she can either talk or fight her way out of most situations. When shit hits the fan Wren's lethargic nature is replaced with one of speed and drive. Her movements become very fast and deliberate, with an aim to end whatever conflict is ensuing as fast and efficiently as possible. This usually involves someone getting punched very, very hard.

Items/Abilities
In the inside of Wren's jacket is a pocket containing various little bottles and boxes of very strange drugs. Herbs that grow in alternate dimensions, the ground horns of demon king's, shimmering powders of starlight. When Wren smokes these through her pipe she is infused with unique abilities, depending on what she smokes. Years of constant use of these drugs have imbued Wren with with inhuman strength and endurance. Despite this, she is still human and is not immune to the various side effects that these drug may bring with them.

Along with this Wren own a small flask containing water of the fountain of sorrow. An extremely alcoholic substance which can neutralise any drugs effect almost instantaneously. It tastes awful.

She also owns a big box of matches to light her pipe and an old fashioned flip cell phone. To call people.

Wren has no weapons, instead preferring to use her fists to fight. She's, uh, really good at this, as it turns out. She is capable of delivering blows that could send a normal man reeling with broken bones.

Biography
It was another rainy day up on Deacon Hill.

It was a very pleasant rain. Not too heavy that you were completely soaked through and not too light that it permeated the air you walked in. Just a middle of the road shower, with a nice pitter-patter and a refreshing scent lifting from the ground.

A nearby church rang it's bell and the sun came through a gap in the clouds, a pleasant rainbow arced through the air. Nearby some songbirds chirped a tune as they hopped around a hanging feeder. People flee in a panic, screaming and wailing that something hideous had taken hold of the church. A vintage 1971 Volkswagen Beetle cheerfully trundled along-

Wait.

Hold up.

That's decidedly not another rainy day up on Deacon Hill.

To be fair, it's not everyday that otherworldly entity decides to take residence in your local house of prayer, so the screaming is understandable. Against the grain of the fleeing church goers was a tall lady in a long coat, walking calmly and slowly up Deacon Hill, her boots splashing in errant puddles. She paid no mind to the small gaggle of people amassed in front of the church, muttering small prayers and explications of disbelief. An elderly man tried to warn her as she nonchalantly waltz passed the crowd and to the front door of the small local parish. She gave an 'A-OK' symbol with her hand; the poor fellows warning completely lost on her.

Within the foyer of the church was vicar, bright red in the face, desperately ushering the last few people outdoors. He glanced over to the tall women walking into the church and his face dropped. "I'm so sorry ma'am the church is, uh, closed today! Something horrible has happened you have to leave right away!"

Wren brought her umbrella down; a bright pink thing with a cute cartoon duck on it, and closed it, spraying a fine mist right in the vicar's face. "I'm here about your church problem." She threw the umbrella at nearby coat stand, its handle neatly catching the hook of the stand, the vicar would of been impressed if he wasn't desperately trying to not have a heart attack.

"Oh no no! I've called the police they will handle everything!"

"I am the police." Wren lied, not missing a beat at all.

"O-oh!" The Vicar stammered, clearly not prepared for such a quick response, didn't he just call a minute a go?

"Yes so if you could just tell me everything you know, I'd be much obliged." Wren quickly found out that in this line of work actually explaining what she does leads nowhere fast. People tend to be incredulous when you tell them you hunt trickster demons that secretly live in another dimension. The path of least resistance is often the simplest, and to facilitate that you generally have to lie, a lot. Luckily, as it turns out, if you say anything with enough confidence, most people won't even bat an eyelid to your blatant falsifications.

"Right! Right...it was...it was horrible, truly a...ghastly thing."

"A physical description will suffice, thank you." Wren said as she pulled a smoking pipe from her pocket.

"It...was this huge thing, black as tar and, uh...leaking this putrid liquid. It was like a demon..."

"The correct term is Varalica." She added, putting a crimson herb in to the chamber.

"What?"

"Keep going."

"Yes uhhh, well this thing was uh, monstrously fat and it had strange quills and a gargantuan tongue! It just appeared out of nowhere, its horrible!"

"Wren struck a match and placed it into the bowl of the pipe. She inhaled deeply as she shuck out the flame. Out in the air she blew out a distinctive red smoke which twisted and turned in an unnatural manner. The cloying scent of a burning forest hung in the foyer.

"Sounds like Awful."

"It IS awful!" The vicar shouted out, glossing over the tall women's questionable choice of sentence structure. He began to close in on himself, whispering Bible verses in a plea to calm himself.

"Well don't worry, father." Wren placed her hand on the vicar's shoulder, who almost jumped through the ceiling out of fright. "The police are here to solve this dispute." She sauntered towards the door heading into the main hall.

"WAIT! Y-you can't, it's still in there! Y-y-y-you can't go in there on your own!"

"What? Yes I can. It's fine. Everything's fine. I'm the Police, remember? Look at my badge."

Wren flashed a bus pass for half a second before quickly hiding it away.

"But! Don't you need, er, equipment or backup? Th-that thing is huge! It's going to kill you!"

"Naaaaaah it's cool. Everything under control. Just make sure you leave the place. Might be some, uh, collateral damage. Rubble, fire, portals."

"Whu-buh, c-collateral? What do you mean porta-"

Before he could even finish his sentence Wren was in the hall and slamming the door behind her. Talking to the victims was never her forte. Always asked too many questions. 'He'll probably be fine' she thought to herself.

Within the centre of the quaint church laid a huge black ball, pulsing gently like a bear sleeping. pews jaunted out as the thing laid its massive frame to rest in the middle pass, a vile smelling liquid spreading out into the creases of the church floor. Wren poofed from her pipe and meandered towards the slumbering giant, her steps echoing around the hall.

"Hello, Awful."

Pitch black quills twitched and giant legs emerged from the mass. Awful slowly turned around to reveal far too many eyes and far too many teeth, it's tongue lopping to the ground with a sickening squelch.

"Ah. Look what flew in, little birdy."

"Ha. Because my name is Wren. Very clever." She retorted as if talking to an old pal and not a horrendous tar beast from hell.

Awful shook slowly and made a sound that could be approximated to a laugh. "So confident, little birdy. You won't be so high and mighty when you are naught but a stain on this hallowed ground."

"You know, funny thing is, the other Varalica said something pretty similar to that." Wren paced around fearlessly. "Before I killed then that is. By punching them. To death. With my fists."

Awful bared down on the woman, it's multi teethed smile widening. "The ones you've killed were weaklings. I am an elite among elites, I have survived for 1000 years. You think yourself a noble warrior but all you have slain is carrion. They should call you vulture."

"Scathing." Wren offered back, shit eating grin plastered across her face. "Well I guess you're right; you're certainly no carrion." She extinguished her pipe with her thumb and tucked it away in her pocket. "Lets fix that."

Wren flung forward as she rocketed her fist straight into Awful's big, stupid face. There was a brief half second where Awful's smile faltered ever so slightly before succumbing a bad case of blunt force trauma. The Varalica's body rippled on impact as it was sent careening back, smashing into the podium at the back of the church. Awful reared it's six legs up and made sound that was most definitely a laugh. "Is that all you can muster?"

"I mean, no? I'm not done?"

"Oh ho ho. I assure you. You are done."

Awful lept up and brought down it's leg (arm? Paw?) to smash the hunter into the floor. Wren sidestepped deftly as concrete crumbled and wood splintered underneath Awful's weight. That was fast. That was faster than she had expected. in fact, while thinking that, Awful was already bringing down it's five other and equally massive legs down to crush her like an ant. She leaped back again, this time not quick enough as Awful batted her away like a cat playing with yarn. Except the yarn is a person. And the cat is, real tall.

Wren smashed against opposite wall, her impact leaving a substantial crater and an unfortunate crack in the nearby stained glass windows. Other unfortunate cracks include: The ones that have snapped off Wren's ribs. She fell to the ground with a heavy thud and mutters a guttural moan. Someone not imbued with gratuitous devil drugs would probably be dead right now. Not that that particularly filled Wren with any sense of consolation mind you.

"You humans are such fragile things. You break so effortlessly." Awful stomped down the aisle, crushing wooden pews as if they were twigs. "It is so cathartic." Wren pulled out her pipe and started thumbing through various tinctures and extracts in her pocket. Now seemed like a good time for a smoke break. "Well you certainly live up to your name." Wren paused on tiny teal-green bottle that thrummed with heat. She poured the whole thing into the pipe (the time for frugality had long gone) and lit it up. The end of the pipe lit up light a firework, surrounding Wren with a deep emerald glow and the smell of copper. "Tell me, are you familiar with the extract of the thaumasillica cactus?" Awful's heavy tongue lopped out of its mouth, dripping a viscous saliva across the floor "I care only for the meat, birdy. The seasoning matters not to me"

"Well then" Wren lifted herself up; pipe hanging lazily from her mouth; irides turning green and angular. "I guess this next part will be a surprise then." She lifted her hands back and brought them together with a ferocious thunderclap. The tip of Wren's hand exploded with light and fire, sending Awful back, reeling blindly. Between bleary blinks Awful saw that Wren's arms were engulfed in an unnatural green flame. A cursory knowledge of human physiology would inform you that human don't (usually) do that. Awful would of commented on this peculiar anomaly but they couldn't help but notice that said anomaly was no longer in front of them.

That was because Wren was now on top of Awful's amorphous body, ready to bring hot, fiery wrath upon the walking tub of lard. With the force of jackhammer she brought down her fists, each blow spreading brilliant sparks of verdigris across the church. Awful lurched around wildly in an attempt to shake her off, crashing into walls and making screeching sounds all the way. As it turns out, Awful's saliva is particularly flammable; in a matter of seconds the whole parish was engulfed in a green haze. As Wren clung onto Awful's quills, her mind raced.

'Looks like you got out of the frying pan and into the fire.' 'This seasoning is too spicy for you.' 'Things are heating up.' 'Do you need some sun cream because it looks like you're burning up.'

God they were all so, so bad.

"Enough!" Awful's massive tongue burst out and dragged itself round their back. It wrapped around Wren's body like a gross ass constrictor, she let out a small yap as her lungs squeezed together. "I'll swallow you whole!" The flaming hunter was yanked around like a ragdoll and quickly vanished deep into Awful's gullet with a hearty gulp.

For a moment there was silence.

Well except for the rain pounding on the church windows.

And the raging inferno burning up the church.

And the heavy panting of a giant-demon-tar-beast.

...and the distinct sound of flesh bubbling?

Green smoke oozed out of Awful's pours as they started to work up a sweat. Something unbelievably hot pulsed in their stomach, tearing its way out from the inside. Quite literally as it turns out, as a very angry and on fire lady ripped through Awful's stomach, screaming all the way. The Varalica gurgled and swayed in pain.

"Hey! Looks like you've got a bad case of heartburn!...Shitheeeeeeeaaaah fuck it that's awful." Wren brought her flaming fists up and smashed them into Awful's broken body. It contorted violently like a balloon being crushed under the weight of a sledgehammer. The trickster demon liquefied into a sludge, slowly boiling amidst the flames.

Wren stepped out of the carrion of her fallen prey, covered in black tar and still on fire. 'Stop making the one-liners a thing Wren.' she thought to herself. 'They're never going to be thing.' She wearily walked back out into the foyer, clinging her chest in pain. Turns out the vicar was still there. Mouth agape and eyes wide. "Oh hey. I, er, exorcised your demon, so, that's not going to be a problem anymore."

"You are on fire!"

Wren glanced down to her arms, which, sure enough, were very on fire. She gave a noncommittal wave towards the man of faith. "Don't worry, it's raining outside." She lumbered out of the door and into the rain, leaving her umbrella in that church foyer. In the distance the sirens of the actual Police rang closer and closer.

Just another rainy day up on Deacon Hill.