| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Display using:
|
|
Blood and Nightmares
Posted: 29 Jun 2005 12:32 AM |
~ Part I: And Still It Sleeps ~
It wasn’t unusual for travellers to stagger into the Ye Hole in Da Ground Inn battered and bruised from facing the Ettins of Bloodwood, but tonight was different.
His name was Larin, and he had lived in Brandibuck all his life. In the short space of forty years he’d gone from a young, wide-eyed Halfling who couldn’t tell a shovel from a pickaxe to an accomplished mage of no small power. Most of the routes trodden by well-travelled adventurers were known to him: the crossroads at the Sea of Ice; the valley of Gladden; the battle-torn Wastelands; the searing Kobai desert. And that last and perilous leg of the journey home when travelling from North to South:
The eerie Bloodwood trail.
Larin’s fixation on that awful place disturbed his friends and family no end. He was obsessed with the mystery behind those dark and dangerous woods, and what’s more, he insisted on revealing all his findings to them.
“There are things that no one ever sees,” he would confide in hushed tones, eyes sparkling darkly. “Deeper in the woods, where no one ever goes, there is something dark and terrible and hungry and that is what gives the wood its name.”
Winky had turned him out of his Inn more than once, when young Larin had gotten too carried away with his tales. Not because they were nonsense and clearly unbelievable; but because they were too terrifying in their stark and brutal veracity.
It was twilight, that time after sunset when the sun has gone but the light still lingers over the black horizon. The Inn was bustling with activity, right-sized folk mingling with tallfolk and chattering loudly about nothing in particular. All competing to be heard over the boisterously cheerful music.
The round wooden door leading out of the Ye Hole in Da Ground Inn opened almost noiselessly, but for some reason, all conversation in the inn came to a grinding halt.
He glided in with a distinct lack of sound: no floorboards creaking beneath his portly weight. No quiet thud of wood on wood as the door swung shut behind him. No breath in his voice, which was the voice of a ghost, whispering and faint and yet able to traverse distances with a clarity incongruous with its volume.
“A thousand years ago,” he began without preamble, “there passed through this very town a frightening and unholy procession of beings bent upon one purpose only: to feed.”
All eyes and all ears were upon Larin as he stood there, looking and listening at the crowd in return.
“We think of spells as things which can be cast freely,” he went on professorially, “But some have restrictions. Time, for instance. Magic works in strange ways. Time, time...”
The music boxed creaked and died, and with it, the music.
“Some magic only works... at the appropriate moment. When the time is right.”
He did not move, but it seemed to all within the room that he moved closer to each and every one of them. Somehow. Moving without moving.
“Something sleeps beneath the Bloodwood. Something old and hungry and fed by millennia of blood, seeping down through the earth.”
He paused. A wood beam creaked. Someone put an ale mug down... the soft tap of clay on wood amplified in the frozen silence, like a hammer on a coffin.
“Every now and then it wakes, like a volcano must wake. Like whales must rise to the surface of the water to breathe.”
His gaze alighted upon each and every face in the room.
“The time draws near again. Something will wake from its slumber, a thousand years of blood in its mouth, a thousand years of nightmares on the brain. Something will wake and open its eyes, and pour out a single breath, and on that breath the nightmares will ride and escape from its mind, given true form. And they will come...
“...through here.”
A child whimpered from somewhere towards the back of the room.
“How Brandibuck escaped last time, I do not know,” Larin went on quietly. “Nor will I ever know. I’ve found what stopped them, or tried to stop them, the last time they were here. That which tried to contain the congregation that lay in wait until the moment was right to strike. In a place where the only light that exists is the ephemeral flash of lightning lies the answer to many questions. But I did not learn the answer.”
This time, he did step forward. He was soaked through, as if he’d been walking through a thunderstorm for days. He smelled of rain and something else.
Acid.
“Something sleeps beneath the earth and it turned over in its sleep.” His breath gurgled now. He seemed to dissolve before their eyes. “A single nightmare escaped, flew up through the earth and—
“Time!” he suddenly gasped. “My time is up! No spell lasts forever.”
He said nothing more. Only crumpled to the floor, melting before the horrified eyes of the crowd into a steaming puddle that ate its way through the floorboards.
Somewhere in the back of the room, the child started to cry.
((Halloween preparations have begun in earnest.)) |
The subculture of my dreams
Is waiting for me to fall asleep.
I know you're scared—you should be.
I know you're scared. |
|
  |
|
|
Re: Blood and Nightmares
Posted: 16 Jul 2005 01:25 AM |
~ Part II: Beneath the Skin of the World ~
It starts as a faint vibration. A low pulse beneath the forest floor.
The wind breathes through the trees of Bloodwood. Streams pulse. Branches stretch like aged arms, raised high as if in praise to some bloodthirsty god.
And in that place where darkness reigns, where a storm screams and lightning illuminates corpses hundreds of years dead and gone, the pulse grows stronger. Louder. The earth rises and falls with the regularity of some gargantuan beast... sleeping. The earth throbs as if a giant heart beats beneath the skin of the world.
* * *
It mattered not whose blood it was, so long as the blood flowed freely.
Somewhere in that dim awareness of nightmare-riddled sleep, he knew that a warm one had opened the portal. He knew that a handful of warm ones had come soon after and slaughtered an infinitesimal fraction of the vampires and shadows who served under him. A minor loss. The blood of the warm ones had flowed, sucked away by the earth to flow down to feed him.
Yes, somewhere in that dim awareness of nightmare-riddled sleep, he knew that the bloodletting had begun.
He beckoned, now, to the beasts of the Bloodwood. To slaughter or be slaughtered. His hunger became their own. There was no need to send any more of his minions through the portal... yet. Not when the Bloodwood itself was already rampant with beasts with claws to rend and teeth to bite and clubs to smash open skulls like overripe melons. Not when the Bloodwood was frequented by adventurers armed with swords and axes and fists and spells, who killed the beasts just as wantonly as the beasts killed them.
It mattered not whose blood it was, so long as the blood flowed freely.
=-=-=-=-=-=* 18 Jun 05 | 21:11 *=-=-=-=-=-=
((The following was accidentally deleted and has been recovered))
~Intermission: News~
The night after Elmirie Mellebin was rescued from The Thundering Cliffs, some adventurers passing through Mirghul Trail will have noticed a gruesome blood trail leading to a pale, bloodless corpse with two distinctive puncture marks in his neck.
Later on in the day, some will have seen that a stake had been driven through the corpse's heart.
((You know who you are))
* * *
The Gnomish Archaeologist who patrols outside the Archaeological Dig near The Scorched Earth has an interesting tale to tell to any who will stop to listen.
Apparently an Elven lady and a striking, raven-haired woman entered the ruins, but neither emerged. Some other adventurers—a dark-haired man, a pale Dwarf with white hair and a warrior with long blonde hair—made some enquiries about the pair and went in after the ladies, but when they returned, they had not found the ladies, or did not speak of it with the Gnome if they did.
The Gnome's keen on meeting the raven-haired lady again, apparently she was very charming and possessed a rare intelligence (for a non-Gnome) and he's hoping to discuss some intellectual theories with her. He'll ask anyone who passes through to keep an eye out for her.
* * *
Sometimes, travellers going through the Bloodwood by night may find themselves hunted by shadowy and ferocious dogs with fearsome howls. Those who've visited Maldovia's shores will recognise them as Shadow Mastiffs, those who haven't will notice they're like nothing they've ever seen before.
And always there are bats. Hundreds, thousands of bats, lying upside-down from the trees... watching.
The dogs and bats have also been spied in Mirghul, the bats especially. They always come at night, appearing suddenly without warning in the dark, and flying off in a swarm with a terrible, collective screech just before dawn.
* * *
By night, there are more guards standing at Brandibuck's gates than usual — tired and nervous guards, but determined ones. The memory of the auction still haunts the townsfolk. The long shifts and the cloud of fear are starting to take their toll. At the advice of a man named Gasher, they've started asking around for clerics who may be interested in staying in the Vale until the trouble passes. |
The subculture of my dreams
Is waiting for me to fall asleep.
I know you're scared—you should be.
I know you're scared. |
|
|
|
|
Re: Blood and Nightmares
Posted: 22 Jul 2005 03:08 PM |
~Part III: Dreams with Teeth~
It was a sound like no sound she had ever heard. Not a sound created by vibrations in air and earth, not a sound that funneled through one’s ear into the skull and finally burrowed into the brain to embed itself somewhere in the mind, somewhere in the soul, to be heard and interpreted. No, no, it bypassed those first steps completely, tore straight into the mind, ripped straight into the soul to scream like a banshee and rattle inside one’s head, again and again and again and again—
* * *
They found Malita dead the next morning. Like Peppidi, like Bredoc, like so many others, there seemed to be no cause. Only sheer fright.
Their terror killed them.
* * *
Somewhere in the dark woods of Mirghul, a huge black dog slipped into the shadows of the fading night, gorged on nightmares.
=-=-=-=-=-=* 29 Jun 05 | 12:47 *=-=-=-=-=-=
((The following was accidentally deleted and has been recovered))
~Intermission: News~
Strange things are happening. Strange things indeed...
The nights grow longer, darker, colder. By night, Brandibuck and Mirghul are silent and still. It seems that every shadow hides a secret, every secret is a shadow. Those venturing through Mirghul will note the bats—so many bats, huge and terrifying. A cold mist has started to creep in from the sea, rolling over the east coast and occasionally settling like a ghostly white blanket over the dark woods. Some days, the sun burns the mist away by high noon.
Some days, it lingers all night and day, smothering the forest with its icy, chilling breath.
Many refuse to go through that wood alone now. Those who spend time in Ye Hole In Da Ground will note a recurring theme told by travellers and commoners of the area: many tell of finding pale and bloodless bodies littering the trail, the corpses bearing tell-tale puncture marks upon the neck. Occasionally a story will surface telling of a late night, a lonely journey... eyes in the darkness, and far-off screams.
But always they mention the bats. The hundreds, the thousands of bats that cling from every branch in the forest... |
The subculture of my dreams
Is waiting for me to fall asleep.
I know you're scared—you should be.
I know you're scared. |
|
|
|
|
Re: Blood and Nightmares
Posted: 30 Jul 2005 03:45 PM |
~Part IV: The Thaw~
This is the Sentence passed upon the World,
that everything that has a Beginning should perish,
that things which have reached maturity should grow old,
the Strong Weak,
the Great Small,
and that after weakness and shrinkage
should come dissolution.
You know the words as well as I. Perhaps you woke one night to the full moon streaming upon your face to hear them fading, just as a dream fades, into the depths of your subconscious... never to be heard again in your waking hours. Perhaps you saw them scribed in a fast-flowing river as the voice of a god whispered in your ear and beckoned you on to become something greater, something significant. Perhaps you heard them in a song without words at a funeral as they lowered your past into the grave, leaving you with nothing to lose and nothing to look forward to but emptiness and, someday, your own death, your own descent into that dark earth.
Oh, you would not recall those words on a conscious level. Of that I am sure. They are words in a language that doesn't exist. They are words in a language that no one knows, yet paradoxically, everyone understands.
Nascentes Morimur:
From the moment we're born,
We Die.
They are words that speak a universal truth.
* * *
With a loud grinding sound of stone on stone, the door to the tomb ponderously swung open.
He paused for a moment to catch his breath, leaning heavily against the door. A slight breeze wafted out of the darkness, like the breath of a ghost, freezing the rain against his skin. It had been decades since he had last been here, but as his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he noticed that everything within was still as he had left it. Untouched, even by cobwebs and dust. Frozen like an unfaded painting that time had forgotten and left alone.
Still wheezing from the effort of pushing open the door, he padded lightly down the steps, tracing a trail of ice water in his wake to gleam between intermittent flashes of lightning like a calligraphic silver scrawl traced by some moon-dwelling snail. A wall torch crackled to life at a gesture from his skeletal left hand, bursting into a hot blue-white flame. Then another, and another, as he proceeded further into the tomb proper.
Standing across from a fountain jutting out from the patterned stone wall, exactly where he had left it, was the mirror.
There was simply something inherently magical about mirrors, which was obvious from their uses as scrying devices and portals amongst the most powerful mages on Vives. Still, there were mirrors and there were mirrors—and those of Maldovia served an altogether different purpose to other magic mirrors. This one was no exception.
Suspended behind the glass, hands clasped, head tilted down and eyes shut in repose, was a raven-haired young woman. Her long dress was an odd amalgamation of some unidentified shimmering cloth and a lightweight, reinforced metal, resembling a cross between a ballgown and plate armour. A strange design, and one that looked like it belonged in the pages of a history book. Nothing like it existed in the modern world.
The first time he had found the mirror, about three centuries ago, she had been a young girl of ten. Even after centuries of research he had not been able to fathom the mirror's secrets. But he had discovered hers. An interesting tale, but one that the world was not ready to know.
He very much doubted it would ever be.
"Grace."
The glass rippled. Her eyelids flickered, like the eyes of one lost in a dream.
And now he paused, as he always did when this moment came. This was a living relic. This was a slice of history, an anachronism, held in stasis and free from time's corrupting grasp. Every time he freed her, she stopped being an immortal legend and instead became something alive, something mortal, something vulnerable. She ceased to be a story of a time long gone and became a part of the world again. A part of the world that had no right to still exist. An entity that no longer had a place anywhere in existence, for everything she knew was gone.
...No. No, worse than gone.
And if she found out the truth, it could destroy her. Then he would never know what she knew. Her memories and experiences would be lost forever, and that was something which no magic mirror could restore.
Yet neither could she stay in there forever. Not now, not with all that was going on. She could tell no stories, no secrets in that state.
"Grace, it's time."
The ripple became a splash, spreading swiftly outwards. Her eyes shot open, her image wavering to resemble someone drowning and trapped underwater beneath a panel of ice, unable to see which way was up, which way was out, what was beyond the ice. Her mouth moved to scream words he could only guess at as she raised her fists to bang against the glass—once, twice, causing fractures to form. Panic and terror seized her expression as her incoherent silent screams became a mantra, one word, repeated over and over. He knew by now what word it was.
Papa!
The mirror burst.
She crashed unceremoniously through the glass to land on the tiled stone floor in a crumpled heap, the shards dissolving like ice in summer before they even hit the ground. Blinking rapidly, she looked around in confusion, the fear vanishing as the scene around her abruptly changed from whatever moment she'd been trapped in to the blue-lit interior of the tomb.
"Grace."
An oversized blue gem attached to a choker around her neck blinked once. Briefly, she struggled against its mind-affecting powers, a dozen different emotions warring across her face. Then her face went blank and she blinked slowly, raising her gaze to look up at him.
"...Papa?"
"That's right," he replied soothingly, dropping to a crouch beside her. "That's right, Grace, it's Papa."
Something flickered across her eyes as she struggled once more against the power of the gem, trying to reconcile what she knew with what she was seeing.
But the gem won, as it always did. The look passed.
"Papa, I had the scariest dream..."
* * *
You think it's cruel, but you don't know what I know. It would be more cruel to tell her who she is. It would be more cruel to tell her the truth. And cruelest of all to keep her imprisoned in there forever, for that would be a loss felt by all the world. A secret on display that can never be unraveled. A story forever unknown and untold.
I'm not so deluded as to think that my intentions are noble. The line between good and evil blurred a long time ago, but perhaps they were never absolutes to begin with. Perhaps they only ever exist as relative values, and the only moral compass we can rely on is our own.
Who am I? If you don't already know, then you don't need to know. I am one who preserves lore. I am one who tells tales. I am one who collects that which is lost and ensures that it does not get lost again.
What I know and what I have seen, you can only begin to imagine.
Perhaps it's best that way.
=-=-=-=-=-=* 1 Aug 05 | 14:25 *=-=-=-=-=-=
((The following was accidentally deleted and has been recovered))
~Intermission: News~
Travellers through Mirghul might notice that one raven, in particular, stares more intently than the rest, and has a tendency to flit from tree to tree to listen to follow conversing adventurers. A tricky bird, to say the least, and one that vanishes into cover or takes flight with amazing speed if attacked.
Curiousity and hope are beginning to pervade the atmosphere of terror in Brandibuck Vale, as more and more adventurers flock to the small town to investigate the mystery. |
The subculture of my dreams
Is waiting for me to fall asleep.
I know you're scared—you should be.
I know you're scared. |
|
|
|
|
Re: Blood and Nightmares
Posted: 02 Aug 2005 12:11 AM |
~Part V: After the Storm~
You think you know a story, until someone tells it to you again. I can’t recall how many times I’ve told that particular one. Different for every audience. And different every time because even after all these centuries... I’m still discovering new things. Uncovering buried facts.
They’ll be back again, with their questions and their plans. As it should be. I don’t think anyone stopped to ask what I get out of this—when information of that magnitude and quantity is given out freely, unmasked by riddles, people rarely do—but I’m certain it will occur to someone to ask at some point.
And when I tell them the truth, they will doubt it, of course. That, too, is how it’s always been. People always think that when one knows as much as I do, they only give that knowledge away to fulfil grand and devious schemes, as part of some complex powerplay.
I can tell you now that such things are beneath my interest. Such games become tiring even after a short while. There exists for everyone a point in your life when all you want to return to simpler times. Frankly, I reached that point centuries ago. I do not help or hinder. I play no large roles in stories, and my name is not found in any book. I observe. I record. And I recall, if it is asked of me. I am a medium, if you will. And happy to play that role.
When all is said and done, when this is all over, they will forget me too. As everyone in the past has forgotten. And I would not have it any other way.
Who am I? Just a bard. Just a simple bard, who’s lived too long and knows too much.
And I would not have that any other way either.
=-=-=-=-=-=* 4 Aug 05 | 20:52 *=-=-=-=-=-=
((The following was accidentally deleted and has been recovered))
~Intermission: News~
In addition to its observation of the Mirghul, the large raven is seen circling high above the Thundering Coast, searching for signs that a man with a very skinny left arm has returned from Maldovia. |
The subculture of my dreams
Is waiting for me to fall asleep.
I know you're scared—you should be.
I know you're scared. |
|
|
|
|
Re: Blood and Nightmares
Posted: 06 Aug 2005 02:15 AM |
~Part VI: Emergence~
They stalked the woods without acknowledging each other’s presence or purpose, for really, there was no need for words. The same thing called to them, drove them, whispered soothingly that this was the right thing to do, the right thing to do...
As if someone had breathed lightly upon the forest floor, an ill wind stirred fallen leaves and bush and grass, sending ripples through earth and stream.
Every bit a beast as the beasts he stalked, Vandle charged through the woods with a wild gleam in his eyes. A nightmare hound howled in the distance. Baring his teeth in a predatory snarl, Vandle howled back.
Their own power and strength of will worked against them. Consumed them. Some unseen hand guided them, possessed them.
Possessed them.
A faint scratching sound came from somewhere, the sound of something burrowing, tunneling. Not along the ground. Not down into it. But up, up, up through the earth from the unseen deep.
His robes and skin were blood-soaked. Hands that were accustomed to creating and crafting now turned to the task of single-minded destruction. Luther’s eyes burned with red obsession. Red like the fog, red like the dripping blades he held, red like his robes. Red like the demons he so hated.
The earth shifted, moved. Ever so slowly now, a lump began to form, as something pushed up through the forest floor.
He moved like a whirlwind, like a tempest, like a living storm. The wind whistled past him like a song, and that song was a dirge, a funeral wail. Lightning crackled in the darkness. Bodies fell with a sound like thunder. Alton looked at them blankly, lively eyes now dull and dead, before moving on to the hulking figures moving dimly through the blood-red mist, a whirlwind of motion once more.
A hand made of pure darkness shot up out of the ground. Then another. And another.
For a moment, Bloodwood held its breath. For a moment, there was silence.
Silently, clawing their way up from out of the ground like shadow zombies, an army of shades emerged from the forest floor... and faded into the shadows, vanishing from sight as if they’d never been.
The sounds of nocturnal slaughter resumed.
=-=-=-=-=-=* 10 Aug 05 | 12:32 *=-=-=-=-=-=
((The following was accidentally deleted and has been recovered))
~Intermission: News~
Amidst the death and terror plaguing once-idyll Brandibuck, a bizarre and unusual series of murders have been reported. Following the mysterious death of three guards at Bloodwood’s entrance, the entire family of one of the guards—mister Merodo Willowhall—was found dead in Brandibuck Woods the following day.
Unlike the other victims that the unseen foes have preyed upon, the Willowhall family seem to have been slashed and clawed to death rather than killed by terror. Wolf hairs found on the bodies, along with bite and claw marks, confirm the stories of unnaturally large canines that adventurers have, in recent times, warned travellers and dwellers of the Vale about.
* * *
Things have started to go quiet around Brandibuck and its surrounds.
The howls still echo through the night, the oversized bats still lurk on Mirghul Forest Trail, and the earth in Bloodwood still quakes as Ettins are felled and driven nearly to extinction. But a sort of silence is beginning to creep in, and with it, an ominous feeling of foreboding has begun to permeate the mood of Brandibuck's frightened townsfolk.
Tales of hounds being spotted around Brandibuck's surrounds are beginning to grow less and less common, replaced instead by tales of being faced with an emptiness and a silence that seems almost alive. When travelling along through the Bloodwood, many an adventurer has commented on the way that the darkness seems to watch with unseen eyes... even when they are completely alone.
The visible forces of darkness appear to be slowly withdrawing, but it’s a well-known fact that nature abhors a vacuum. The question on the minds of many is: what devious and sinister force is replacing this threat? And is it something they can identify and defend against? The unseen enemy has already poisoned the minds of some of Vives’ most legendary and powerful defenders in insidious ways. What hope do ordinary folk stand against something you can’t see... hear... hurt...?
* * *
The east coast continues to be rocked by tremors, which are particularly strong around the Bridge of Syn and around Valinor Castle in the heart of Maldovia. Mingling with the song of the harpies and the purposeful marching beat of shadow skeletons, a plaintive song can be heard—a female voice, high and clear, like and yet unlike a siren... singing an exquisite song of tragedy and death, a song of the fall of angels...
* * *
Those brave or foolish enough to set foot upon Maldovia might occasionally catch a glimpse around the south gate or Maldovia itself of a man dressed in black with a skeletal left arm. He keeps to himself and stays out of sight, vanishing if approached.
Sometimes a hazy form seems to follow him, a slight distortion of light that some will notice as the effect of a minor invisibility spell.
* * *
Anything slain in the Bloodwood continues to be drained of blood by the ground itself, but the ground no longer seems to shiver with every death.
Still, something obviously still lives beneath the wood. Something gargantuan and hungry. Something ready to emerge... soon.
((The hounds, howls and murders will cease during Low Level Week, leaving a foreboding silence. The storyline will kickstart with a bang early in the week following LLW.)) |
The subculture of my dreams
Is waiting for me to fall asleep.
I know you're scared—you should be.
I know you're scared. |
|
|
|
|
Re: Blood and Nightmares
Posted: 22 Aug 2005 03:52 AM |
~Part VII: Countdown to Catastrophe~
Five...
Nariel Arnatuile: He and one of our sisters visited me in the Grove yesterday and we are at least aware of where Elmirie may be found...
Nariel Arnatuile: It appears he prayed at the Tears to the Mother and was sent a vision.
Nariel Arnatuile: A vision of a flower, wilted but still alive.
Nariel Arnatuile: A vision also that included cliffs, thunder and a wood dripping with blood.
Nariel Arnatuile: Elmirie is not without considerable power so it is likely she met with something unexpected.
Nariel Arnatuile: However... she must be found, the ritual cannot proceed without her powers.
Nariel Arnatuile: Find her if at all possible and bring her to Ferein, it is likely she will be weakened and need protecting.
Nariel Arnatuile: *Smiles gently* I wish you well, may the Mother watch over you.
Four...
The door creaked open.
They found her there, in a back room of the lodge, lying sprawled on the ground before a dark, gleaming mirror. The singed corpses of vampires and vampire bats lay scattered around, some of them still smoking from whatever spell she'd used to defend herself from them.
Upon the surface of the mirror, darkness danced. Tendrils of shadow spun, swirled, writhed. A vision of another place, unreachable.
“Want me to heal er?” Connavar asked as he stepped into the room.
“Wait.” Shihaya’zad knelt by the body of Elmirie, carefully checking her for bite marks. The fallen woman’s skin and dress were crisscrossed with a myriad of long slashes made from some sort of small, sharp blade...
Shihaya’zad looked up with a nod. “Right. Let us take care of the wounds.”
“Let me,” Connavar offered.
He produced a small lyre from out of his pack and began strumming a simple tune. Shihaya’zad let him get to work, cleaning the Elven woman’s wounds as well as possible with a canteen of water and a clean cloth. For a moment, nothing seemed to happen. Then, slowly, the wounds began to seal in response to the magic of the lyre.
And abruptly burst open again.
For a moment, all Connavar and Shihaya’zad could do was stare, aghast, as something rallied against the harp’s magic and undid its healing magic. The wounds opened anew before their very eyes, leaving Elmirie in exactly the state they had found her... if not worse.
“We need to get her out of here,” Shihaya’zad decided briskly. “Gasher!”
“Yes?” came the barbarian man’s voice from the corridor.
“Can you carry Lady Elmirie?”
Connavar tucked the lyre back into his pack and moved towards the mirror on the far side of the room, stepping carefully around the fallen Elven woman and only half-listening as the others made preparations to take the lady to safety.
There was something hypnotic and altogether fascinating about the dark tendrils that danced beneath the surface of the glass, weaving nightmare patterns that beckoned, called, made you want to stare forever, reach out and touch the glass, once, just once...
“Arr. What’s up with ta mirror lass?” Jubei asked Shihaya’zad. The Dwarf glanced over to where Connavar was standing with a mixture of curiousity and concern.
“Aye, it’s quite foul...” Connavar said almost to himself, still staring at its hypnotic surface.
“It is likely best destroyed,” Gasher said, looking over, “but we are here for lady Elmirie.”
“Anyway,” Shihaya’zad interrupted briskly. “We have to get her out of here.”
With a nod, Gasher knelt down and gently scooped up the fallen woman.
Three...
Nariel Arnatuile: What happened? It is not like you to fall so easily.
Elmirie Mellebin: *Pressing a hand against her forehead, she says slowly* A mirror... I remember seeing a mirror.
Nariel Arnatuile: *Looks at the others curiously* Mirror?
Gasher Bloodspuer: Swirling with vile darkness.
Connavar: Yes, there was a foul black mirror.
Elmirie Mellebin: Long had I searched for the last remaining shard, and when I heard that it was in the hands of one forsaken by the Mother, I thought of that place. And then...
Gasher Bloodspuer: Much like the Nothing God, whose minions we battled along the way.
Shihaya'zad: Indeed... hordes of them.
Nariel Arnatuile: *Frowns* And then?
Elmirie Mellebin: And then... I believe the mirror opened. I saw things moving within it, then they were no longer within it... I had no time to put up my protections, I only recall that they were everywhere at once.
Two...
“Should take dis to miss Soliter, she might study dem.”
A strange feeling crept over him as soon as he touched the—
Alton blinked, shivering, and looked about wildly. For a moment he tried to chase a thought around his head... he was certain there was something terribly important he had to remember, but for the life of him, he could not figure out what it was. The memory eluded him as he continued to chase it around, and he finally gave up and turned his attention to his surroundings.
His first observation was that his hands were cold. Impossibly cold. It was as if the nasty old ice queen herself had breathed on them. The second thought, following closely on the heels of the first, was that he was soaked through from standing in the rain.
Slowly, he looked around the darkness, recognising the familiar outline of The Thundering Cliffs. For a dazed moment he just stood there, dumbfounded, unable to remember how he’d gotten here. Sleepwalking? No, he’d never done that in his life. Had someone brought him here? He couldn’t remember a thing. He tried to think back to the last thing he’d done and drew a blank.
“Dis is creepy,” Alton breathed. “I’m gettin’ out!”
He fled, unaware he’d taken the darkness with him.
One...
“Go on Melissa, choose... truth or dare?” Ilyana prompted as the game continued on.
The other woman turned her head slowly to face Ilyana, her lips curving into an eerie smile. “Truth.”
Ilyana sat back in her chair and lapsed into a thoughtful silence. Moments passed as she pondered, trying to come up with a suitable question.
“Tell us a secret Melissa dear, a secret you have told no other,” the Naruthian said at last.
The young woman tilted her head down to look down at her shadow, listening to a voice no one else could hear.
“A secret, a secret,” she said to her shadow. “Yes, we’ll tell that one.”
Her lilting voice changed, becoming cold and haunting.
“I know, I know, how to stop the cold dark hungry ones from eating your mind your soul your sanity. If ever you should meet them. If ever they should want you.”
One by one, several sets of eyes turned towards her.
And she told. |
The subculture of my dreams
Is waiting for me to fall asleep.
I know you're scared—you should be.
I know you're scared. |
|
|
|
|
Re: Blood and Nightmares
Posted: 28 Aug 2005 08:03 PM |
~Part VIII: Zero Hour~
Zero...
There was no fanfare, no explosion, no flashy show to signify her awakening. Spectacles of light and sound were for others. Her way was the way of shadows, of darkness, of hidden machinations.
Twin green unblinking slits slashed the darkness.
For a moment she just lay there, coiled like a great snake beneath the blood-soaked earth, listening to the thrumming of distant, massive explosions, feeling the world rock and rupture and come apart at the seams. Yes. Yes, this was right. The end of all had come. The destruction of this repulsive, meaningless existence. Her lord had prevailed.
Dissension. Destruction. Death. The end of all.
Sooner than she'd ever dared to hope, Syn's time had come. |
The subculture of my dreams
Is waiting for me to fall asleep.
I know you're scared—you should be.
I know you're scared. |
|
|
|
|
News
Posted: 08 Sep 2005 09:29 AM |
~Intermission: News~
The silence continues.
The troubles brought on by Syn's nightmare beasts have been forgotten in Brandibuck, paling in comparison to the world-shaking cataclysm that nearly ended existence. Gradually, people are returning to their everyday routines, confident in the belief that their troubles are over.
Sure, the weather’s a little crazy in the aftermath of the catastrophe. Sure, Mirghul is a scary place to travel by night, more fearsome in appearance than even the Bloodwood, and the blood-red mists are creeping closer to the Vale. But nothing bad’s happened in weeks.
Whether the danger is truly over, or is merely waiting and lulling the townsfolk into a false sense of security, only time will tell.
* * *
In apparently unrelated news, a woman who lost her baby to the Nightmare Hounds attempted to take her own life the day after the world nearly ended.
* * *
There’s increased activity in the Mirghul woods. Rangers can occasionally be seen on patrol, clearly searching for something.
Many a civilian traveller stopping at The Ol' Shabby Tavern or Ye Hole In Da Ground Inn, or any number of inns and taverns in the vicinity, will have a tale to tell of being followed by a silent escort while travelling alone in the woods.
Hunters and poachers tell a different story, of being shot at for threatening the wildlife, or of near-death experiences with the vengeful rangers of the woods.
The rangers keep to themselves and aren't terribly talkative, intent on whatever task it is that has brought them out of hiding.
* * *
The tremors rocking the east coast seem to be affecting The Great River as well... if tremors they be. Under cover of darkness, strange, half-seen shapes of gargantuan size can sometimes be glimpsed on the move, filling the mountain realms with their shadowy bulk.
These tremors only seem to come by night. Some report seeing a gigantic bat soaring over the half-seen silhouettes, letting out the occasional high-pitched screech, almost as if directing them...
* * *
A sort of blight is spreading through Paws Woods, originating from a large hollow tree. The animals are more aggressive than usual, the trees more decayed. Wild-looking women have been sighted prowling the woods by the Paws townsfolk: superbly beautiful women dressed in tattered rags, clearly fey in origin, with a habit of hunting down animals and travellers and tearing them apart with their bare hands and teeth, eating them alive.
None of the townsfolk from Paws dares to go into those woods, and will utter a brief prayer to Midoran and cross themselves at the mention of that accursed site.
* * *
Menmuir in Paws is looking slightly more haggard than usual. If asked, he'll merely mumble something about unexpected guests before trying to foist off his second-hand wares to the inquiring adventurer.
((Experiencing computer problems. Haven't been able to reliably get IG. Will hopefully be back next week or the week after. If you're investigating anything, PM me your actions and I'll tell you what you find.)) |
The subculture of my dreams
Is waiting for me to fall asleep.
I know you're scared—you should be.
I know you're scared. |
|
|
|
|
Blood and Nightmares
Posted: 13 Sep 2005 01:17 AM |
~Part IX: Malicious Machinations~
It had come as a shock to see what Menmuir had become. Somehow, Lex had never gotten accustomed to his new lease on life, and it still came as a surprise to see how quickly time passed for the rest of the world. His last memory of Menmuir was of a daring captain who had eagerly accepted a dangerous and insanely risky commission to sail past The Hungering Maw to the far north coast of Maldovia.
What he found was a ragged and tired old fisherman, bent and twisted by the cruel hands of time.
“I don’t want to know what you’ve found, Lex,” Menmuir wheezed. He ran a withered hand through his thinning grey hair. “I already know too much. I’ve seen too much and lived too long. All those adventures... oh so long ago...”
Menmuir coughed violently into his hand as Lex watched on helplessly.
“Do you still have it, old friend?” Lex asked softly when the coughing fit passed.
Menmuir nodded wearily, the years suddenly crashing down all at once to land heavily upon his shoulders. His frail form slumped even further. “So you came back for it after all,” he murmured. “I should have known... yes. I still have it. I kept it all these years.”
His voice dropped almost to a whisper.
“And may Midoran have mercy on my soul.”
* * *
She eyed the rabid, caged animals with contempt, picking her way delicately around twisted tree roots and stinking piles of faeces and unidentifiable, vile-smelling alchemical goo. The hollowed-out interior of the gargantuan tree was a revolting series of exhibitions of life in various stages of decomposition. All in all, it summed up everything she hated about the living.
Fodder, that’s all they were good for. Fodder and mind games.
Unsurprisingly, she found Zacch puttering away in his makeshift lab, deep in the bowels of the hollow tree. A nauseating odour permeated the cramped, smoky room: a combination of rotting flesh, alchemical gas and what she had come to recognise over the decades as Zacch’s own unique stink. Fighting down an embarrassingly mortal urge to vomit, she half-glided, half walked across the shadow-paths that criss-crossed the room, stopping mere centimetres behind the necromancer.
She leaned forward and breathed into his ear. Ghost-breath, grave-breath, cold as the void.
“Incompetent fool,” she hissed.
Zacch started and whirled around, narrowing his eyes. “Who’s there?” he demanded.
A shadow ripped open. A pale woman dressed in black emerged gracefully from the darkness, like a butterfly unfurling from a cocoon.
Impossibly, Zacch’s pallid expression went a few shades paler.
“La... lady Maria!” he stammered, executing a clumsy bow. “I did not expect t-to see you again! I have—”
“You have failed in the task you were assigned to do,” Maria interrupted sharply. She fought down a smirk as she watched the foolish mortal squirm. “Why do Elbereth’s Tears remain standing and whole?”
“I... I have recently made a breakthrough... two adventurers came in with—”
“Silence!” Her voice rang out like the crack of a whip. She drew herself up to her full height and looked down haughtily at the mage, who was trembling with poorly-suppressed fear.
Fear. That was the only reason she kept this one, even though he had outlived his usefulness. His fear had fed and sustained her over the course of a century, whereas his blood would only have been good for one feeding.
Fodder and mind games. That’s all they were good for. They were victims and prey, nothing more. And that’s all the pathetic things would ever amount to.
She held Zacch’s gaze until he looked away, then lowered her voice again to its usual cold, yet soothing tones. “You have one chance remaining,” she said silkily. “Fail in this task... and I will make sure that you die. Slowly and very unpleasantly.”
Zacch winced. “Y...yes, dread mistress. What do you wish?”
A slow, predatory smile slit her lips to reveal gleaming teeth and pointed fangs.
“I need you to lead an army to Maldovia,” she said smoothly. “The time has come for a new queen of the castle to be crowned... and for dear Natika to step down. Permanently.”
((Okay, computer problems are very severe, so for the immediate future, everything to do with this storyline will be handled via forums, PM or IRC. Those who are looking forward to an expedition to Maldovia scheduled for this month, I will attempt to get the rest of the vampire team to run that for me. Sorry, folks. I will at least try to get the relevant changes IG.)) |
The subculture of my dreams
Is waiting for me to fall asleep.
I know you're scared—you should be.
I know you're scared. |
|
|
|
|
Re: Blood and Nightmares
Posted: 11 Oct 2005 06:15 AM |
~Part X: The Death of Li'ilowein~
Years of experiments. Years of study. Zacch walked slowly through the dark, carved corridors of the hollow tree. He had known that this day would come, and while he had no real attachment to this place, he did feel a faint tug of what might have been regret.
His work here had been nothing but a diversion, but the fact remained that he had spent half his life here. The hollow tree—and the surrounding woods—were the result of decades of hard work.
And now he had to leave it all behind.
The scroll was a difficult one to read; he went through seven copies before he got it to work. And so it was that he went about to all the cells, sheathed in ethereality, and freed his charges… one by one.
The animals were rabid, of course. Alive, but in various stages of decomposition. These he released out into the surrounding wilds, to roam where they wished and spread Syn’s blessing of disease.
The cursed dryads were another matter altogether. They were his grand accomplishments, and he had been saving them for one special and specific purpose. He had known this day would come. And had saved them for this.
When he’d first found the gigantic hollow tree two decades ago, the dryad bound to the tree had put up a spectacular fight. He’d locked her up, of course; no use wasting such a valuable resource. Fey were strongly magical creatures, and had a vast number of arcane applications. They were, in essence, walking, living arcane components.
It did not bother him that the occasional nosy adventurer came around once in a while and tried to kill him. He had spent years weaving defences here into this place of power, and could not be slain within these woods. Besides, those fools knew little of what they were truly messing with.
Blood magic is a simple art. Ancient, raw, and powerful. It does not care whose blood is spilt. It does not care who commits the atrocity. It feeds and feeds and hungers for more. It will turn against those that invoke it, if need be. And then proceed to feed upon them. And so it mattered little whether it was a nosy adventurer that was slain, or whether it was Zacch himself whose blood was spilt. Both results suited his purpose.
Maria had accused him of failing. Yes, it was true that he had failed to corrupt Elbereth’s Tears. But Paws Woods would never be the same again. And the blight had a momentum of its own now. In a few years, perhaps decades, everything from Puffin's Paradise to Syn’s Cliffs would be corrupted. It would happen so slowly, so subtly, that no one would notice until it had happened.
Because here, in this place of magic, in this place of power, in this place that had once belonged to a Fey and to a servant of Elbereth… blood had been spilt, over and over. Nature had been corrupted, again and again. And now, as a crowning touch, he would ensure that it would continue to happen, long after he had left this place.
He put the key to the lock and turned. The portcullis clanged as it dropped open.
She was a frail and pitiful thing, both immeasurably old and yet impossibly young. Her body bore the same wounds as the hollow tree she was bound to: fouled with disease and scarred hideously. And yet somehow her natural beauty shone through, in a way that had nothing to do with the vain illusion she clothed herself with to hide the blight.
The dryad looked at him pleadingly.
“Please,” she whispered. “Have mercy. Stop these experiments and leave us be.”
Zacch’s only answer was to step aside.
Years of experiments. Years of study. His grand accomplishments awaited in the corridor outside.
The cursed dryads streamed right past him, of course: they could not harm him while the spell of ethereality held. They swarmed in through the doorway with a terrible shriek that brought a proud—though twisted—smile to his face. These were the lesser dryads that had once inhabited Paws Woods. Over the years, he had lured them all here and corrupted them, converting them from peaceful, gentle creatures to manic, bloodthirsty monsters.
The dryad’s piercing scream mingled with their wild shrieks. Their hooked, claw-like hands slashed and grabbed. Their teeth—the flat, blunt teeth of herbivores, for he had not changed that about them—bit into unprotected flesh.
And they devoured her alive.
The entire gruesome battle took the better part of two hours. Cursed they may be, but they were still weak creatures that had never been built for combat. When the deed was finally done, Zacch chanted an imprecation to Syn over the bloody remains. Then, motioning the cursed dryads over one by one, he dipped a finger in a small puddle of the dead dryad’s blood and anointed each of them with a circle on their forehead: the mark of The Void. The circle representing a snake devouring its own tail.
In another time, in another life, they may have been dryads. But as of today, they were Syncursed, now and forever.
* * *
It didn’t take long for the hollow tree itself to die. It had struggled to stay alive all these decades, and the death of the tree’s dryad was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. What little that had lived there withered and died, leaving behind an empty husk.
Zacch took one last look at his handiwork, then turned and headed to Paws Coast. His work here was done, though by no means finished. No, that inevitable end would come around of its own accord, without him to help it along. But for now, he had an army to lead.
Flitting overhead like a living shadow, a gigantic bat with blood-red eyes and oversized fangs led him out of the woods. |
The subculture of my dreams
Is waiting for me to fall asleep.
I know you're scared—you should be.
I know you're scared. |
|
|
|
|
Re: Blood and Nightmares
Posted: 15 Oct 2005 11:01 AM |
~Part XI: The Serpent~
The full white moon stared through the tattered canopy of the forest like a blind witch’s eye. Its wan silver light outlined the gnarled branches of ancient trees, tracing their twisted forms dimly in the gathering red darkness of Mirghul.
The wind breathed. The shadows rippled. The forms of trees writhed like salted slugs beneath the moon’s dull stare.
Somewhere, a werewolf howled.
* * *
Everything in the forest feared it. They did not know what it was. Only that it was coming. It had no name, or none they knew. This unnamed hungering red darkness. This thing that was darker and colder and older than night.
This thing with teeth as sharp as guilt, eyes the colour of pain and a breath that smelled of old nightmares.
* * *
The only reason the wards held was because she was already free.
There was nothing to hold. |
The subculture of my dreams
Is waiting for me to fall asleep.
I know you're scared—you should be.
I know you're scared. |
|
|
|
|
Re: Blood and Nightmares
Posted: 19 Oct 2005 12:48 PM |
~Part XII: Grace~
“She had another dream.”
It’s more a song than a statement. The voice comes from thin air. To hear it is to hear a choir speak as one voice. You can tell, even without being able to see him, that he is a Celestial.
“Did she really?”
A tone of calculated indifference replies. It belongs to a man dressed in black. His hair is an odd and vibrant purple. He looks Human, save for the skeletal arm that is where his right arm should be.
“She said she dreamt she killed her father,” the first, harmonic voice goes on. There’s a slight note of concern there now. “Do you think she means you, or her real father?”
A pause. The sound of unwelcome silence. The sound of a breath being held.
“It doesn’t matter.” The second voice is quiet, firm, and just a little tired. Who wouldn’t be tired from living too long? “Either outcome is inevitable.”
* * *
You can have the nothing or the pain, he told me. The timeless nothing or the neverending pain.
I chose the pain.
* * *
The witch comes into the story somewhere. I only wish I knew where. I remember meeting her. I remember hearing her prophecies. I was young. So young.
I can’t remember where the years went. Between the bursts of pain there is a timeless nothing in which I float. When I am in the nothing it is like I don’t exist. It is like nothing exists except for the nightmare.
* * *
He told me it was a sickness. He said I was not sick the way they were sick: I was sick in a different way and my sickness was their cure.
But who were they? Who did he mean?
The Aristi? Did he mean them or did he mean something else? The Maldovians?
That’s… that’s nonsense. We were never sick. The plague did not travel with us across the sea when we fled Aristi.
* * *
The last thing I remember is the mirror in my room.
Captain Avadielle told me, this is for your own good.
Then the nothing came for the first time.
* * *
I think the Captain and the witch worked together in this. Yes… I think that’s right. Maybe.
* * *
I remember when I first found the armour. I think Papa was upset. He had not intended for me to find it. I was cleaning something up (I forget what, now; it doesn’t matter any more).
Black and gold and instantly familiar. I had seen armour like that before. In another time. In another place. In another life.
The plague… the… city… the…
It wasn’t just the armour. The sword and shield matched. The design on the sword’s guard… the design on the shield… the armour itself… all of them pieces of some puzzle that my mind refused to piece together.
Or maybe that wasn’t the problem at all. Maybe something was stopping me.
Or someone.
They belonged to the Lady Maldovia, Papa eventually told me reluctantly.
The Lady Maldovia.
The name nags at me. The Lady Maldovia was… she was…
Was…
* * *
Why can’t I remember? Why can’t I recall?
* * *
He told me, if you want to know, you have to choose who dies.
* * *
They killed the witch. Or so I was told, much later. They killed her but it was a mistake because she never told them where I was…
…buried.
* * *
She never told them but the Captain knew.
* * *
There is a man, his name is Rastilan. He is an expert at what he does.
What he does is inflict pain.
* * *
Charvanya did not like it when Captain Avadielle was handed over to Rastilan. She did not like it at all.
* * *
Who is this who weeps for me and thinks that I am dead? He looks in the mirror but the mirror is my eye and my eye cannot see him: he has no reflection.
* * *
The images come too
fast,
too
many
and I
bleed.
* * *
This is precisely the reason he doesn’t like letting her outside.
She has the hunched-over, twisted posture of someone trying valiantly not to be sick. Her eyes are closed almost to slits, only the whites showing, but her eyelids flicker with rapid movement as the eyes beneath swivel and swerve.
Anything could have triggered it. They are standing on the road past the north gates of Maldovia. Maybe it was the sign pointing north, unreadable as it was. Maybe it was the tattered Maldovian banners that still adorn the wall and turrets: the red circle on a black background. Anything, anything could have set her off.
“Grace?” he calls softly, carefully.
A stream of words escapes her. Incoherent and tangled at first, but as always, they settle and calm down. And become clear:
“Who is this who weeps for me and thinks that I am dead? He looks in the mirror but the mirror is my eye and my eye cannot see him: he has no reflection.”
She speaks with an accent that sounds like a variation of a strong Central or Eastern Midoran accent.
“If you want to know, you have to choose who dies,” he tells her, not for the first time. How many times has this moment come and gone? Too many times over the course of too many lifetimes.
She spouts another garble of words. Blood streams from her nose. Then, a brief moment of lucidity.
Her eyes snap open and she looks directly at him.
“Esef’ani eneil oles Lhlh,” she snarls abruptly, the accent in full force. Her dark eyes, usually clouded over, have become as piercing and alert as a predator’s. “Srhil’da neyenn een riani?” she demands. “Srhil rhfi esef ideeni?”
He does not understand the words, but the emotion behind them is all too clear. Panic. Fear. Confusion.
And a thousand years’ worth of blazing white-hot anger.
* * *
Even as it happened, I knew with a sickening certainty that I would not remember any of this afterwards. I am not permitted to remember.
* * *
He says one word:
“Sleep.”
There is a simple amulet around her neck, little more than a thin silver chain with a blue gemstone about the size of a fingernail attached to it. The gem glows softly at the word.
Her mouth opens and shuts soundlessly in protest, shaping words that die stillborn and silent.
And
she
falls…
* * *
In the nothing deep in nowhere, the nightmare comes.
* * *
I wake and there is blood on my hands.
* * *
I wake and find that it was a dream. There is no blood. Only a crypt. And the crypt belongs to me. And the witch is dead and only she knows where I am buried. The Captain has sworn not to tell. She does not count.
I cannot tell anyone either. I cannot scream for help. I am buried. I am trapped behind the mirror.
* * *
I wake and there is no mirror. I am safe and sound at home. Or at least, I think it is home. I’m still a little fuzzy on that detail. Someone told me that it was and… well, what else am I supposed to believe?
But then I turn around and the mirror is there. And the crypt is there too, all around and everywhere, though it pretends it’s not a crypt. I want to scream but I’m empty of sound.
The nothing or the pain. I’d rather take the pain, but someone always takes it away. Someone always takes that choice away.
* * *
I wake again and again and again and I don’t know when the waking ends. |
The subculture of my dreams
Is waiting for me to fall asleep.
I know you're scared—you should be.
I know you're scared. |
|
|
|
|
The End
Posted: 01 Nov 2005 10:52 PM |
~Part XIII: Of Endings, Aftermaths, and Beginnings~
Lex
"There are some things that cannot be forgiven. But you, of all people, would know that."
He addressed the glowing ball of light, which merely hovered in silence.
Slowly, Lex approached the metallic hemisphere which squatted on the rain-drenched, rocky west coast of Maldovia. Surrounded by six immense glowing blue obelisks, it was an impressive sight to behold.
The hemisphere irised open, a combination of some sort of advanced proximity-detecting spell and fancy mechanics triggering it off. Within, a glowing blue-white spiral swirled.
"I told them the others weren't portals. They're emitters for the nightmares. Still... it's the same technology." He paused. "And this one is different. Or rather, it is different now. Reverse-engineered. I suppose, in that way, it is a portal. It acts like one and they'll treat it as one because it's convenient to do so. No one ever looks very closely into these things."
"What if their sacrifice was not enough to shift its destination? What if it still leads to the darkness?" The floating ball of light sang melodically.
"Well. There's one way to find out, isn't there?" He half-turned towards the squat structure that jutted out from the rocks. The rain was pouring into the tomb's open door.
It would be a pity if this did not work. But this was why he'd brought her out of stasis in the first place, after all.
"Grace," he called.
* * *
Zacch
The Maldovian forces had retreated to the mountain. If he'd been a smarter tactician, he would have seen the ambush coming from a mile away. They'd been beaten far too easily and had pulled back far too quickly. And up in the shifting grounds of the mountain, they had the high ground.
But he, Zacch, was a mage, not a general. And he sent his army of shadow giants after them in hot pursuit.
The victory at the mountain was as complete a victory as he had ever seen. Unfortunately, the Maldovians won.
They didn't even lift a finger in their defense. His army simply stopped for a moment, then kept advancing.
Not to attack them; to join them.
A woman's voice, melodic and haunting and soft, but with the steely undertones of command, rang out to his army—his army:
"Welcome home."
At first, his addled mind thought that the voice was Maria's. But no. Maria was a petty child, and she sounded nothing like that. And even as he watched his army turn around to face him, the owner of the voice stepped into the dim blue-purple light.
She was a vampire, of course. Whatever she had been when she was still alive, it was clear that she'd been something more than merely human. She must have already been incredibly, immortally old when Syn's forces had turned her, but she had that perpetually youthful look to her that just about every immortal did.
And she wore armour that was distinctively Celestial. Whether she'd been one, or had slain one and taken it for herself, he did not know. Either way, not someone to be taken lightly.
"What do you think?" her eyes were on Zacch, but her musical voice was directed at someone else.
Another woman stepped out from the shadows, a vampire with a single streak of white running through her blood-red hair.
"I care nothing for her useless pets," the redhead purred. "He's expendable; and not worth the effort to turn. Kill him."
Zacch was vaguely aware of the slimy ground shuddering beneath his feet under the tread of giant footfalls. His mind scrabbled to find the spells he'd memorised earlier, but he'd used them all up in the first stages of the battle, over in the city of Maldovia.
"No!" he snapped, panicked. "How did you... how... they were mine to command!"
"They have long memories," the red one explained casually, her voice somehow audible through the pounding steps of the giant army. "Exiled from Maldovia and banished to the Great River long ago. Then enslaved by Naillamne. Oh, yes, and you are from Naillamne, aren't you? Or you were. You all should have done a better job and tried harder to keep them there."
He turned but the path leading down to the Vandavian River was no longer there. And with a shock, he realised that the mountain was alive; it had shifted to block off his escape.
And he was trapped.
"Maria approached them and promised to take them home. What a pity I was three steps ahead of her; I'd already promised the same thing and told them to play along. Of course, she was supposed to come with them. Seeing that she isn't here, I'll just have to take it out on you. I already have another plan in the works to end her petty grab for power and make an example out of her." A slight note of amusement entered her voice. "But listen to me, rambling like a third-rate villain. Where are my manners? I'm Natika.
"Remember that name for the nine seconds you have left to live."
* * *
Mirghul
The disappearance of that... that whatever-it-was had been a relief. An adventurer who'd passed this way had called it a portal, but James wasn't so sure that it really was. All that was left where it had been was the stone pedestal that the quakes had uncovered, and the blue-white spiral that glowed from the pedestal's centre.
Good skies, he hated the thing. It was just unnatural.
The sooner they found their druid, the better. He still wasn't entirely convinced that the man had gone into hiding to wait this disaster out; it had been months now.
No, the more likely explanation was that he'd somehow become incapacitated. Or worse. Maybe he was already dead.
It was something to bring up at the next ranger gathering. And maybe next time, Mirghul's vaunted Sunbringers would actually show up.
* * *
Brandibuck
And just like that, it was over.
The sun shone again. The birds sang again. The candles and pumpkins and crosses were packed away like props after a play, like the debris left in the wake of a huge party.
Bibbido stood unsteadily on the slope, looking down upon Brandibuck Vale from the road that led to Swiftdale. He was thinking back four hundred years, to the last time this had happened.
And just as it had been then... there was no sign that anything out of the ordinary had ever happened.
He swayed a little in the breeze, a thousand thoughts and emotions tumbling through his alcohol-addled brain. The deaths, the nightmares, the murders, the possessions, the darkness, the silence, the waiting, the partying, the walk, the singing and dancing and the light. Fear and anger and joy and sadness most of all; always sadness.
The sun dipped low beneath the hills, spraying rainbow colours across the sky. It had only been a few short days of darkness, but it felt like it had been forever since Brandibuck had seen a sunset like this. Or any sort of sunset at all.
And with that, Bibbido raised his candle—the last candle of all in this drama as it drew to a close—and blew it out.
Night fell like a curtain upon an empty stage.
* * *
Morgaruva
She existed, as she always had existed. In buried corners of the mind. In little moments of doubt, frustration, fear, rage. In every hasty angry remark; in every uncertain moment of indecision. As with everything in this tale that went around and around in circles, through the centuries, through time... what they saw was not what she actually was. And so she continued on existing.
Thinned out, dispersed, but still there. Still waiting.
One by one the lights went out.
And in the silent darkness left by the extinguished light, she prowled.
~The End~ |
The subculture of my dreams
Is waiting for me to fall asleep.
I know you're scared—you should be.
I know you're scared. |
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|