<Snipped quote by Flagg>
Not feeling too great, which is kinda interfering with ability to write and then not delete it because it's crap.
Happens to us all- stick with it!
Flagg Member
Strange. This outcome I did not foresee.
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Happens to us all- stick with it!
yeah. interested.
yeah lot of quality people here. I'll throw my proverbial hat in the proverbial ring.
The Gods were hungry. Malik could feel it in his chest, a faint tugging at his heart in the direction of the Blade he carried across his back.
He could not see nor hear nor touch the Gods, but he knew they buzzed around him like flies, invisible, ravenous, eager to be nourished on the blood of mortals. So great were They that men and mutant were little more than Their cattle. And he, Malik, Swordarm and wielder of Huntsman, he was pleased to be Their instrument. Their chosen butcher.
No greater honor existed than to spend one's life satiating Them, and by keeping Them fed and content, sustaining all Azoth in being.
The Swordarm was walking alone, barefoot, clad in a simple white tunic. He carried nothing save the Blade slung across his back. He did not need to eat. He did not require water. If he nourished the Gods, They would nourish him in turn. Devotion, said the scriptures of the Forge, is food enough for the Perfect. Always hungry, always parched, a true servant of the gods would never starve nor die of thirst- so long as he kept the Gods fed.
All around him rose pale, fleshy stalks of fungus tall and thick as any tree, swarming with glittering beetles and strung with tangles of grey moss. The underbrush was rampant with mushrooms of every color, interspersed with faintly waving tendrils that clung feebly at Malik's legs as he walked by.
The Squalid Vale was an unlovely place.
Nestled between the low, jagged mountains of the Claws and the Western branch of the mighty Godsfangs, the Vale had been tamed, Malik knew, in times now gone. Settled by Ashlanders fleeing the wars of aelgmen and Dratha, then civilized by the Sashuls who had conquered the displaced nomads in their place of exile. The fungus-jungles had been burned back, the land cultivated and turned to fitting use. Towns and even cities had risen up here under the stern order imposed by Nyssos. The provincial capital of Xusa, never a metropolis, had nonetheless been famed for its intricate stonework and its magnificent Forge.
But those times were over. While the Empire fractured, bandits, rebels and-inevitably- mutants, took the Vale for their own as the imperial armies fell back to protect more prosperous lands. Chaos and misrule allowed the jungle to return, and the Squalid Vale lived up to its name once more.
Malik could not help but feel a twinge of sadness as he passed by the broken stone of ancient salszi buildings, now mottled with lichen and grown over with fungal vines. Mourning what had become of his Empire.
The Order, he knew, would endure, even if the Empire it had helped conquer the known world failed. Privately, in that part of his mind he hoped even the Gods could not reach, he wondered why his superiors seemed so indifferent to the fate of the young Sashul. He wondered if the power of the Blade he was honored to carry might not be put to better use than hunting renegades at this time of unsurpassed peril. Could not a squadron of Swordarms be sent to defend threatened Zar Salis? To infiltrate the Ashlands and kill the heathen Khalul or his dread lieutenants? Could not the power of the Order be used to make the Empire great again?
Malik pushed such questions from his mind, bordering as they did on disobedience and doubt. It was not the role of a Swordarm to question, merely to obey, to feed the Gods, and to kill Their enemies.
The heathen Olms, he knew from the subconscious urgings of his Blade, lay somewhere many leagues ahead, on the other side of the Claws. Olms and the stolen weapon was Malik's business. Not questioning.
And besides, there were more immediate tasks at hand- They were hungry. If he was to continue his hunt for Olms, the Gods would need appeasing.
Malik came upon a clearing, filled with the slender, waving stalks of immature fungus-trees. He drew Huntsman from its scabbard, admiring how it caught the dim light along its fine edge.
"COME BEASTS AND FEED THE GODS," shouted Malik at the top of his lungs. His voice echoed into the depths of the pale forest.
He stood there, weapon drawn, waiting. His eyes were closed; his expression serene.
It took them the better part of an hour to appear, emerging into the clearing from the shadowed woods in all directions. Beastkin. Disgusting mutants with the bodies of men but the fanged, horned, slit-eyed heads of monsters. Hands twisted into claws. Skin mottled with fur and scales. Some had chitin mandibles where their mouths belonged. Many had more than two arms.
It was also clear that some had been infested by the forest in which they dwelt, with fungal protrusions and the fruiting bodies of mushrooms sprouting from eye sockets, mouths, ears, armpits and joints.
Their weapons were varied and poor- some sported rusted axes of saliszi make, others crude hatchets and clubs of stone and wood.
All in all, Malik was disappointed. A poor meal for the Gods, and a lackluster challenge for him. Despite the fact that there were well over thirty of the creatures all around him.
The beastkin snarled at each other in their barbarous tongue. Then they charged.
He could not see nor hear nor touch the Gods, but he knew they buzzed around him like flies, invisible, ravenous, eager to be nourished on the blood of mortals. So great were They that men and mutant were little more than Their cattle. And he, Malik, Swordarm and wielder of Huntsman, he was pleased to be Their instrument. Their chosen butcher.
No greater honor existed than to spend one's life satiating Them, and by keeping Them fed and content, sustaining all Azoth in being.
The Swordarm was walking alone, barefoot, clad in a simple white tunic. He carried nothing save the Blade slung across his back. He did not need to eat. He did not require water. If he nourished the Gods, They would nourish him in turn. Devotion, said the scriptures of the Forge, is food enough for the Perfect. Always hungry, always parched, a true servant of the gods would never starve nor die of thirst- so long as he kept the Gods fed.
All around him rose pale, fleshy stalks of fungus tall and thick as any tree, swarming with glittering beetles and strung with tangles of grey moss. The underbrush was rampant with mushrooms of every color, interspersed with faintly waving tendrils that clung feebly at Malik's legs as he walked by.
The Squalid Vale was an unlovely place.
Nestled between the low, jagged mountains of the Claws and the Western branch of the mighty Godsfangs, the Vale had been tamed, Malik knew, in times now gone. Settled by Ashlanders fleeing the wars of aelgmen and Dratha, then civilized by the Sashuls who had conquered the displaced nomads in their place of exile. The fungus-jungles had been burned back, the land cultivated and turned to fitting use. Towns and even cities had risen up here under the stern order imposed by Nyssos. The provincial capital of Xusa, never a metropolis, had nonetheless been famed for its intricate stonework and its magnificent Forge.
But those times were over. While the Empire fractured, bandits, rebels and-inevitably- mutants, took the Vale for their own as the imperial armies fell back to protect more prosperous lands. Chaos and misrule allowed the jungle to return, and the Squalid Vale lived up to its name once more.
Malik could not help but feel a twinge of sadness as he passed by the broken stone of ancient salszi buildings, now mottled with lichen and grown over with fungal vines. Mourning what had become of his Empire.
The Order, he knew, would endure, even if the Empire it had helped conquer the known world failed. Privately, in that part of his mind he hoped even the Gods could not reach, he wondered why his superiors seemed so indifferent to the fate of the young Sashul. He wondered if the power of the Blade he was honored to carry might not be put to better use than hunting renegades at this time of unsurpassed peril. Could not a squadron of Swordarms be sent to defend threatened Zar Salis? To infiltrate the Ashlands and kill the heathen Khalul or his dread lieutenants? Could not the power of the Order be used to make the Empire great again?
Malik pushed such questions from his mind, bordering as they did on disobedience and doubt. It was not the role of a Swordarm to question, merely to obey, to feed the Gods, and to kill Their enemies.
The heathen Olms, he knew from the subconscious urgings of his Blade, lay somewhere many leagues ahead, on the other side of the Claws. Olms and the stolen weapon was Malik's business. Not questioning.
And besides, there were more immediate tasks at hand- They were hungry. If he was to continue his hunt for Olms, the Gods would need appeasing.
Malik came upon a clearing, filled with the slender, waving stalks of immature fungus-trees. He drew Huntsman from its scabbard, admiring how it caught the dim light along its fine edge.
"COME BEASTS AND FEED THE GODS," shouted Malik at the top of his lungs. His voice echoed into the depths of the pale forest.
He stood there, weapon drawn, waiting. His eyes were closed; his expression serene.
It took them the better part of an hour to appear, emerging into the clearing from the shadowed woods in all directions. Beastkin. Disgusting mutants with the bodies of men but the fanged, horned, slit-eyed heads of monsters. Hands twisted into claws. Skin mottled with fur and scales. Some had chitin mandibles where their mouths belonged. Many had more than two arms.
It was also clear that some had been infested by the forest in which they dwelt, with fungal protrusions and the fruiting bodies of mushrooms sprouting from eye sockets, mouths, ears, armpits and joints.
Their weapons were varied and poor- some sported rusted axes of saliszi make, others crude hatchets and clubs of stone and wood.
All in all, Malik was disappointed. A poor meal for the Gods, and a lackluster challenge for him. Despite the fact that there were well over thirty of the creatures all around him.
The beastkin snarled at each other in their barbarous tongue. Then they charged.
I am here, my computer access is just unexpectedly limited atm so I'm doing my best to get my post up. Sorry.
Glad to see nobody's dropped. I was waiting for someone else to post simply out of convention but if nobody's about to make a new post I might just get rolling with my next post anyway.
@TheSovereignGrave
well I posted. Didn't advance the plot as far as i wanted but its something.
They were at the Gates of Paradise.
Just now it was hard to see why the Ashlanders had given this place so grand a name. Nothin but swirlin steam over a flat ashen plain, pockmarked with boiling pools and vents. Capillaries of scalding water crisscrossed the grey earth everywhere like scars, forcing Olms' gaan to choose its footing slow and careful.
The steam, heavy with the bad-egg reek of sulfur, was so white and thick you could hardly see ten paces in any way you cared to look.
A four day slog north from Zar Yiin, through trackless boulder fields and forests of thin, blue-needled pikepines had brought them here. Olms rode in front, slumped relaxed in the saddle, Sword across his back, pale eyes alive beneath the low brim of his hat, lookin for shadows in the swirling white mists.
Behind him Gabul and Aiva- for that was her name, the barkeep turned wizard's pupil- shared a gaan, and muttered quietly to each other. After a few days roughin it with them in the emptiness of the Ashlands, Olms knew they weren't sharin lovers' whispers back there.
No, the Drathan was teachin her the mysteries of his kind. Explainin tenets of sorcery, or the history of his strange race, or the movements of the stars.
To Olms' untrained eye, at least, the girl seemed a gifted student.
The night previous, the three of them sittin quiet around the low campfire, Gabul looks at her with those black eyes, nods to the fire. She sits up straight, jaw clenches but she doesn't otherwise move.
Olms feels the hairs on his neck rise, feels the Sword give a little hungry shudder.
The fire explodes in a burst of sparks, then dies.
Aiva opens her eyes, frownin and studyin the smoldering remains of the wood. Olms throws her a wink.
"Nice work," he says. Puttin a fire out just by willin it so- that ain't nothing to scoff at, the way he sees things.
Gabul's face remains impassive, and it's to him that she is lookin. He shrugs and says, "The embers still burn."
Still, thinks Olms, not bad for less than a week of lessons.
Now, a small breeze blows in from the east, and the steam from the boiling pond to their left is blown out of their path somewhat. Some leagues ahead, low, crooked mountains are visible, black against the grey horizon.
"That's them," said Olms, "Where we're headed, the Claws. Once we get through the Gates, it's just the Smoking Forest between us and the uplands."
"I know where we are," said Gabul in his soft, low voice.
Olms smiled and turned in his saddle to face the wizard and his student, "That was for the benefit of the lady."
Aiva smirked.
"Thank you, Delavan," she said. She tended to call Olms by his first name, like no one else had done for a long time. "I 'preciate not being kept completely in the dark."
Her eyes and her smile turned toward Gabul, sitting behind her. His face remained expressionless as ever.
"You will learn of our errand as we complete it," he said, "as I have told you."
"Strange to take someone along on a journey when you don't them trust enough to explain your purposes," said Aiva. Olms raised an eyebrow.
"Yes," said Gabul, "It is. Strange also for you to join a mercenary and a wizard on a trip into the wilds without knowing their destination. Perhaps we are headed to some hidden altar to the nameless gods, and are bringing you as a sacrifice?"
"Thought had crossed my mind. But then I remembered that devils tend to eat virgins. 'sides, you both haven't spent your whole lives in Zar Yiin," she said with a bitter laugh, "puts the risk of getting killed in perspective."
She was quiet a moment. "Why do they call this place the 'Gates of Paradise' anyway?"
"The Dratha do not, nor do the Nyr'kiin," answered Gabul, "What bugfolk call this place in their clicking tongue translates to 'Bittersoup', for the poisoned water. Dratha call it the Land-of-Bright-Shadows."
He fell silent, as though he had answered her question. She opened her mouth to ask a new one, but Olms shook his head.
"The aelgmen named this land, they think it close-by to God," he said, "You'll see why."
They rode on among the seething lakes and belching springs. As afternoon wore on to evening, the rays of the sinking sun caught the swirling eddies of steam and filled them with light, painting the mist in hues of gold and scarlet. The once-dreary thermal plain was transfigured around them, the waters and steam bright with all the colors of sunset.
The trio stopped in the middle of it. None of them spoke. Driven by the light breeze, a pillar of steam washed over them and they found themselves lost in a glowing cloud.
"I..." said Aiva.
"This is least of the wonders I will show you," said Gabul quietly.
To say nothing of the horrors, thought Olms. But he did not speak.
Just now it was hard to see why the Ashlanders had given this place so grand a name. Nothin but swirlin steam over a flat ashen plain, pockmarked with boiling pools and vents. Capillaries of scalding water crisscrossed the grey earth everywhere like scars, forcing Olms' gaan to choose its footing slow and careful.
The steam, heavy with the bad-egg reek of sulfur, was so white and thick you could hardly see ten paces in any way you cared to look.
A four day slog north from Zar Yiin, through trackless boulder fields and forests of thin, blue-needled pikepines had brought them here. Olms rode in front, slumped relaxed in the saddle, Sword across his back, pale eyes alive beneath the low brim of his hat, lookin for shadows in the swirling white mists.
Behind him Gabul and Aiva- for that was her name, the barkeep turned wizard's pupil- shared a gaan, and muttered quietly to each other. After a few days roughin it with them in the emptiness of the Ashlands, Olms knew they weren't sharin lovers' whispers back there.
No, the Drathan was teachin her the mysteries of his kind. Explainin tenets of sorcery, or the history of his strange race, or the movements of the stars.
To Olms' untrained eye, at least, the girl seemed a gifted student.
The night previous, the three of them sittin quiet around the low campfire, Gabul looks at her with those black eyes, nods to the fire. She sits up straight, jaw clenches but she doesn't otherwise move.
Olms feels the hairs on his neck rise, feels the Sword give a little hungry shudder.
The fire explodes in a burst of sparks, then dies.
Aiva opens her eyes, frownin and studyin the smoldering remains of the wood. Olms throws her a wink.
"Nice work," he says. Puttin a fire out just by willin it so- that ain't nothing to scoff at, the way he sees things.
Gabul's face remains impassive, and it's to him that she is lookin. He shrugs and says, "The embers still burn."
Still, thinks Olms, not bad for less than a week of lessons.
Now, a small breeze blows in from the east, and the steam from the boiling pond to their left is blown out of their path somewhat. Some leagues ahead, low, crooked mountains are visible, black against the grey horizon.
"That's them," said Olms, "Where we're headed, the Claws. Once we get through the Gates, it's just the Smoking Forest between us and the uplands."
"I know where we are," said Gabul in his soft, low voice.
Olms smiled and turned in his saddle to face the wizard and his student, "That was for the benefit of the lady."
Aiva smirked.
"Thank you, Delavan," she said. She tended to call Olms by his first name, like no one else had done for a long time. "I 'preciate not being kept completely in the dark."
Her eyes and her smile turned toward Gabul, sitting behind her. His face remained expressionless as ever.
"You will learn of our errand as we complete it," he said, "as I have told you."
"Strange to take someone along on a journey when you don't them trust enough to explain your purposes," said Aiva. Olms raised an eyebrow.
"Yes," said Gabul, "It is. Strange also for you to join a mercenary and a wizard on a trip into the wilds without knowing their destination. Perhaps we are headed to some hidden altar to the nameless gods, and are bringing you as a sacrifice?"
"Thought had crossed my mind. But then I remembered that devils tend to eat virgins. 'sides, you both haven't spent your whole lives in Zar Yiin," she said with a bitter laugh, "puts the risk of getting killed in perspective."
She was quiet a moment. "Why do they call this place the 'Gates of Paradise' anyway?"
"The Dratha do not, nor do the Nyr'kiin," answered Gabul, "What bugfolk call this place in their clicking tongue translates to 'Bittersoup', for the poisoned water. Dratha call it the Land-of-Bright-Shadows."
He fell silent, as though he had answered her question. She opened her mouth to ask a new one, but Olms shook his head.
"The aelgmen named this land, they think it close-by to God," he said, "You'll see why."
They rode on among the seething lakes and belching springs. As afternoon wore on to evening, the rays of the sinking sun caught the swirling eddies of steam and filled them with light, painting the mist in hues of gold and scarlet. The once-dreary thermal plain was transfigured around them, the waters and steam bright with all the colors of sunset.
The trio stopped in the middle of it. None of them spoke. Driven by the light breeze, a pillar of steam washed over them and they found themselves lost in a glowing cloud.
"I..." said Aiva.
"This is least of the wonders I will show you," said Gabul quietly.
To say nothing of the horrors, thought Olms. But he did not speak.
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