Mokley — Roleplayer Guild

"The name's Aslynn, what's yours?"

The little armored boy stared up at Aslynn in wide-eyed respect, his sword held tightly in his small hands with a trained grip. He would have jumped into the fray if he'd had any indication that Aslynn had been in trouble. He'd just been biding his time.

"Cod, Ma'am." He stood straight and bowed to her, and he chanced a glance over at the deer and the sparrow shifting dazedly in the grass in the pale violet light. "M'name is Cod, Miss Aslynn. Did you really use the Lantern to make a sword?" He pointed gingerly at the wooden sword with the curved blade. "I thought I could use it to make a wall that'd keep the Kith out of our village, but it wouldn't work for me. Baba says it only works for people who've seen the sun. Have you really seen the sun, Miss Aslynn?" he asked with the sort of wonder as if Aslynn might have met Santa Claus.

Branches shuddered, and a high-pitched, tittering screech rang out through the forest. Shadows crossed between the trees and voices murmured.

Cod gripped his sword in one hand and grasped Aslynn's fingers in the other. "More are coming!" he declared heroically. "Kith come in packs, we have to run! This way, I know a secret path."

He urged her into a darker part of the forest, toward the mountain.

"Wha – aaAAEEEEEEEI!"

A terrified scream rang out above them: over their heads, the great wings of a gryphon soared in silhouette against the moon, carrying a long stick in its beak.

White masks appeared among the trees around Aslynn and Cod, but the armored child didn't slow down -- until a root underfoot surged out of the ground and Cod tripped, his grip on Aslynn's hand saving him. The tree branches moved unnaturally, like reaching arms and veinous fingers. Fireflies gathered ahead, hovering and flashing invitingly; Cod dragged Aslynn away from them. "Don't let them see you!" he whispered loudly, leading her down a slope between the close walls of boulders.

Atop the boulder, a group of five Kith crouched, laughing. "We can see that Lantern from miles away!" one of them hollered, while another -- wearing the mask of a monkey -- picked up a stone and chucked it with incredible speed at the back of Aslynn's head. Two others broke into a sprint across the stones to head them off.

Ahead, at the end of the stone passage, the trees broke and the path continued up the moonlit slope of the mountain.

The gryphon stood hopefully over Artemis, its tufted tail swinging, even after she'd gone quiet and exhausted on the ashen ground. It whined deep in its throat, patted the ground with its enormous paws -- and finally sat on its haunches with a low hum of boredom.

The landscape around them was black, with scarred trees burned to a dead white crisp. The moon shone bright down upon them and cast a pale glow on the dead ash. The ground under Artemis was slightly damp, and not far away a smolder of an old fire still breathed tendrils of smoke. The trees were freshly burned and had been doused in water not more than a day ago. Everything smelled sweet like smoke and damp wood. Artemis might hear a distant rush of churning water.

"Nap like that there too long and the blood-rats'll getcha." A man's smiling voice called out toward Artemis. He sat lazily in the branches of a dead white tree, watching her with a grin. His skin was dark as the charred ground, he was thin and sinewy as a reed, and he wore a simple peasant's clothes. Below him, a bonfire crackled, made of gathered snapped branches and curled weeds.

"I heard a sun-child set the fire. That wasn't you by any chance, was it?"

Anise would feel the shift of the tree's compliance, like the flip of a switch, now that the Witch was incapacitated and distracted. The tree was very much dead, but the magic the Witch had used to control it had shifted to Anise's will through the power of the Lantern. The branches gently lifted her higher, toward the bright glow of the moon, and set her down beside the white-bright fissure in the trunk.

CLANG. CLANG. CLANG.

Anise's attempts to break the blue Lantern's casing against the tree was announced to the entire lake through the echo of metallic banging -- but it was not without reward. The white Lantern's power was seeping into the blue, and something fresh and cool and exhilarating rushed through Anise, mixed with the ferocious desire that the blue Lantern barely contained.

The fissure widened suddenly -- at the same time, the casing of the blue Lantern snapped.

Power rushed into Anise's veins like electricity.

The blue dragon's egg was freed.

Anise need only grip the edge of the fissure, and the Witch's magic -- now controlled by the Lady of Light -- would do the rest. The metal folded away, and the white Lantern was exposed to her, glowing bright and surrounded by ticking gears and winding threads.

The moment she touched it, the electric power was combined with the feeling of floating -- just before her body lifted slightly off the tree, suspended by nothing at all but the power of the white Lantern.

The blue egg knew how to fly. It whispered to Anise the dragon's instinct.

Below, a small explosion flung Peck away and against the tree, hitting his head. The Witch got to her feet in a monstrous rage, and with a flick of her wrist three spears of ice materialized out of the lake and sped like bullets at Anise's chest.

Deep in the darkest depths of the forest, the Lord of Shadow was not happy.

WHY IS SHE ALIVE! he roared to his quivering army of dead souls, his eyes blazing, and the trees surrounding him withered in fear. The release of the Spirit egg from its iron confines had resounded among the Lords and Ladies of the elements -- and now its power was amplified by the Lantern of Flight, which also gave his adversary the ability to quickly find the rest of the eggs and accomplish her infuriating goal.

THIS ONE, TOO. A PAIN IN MY ASS. He pointed in the general direction of the burned-out wastes, where Artemis was communing with an enemy and not at all doing what she was supposed to do. The Lord of Shadow had given her the Lantern of Fire for a reason -- had thrown her in the path of the False-Lady-of-Light for a reason -- and Artemis had completely defied and destroyed all of the Lord of Shadow's hopes for her. She was powerless and worthless to him now.

AND NOW THERE'S ANOTHER ONE. He growled, exasperated, as one of his ghostly spies reported to have found a sun-child bearing the Lantern of Illusion, currently caught in the fight between Kith and Pirate. STAY WITH HER. DON'T LET HER OUT OF YOUR SIGHT. AND DON'T LET HER DROP THAT LANTERN. JAM IT DOWN HER THROAT IF YOU HAVE TO. He wouldn't let Artemis' mistake happen with Aslynn. He was finished trusting the important things to incompetent henchmen.

Speaking of which.

JASPER. The Lord of Shadow -- a presence of sweeping darkness, brimming with power and authority -- sat in his throne of black charred bones and summoned the old pirate to his presence.

Jasper Neary -- the old pirate whom Anise had killed in cold blood -- stepped forward, shuddering in fright. His performance in the service of the Lord of Shadow had been dismal, to say the least. He'd failed to kill Anise when she was most vulnerable, he'd failed to enlist the loyalty of Artemis, and he'd let the Lantern of Fire be locked up in the Witch's house, the one place none of them could reach it.

YOU'RE FIRED, JASPER. The Lord of Shadow waved his dark clawed hand, and blood erupted from the old pirate's skull where Anise had bashed it in. His body went cold and bluish-white, and fell limp, to the jeering and screeching of the monkeybats hopping in the trees above. Jasper's soul turned black like the others, chained to the will of the Lord of Shadow.

The Lord of Shadow huffed in frustration, snarled, surged to his feet, and paced the clearing while the blood-rats feasted on the old pirate's corpse. He tapped the intelligence of his spies throughout the forest, saw Anise flinging herself through the air, saw Artemis lying in soot, saw Aslynn fending off Kith with a wooden sword, saw -- hang on.

A slow, fangy smile drew across the Lord of Shadow's face. Yes. Yes, he'd nearly forgotten. Oh, it was perfect. It seemed forever ago that he had restored that free spirit to its former corpse, just to see what it would do -- just to keep it as a pet. Now there was little time left to set everything in motion, to take advantage of the wild card he'd had in his hand all along -- the one thing that could withstand and control the power of the False-Lady-of-Light.

The Lord of Shadow moved through the darkness, and he materialized out of the shadow of a tree, just out of sight of a campfire. A hunting party of Pirates sat beside the fire, playing cards, their backs to him and their weapons at ready.

His pet was, at this moment, tied pathetically to a tree. The pirates had captured it and were holding it captive, possibly because it smelled like death and darkness -- probably because Pirates simply never trusted strangers.

I know what you want.

The Lord of Shadow whispered into the weakened prisoner's ear. Grinning.

To watch the light fade from the eyes of the pure. To spill the blood of the self-proclaimed innocent. To stand powerful while the world decays. We can be of assistance to one another, you and I. Give me your soul, and my power is yours."

An agreement -- a deal -- was far more powerful than simply taking what he wanted. The Lord of Shadow had every intention of filling this new pet with every ability he possessed; with a hand over its face and a chilling flood of needle-sharp pain, and a cold bloom of raw power in its chest.

The Lord of Shadow had every intention of creating a monster.

"Uhhhhh... I'm Rose? Who might you be?"

"Are you always this cheery, even to giant voices in the sky?"

"Uhhh... did the world end while I was asleep? Or did I miss something?"

Rigby bounced and leaped down to the crumbling floor, skittered out of the way of falling concrete, teetered on the edge of the growing glowing chasm in the floor, bounded to Rose's side, snatched the banana peel while she was distracted by the voice-in-the-sky, and he stuffed the whole thing in his mouth. Nali patted him on the head and he growled with his mouth full and leaped again to perch atop a fallen slab of concrete while the Stone rumbled and broke all around them.

It seemed not a one of them was taking this calamity seriously.

After all, who could fear death who had been dead?

Several of those who had stood around Rose plummeted into the churning glowing depths below. Their bodies flailed like ragdolls, broke on the gears and spun into the brightness beneath. Another was struck in the head by concrete and thrown headfirst into the clockwork abyss. Those who had awakened from certain death were being slaughtered one by one, their blood spattered on the pipes. It was as if the Stone were intent on the deaths of the condemned.

And then there were four.

Rose would hear the voice from the sky whispering in her ear. That's a pretty name. Perhaps you will be mine, Rose. A piercing pain stabbed her head, then a bursting pressure like something was forcing itself into her skull. Taking her over. Something dark, deep, menacing.

The singing reached a fevered pitch, behind the banging of the ogre's club. At the same moment, the Stone thundered and the roof collapsed in a torrential fall of stone and rain.

Rose was suddenly released and thrown back; the voice was gone from her head in an instant. She would see a shimmer of a shadow -- huge, flickering, white-eyed -- flung away from her and smashed against the trembling rubble.

The singing stopped.

The thunder stopped.

The rain stopped.

The walls stopped shaking, and the roof stopped breaking.

The gears below squealed to a halt, and the orange glow died.

Before them was a monstrous dark shape, full of sharpness and decay, its eyes big and glowing white. It twitched and flickered and towered over them like emptiness itself. This was what had tried to force itself into Rose's mind, before the singing in the next room had driven it out.

But the song was done, and they all were dead -- save four.

Its voice was like the hiss of a snake.

I AM A GOD IN NEED OF A BODY. YOU ARE ALL BODIES IN NEED OF YOUR GOD. DO I HAVE A VOLUNTEER?

The singing had weakened him; he could no longer hang in the sky and bellow down at them with the threat of worldly power. He could no longer force his way into Rose's head -- but he could accept an invitation.

The shadow twitched and flickered like static, and its bright eyes stared through them.

HURRY, OR SHE WILL SING AGAIN. He chuckled darkly. AND YOUR BLOOD WILL RUN.

Mokley Member

aka windyfiend

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