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Ezekiel
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rush99999
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Syrenrei
Zeus23
Penny Member
STATUS: Ethical issues aside, AI prose is just really bad. 7 days ago
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Recent Statuses
7 days ago
Current
Ethical issues aside, AI prose is just really bad.
3
likes
15 days ago
She wanted to read, she wanted to write, but the main thing she wanted was something to fight
4
likes
1 yr ago
Make it clear that you don't need him to be reading Dante tomorrow. Also suggest it would be fun if you had a private language that you could use to mock English speakers in secret.
5
likes
2 yrs ago
Luckily history suggests an infinite ability for people to be shit heads ;)
1
like
3 yrs ago
Achmed the Snake
1
like
Bio
Early 30's. I know just enough about everything to be dangerous.
Most Recent Posts
In her dream Jocasta lay by the crystal blue waters of the river that flowed through her home town. In those days she hadn’t needed to know it as anything more complicated than ‘the river’ as if it were the only one she would ever encounter. The warm summer breezed wafted the swaying reeds against her nose, tickling her and making her want to sneeze. Then again. Then a third time. Abruptly the river leaped up and poured over her chest!
Jocasta sat up with a scream and instinctively swatted at her dragon fly enchantment. The damned thing had just dumped a pitcher of water over her. The moment of fuzzy disorientation passed and she heard other screams from outside. She sprang to her feet and threw open the shutters of woven cane just as a toxin began to peel. Outside in the street she saw dark shapes leaping and capering amidst the shadows.
“Larios!” she yelled and a pale green orb the size of a small child blazed into being, bathing the street in light. Dark black creatures, so dark they glistened an unhealthy looking purple in the sorcerous light, turned to glare at her. They were hideous, with distended bloated looking faces and long hinged jaws filled with chisel like teeth. They held rusty kopesh and bows made from some kind of animal bone. Beren tackled her around the waist a moment before three arrows flew through the window to embed themselves in a tapestry.
“What is happening,” she demanded, though it was obviously an attack. Beren snatched up his staff and wrapped a loin cloth around his waist.
“Stay here,” he commanded then turned and strode out into the street. He obviously wasn’t being serious Jocasta reasoned and popped her head up to look. The black… tar fiends, she decided were swarming. Here and there a door opened and the inhabitant of the house was met with a flurry of stabbing swords and moaning arrows.
“Well don’t just hover there,” she told her dragonflies, and the pair of enchanted earrings zoomed away, darting and harassing the enemy. Jocasta wove her hands in an intricate pattern and spoke several more words. A palm tree whirled down, its fronds spinning like blades, decapitating one of the creatures, toppling it in a spurt of dark ichor. There were so many of them, at least a score were visible from her window and clearly many more were abroad. Flames began to sputter from several buildings, catching quickly as palm frond thatch blazed, sending towers of sparks into the sky. Several of the creatures ran to the door below and began to pound on it but Beren had clearly locked it when he went out into the street. Jocasta plucked a scroll from the pouch that lay against the wall and read the words aloud, a sheet of frost flared into existence, freezing the attackers like statues in a film of ice.
The villagers were awake now, they ran forward with scimitars and axes, hacking into the tar fiends. The creatures fought back, not with blood mad frenzy, but with deliberate violence that made Jocasta worry for Beren. There was a shattering crash from the temple at the end of the street as one of the tar fiends burst out of the door, a stone tablet under one arm. He scampered away, up over the palisade and away into the desert night. Discipline seemed to collapse as the creatures began to follow their own individual instinct, unfortunately that seemed to be to kill everything in sight. A sudden surge of magic warned her and Jocasta threw up a shield of pale green light a second before the front of the inn exploded. She tumbled out of the ruined window and into the street, her fall broken by a wagon loaded with dates. She lay amongst the sticky fruit, still naked as she had woken. A half a dozen tar fiends surged towards her. Before she could rize a lantern flew across the street and hit the lead tar fiend in the face. There was a crash of breaking glass and a whumpf of combusting oil as the lantern shattered. The two dragonflies flittered out of the explosion, not even looking back. Jocasta staggered to her feet.
“Imperitieo sar Mardin!” she cried and spun her hands in opposing circles. The dates rose up like a circling tornado and spattered into the eyes and faces of the on rushing monsters. She picked up the spear from the one the dragonflies had brained with the lantern and cast it over hand threw the belly of one of the now candied monsters. The creature who had cast the spell stepped from the shadows and waved a staff topped with several bleached skulls. The dates rained down onto the dusty street as the spell withered and died. The spell caster, a shaman of some kind perhaps, was shorter than his fellows, gnarled with age and covered with scars barely visible on his glossy black skin. He leveled his staff and barked a word in his guttural tongue. A skull wrought of purple fire flew from the tip of his staff towards her. Jocasta squeaked in panic and threw up one of her research spells meant to trap magical essences. The skull clipped it, then careened off into a wagon filled with woven rugs, they burst into sickly smelling smoke and began to burn. Jocasta reversed her palms and cried out a spell, she whipped her hands to the left and there was a sudden crack. A wagon leaped forward and crushed the shaman against an adobe wall with a sickening splat. The tar fiends near her chittered at each other and then charged. Jocasta yelled another spell and the ground beneath their feet became mud four feet deep, they plunged into the much struggling to keep their footing, it smelled pungently of dates. She twisted her hand and the mud became a sticky candy, trapping them hopelessly.
“Beren!” she yelled, ducking another flight of arrows and darting down a side street, “Beren!”
Jocasta sat up with a scream and instinctively swatted at her dragon fly enchantment. The damned thing had just dumped a pitcher of water over her. The moment of fuzzy disorientation passed and she heard other screams from outside. She sprang to her feet and threw open the shutters of woven cane just as a toxin began to peel. Outside in the street she saw dark shapes leaping and capering amidst the shadows.
“Larios!” she yelled and a pale green orb the size of a small child blazed into being, bathing the street in light. Dark black creatures, so dark they glistened an unhealthy looking purple in the sorcerous light, turned to glare at her. They were hideous, with distended bloated looking faces and long hinged jaws filled with chisel like teeth. They held rusty kopesh and bows made from some kind of animal bone. Beren tackled her around the waist a moment before three arrows flew through the window to embed themselves in a tapestry.
“What is happening,” she demanded, though it was obviously an attack. Beren snatched up his staff and wrapped a loin cloth around his waist.
“Stay here,” he commanded then turned and strode out into the street. He obviously wasn’t being serious Jocasta reasoned and popped her head up to look. The black… tar fiends, she decided were swarming. Here and there a door opened and the inhabitant of the house was met with a flurry of stabbing swords and moaning arrows.
“Well don’t just hover there,” she told her dragonflies, and the pair of enchanted earrings zoomed away, darting and harassing the enemy. Jocasta wove her hands in an intricate pattern and spoke several more words. A palm tree whirled down, its fronds spinning like blades, decapitating one of the creatures, toppling it in a spurt of dark ichor. There were so many of them, at least a score were visible from her window and clearly many more were abroad. Flames began to sputter from several buildings, catching quickly as palm frond thatch blazed, sending towers of sparks into the sky. Several of the creatures ran to the door below and began to pound on it but Beren had clearly locked it when he went out into the street. Jocasta plucked a scroll from the pouch that lay against the wall and read the words aloud, a sheet of frost flared into existence, freezing the attackers like statues in a film of ice.
The villagers were awake now, they ran forward with scimitars and axes, hacking into the tar fiends. The creatures fought back, not with blood mad frenzy, but with deliberate violence that made Jocasta worry for Beren. There was a shattering crash from the temple at the end of the street as one of the tar fiends burst out of the door, a stone tablet under one arm. He scampered away, up over the palisade and away into the desert night. Discipline seemed to collapse as the creatures began to follow their own individual instinct, unfortunately that seemed to be to kill everything in sight. A sudden surge of magic warned her and Jocasta threw up a shield of pale green light a second before the front of the inn exploded. She tumbled out of the ruined window and into the street, her fall broken by a wagon loaded with dates. She lay amongst the sticky fruit, still naked as she had woken. A half a dozen tar fiends surged towards her. Before she could rize a lantern flew across the street and hit the lead tar fiend in the face. There was a crash of breaking glass and a whumpf of combusting oil as the lantern shattered. The two dragonflies flittered out of the explosion, not even looking back. Jocasta staggered to her feet.
“Imperitieo sar Mardin!” she cried and spun her hands in opposing circles. The dates rose up like a circling tornado and spattered into the eyes and faces of the on rushing monsters. She picked up the spear from the one the dragonflies had brained with the lantern and cast it over hand threw the belly of one of the now candied monsters. The creature who had cast the spell stepped from the shadows and waved a staff topped with several bleached skulls. The dates rained down onto the dusty street as the spell withered and died. The spell caster, a shaman of some kind perhaps, was shorter than his fellows, gnarled with age and covered with scars barely visible on his glossy black skin. He leveled his staff and barked a word in his guttural tongue. A skull wrought of purple fire flew from the tip of his staff towards her. Jocasta squeaked in panic and threw up one of her research spells meant to trap magical essences. The skull clipped it, then careened off into a wagon filled with woven rugs, they burst into sickly smelling smoke and began to burn. Jocasta reversed her palms and cried out a spell, she whipped her hands to the left and there was a sudden crack. A wagon leaped forward and crushed the shaman against an adobe wall with a sickening splat. The tar fiends near her chittered at each other and then charged. Jocasta yelled another spell and the ground beneath their feet became mud four feet deep, they plunged into the much struggling to keep their footing, it smelled pungently of dates. She twisted her hand and the mud became a sticky candy, trapping them hopelessly.
“Beren!” she yelled, ducking another flight of arrows and darting down a side street, “Beren!”
Dove sei, amore della mia giovinezza?
Quale tramonto svergogna la tua bellezza?
Quale tramonto svergogna la tua bellezza?
To Calliope’s ancient eyes Ubtar was a strange sight. It lacked the gold and lapis domed temples and fluted obelisks which marked a major city to her mind. Though several rather gaudy palaces were in view, there was no central sacred district around which the life of the city should revolve. Why did the city even exist if not for the worship and placation of the Gods? The center of Ubtar was, without a doubt, the port. It was sited on a natural bay from the shoulders of which two great break waters had been constructed from piled stone. The two arms partially overlapped to create a narrow channel for ships to pass. The arms were partially sheathed in cut limestone but the work had not yet been completed, giving them the appearance of partially peeled bananas or claws extended from their sheaths. A great copper cauldron stood at the point the two breakwaters crossed, a beacon to ships. And such ships! The harbor and its approaches were choked with them, larger and longer than those Calliope had seen in her own time. They had great triangular sails and banks of oars which propelled them through the water like skittering insects. The flocked to piers which jutted out from the shore like the fine hairs of a stinging lily. Teams of men were visible moving boxes of cargo or great amphorae two and from the ships.
The city lacked the grandeur of Direasaphon or Silvershod Tarais but it was big, especially if it was, as Beren implied, a regional center rather than a true metropolis. The smells were the same though, fish, and people, and the omnipresent smoke of cook fires. So many people gathered in one place. Given a large percentage of humanity had been annihilated on the Plain of the Black Ziggurat, the centuries since must have been prosperous indeed. That vaguely offended Calliope for some reason, how dare these cattle prosper while she was entombed in stone.
“Uhhh… Calliope…” Beren began, using her name with obvious trepidation. She whirled on him, eyes blazing and he stepped back holding his hands up in warding gesture which wouldn’t have saved him if he didn’t have a mystical bond with her that prevented her from boiling his blood where he stood.
“Maybe a little less of… whatever that is?” he suggested, pointing at her. She looked down to find herself covered in a coat of black dragon scale, great black wings sprouted from her shoulders and a wyrm-wrought war helm covered her head. She tossed her head and her clothing melted back into flowing robes of midnight blue, cinched at the waist with a silver chain.
“Fine,” she replied, her anger fading. If men had prospered, that simply meant more subjects to toil beneath her!
The two great warhorses thundered past each other, their iron shod hooves throwing up great clods of dirt. A lance exploded against a shield and the knight in cream and gold staggered in the saddle. Both knights kept their seats as they raced to the end of the quintain and wheeled their horses to a stop. Squires ran forward with fresh lances, cups of wine, and damp cloths to sooth their principals.
Theophanna fanned herself elegantly with a printed paper fan from distant Chin. It was a beautiful item given to her by the Convent as part of her dowry and it drew avaricious glances from all the nearby ladies. Basalia did not enjoy a high martial reputation among these westerners, although this likely had more to do with the fact that Basalian army was largely made up of commoners, paid for and trained by an Imperial Exchequer that far outstripped anything the feudal lords could manage, but Basalian wealth was almost axiomatic. Theophanna felt her loyalty was more to the Convent than to the State but had been forced to sit through more than her fair share of swaggering braggarts making comments. Loyalty. The Convent, Basalia, Terriche, Vence, Orbai, her husband: so many loyalties to keep track of. The Convent was sometimes called the School of Mask but at times Theophanna had to wonder if there was any real person left under all the poses and poises. Sigfried’s hand squeezed her knee and she looked up from her musings to she him cheering with excitement as the knight in cream and gold, Sir Pavik of Gnor she recalled, sent his opponent sprawling into the dirt. Theophanna patted her husband’s hand dutifully and he removed to call for his page to enquire after the winnings for a bet he had placed.
They were seated in the ducal box, with four coats of arms hanging downward. All but the Falkenrath coats of arms were of ancestors who owed fealty to Tirrche, a signal that Orbai was, or at least wanted to be seen, as loyal to the crown. At least Theophanna thought it would be a signal, politics could be surprisingly murky or shockingly direct in a way it would never be in the sophisticated courts of the East. Perhaps Sigfried just liked the colors. Thoughts of the King drew her eyes to Jean du Cleson who continued to lounge about with his cronies. A steady stream of Imperial knights had visited him, each coming away looking like they had lost a livre and found a sous. That too might or might not be significant. What was significant was a knight was hassling her husbands page, the altercation only lasted a moment but it was clear he was asking the boy where he was heading. Was Sigfried planning something? Could he be without her knowing? No that wasn’t possible but that didn’t mean others didn’t think so. She let her eyes drift across the field to where Aristophanna set fluttering her own fan, she bid a subtle but steady pattern.
Watching. Priest. Help. Interrogative.
Fan speaking was a court past time in Brasalia but the dialect the Convent used was a closely guarded secret. It used simple words and many nonsense signals to confound attempts to decode it.
Priest. Bad. Knowledge. Theophanna sent back, smiling in spite of herself at the long suffering expression which came across her friends face. Theophanna wished she could talk to her friend but that might be dangerous for both of them, Il knew that two Basalian’s from the convent talking was assumed to be a plot and it ran a real risk of starting trouble even if there was none. What trouble? The situation with Albrecht was making her paranoid. Still she didn’t want anything she wrote to her friend to fall into unfriendly hands, as it almost certainly would if she sent a page. Maybe she could ask Sigfried to visit Aristophanna’s husband… Torm wandered into view looking, to Theophanna’s eyes, a little despondent. An idea occurred to her and she waved her kerchief at the young man at arms. Torm dutifully approached.
Theophanna scribbled a quick coded note on a scrap of parchment, then drew an emerald ring from a pouch. She slid the paper into the ring and dropped it into a pouch which she passed to Torm.
“Good sir, I ask a kindness of you, I am afraid I have lost a wager with my friend Lady Aristophanna Giovanna,” she said, making a gesture to the woman in her box.
“Would you convey her winnings to her, I would send a page but I simply don’t trust them not to run a foul of pickpockets in a place like this,” she asked innocently.
Theophanna fanned herself elegantly with a printed paper fan from distant Chin. It was a beautiful item given to her by the Convent as part of her dowry and it drew avaricious glances from all the nearby ladies. Basalia did not enjoy a high martial reputation among these westerners, although this likely had more to do with the fact that Basalian army was largely made up of commoners, paid for and trained by an Imperial Exchequer that far outstripped anything the feudal lords could manage, but Basalian wealth was almost axiomatic. Theophanna felt her loyalty was more to the Convent than to the State but had been forced to sit through more than her fair share of swaggering braggarts making comments. Loyalty. The Convent, Basalia, Terriche, Vence, Orbai, her husband: so many loyalties to keep track of. The Convent was sometimes called the School of Mask but at times Theophanna had to wonder if there was any real person left under all the poses and poises. Sigfried’s hand squeezed her knee and she looked up from her musings to she him cheering with excitement as the knight in cream and gold, Sir Pavik of Gnor she recalled, sent his opponent sprawling into the dirt. Theophanna patted her husband’s hand dutifully and he removed to call for his page to enquire after the winnings for a bet he had placed.
They were seated in the ducal box, with four coats of arms hanging downward. All but the Falkenrath coats of arms were of ancestors who owed fealty to Tirrche, a signal that Orbai was, or at least wanted to be seen, as loyal to the crown. At least Theophanna thought it would be a signal, politics could be surprisingly murky or shockingly direct in a way it would never be in the sophisticated courts of the East. Perhaps Sigfried just liked the colors. Thoughts of the King drew her eyes to Jean du Cleson who continued to lounge about with his cronies. A steady stream of Imperial knights had visited him, each coming away looking like they had lost a livre and found a sous. That too might or might not be significant. What was significant was a knight was hassling her husbands page, the altercation only lasted a moment but it was clear he was asking the boy where he was heading. Was Sigfried planning something? Could he be without her knowing? No that wasn’t possible but that didn’t mean others didn’t think so. She let her eyes drift across the field to where Aristophanna set fluttering her own fan, she bid a subtle but steady pattern.
Watching. Priest. Help. Interrogative.
Fan speaking was a court past time in Brasalia but the dialect the Convent used was a closely guarded secret. It used simple words and many nonsense signals to confound attempts to decode it.
Priest. Bad. Knowledge. Theophanna sent back, smiling in spite of herself at the long suffering expression which came across her friends face. Theophanna wished she could talk to her friend but that might be dangerous for both of them, Il knew that two Basalian’s from the convent talking was assumed to be a plot and it ran a real risk of starting trouble even if there was none. What trouble? The situation with Albrecht was making her paranoid. Still she didn’t want anything she wrote to her friend to fall into unfriendly hands, as it almost certainly would if she sent a page. Maybe she could ask Sigfried to visit Aristophanna’s husband… Torm wandered into view looking, to Theophanna’s eyes, a little despondent. An idea occurred to her and she waved her kerchief at the young man at arms. Torm dutifully approached.
Theophanna scribbled a quick coded note on a scrap of parchment, then drew an emerald ring from a pouch. She slid the paper into the ring and dropped it into a pouch which she passed to Torm.
“Good sir, I ask a kindness of you, I am afraid I have lost a wager with my friend Lady Aristophanna Giovanna,” she said, making a gesture to the woman in her box.
“Would you convey her winnings to her, I would send a page but I simply don’t trust them not to run a foul of pickpockets in a place like this,” she asked innocently.
“This really is shorter?” Beren asked as he trudged along behind Calliope. The strange path flowed by on both sides, often changing wildly every few hundred meters. Narrow strips of alpine forest, with snow dusted pines, butted up against salt desert or tropical jungle. One section they carefully crossed appeared to be ocean that poured endlessly into the void, the road laid atop a bed of crushed coral. Where the road bowed out slightly there were sometimes structures or ruins of structures, twisted towers, strange castles, or just filthy burned out lean-tos.
“Yes,” Calliope replied.
“But we have been walking for days,” Beren complained.
“Why would I lie to you?” Calliope asked. Beren gave her a suspicious look.
“Wasn’t one of your names ‘The Mother of Lies’,” he accused.
“No,” Calliope replied, her lips twitching into a slight smile at the irony.
“It feels like we have covered a lot of distance,” Beren continued doggedly.
“Yes,” Calliope replied. Beren was silent for long moments, merely trudging along. Calliope sighed and her clothing seemed to ripple from dark steel armor into a long, black, high collared dress robe. Beren recognized it as a distant ancestor of philosopher’s garb, familiar from statues and temple frescos, though few philosophers he had ever met filled it out quite the way she did.
“Your logic is correct but based upon a faulty assumption,” Calliope said pedantically. Beren swatted at a mosquito the size of his hand as it darted in to try to drain him of his blood. He let out a sign.
“Then by all means enlighten me,” he told her. Calliope’s ability to speak his tongue had not made her talkative.
“You are laboring under the misapprehension, that time passes at the same rate here as it does in your…our world,” she explained.
“Time passes more slowly here?” he asked. Calliope nodded.
“But for us it appears the same?” he pressed.
“To an extent, you can spend subjective years in here and you will never age, nor will you grow hungry or thirsty,” she explained and Beren realized that she was right, they had not paused to eat or drink in what felt like an entire day, nor did he feel tired.
“Immortality?” he asked. Calliope laughed and her garment shifted again, taking on the aspect of a ritual gown of deep midnight blue. Oddly it seemed darker than the starlit sky all around them.
“Of a sort,” she gestured at a ruined tower that looked like it might once have been made of fine porcelain, “why do you think there are so many structures, would be magi who tried to make the between their home and cheat death.”
“But it doesn’t work?” Beren asked, thinking of the countless ruins that dotted the insane landscape.
“I suppose there might be a first time for everything,” Calliope replied noncomittaly.
“What happens to them?” Beren asked, crossing to the side of the road to peer at a white object concealed beneath a bush. Closer inspection revealed a bleached skull.
“They happen to themselves, magi fight, the summon things they cant control,” she shrugged her shoulders, “and in the Between there are things that don’t belong in our world, other gates that lead to places we can’t go.”
“Like that beast I fought?” Beren inquired shrewdly.
“That is one such creature,” Calliope admitted, “better not to think about it, it may attract them.”
“Nothing is ever simple with you, I bet…” Calliope thrust her hand out and blocked Beren from stepping further. He flinched back and dropped into a defensive crouch but no threat presented itself.
“We are here,” Calliope announced and stepped off the road into the void.
Water was all around them. Calliope was momentarily shocked to find herself beneath salt water. She hadn’t survived as long as she had by allowing panic to rule her and she spoke a word of Aklo, forbidding the water to touch her. A sudden pressure against her ear drums vanished and she dropped six inches to the sandy bottom, the water fleeing from the silt around her feet until it was dry as death. A large silvery fish flopped around on the sand. Calliope booted it into the wall of water a few feet from her, out of disgust than mercy. Beren splashed into the bubble spraying water at her, but it peeled around her like rain being blown onto clear glass, refusing to make contact.
“Wha…” Beren spluttered, looking around a little wide eyed. Calliope’s clothing had altered again, waving in long silken strands as though she was the center of a kelp forest. There was light to see by, though it was dim, the surface was shimmering perhaps fifty feet above them. Behind them stood a stone archway, caked with barnacles and seaweed and beyond that a shipwreck through which colorful fish darted.
“We are on the bottom of the ocean?” Neil (or whatever his name was) demanded incredulously.
“Truly my master, your powers of perception are razor sharp,” Calliope responded dryly, in more ways than one.
“The world has changed since my time it seems,” she said with commendable understatement.
“We should be a mile or two from the where you said the city was located,” she made a gesture in a westerly direction. The sand sloped upwards, slowly but noticeably towards a beach.
“Shall we continue our walk?”
“Yes,” Calliope replied.
“But we have been walking for days,” Beren complained.
“Why would I lie to you?” Calliope asked. Beren gave her a suspicious look.
“Wasn’t one of your names ‘The Mother of Lies’,” he accused.
“No,” Calliope replied, her lips twitching into a slight smile at the irony.
“It feels like we have covered a lot of distance,” Beren continued doggedly.
“Yes,” Calliope replied. Beren was silent for long moments, merely trudging along. Calliope sighed and her clothing seemed to ripple from dark steel armor into a long, black, high collared dress robe. Beren recognized it as a distant ancestor of philosopher’s garb, familiar from statues and temple frescos, though few philosophers he had ever met filled it out quite the way she did.
“Your logic is correct but based upon a faulty assumption,” Calliope said pedantically. Beren swatted at a mosquito the size of his hand as it darted in to try to drain him of his blood. He let out a sign.
“Then by all means enlighten me,” he told her. Calliope’s ability to speak his tongue had not made her talkative.
“You are laboring under the misapprehension, that time passes at the same rate here as it does in your…our world,” she explained.
“Time passes more slowly here?” he asked. Calliope nodded.
“But for us it appears the same?” he pressed.
“To an extent, you can spend subjective years in here and you will never age, nor will you grow hungry or thirsty,” she explained and Beren realized that she was right, they had not paused to eat or drink in what felt like an entire day, nor did he feel tired.
“Immortality?” he asked. Calliope laughed and her garment shifted again, taking on the aspect of a ritual gown of deep midnight blue. Oddly it seemed darker than the starlit sky all around them.
“Of a sort,” she gestured at a ruined tower that looked like it might once have been made of fine porcelain, “why do you think there are so many structures, would be magi who tried to make the between their home and cheat death.”
“But it doesn’t work?” Beren asked, thinking of the countless ruins that dotted the insane landscape.
“I suppose there might be a first time for everything,” Calliope replied noncomittaly.
“What happens to them?” Beren asked, crossing to the side of the road to peer at a white object concealed beneath a bush. Closer inspection revealed a bleached skull.
“They happen to themselves, magi fight, the summon things they cant control,” she shrugged her shoulders, “and in the Between there are things that don’t belong in our world, other gates that lead to places we can’t go.”
“Like that beast I fought?” Beren inquired shrewdly.
“That is one such creature,” Calliope admitted, “better not to think about it, it may attract them.”
“Nothing is ever simple with you, I bet…” Calliope thrust her hand out and blocked Beren from stepping further. He flinched back and dropped into a defensive crouch but no threat presented itself.
“We are here,” Calliope announced and stepped off the road into the void.
Water was all around them. Calliope was momentarily shocked to find herself beneath salt water. She hadn’t survived as long as she had by allowing panic to rule her and she spoke a word of Aklo, forbidding the water to touch her. A sudden pressure against her ear drums vanished and she dropped six inches to the sandy bottom, the water fleeing from the silt around her feet until it was dry as death. A large silvery fish flopped around on the sand. Calliope booted it into the wall of water a few feet from her, out of disgust than mercy. Beren splashed into the bubble spraying water at her, but it peeled around her like rain being blown onto clear glass, refusing to make contact.
“Wha…” Beren spluttered, looking around a little wide eyed. Calliope’s clothing had altered again, waving in long silken strands as though she was the center of a kelp forest. There was light to see by, though it was dim, the surface was shimmering perhaps fifty feet above them. Behind them stood a stone archway, caked with barnacles and seaweed and beyond that a shipwreck through which colorful fish darted.
“We are on the bottom of the ocean?” Neil (or whatever his name was) demanded incredulously.
“Truly my master, your powers of perception are razor sharp,” Calliope responded dryly, in more ways than one.
“The world has changed since my time it seems,” she said with commendable understatement.
“We should be a mile or two from the where you said the city was located,” she made a gesture in a westerly direction. The sand sloped upwards, slowly but noticeably towards a beach.
“Shall we continue our walk?”
The second night of Pie Week was in full swing by the time they returned to the College. Instruction was finished for the day and apprentices and tradesmen alike were celebrating in the courtyards and platz. Wagons laden with food, wine, and ale were doing a brisk trade and the crowds seemed merry and good natured. Here and there minor spells crackled as apprentices engaged in playful boasting and showing off but any serious magic would bring irritated magisters down on their students.
"Can you believe we pulled that off?" Emmaline asked, still breathless with excitement.
"I can hardly believe you didn't kill us both, where did you ever get the idea to fly on gold coins?"
"I just couldn't bear to let the assassins get all that gold!" Emmaline replied, her cheeks flushed and eyes bright with excitement.
"Also killing us," Malcador pointed out. Emmaline blinked as though this thought hadn't occurred to her. Malcador could only shake his head at how much the gold lust had blinded her to the danger they had been in.
"Sigmar alone knows what rumors will spread about it," Malcador added. Emmaline shrugged her shoulders. Strange things happened on the Street of a Thousand Taverns and the Gods knew half of the witnesses had been drunk. Magisters might hear it from the palace of course but Emmaline was hoping that news would take a while to filter back to the College. Albrect wouldn't be mad that she had cast spells in public, but he would be furious that she hadn't given him a share of her gold. The thought of the gold made Emmaline reach into her belt pouch and run her fingers through the wealth of gold coins and let out a soft moan.
"So," Emmaline said, a wicked gold glazed look stealing over her, "any plans for the rest of the night?"
"Can you believe we pulled that off?" Emmaline asked, still breathless with excitement.
"I can hardly believe you didn't kill us both, where did you ever get the idea to fly on gold coins?"
"I just couldn't bear to let the assassins get all that gold!" Emmaline replied, her cheeks flushed and eyes bright with excitement.
"Also killing us," Malcador pointed out. Emmaline blinked as though this thought hadn't occurred to her. Malcador could only shake his head at how much the gold lust had blinded her to the danger they had been in.
"Sigmar alone knows what rumors will spread about it," Malcador added. Emmaline shrugged her shoulders. Strange things happened on the Street of a Thousand Taverns and the Gods knew half of the witnesses had been drunk. Magisters might hear it from the palace of course but Emmaline was hoping that news would take a while to filter back to the College. Albrect wouldn't be mad that she had cast spells in public, but he would be furious that she hadn't given him a share of her gold. The thought of the gold made Emmaline reach into her belt pouch and run her fingers through the wealth of gold coins and let out a soft moan.
"So," Emmaline said, a wicked gold glazed look stealing over her, "any plans for the rest of the night?"
“There are at least a score of them out there,” Malcador reported as he stepped back into the room, he shed the cloak he had taken from the tap room below. “Averlanders by the look of those ridiculous mustaches. They have the place surrounded.”
Emmaline was rubbing one of the golden coins along the band of her ring while she gazed at the chest of gold, still guarded by a suspicious Humper. The metal seemed to chime softly at the contact.
“They have a wizard too,” Malcador added.
“How do you know?” Emmaline asked. Malcador stared at her incredulously.
“Because I paid attention in class?” he responded, aghast that Emmaline had apparently skipped so basic a lesson. Her education was shockingly spotty, surprisingly deep in places but with corresponding holes where she had never bothered with, or never been taught, the basics.
“Blackwoods,” Clodfoot growled.
“Who?” Emmaline asked, tearing her gaze from the chest with obvious effort.
“They are a family of wizards in Averland, more power hungry and greedy than most humans,” Clodfoot supplied. Emmaline shrugged her shoulders, not recognising the name, but Malcador arched an eyebrow.
“Blackwood was the name of that wizard wasn’t it, when you dressed me up as a knight?” Malcador asked Emmaline.
“Dressed you up as a knight?” Humper asked, “is that a sex thing?”
“No,” Malcador told him.
“Yes,” Emmaline replied in the same breath. The halfling glared at them.
“Why would a wizard want you dead?” Emmaline asked.
“If I die it will mean a power struggle between Averland and the Moot,” Clodfoot said, climbing out of the bed he had been resting in to recover a bottle of brandy from a pack. He pulled the cork from the bottle and took a long drink, which was doubtless a sin against good liquor.
“Why would the Blackwoods want that?” Emmaline asked. Clodfoot made an equivocal gesture with the bottle.
“The Blackwoods spend most of their time fighting among themselves, praise be to Taal,” Clodfoot explained. “The family is lousy with wizards, some of whom are a little too close to Sylvania if you take my meaning.”
Emmaline did. The Amethyst College was ever at pains to point out how much it hated necromancy and the undead but there was always a suspicion that they were too close to the same mysteries.
"Trouble in the Moot would let them snap up more land and influence, both of which they are hungrier for than an Ogre in a sausage shop."
“So what is the gold for?” Malcador asked. Clodfoot peered at the young wizard then sighed.
“Political chicannery that will frustrate attempts to claim lands on the borders of the Moot, it is more complicated than it is interesting,” he explained.
“Say less,” Emmaline agreed emphatically, her interest in political manuvering evidently exhausted. She glanced out the window at the afternoon sun then back towards the gold, her emotions clearly split between the precious metal and the possible entertainment she was missing on the second day of Pie Week.
“Can’t we just go and get the guard or something?” she suggested.
“They have to have paid off the guard or they would already be here,” Humper snapped, “besides they probably saw you warn us, I doubt they will let you just walk out of here.”
“I doubt they are going to let any of us just walk out of here,” Clodfoot said, his mustaches drooping, “I think they would have stormed the place already if you hadn’t thrown them off balance with your little stunt. In a few minutes they will find their balls and we will be in real trouble.” The Halfling noble's voice was tinged with despair.
“We could…” further discussion was interrupted by shouts from below and the pounding of feet on the stairs. Clodfoot’s eyes widened in panic.
“Block the door!” he shouted, and his two bodyguards leaped to the heavy wooden door, throwing their shoulders against it a moment before someone tried to pull it open. A shoulder slammed against it and the door shook. Malcador grabbed the edge of a bed and began to heave. Clodfoot, realising what the wizard was about, grabbed the other end, and they shoved the bed against the door, baring it for the time being.
“Now what do we do?” Emmaline demanded.
“I suppose we could…” the window shattered as a lantern sailed through it, striking the wall and exploding in a shower of oil. Emmaline screamed and scampered away as the flames began to lick at the wood paneling. Malcador and the halflings stared at the fire in horror, unable to leave the door as the attackers outside continued to pound on it. They were caught between the fire and the blades of the assassins waiting outside.
“We are doomed!” Thumper cried, his eyes wide with panic. By now the wall was fully ablaze and the flames were licking upwards towards the ceiling joists. Emmaline ran over to the chest of gold and threw open the lid. She gripped the bottom edge and tried to lift it but it was too heavy for her.
“What are you doing you crazy trollop?!” Clodfoot demanded but Malcador had already abandoned his place at the door. He grabbed the chest and heaved and it tipped over spilling an avalanche of coins across the floor.
“Do you actually have a plan or did you just want to roll around in gold before it was too late?” he asked. Emmaline threw herself down onto the carpet of gold and began to roll, pressing her cheek to the precious metal. The blows on the door grew more intense as the Halflings were slowly forced backwards.
“Mmmm?” she murmered dreamily, “oh.. right, the plan.”
The second story window exploded outward in a spray of glass and smoke. Revelers in the street below looked up in shock as a cloud of gold coins burst from the tavern like leaves caught in an autumn gale. The glittering swarm formed a thin carpet beneath four halflings and two humans, all clinging desperately to their insubstantial salvation. Emmaline gripped the golden ring on her finger as it pulsed with wild magical energy. Beneath them the coins shifted and chimed, each one too weak to bear their weight alone yet somehow keeping them aloft through a communal effort. They shot down the alley at the speed of a galloping horse. The halflings screamed continuously while Malcador grimly maintained his side of the spell. They burst out onto the Street of a Thousand Taverns and soared over the crowd. Hundreds of upturned faces stared in disbelief as a flying carpet of gold streaked overhead, trailing screams and expletives in it’s wake.
“Left!” Malcador shouted.
Emmaline yanked on glowing threads of Charmon only she could see. The construct lurched violently into the merchant district, swaying so violently that Humper nearly slipped free. The halfling grabbed a handful of coins that buzzed irritatedly in his hands but prevented him from falling to the street below.
“Where are you taking us?!” Clodfoot cried, his mustache pushed back against his head by the breakneck speed of the run away bribe.
“I don’t know!” Emmaline yelled back, her blue eyes huge with fear, excitement and gold lust.
"Aren't you the one driving?" he demanded in white knuckled terror.
Ahead loomed the ornate facade of a merchant prince’s palace. Its steepled roof of slate tiles and overabundance of leaded glass windows promising an immediate and messy end.
“LEFT! LEFT!” Malcador screamed, he gestured furiously with his left hand, even though by doing so he imperiled his grip on their sorcerous steed.
Emmaline hauled upwards at the last second. They missed the building by inches and suddenly soared high above the city. For one dizzying moment all Altdorf spread beneath them in torchlight and gathering dusk. The upper spires still burned gold in the light of the setting sun while the mighty ribbon of the Reik gleamed silver below, crowded with the lantern lights of countless river craft. Temple domes, crowded tenements, noble villas and crooked alleys stretched away in all directions.
“We are far too hi…"
Something exploded nearby in a blinding burst of light and concussive noise. Emmaline flinched and the carpet rolled violently sideways. Everyone screamed as fireworks burst across the sky around them, great blooms of red and gold exploding over the city as the second night of Pie Week reached full celebration. The smell of gunpowder filled the air and their skin prickled with burning grains of powders and flaming parchment cases. The noise was incredible and even with her eyes closed Emmaline could see the flashes of pyrotechnic light.
“Down!” Malcador shouted. “DOWN!”
Emmaline shoved the construct into a wild dive. They plunged over Cheapside so low that laundry lines snapped beneath them and pedestrians hurled themselves into gutters to avoid being decapitated by the storm of flying gold coins. Malcador pulled a linen shirt from his face and hurled it aside into the whipping slipstream, ducking his head to avoid a tavern sign paintd with a drunken goat.
“The river!” Malcador warned.
The Reik rushed toward them, fringed with a network of docks and warehouses that sustained the hundreds of fishing smacks, river barges, and larger vessels. Emmaline pulled back frantically whipping drunkenly between several gantrys before skimming out over the water so low that they threw up a great roster tail of spray behind them.
“Marginally better!” Malcador yelled.
An Imperial galleon loomed ahead. Sailors stared upward in drunken astonishment, freezing in their labors at this bizarre wonder that had interrupted their normally stayed routines. Its vast wooden flank loomed up ahead of them like a castle wall, its painted gunports draped with festival silk.
“UP!”
They shot over the bulwarks, flashed across the deck, and tore beneath the rigging so closely that sailors ducked for cover. Several lines parted with snaps like nearby gunshots and the main course came crashing to the deck, like a theatre curtain clumsily dropped on a trope of comic actors. Then they were across the river and hurtling toward the great towers of the Grand Temple of Sigmar.
“You’re heading for the temple district!” Malcador cried.
“How do I stop?!” Emmaline shouted back, yanking this way and that on the tethers of magical energy that she had created but only marginally controlled. Golden filaments twisted through her fingers like tangled reins they writhed in her fingers like living things, with definite opinions on where they should go. This spell was far beyond her, without the ring she and Malcador had created it would have been impossible but even with that powerful magical focus it was too complex for her limited abillities. Steering the construct was like trying to ride a drunken horse during an earthquake. Every correction introduced fresh disasters in pitch, yaw, and spin that whipped them around like children's toys.
“Not into the towers!”
Hundreds of pigeons exploded upward around them in a storm of feathers and indignant squawking as Emmaline banked sharply to avoid splattering them against a cathedral spire. They curved around a vaulted dome an then whipped past a bell tower so closely that Emmaline caught sight of a pale-faced Canon staring at them in disbelief throug an arched window, his book of hours falling to the floor.
Then they were diving again, streaking over manicured gardens and marble estates toward the looming bulk of the Imperial Palace. Soldiers in the livery of Karl Franz gaped openly as the screaming collection of wizards, halflings, and gold coins hurtled over the moat.
“Pull up!” Malcador shouted. “Pull up now!”
But the spell was failing. The golden threads frayed apart beneath Emmaline’s hands. The carpet bucked violently. With one final desperate effort she hauled them over the outer curtain wall before the magic gave out altogether. Emmaline tumbled through the air and crashed into a cherry tree at the center of a small ornamental garden. She grabbed one branch, slipped from it immediately, and landed heavily on her backside. A moment later Malcador fell from above and crashed down beside her with enough force to knock the breath from both of them. Thousands of coins rained from the sky around them in a musical cascade.
For several long seconds nobody moved.
“That went well,” Emmaline declared brightly.
Emmaline was rubbing one of the golden coins along the band of her ring while she gazed at the chest of gold, still guarded by a suspicious Humper. The metal seemed to chime softly at the contact.
“They have a wizard too,” Malcador added.
“How do you know?” Emmaline asked. Malcador stared at her incredulously.
“Because I paid attention in class?” he responded, aghast that Emmaline had apparently skipped so basic a lesson. Her education was shockingly spotty, surprisingly deep in places but with corresponding holes where she had never bothered with, or never been taught, the basics.
“Blackwoods,” Clodfoot growled.
“Who?” Emmaline asked, tearing her gaze from the chest with obvious effort.
“They are a family of wizards in Averland, more power hungry and greedy than most humans,” Clodfoot supplied. Emmaline shrugged her shoulders, not recognising the name, but Malcador arched an eyebrow.
“Blackwood was the name of that wizard wasn’t it, when you dressed me up as a knight?” Malcador asked Emmaline.
“Dressed you up as a knight?” Humper asked, “is that a sex thing?”
“No,” Malcador told him.
“Yes,” Emmaline replied in the same breath. The halfling glared at them.
“Why would a wizard want you dead?” Emmaline asked.
“If I die it will mean a power struggle between Averland and the Moot,” Clodfoot said, climbing out of the bed he had been resting in to recover a bottle of brandy from a pack. He pulled the cork from the bottle and took a long drink, which was doubtless a sin against good liquor.
“Why would the Blackwoods want that?” Emmaline asked. Clodfoot made an equivocal gesture with the bottle.
“The Blackwoods spend most of their time fighting among themselves, praise be to Taal,” Clodfoot explained. “The family is lousy with wizards, some of whom are a little too close to Sylvania if you take my meaning.”
Emmaline did. The Amethyst College was ever at pains to point out how much it hated necromancy and the undead but there was always a suspicion that they were too close to the same mysteries.
"Trouble in the Moot would let them snap up more land and influence, both of which they are hungrier for than an Ogre in a sausage shop."
“So what is the gold for?” Malcador asked. Clodfoot peered at the young wizard then sighed.
“Political chicannery that will frustrate attempts to claim lands on the borders of the Moot, it is more complicated than it is interesting,” he explained.
“Say less,” Emmaline agreed emphatically, her interest in political manuvering evidently exhausted. She glanced out the window at the afternoon sun then back towards the gold, her emotions clearly split between the precious metal and the possible entertainment she was missing on the second day of Pie Week.
“Can’t we just go and get the guard or something?” she suggested.
“They have to have paid off the guard or they would already be here,” Humper snapped, “besides they probably saw you warn us, I doubt they will let you just walk out of here.”
“I doubt they are going to let any of us just walk out of here,” Clodfoot said, his mustaches drooping, “I think they would have stormed the place already if you hadn’t thrown them off balance with your little stunt. In a few minutes they will find their balls and we will be in real trouble.” The Halfling noble's voice was tinged with despair.
“We could…” further discussion was interrupted by shouts from below and the pounding of feet on the stairs. Clodfoot’s eyes widened in panic.
“Block the door!” he shouted, and his two bodyguards leaped to the heavy wooden door, throwing their shoulders against it a moment before someone tried to pull it open. A shoulder slammed against it and the door shook. Malcador grabbed the edge of a bed and began to heave. Clodfoot, realising what the wizard was about, grabbed the other end, and they shoved the bed against the door, baring it for the time being.
“Now what do we do?” Emmaline demanded.
“I suppose we could…” the window shattered as a lantern sailed through it, striking the wall and exploding in a shower of oil. Emmaline screamed and scampered away as the flames began to lick at the wood paneling. Malcador and the halflings stared at the fire in horror, unable to leave the door as the attackers outside continued to pound on it. They were caught between the fire and the blades of the assassins waiting outside.
“We are doomed!” Thumper cried, his eyes wide with panic. By now the wall was fully ablaze and the flames were licking upwards towards the ceiling joists. Emmaline ran over to the chest of gold and threw open the lid. She gripped the bottom edge and tried to lift it but it was too heavy for her.
“What are you doing you crazy trollop?!” Clodfoot demanded but Malcador had already abandoned his place at the door. He grabbed the chest and heaved and it tipped over spilling an avalanche of coins across the floor.
“Do you actually have a plan or did you just want to roll around in gold before it was too late?” he asked. Emmaline threw herself down onto the carpet of gold and began to roll, pressing her cheek to the precious metal. The blows on the door grew more intense as the Halflings were slowly forced backwards.
“Mmmm?” she murmered dreamily, “oh.. right, the plan.”
The second story window exploded outward in a spray of glass and smoke. Revelers in the street below looked up in shock as a cloud of gold coins burst from the tavern like leaves caught in an autumn gale. The glittering swarm formed a thin carpet beneath four halflings and two humans, all clinging desperately to their insubstantial salvation. Emmaline gripped the golden ring on her finger as it pulsed with wild magical energy. Beneath them the coins shifted and chimed, each one too weak to bear their weight alone yet somehow keeping them aloft through a communal effort. They shot down the alley at the speed of a galloping horse. The halflings screamed continuously while Malcador grimly maintained his side of the spell. They burst out onto the Street of a Thousand Taverns and soared over the crowd. Hundreds of upturned faces stared in disbelief as a flying carpet of gold streaked overhead, trailing screams and expletives in it’s wake.
“Left!” Malcador shouted.
Emmaline yanked on glowing threads of Charmon only she could see. The construct lurched violently into the merchant district, swaying so violently that Humper nearly slipped free. The halfling grabbed a handful of coins that buzzed irritatedly in his hands but prevented him from falling to the street below.
“Where are you taking us?!” Clodfoot cried, his mustache pushed back against his head by the breakneck speed of the run away bribe.
“I don’t know!” Emmaline yelled back, her blue eyes huge with fear, excitement and gold lust.
"Aren't you the one driving?" he demanded in white knuckled terror.
Ahead loomed the ornate facade of a merchant prince’s palace. Its steepled roof of slate tiles and overabundance of leaded glass windows promising an immediate and messy end.
“LEFT! LEFT!” Malcador screamed, he gestured furiously with his left hand, even though by doing so he imperiled his grip on their sorcerous steed.
Emmaline hauled upwards at the last second. They missed the building by inches and suddenly soared high above the city. For one dizzying moment all Altdorf spread beneath them in torchlight and gathering dusk. The upper spires still burned gold in the light of the setting sun while the mighty ribbon of the Reik gleamed silver below, crowded with the lantern lights of countless river craft. Temple domes, crowded tenements, noble villas and crooked alleys stretched away in all directions.
“We are far too hi…"
Something exploded nearby in a blinding burst of light and concussive noise. Emmaline flinched and the carpet rolled violently sideways. Everyone screamed as fireworks burst across the sky around them, great blooms of red and gold exploding over the city as the second night of Pie Week reached full celebration. The smell of gunpowder filled the air and their skin prickled with burning grains of powders and flaming parchment cases. The noise was incredible and even with her eyes closed Emmaline could see the flashes of pyrotechnic light.
“Down!” Malcador shouted. “DOWN!”
Emmaline shoved the construct into a wild dive. They plunged over Cheapside so low that laundry lines snapped beneath them and pedestrians hurled themselves into gutters to avoid being decapitated by the storm of flying gold coins. Malcador pulled a linen shirt from his face and hurled it aside into the whipping slipstream, ducking his head to avoid a tavern sign paintd with a drunken goat.
“The river!” Malcador warned.
The Reik rushed toward them, fringed with a network of docks and warehouses that sustained the hundreds of fishing smacks, river barges, and larger vessels. Emmaline pulled back frantically whipping drunkenly between several gantrys before skimming out over the water so low that they threw up a great roster tail of spray behind them.
“Marginally better!” Malcador yelled.
An Imperial galleon loomed ahead. Sailors stared upward in drunken astonishment, freezing in their labors at this bizarre wonder that had interrupted their normally stayed routines. Its vast wooden flank loomed up ahead of them like a castle wall, its painted gunports draped with festival silk.
“UP!”
They shot over the bulwarks, flashed across the deck, and tore beneath the rigging so closely that sailors ducked for cover. Several lines parted with snaps like nearby gunshots and the main course came crashing to the deck, like a theatre curtain clumsily dropped on a trope of comic actors. Then they were across the river and hurtling toward the great towers of the Grand Temple of Sigmar.
“You’re heading for the temple district!” Malcador cried.
“How do I stop?!” Emmaline shouted back, yanking this way and that on the tethers of magical energy that she had created but only marginally controlled. Golden filaments twisted through her fingers like tangled reins they writhed in her fingers like living things, with definite opinions on where they should go. This spell was far beyond her, without the ring she and Malcador had created it would have been impossible but even with that powerful magical focus it was too complex for her limited abillities. Steering the construct was like trying to ride a drunken horse during an earthquake. Every correction introduced fresh disasters in pitch, yaw, and spin that whipped them around like children's toys.
“Not into the towers!”
Hundreds of pigeons exploded upward around them in a storm of feathers and indignant squawking as Emmaline banked sharply to avoid splattering them against a cathedral spire. They curved around a vaulted dome an then whipped past a bell tower so closely that Emmaline caught sight of a pale-faced Canon staring at them in disbelief throug an arched window, his book of hours falling to the floor.
Then they were diving again, streaking over manicured gardens and marble estates toward the looming bulk of the Imperial Palace. Soldiers in the livery of Karl Franz gaped openly as the screaming collection of wizards, halflings, and gold coins hurtled over the moat.
“Pull up!” Malcador shouted. “Pull up now!”
But the spell was failing. The golden threads frayed apart beneath Emmaline’s hands. The carpet bucked violently. With one final desperate effort she hauled them over the outer curtain wall before the magic gave out altogether. Emmaline tumbled through the air and crashed into a cherry tree at the center of a small ornamental garden. She grabbed one branch, slipped from it immediately, and landed heavily on her backside. A moment later Malcador fell from above and crashed down beside her with enough force to knock the breath from both of them. Thousands of coins rained from the sky around them in a musical cascade.
For several long seconds nobody moved.
“That went well,” Emmaline declared brightly.
Calliope was already preparing the spell she would use to take her from this place. The moment the insolent… what? She didn’t really have a term or concept of who Beren was or where he was from and as such was critically short of adjectives. Monk. The moment the insolent monk was paste she could take to the sky and. The Firbolg tumbled out of sight and down the sheer face of the escarpment. The outcome was so unlikely it took a minute for her mind to take it in. She stepped over to the edge and peered down in time to see the ancient creature bounce of a jagged rock formation and impale itself on the top of a tree, the broken trunk protruding from its chest like an impaling stake. The drop was so far that it seemed like a child’s toy. The thing wasn’t dead, such things were not really alive to become dead, but it would fade from this plain over the next few hours. If the tree survived it might take some of the magical essence of the creature into itself, perhaps in fifty years it would become a shrine famed for its healing sap, or fruit that granted strange powers or visions. There were few such places in the world, because few such beings had ever been banished. Either there was more to Beren than met the eye, or the creatures of the void had grown weaker in the eons she had slumbered.
“You might have warned me,” Beren complained, his face sheened with the sweat of the brief combat.
“Do you wish that I give you warnings?” Calliope asked archly. Beren scowled at her then turned to the stone doorway.
“How do we use this thing?” Beren asked, reaching out to put his hand through the arch. It emerged from the other side perfectly naturally. Calliope drew a sharp fingernail across the ball of her thumb to draw a single drop of blackish blood which she flicked at the gate with a smooth motion. The droplet hit an invisible plane in the middle of the gate as though it held a pane of glass. It splattered outwards but instead of being limited by physicality it continued to spread until it filled the stone gateway with a darkness that twinkled with stars. Beren made some kind of sign, which Calliope assumed to be religious, perhaps a charm against evil or bad luck. Calliope stepped through the gate and vanished.
The blackness of space stretched in all directions punctuated by a profusion of stars, they were on a stretch of land which hung supported by nothing, perhaps a hundred feet wide on which a road of silver glass had been laid. The road stretched off into infinity, though at various points it widened or narrowed, in some cases wide enough to support ancient crumbling castles or strange alien-looking temples on misshapen islands. Nor was this the only road. The void was crisscrossed with them, some were on the same plane, others were below them. The side view made them look like triangular divots that a giant had taken from the earth with an immense trowel. One section, perhaps two hundred yards distance had a small mountain, down which a river poured to vanish into the void, its cascades shot through by uninterrupted starlight so that it shone with a bejeweled prismatic glow. Others were draped with grass, or vines, even small trees which seemed alien and unearthly. The experience was disorienting, not just because of the impossible landscape but because the transition was wrong, it was like falling forward into gelatinous mud which slowed you just enough that it robbed you of balance and perspective and left you chilled and trembling.
That moment of disorientation very nearly ended Calliope’s long life as a blade the size of a wagon bed swept at head. Beren stumbled into her back, knocking her forward just enough that it swept over both their heads. Calliope rolled and came up on her feet. A figure of black glass, ten feet tall and with a glowing blue sigil on its forehead lifted its great spear for a second strike. The figure appeared to be a single crystal, intricately carved with armor familiar to Calliope from her own time but doubtlessly archaic to Beren. It was female and its face would have been lovely if it wasn’t contorted in naked hatred. The spear arced down by Calliope threw up her hands and spoke two words in Aklo. There was a thunderous detonation which shook hundreds of jeweled fruits from a nearby tree in a glittering rain. The spear seemed to lodge in the air, quivering a foot above Calliope’s head. Calliope turned to smoke, surging skyward, or starward, like a hunting falcon. The glass woman, leaped upwards to follow but the semi-corporeal Calliope twisted around, expanding to grapple with the thing. Words tore from her lips, each profane syllable tearing at what passed for reality. Beams of blackness surged from Calliope’s hands but the glass thing deflected them away, the sigil burning bright enough that it hurt the eyes to look upon. It hurled its spear at the sorceress, blue flames playing down its length like a lightning bolt. Calliope writhed around the spear as it flew, like a serpent, then seemed to solidify, her hand now gripping the haft of the vast weapon, impossibly she turned it and drove it down at its owner, who thrust forth a palm to shatter the weapon, sending the smoke that was Calliope spinning off to the side. The glass thing drew a sword from its body and followed, but Calliope turned and crashed into it, the two figures meeting in a combat that looked physical but was anything but. The glass figure caught Calliope around the waist and lifted her high, eerily silent despite its apparent triumph. Ropes of darkness leaped up from the stone lintel on its lonely island and wrapped the thing’s legs. Calliope turned back to smoke and soared free of her enemy’s grasp. It tried to follow but the cords around its legs bound it like a leash. Calliope screamed one final word in Aklo and the cords contracted snapping the glass thing down against the top of the gate with the force of a mangonel. The glass statue struck the gate and exploded, showering Beren with fragments and making him shield his eyes. When he opened them, Calliope was standing beside him. Her clothing had changed into a suit of obsidian armor beneath a great coat that seemed to be composed of the ebony scales of some vast serpent.
“What…” the monk asked. Calliope stepped past him and picked up one of the fragments. It was the sigil and a piece of the creature’s face. The sigil was electrum laid into the broken volcanic glass that had been the thing’s forehead. Calliope turned it over in her hands.
“Leti,” she muttered. Beren stiffened, the names of the Seven Accursed were not spoken of.
“That is one of the Seven Shards,” he asked, “you… killed one.” Calliope wondered if he was thinking that she was one of the Seven Shards of Darkness and if she would be offended.
“Leti,” Calliope repeated, and tossed the sigil to Beren, it was still warm to his touch and seemed to writhe as if alive. “It is her soul anyway.” Beren dropped the sigil as though hot. It clattered rather prosaically on the glass road.
“If you have her soul is she not destroyed?” Beren demanded. Calliope shook her head.
“No it…you Xebrian is not good enough for me to explain, just imagine this is part of herself she left here without diminishing the whole.”
“Could you do that?” Beren asked. Calliope shrugged.
“Of course.”
“Why did she leave a piece of her soul to guard a doorway?” he asked, as though that were the only route into the topic he could find.
“It wasn’t here to guard the doorway,” Calliope explained, “it was here to kill me.” Beren stared at her for a moment.
“Aren’t you like… friends?” he asked. Calliope dissolved into peels of very human laughter, it took her several seconds to get a hold of herself.
“Oh you are serious?” she asked. Beren nodded, which sent her into even more gales of laughter.
“If you are quite done?” Beren asked pointedly, nodding to the sigil laying on the road. Calliope contemptuously kicked it, sending it skittering to the edge of the land where it tumbled off into endless darkness.
“Even during the days of the Quest, we seven competed for Iskandrin’s favor, competition was usually….vigorous,” Calliope explained. The Seven had spent as much time backstabbing each other as they had advancing their master’s cause, each determined to gather the most knowledge, to be the strongest, to gain any advantage over their rivals.
“So much so that she left a statue to kill you?” Beren pressed. Calliope pressed her lips together in thought.
“She knows that I… well it doesn’t matter. The more pertinent point is that she didn’t leave this here thousands of years ago, this is a new working. That means….” Calliope fell silent. All that time she had been entombed she had assumed that she was the only one of the Seven who had survived, that she had been specifically targeted to affect her Master’s return, but what if that wasn’t true. This spell was less than a thousand years old, which meant Leti was out there. Had she also been spared, had they all? And if so were they out there working to free Iskandarin? They would have to be, the same geas bound them as did her. It was probably only because Beren had freed her that his claim was temporarily preeminent. Could Beren have accidentally freed her of her obligation, or if not freed at least postponed the call?
“Your world, is it…” she struggled for a word in Xebrian, she would need to learn his uncouth language at some point if she couldn’t teach him to speak like a civilized person.
“…beset by great evils?” she finished. To be fair Leti was a clumsy amateurish evil in Calliope's view, but in these age perhaps the stupid trollop had managed to make herself queen of the world or something. Beren pondered it.
“No more than normal?” he replied with a shrug. Well if Leti and the others were free, they hadn’t yet had time to begin working their schemes. Perhaps she and Leti were the only survivors, or at least the only ones who had so far woken up. It was a lot to take in. Leti awoke early enough to find Calliope. It was likely she had been responsible, directly or indirectly, for scattering her cult, and she had left her assassin, knowing that Calliope would eventually try to use the gates. She would have succeeded if Beren hadn’t stumbled onto her. Killing Calliope was no simple matter, but the spear had been imbued with potent magics that would have managed it.
“That,” Calliope said as her mind refocused, “is likely to change.”
@POOHEAD189
“You might have warned me,” Beren complained, his face sheened with the sweat of the brief combat.
“Do you wish that I give you warnings?” Calliope asked archly. Beren scowled at her then turned to the stone doorway.
“How do we use this thing?” Beren asked, reaching out to put his hand through the arch. It emerged from the other side perfectly naturally. Calliope drew a sharp fingernail across the ball of her thumb to draw a single drop of blackish blood which she flicked at the gate with a smooth motion. The droplet hit an invisible plane in the middle of the gate as though it held a pane of glass. It splattered outwards but instead of being limited by physicality it continued to spread until it filled the stone gateway with a darkness that twinkled with stars. Beren made some kind of sign, which Calliope assumed to be religious, perhaps a charm against evil or bad luck. Calliope stepped through the gate and vanished.
The blackness of space stretched in all directions punctuated by a profusion of stars, they were on a stretch of land which hung supported by nothing, perhaps a hundred feet wide on which a road of silver glass had been laid. The road stretched off into infinity, though at various points it widened or narrowed, in some cases wide enough to support ancient crumbling castles or strange alien-looking temples on misshapen islands. Nor was this the only road. The void was crisscrossed with them, some were on the same plane, others were below them. The side view made them look like triangular divots that a giant had taken from the earth with an immense trowel. One section, perhaps two hundred yards distance had a small mountain, down which a river poured to vanish into the void, its cascades shot through by uninterrupted starlight so that it shone with a bejeweled prismatic glow. Others were draped with grass, or vines, even small trees which seemed alien and unearthly. The experience was disorienting, not just because of the impossible landscape but because the transition was wrong, it was like falling forward into gelatinous mud which slowed you just enough that it robbed you of balance and perspective and left you chilled and trembling.
That moment of disorientation very nearly ended Calliope’s long life as a blade the size of a wagon bed swept at head. Beren stumbled into her back, knocking her forward just enough that it swept over both their heads. Calliope rolled and came up on her feet. A figure of black glass, ten feet tall and with a glowing blue sigil on its forehead lifted its great spear for a second strike. The figure appeared to be a single crystal, intricately carved with armor familiar to Calliope from her own time but doubtlessly archaic to Beren. It was female and its face would have been lovely if it wasn’t contorted in naked hatred. The spear arced down by Calliope threw up her hands and spoke two words in Aklo. There was a thunderous detonation which shook hundreds of jeweled fruits from a nearby tree in a glittering rain. The spear seemed to lodge in the air, quivering a foot above Calliope’s head. Calliope turned to smoke, surging skyward, or starward, like a hunting falcon. The glass woman, leaped upwards to follow but the semi-corporeal Calliope twisted around, expanding to grapple with the thing. Words tore from her lips, each profane syllable tearing at what passed for reality. Beams of blackness surged from Calliope’s hands but the glass thing deflected them away, the sigil burning bright enough that it hurt the eyes to look upon. It hurled its spear at the sorceress, blue flames playing down its length like a lightning bolt. Calliope writhed around the spear as it flew, like a serpent, then seemed to solidify, her hand now gripping the haft of the vast weapon, impossibly she turned it and drove it down at its owner, who thrust forth a palm to shatter the weapon, sending the smoke that was Calliope spinning off to the side. The glass thing drew a sword from its body and followed, but Calliope turned and crashed into it, the two figures meeting in a combat that looked physical but was anything but. The glass figure caught Calliope around the waist and lifted her high, eerily silent despite its apparent triumph. Ropes of darkness leaped up from the stone lintel on its lonely island and wrapped the thing’s legs. Calliope turned back to smoke and soared free of her enemy’s grasp. It tried to follow but the cords around its legs bound it like a leash. Calliope screamed one final word in Aklo and the cords contracted snapping the glass thing down against the top of the gate with the force of a mangonel. The glass statue struck the gate and exploded, showering Beren with fragments and making him shield his eyes. When he opened them, Calliope was standing beside him. Her clothing had changed into a suit of obsidian armor beneath a great coat that seemed to be composed of the ebony scales of some vast serpent.
“What…” the monk asked. Calliope stepped past him and picked up one of the fragments. It was the sigil and a piece of the creature’s face. The sigil was electrum laid into the broken volcanic glass that had been the thing’s forehead. Calliope turned it over in her hands.
“Leti,” she muttered. Beren stiffened, the names of the Seven Accursed were not spoken of.
“That is one of the Seven Shards,” he asked, “you… killed one.” Calliope wondered if he was thinking that she was one of the Seven Shards of Darkness and if she would be offended.
“Leti,” Calliope repeated, and tossed the sigil to Beren, it was still warm to his touch and seemed to writhe as if alive. “It is her soul anyway.” Beren dropped the sigil as though hot. It clattered rather prosaically on the glass road.
“If you have her soul is she not destroyed?” Beren demanded. Calliope shook her head.
“No it…you Xebrian is not good enough for me to explain, just imagine this is part of herself she left here without diminishing the whole.”
“Could you do that?” Beren asked. Calliope shrugged.
“Of course.”
“Why did she leave a piece of her soul to guard a doorway?” he asked, as though that were the only route into the topic he could find.
“It wasn’t here to guard the doorway,” Calliope explained, “it was here to kill me.” Beren stared at her for a moment.
“Aren’t you like… friends?” he asked. Calliope dissolved into peels of very human laughter, it took her several seconds to get a hold of herself.
“Oh you are serious?” she asked. Beren nodded, which sent her into even more gales of laughter.
“If you are quite done?” Beren asked pointedly, nodding to the sigil laying on the road. Calliope contemptuously kicked it, sending it skittering to the edge of the land where it tumbled off into endless darkness.
“Even during the days of the Quest, we seven competed for Iskandrin’s favor, competition was usually….vigorous,” Calliope explained. The Seven had spent as much time backstabbing each other as they had advancing their master’s cause, each determined to gather the most knowledge, to be the strongest, to gain any advantage over their rivals.
“So much so that she left a statue to kill you?” Beren pressed. Calliope pressed her lips together in thought.
“She knows that I… well it doesn’t matter. The more pertinent point is that she didn’t leave this here thousands of years ago, this is a new working. That means….” Calliope fell silent. All that time she had been entombed she had assumed that she was the only one of the Seven who had survived, that she had been specifically targeted to affect her Master’s return, but what if that wasn’t true. This spell was less than a thousand years old, which meant Leti was out there. Had she also been spared, had they all? And if so were they out there working to free Iskandarin? They would have to be, the same geas bound them as did her. It was probably only because Beren had freed her that his claim was temporarily preeminent. Could Beren have accidentally freed her of her obligation, or if not freed at least postponed the call?
“Your world, is it…” she struggled for a word in Xebrian, she would need to learn his uncouth language at some point if she couldn’t teach him to speak like a civilized person.
“…beset by great evils?” she finished. To be fair Leti was a clumsy amateurish evil in Calliope's view, but in these age perhaps the stupid trollop had managed to make herself queen of the world or something. Beren pondered it.
“No more than normal?” he replied with a shrug. Well if Leti and the others were free, they hadn’t yet had time to begin working their schemes. Perhaps she and Leti were the only survivors, or at least the only ones who had so far woken up. It was a lot to take in. Leti awoke early enough to find Calliope. It was likely she had been responsible, directly or indirectly, for scattering her cult, and she had left her assassin, knowing that Calliope would eventually try to use the gates. She would have succeeded if Beren hadn’t stumbled onto her. Killing Calliope was no simple matter, but the spear had been imbued with potent magics that would have managed it.
“That,” Calliope said as her mind refocused, “is likely to change.”
@POOHEAD189
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