POOHEAD189

Deify

Goddess of Vampires

The Hyborian Chronicles: Of Sword and Sorcery

Abelard reined in his roan, the beast whinnying lightly in the crisp morning air. Anya and he had been riding through the night with barely a word passing between them once they had mounted the horses. He found he believed her story and her virtue, however. Her manner against her assassins and they way she moved had a surety to it that spoke of honesty. Perhaps it was the soldier in him, or the still very earthly mind of his that led him to trust her motives. But he knew, somehow, Asura had not spoken of her.

Her vision was correct, he saw a large pillar of smoke rising into the sky. It stood as a black line against the newly risen sun. Abelard dismounted, advising it was best they left their horses here tethered to what roots they could find. The two did so and drew their blades, creeping out of the creek-bed towards the signs of what Abelard knew to be their quarry, even if it were not what they truly sought. Advancing swiftly, they found a small rise that spoke of a sheer drop just before them. The two crouched and almost crawled toward the edge what seemed to be a large, dried waterway. Beneath them more than a score of men spoke and drank and ate a hearty breakfast, devouring the ribs of a great boar they had slaughtered likely the day before.

Iranistanian Horse nomads with their scalemail cuirasses and their strange spiked helms wrapped in cloth, sallow skinned and stout builds grunting in their rugged tongue. They looked armed for war, their horses tied to a small copse of trees within earshot. The nomads had made two cookfires separate from Ibn-vakir and four Stygian giants. Head and shoulders taller than any nomad, the giants were armed with iron tipped spears and shields made of wood and bronze. Queer torques of Set lay on their bare chests, splattered with the grog they drank greedily beside their fire. Their belts were inlaid with gold and Ibn-vakir wore a similar belt and torque atop his rogueish garb. Abelard nearly surged upwards to curse Ibn-vakir to the Gods, but he held himself for what he saw next.

Past the dried inlet was a structure, swept in style as the cloth atop the horsemen's helms. The opening was alien in design. Nearly perpendicular but many layered in stone, like the opening of a flower or the folds of a woman that so drove men mad. Abelard had seen sketches of such structures before in his studies that bespoke it a remnant of the Acheron Empire. It looked to have been rebuilt in an Iranistanian style and then buried in sand from some wild storm, only to have finally been revealed again.

"We cannot take rash action," Abelard whispered to his fellow traveler. He spoke to himself just as much as the Northern woman. The priest likely seemed a coward to the fierce warrior, but his only goal was to keep the Opal out of wicked hands.

The Hyborian Chronicles: Of Sword and Sorcery

The other rogues would have loved to have taken her up on her challenge, but they had not been idle. Nor had the man named Fhundil, having only a second to watch her terrifying display before an assassin robed in rags made a leap at him, stabbing with his short sword. Abelard moved aside as if he had seen it from seconds before the attacker's initial movement. He angled his staff's butt to slip between the thief's legs, tripping him up. He hit the ground just as Abelard tapped his staff-head with the blunt side of his sword. A brass spike shot out of the staff's bottom, and Abelard used it to impale the downed man in the back.

To the common eye, he looked vulnerable to the more cunning cutthroat that had circled behind with a kushite khopesh of bronze, but Abelard turned as if he expected him. His broadsword parried what would have been a fatal stroke as the priest himself stabbed at the man, cutting him in the side. The Iranistanian sliced and kicked out, doing whatever he could to regain his advantage. He hadn't counted on the swinging staff head that cracked his skull. He hadn't the time to realize he was dead until the broadsword was already through his body by its full length. Blood dribbled onto wretched sewer stone. Abelard withdrew his blade and stepped aside politely to let the corpse fall onto its face with a harsh crack of bone.

He opened his eyes and saw the enemies still outnumbered them three to one, and so he held his staff aloft and raised it high as if he could reach the sun under the very streets of Kafir. Some God seemed to answer his call, as the central dias opened and light as pure as the very sun beamed out and blinded the attackers so powerfully, they felt as men who had never seen light in their life. They screeched and cried out, running in all directions, their morale broken as the two cut down what men they could reach with their swords. Blood flowed like running rain into the sewage as the docks became as silent as a tomb.

Abelard approached Anya without fear or hesitation, though he perhaps cracked a small grin. Hard to tell behind his thick beard. "It seems Ibn-vakir sought to betray both of us. From what I can tell, his previous information on the treasure's location was credible. What demon or man got to him to have him wish for our deaths had pulled him into their claws after he had spoken to me. I seek the Opal of Vulkur. Will you travel with me?"

The Hyborian Chronicles: Of Sword and Sorcery

The fumes bothered Abelard little, having smelled far worse during his campaigning. There was little that smelled worse than feces and vomit mixed with blood, and mercifully the sewers were filled with mostly just the former. Grey eyes saw a tall, lithe figure stride into his field of view. A northern woman, gleaming white and gold among a land of filth and darkness. She seemed as dangerous as any man in the city, but he didn't foresee her taking any action against him. She seemed a wolf on the hunt, merely curious and stumbling upon a traveler by happenstance.

He removed his blood-red hood, his face hard set and weathered. With his black beard and rough skin, he looked a decade older than his thirty two years of life. Asura's blessings had cost him much of his youthful vigor, an ardent contrast to Set and Ahriman who rewarded their followers with the pleasures and powers of this world at the expense of their very souls. Gripping his staff and turning, he spoke to her. The first time in three days he had chosen to utter any words.

"You enter a den of serpents and rogues, Asgardian. Go back to the frozen white north what spawned you. You will fine ne'er but misery here by my reckoning." He intoned, his manner recondite and shadowed. His words paled compared to the shadow of those that watched from above, black clad and swords drawn, waiting in the deep to plunge their blades into the bosom of the two traveler's chests. Ibn-vakir had betrayed them and sought the favor of this land's new master known as the Bandit Kazim.

Word had spread the nomadic tribes had flocked under one banner, coalescing at the central Vilayet river in the deep wilderness. Or so the stories foretold. The tribesmen were great horse archers and wild lancers famed the world over on ponies that frothed at the mouth, joined by ebony spearmen from Kush clad in naught by cloth. Soon the horde, now perhaps hiring mercenaries with their plundered gold, would be a horde of thundering steel that threatened to trample the province into the dirt.

Wailing spirits of lamentation danced around Abelard's staff, visible only to he. He was used to see them, but only when great violence was about to be wrought. He placed his hand on the ivory hilt of his sword, his subtle facial twitch showcasing he was wary of attackers from behind. Coiled like serpents, the assassin's sprung near silently, leaping from the rafters. They found nothing but mist as they landed on the ground as nimble as apes, Abelard disappearing into nothingness. The Priest of Asura stepped out of the shadows behind Anya, sword in his hand. As they approached, the dozen men eyed the warrior woman the same as the priest.

"They seem to be after you as well."
@Penny

Deify

God of Niceness

The Hyborian Chronicles: Of Sword and Sorcery

Saga 1: Opal of Power

---

A fell deed was told long ago in this land.
Past Ophir and Koth, and Stygian Sand.
The Opal of Vulkur the priest did sought.
But the only one who was searching for it, he was not.
A woman of the North had traveled far and wide.
To join the priest in a trap, where a demon doth reside.

A black wind rose and swept through Kafir's infertile lands, shivering what broken roots and withered stems still stood among the barren, cracked earth. It was as if the gods or powers beyond comprehension murmured in displeasure. Tumult and echoes of the last great cataclysm shook the land in earthquakes that shook the very bones of the Ilbar mountains. In the streets of the city, slaves stumbled and sellers of ivory and bronze screamed at whatever customers passed, and yet Abelard still felt the unease in the air. A grim omen to take notice of, that even within the walls of streets of the city he could hear the distant howling. It seemed to pierce stone, sand, and flesh.

The ruddy skinned priest had traveled far just as the prophecy had instructed him, passing through the lands Ophir and his grim homeland of Koth. Just as foretold in his vision, the provinces of Zimbabwe and Achaemenid were in rebellious uproars, slaughtering one another in the streets as a dread plague swept through the closed cities, the fools not realizing the disease was sorcerous in nature. The only thing closing the gates did was to spread the disease among the populaces quicker. He could do no good for them, nor was it his destiny.

Kafir had so far been unaffected by the madness that spread over Iranistan, the city making a sizeable profit by selling its slaves to the desperate cities and fleeing despots in need of men to haul their loot. The activity brought buyers from across the desolate east to the city. Rogued women in ne'er but thin cloth along their hips shook convulsed their bodies and blew kisses at the unamused priest, who was nearly late for his meeting with the thief, Ibn-vakir. The foul smelling nomad given him the information he sought at long last, but now he would provide the key to the tomb of Khuten-ra. Whether the Iranistanian gained the item through nefarious means, he cared not. All he wished for was the key Ibn-vakir had promised him he would need.

Abelard had long lost feeling out of place in distant lands. A man of Koth by lineage, his aquilonian mother had bestowed him his northern name. Of moderate height, Abelard was not a weak man, having served as a soldier of Koth against the black terror of Stygia. But his power did not lie in his strength of arm or skill with a blade. Asura had collapsed the illusion of this world and had opened his eyes to the true nature of reality, bestowing upon him great gifts of insight and even magic.

At his side he bore a sheathed, curved broadsword made of bronze and ivory. His robes were formed of woolen cloth and colored crimson after they had been washed in the blood of goats at day's twilight. The priest's staff was taken from the sacred temple of the Sun in distant Shem and his Atlantean bronze and silver ring was procured from a Pictish shaman. Those memories seemed but a backdrop to his current mission, the significance dwarfing his previous cares in both might and terror.

He passed the codgers and the bakers, the cutthroats and the vagabonds, the weaponsmiths and the glassblowers. Near the corner he strode by a group of hard northmen in rough leathers and iron chainmail, eyeing every corner of the streets with barely supressed violence radiating off of them. Hired by Kafir's King to keep order no doubt. Passed the mercenaries was the archway just as his informant told him, with two crossed spears carved at the center just above the doorway. Abelard stepped down the sandstone stairs into the thief's den, casting a glance behind him to make sure he was not being followed.

A stench of feces and dried blood wafted lightly across the inner air of the chamber and he realized he was now in an outcropping of the sewer. A stone 'dock' within the slowly drifting murk of the collective sewage of twenty thousand Iranistanians. Boxes of timber of unknown origin were stacked on the far end, the rafters holding draped clothes to cordon off sections of the grounded area for various points of business to be had. Meet me at the last area just beside the edge of the black market, Ibn-vakir had told him. He did just that, walking past shadowing figures behind hanging cloth, whispers of fear and business giving a hushed quality to the very air around him.

The Worst Writing Advice

i fucking love this thread

@fledermaus

The Hyborian Chronicles: Of Sword and Sorcery

Abelard Fhundil

Name: Abelard Fhundil

Race: Koth

Backstory: His parents labeled as pagans and heathens during one of the many inquisitions in the Kingdom of Aquilonia, Abelard was taken in swaddling clothes back to his mother's homeland of Koth. They grew up poor and in squalor, until Koth's secret alliance with Nemedia was discovered when Abelard was a young man. His father helped Koth by giving information of the homeland and gave them a decent living on the outerlying areas of Strabonus' Palace.

One day when he was a young boy, Abelard exploring the palace grounds found a secret chamber in the catacombs where a priest was worshiping the God Asura. Instead of killing him, as the priest almost did, he took Abelard under his wing and taught him of dark secrets beyond the veil. In hushed whispers, he grew as a man of the Asuran faith, practicing what little sorcery he was able to as the years passed and various coups rose and fell.

After his master was discovered as a traitor priest to the God Ishtar, he was executed while Alebard was on campaign with the army as a sergeant, a position gained by his father's loyalty. Once they came back, he discovered the execution and took what supplies and scribes he could and fled without a word, traveling from the wilderness of the Picts to Iranistan. Luckily, he received a tip from a prostitute on where an ancient tomb lay in the desert.

The Hyborian Chronicles: Of Sword and Sorcery

World Map

Dogs of War: Old World Mercenaries

"It would be better if I went alone." Amal said. "No offense, sir Brenly."

The northerner snorted, not taking offense but still wishing he could be anywhere but waiting here. Amal wanted the Knight to stay with Emmaline to watch her back, truth be told. That and the thief knew he could remain quiet and quick far better than with the old man. Emmaline shook her head, though. "No, I-" she began as the door next to her opened. The group froze as a Dark Elf holding a bottle of what had to be a type of Liquor stumbled out.

His eyes were glazed and clearly he was at least somewhat inebriated, but he blinked in recognition of the three non-Druchii before him. After all four of them were still as statues for a second, the Elf tried to scream and fumbled for his sword. The noise and movement were drowned out as Sir Brenly ran him through the neck with the sword. A gurgle escaped the dying elf's lips as blood bubbled from the wound and his mouth and he fell heavily onto the deck.

Behind the Elf, there was a small storage room of booty and treasure. On the floor of the room was the magic carpet, tied up by three ropes to get it from unraveling and flying. Leaning against the wall was Emmaline's snake-headed staff. Amal and Emmaline looked at one another, and almost laughed. Sir Brenly seemed not to notice, wiping the blood off his new blade. "I never thought I'd be killing elves in my retirement." He said.

"I'll grab our things. You both go...now!" The sorceress told them.

The two did as she bid, stepping up the stairs carefully and opening the hatch just enough to peek through once more. Amal could see rain and lightning washing over the deck, though he feared the storm might lessen somewhat soon. The waves were churning powerfully still, however, and the ship bucked and bounced as it tried to slid between the waves. In the distance he could see another shape past the lightning. At first he feared another sea dragon, but it was the other sloop at the fore. He didn't know if that was preferable or not.

Amal asked Brenly if he was ready, and with his nod they both ascended the stairway and found all wet and dark and cold by the chilled wind around them. Only a dozen feet away was the navigator or captain. Amal didn't know how Dark Elven ships worked with who controlled the ship's steering. His back was turned, corded but lithe muscles trying to keep the ship upright as the black water surged around them.

Quickly and quietly, Amal led sir Brenly to the mast just past the Elf's vision and began to climb to the fighting top.
@Penny