Rosenrot

What Are You Listening To?

What Are You Listening To?

What Are You Listening To?

Qveen Herby's aesthetic gets more extra with every video, I swear.

RPGC #19: Beware The Metal Age - Voting and Critique

I'll update this post with reviews/critiques if I get time but I want to go ahead and post my vote.

My Vote

"Sunday" by @Exit
Great concept; loved it.

Thanks to Calle & Silver for your reviews! Any advice that improves my writing is always welcomed.

RPGC #19: Beware The Metal Age - Prompt and Entries

{{Infinite thanks to @Torack and @LordOfTheNightfor your critiques!!}}

"Flesh & Steel"

Metal parts clanked heavily against each other as the strange object rolled along the wooden tabletop. When it stopped, absolute silence hung throughout the sprawling command tent. It drifted between the occupants like some unseen, unsettling smoke. So palpable was it, that the superstitious present wondered if some specter of their absent warlord had manifested, his fierce eyes still critiquing their every action and inaction from beyond an unknown grave. Three years had passed while the Black Throne of the Dol'Vrah sat empty, but a much more pressing issue had brought the counsel together that day.

An expression of deep confusion came to the features of the woman standing at the head of the table. Her armor reflected flickering light from dozens of candles illuminating the tent. “What in the names of all the gods is that?” Adelaide asked, picking up the strange object. It was heavier than she expected and required both of her hands to hold. The contraption was so impossibly complex that even the few rudimentary rifles she'd seen were utterly crude by comparison. Her confused scowl became a look of fascination. No weapon she'd ever seen was so intricate. Her ice-blue eyes inspected dozens of moving parts, all exquisitely fitted and perfectly oiled. Strange threads hung from one end. Each one had a metal core, copper if she wasn't mistaken, wrapped in a rubbery coating.

“An arm.” General Drefen answered. The sallow-faced mage stood at Adelaide's right hand, as always. She was tall, but he was taller, as were all the inhuman Dol'Vrah. Other officers crowded around the sides of the table. As long as the warlord was still missing, all of them were of equal rank. All knew that time was drawing to an end, however. The battle between them would soon begin as cries for a new warlord had long been growing louder across the empire. Some already suspected that an alliance had been made between Drefen and the red-headed human, and that the pair were merely biding their time. All schemes had been paused, though, as a threat from without had grown large enough to eclipse even worries of a looming civil war.

“An arm?” Adelaide parroted his answer with disbelief. She hadn't personally witnessed the battle against these strange beings, or machines, or whatever they were; she'd only heard the resulting tale of horror. The troops that had encountered a small squadron of the metal men had been victorious, but at a high price. The casualty rate was almost double the average losses. No survivor had escaped unharmed, with the luckiest among them bearing only severe burns. Others had lost whole limbs and one of the deceased was completely missing a quarter of his skull.

All other eyes laid on the de-facto leader of the empire, while hers stared at the great seat some distance from the opposite head of the table. She had been closest to the Black Throne when it was occupied, but the empty chair offered her no answers from its shadowed resting place. Would the warlord, her old friend, know what to do against this new enemy? Adelaide tossed the steel limb onto the tabletop. It didn't matter much what he did or didn't know, did it? She was already ruling the empire, more or less, with Drefen as her willing front. The troops would revolt if they knew they were being commanded by a human. The Dol'Vrah soldiers had barely accepted Adelaide as a general, and that was the sole reason she still tolerated such a lowly title.

The other generals all flinched away as the strange arm clattered against wood again, an unusually fearful reaction for a group of battled-hardened commanders. She didn't have to voice the question in her eyes before Drefen spoke again. “They fire a kind of projectile. It appears like magic of some sort, but still melts through enchanted armor and weapons.” He explained. Adelaide's mind was swirling. The appearance of the metal men could not have come at a worse time. Their metallic maw gnawed away at the eastern wilderness while usurpers plotted in the Dol'Vrah homeland.

Where was the Warlord Siegfried?

The question burned in nearly every member of the empire, but it was heaviest on Adelaide's mind. Her eyes slowly moved from the strange object on the table to the slight form standing near the tent's exit. The fair-skinned slave girl shivered under Adelaide's gaze. Nothing good ever came of the general's attention. Seeing an opportunity to vent some frustration, Adelaide made her way towards her slave, and the exit, with the metallic arm tucked under her own. “Come along, Princess. It is time to die.” She said without even pausing to glance at the condemned woman.

The slave's delicate features were horrified. She couldn't make her withered legs move. Vius, the largest of the generals and master of the imperial smiths, placed a huge hand on the slave's shaved head and moved her to follow Adelaide. There was nothing the frail captive could do to resist.

Minutes later, she was tied securely to a post that towered several feet over her small frame. She was sobbing with such force that her tiny shoulders still heaved despite her bonds. Adelaide took her slave's tiny chin in her hand and forced her to look into her grinning face. “I thought you'd be happy to return to your precious knight.” She said and the enslaved princess began to cry even more. Was this really how her life was going to end? She'd never truly lost hope, not entirely, despite spending so long as the favored plaything of wicked Adelaide.

Surely, any second now, her salvation would arrive at last. Time passed at an impossibly slow pace for the princess as Adelaide fumbled with the unfamiliar technology, but each moment was another chance at rescue. The redhead tugged at the weird strands that dangled from the torn steel shoulder. By pure chance, she actually managed to fire a blast. It hit the well-trampled ground, penetrating the packed dirt and launching turf in every direction. A stray rock whizzed towards Adelaide's face and she turned just fast enough to catch it with the edge of her cheek, rather than her eye. Blood trickled from the cut and the rivulet curved to travel over her rounded, smiling cheek.

She aimed the thing as best she could while the princess turned her watering eyes upward to the sky, sending her last iota of hope to her gods.

Divine mercy came in the form of a plasma bolt.

“I want to see these... 'metal men' for myself.”

Not many in the horde were adept at stealth, but those who accompanied Adelaide through that still night were the best. The dark-clad group moved quickly despite their near-complete silence. They ducked low behind tall grass as they made their way up a low ridge side. Once at the top, Adelaide could scarcely believe the sight that met her eyes. The journey to the new warfront had only taken the stealth squad a few days. Barely a week had passed since the unlucky troops had first encountered the metal men. Yet, the landscape on the other side of the ridge was unrecognizable. There was no green to be seen, or even brown.

Instead, there was only black iron silhouetted against the red glow emanating from a thousand forges, and from the massive pit at the center of the camp. The rumble that had been growing beneath her traveling feet for days was suddenly explained. The steel soldiers that had slaughtered her own were merely defenders for the monstrous machine towering at the center of the hellish encampment. An iron mass spun slowly, drilling into the ground.

She had just enough time to realize that the ridge on which she crouched was one curving edge of a massive crater, before the constant flow of hot air pushing forth from the encampment suddenly surged. It blew the black hood from her head, revealing her red hair around her masked face. She reflexively reached to fix it but the glinting copper color wasn't what revealed their position to the electric sentinels. The body heat of her reaching arm triggered the targeting code as she attempted to gain a better vantage point. The only warning before a mortar impact blew apart the hillside was the clanking of the massive turret as it turned. Adelaide had heard it and pushed herself backwards down the slope. Even so, she was still caught up in the blast.

The force flung her across the open grassland. How far, she wasn't certain. The stars overhead streaked by as she braced herself before she inevitably hit the ground. Leather armor prevented her from losing skin to the friction. It did little, though, to protect her from the jarring impacts that bruised her body as she rolled.

A slight loss in momentum was enough for her to regain control and find her footing. The soles of her boots found traction on the grass and she was off in a dead sprint. She was grateful to be unencumbered by heavier armor even as she ripped the thin leather plates from her arms and chest. The discarded pieces would buy her that much more time to flee, though she dared not stop to remove the armor from her legs. Her only weapon was a sizable knife securely sheathed against her thigh.

If anyone else had survived the explosion, she didn't care.

Adelaide ran as far as she could before she collapsed, chest heaving in the scrubby brush. The night seemed eternal, though, and it was every bit as dark as it had been when she began. The landscape had changed gradually and her surroundings told her she still had a very long way to go. As soon as she was able, she rose to her feet again. The human thanked every god she'd ever heard of when she saw that there was no sign of pursuit. She topped another ridge that crossed her return path to the horde and paused.

Dawn was finally breaking as she surveyed the landscape ahead. A streak of pale orange and yellow dimly illuminated the shallow valley below. Movement attracted her attention. A humanoid form was shuffling along some distance away. Its back was hunched, hair hanging dark and long over its shoulders. Her eyes narrowed. In this no man's wilderness, the large figure could only be one thing: a Dol'Vrah deserter, hopelessly lost in a foreign land. She became more disgusted with every step the disgraceful wretch took. The redheaded general drew the long knife from its sheath. Tired as she was, she wasn't too exhausted to suffer a coward to live.

Adelaide crept down the ridge-side and made her way towards her target. The thickening brush provided sufficient cover for her to draw close. She smiled as she realized the gods favored her especially that morning. She saw that the Dol'Vrah was horribly scarred over one shoulder and half of the face. If an eye remained on that side nearest her, it was surely blind. Matted hair hung around the undamaged side of the deserter's face and a ragged beard curled long over his chest. The scar tissue on the maimed half was bald and grossly tanned from long hours in the sun.

Adelaide could stand that embarrassment to her forces no longer and pounced from the brush, driving her shoulder into the Dol'Vrah's chest. She heard the air leave him and her smile only widened. They hit the ground and her weight pushed out any breath he had left. “Die, deserter!” The human snarled with her knife tip ready to push between the left ribs. Both of her hands were around the handle and her full weight poised to drive it deep into the coward's chest. Adelaide couldn't help but look into the deserter's remaining eye to watch his worthless life end.

The fierce green glaring back at her was enough to drop the blade from her hand. Her smile dropped to an expression of shock that quickly twisted into a scowl. Her right hand came up and landed a punch on the blighted left side of the Dol'Vrah's face. When he turned the featured half of his face back to her, he was scowling. He opened his mouth to speak, but she hit him on his blind side again. He let the blood build in his mouth while he decided whether to spit it on the ground or in her face. “Not only did I find a coward, but the Lord of Cowards, at that...” She snarled, reaching for her dropped knife. The snarl fell from her lips when his nearly-black blood splattered across her face.

Adelaide's fingers left pale streaks as they moved down her face and over her lips. She laughed until the exact moment she snatched up the knife with movement quicker than any reaction he could've made. “I should execute you right here, old friend.” She hissed while she pressed the blade against his throat, her face only inches from his tanned and scarred visage. The general began to lean into her blade and he couldn't stop her. “All these years of war, endless conflict and conquest...” Her eyes had lowered to the wound she was making in his sun-weathered skin, but her gaze cut to his face suddenly. “...have made me something of a monster.” Her voice was barely a whisper. She wasn't entirely aware she'd said the words aloud.

“Adelaide...” His voice was low, in tone and volume. He moved to sit up and she let him push her knife deeper into his own flesh. His Dol'Vrah blood began to seep from underneath her blade.

“Are you even worthy to stand, Siegfried?” She growled the question. The fury burning in his remaining eye was all the answer she needed. She sheathed her blade as she stood. She didn't bother offering to help him up, knowing he wouldn't have accepted if she did.

Her right arm clasped a fist to her chest in salute though she refused to lower her eyes. “Hail unto Siegfried, Warlord of the Dol'Vrah.” Adelaide said flatly, clearly fighting another snarl from her face. Her back turned to him in the next moment. She was furious. All that time seducing and manipulating Drefen, and her alternate patsy Vius, was apparently wasted. Her anger permeated her very steps as she resumed her trek towards the sunrise.

Siegfried stood and straightened to his full height, despite the painful stretching of scar tissue. Adelaide was well over six feet tall, but Siegfried still towered over her. His long legs closed the space she'd put between them in only a few strides. One huge hand gripped her shoulder tightly and he turned her around easily. The other hand grabbed her jaw. His fingers pressed into one cheek while his thumb dented the other. “You have truly forgotten your place, General Adelaide.” He growled with a scowl on half of his dirt-smeared face.

“Only because you abandoned yours.” She spat her words in retort. His hand dropped away and she knew then that her words could still cut him deeper than her blade. Adelaide began to circle her prey like a stalking wolf. “You don't even look like a warlord anymore.” She sneered with a bitter laugh. “You look like some little king from some little castle, who caught a plague like all his little peasants. Perhaps I really should kill you out here, bring back your head. Then, I'll watch Vius and Drefen fight to the death for your empty throne.” She taunted. Adelaide was desperate to see what was left of the warlord within that starved and scarred body.

Adelaide knew her simple plot was working when she heard a growl rumbling in Siegfried's massive chest. His temper always had been even shorter than hers. “If you've drunk one drop of their blood, I'll execute them both.” He snapped. His attempt at intimidation only resulted in another laugh from the redhead.

She watched his solitary eye struggling to keep her in his vision as she strolled around him. “Oh, I've sampled Vius more than once. Drefen would slice his own throat if I gave the order.” She continued to goad him. “I wonder if you'll be able to taste them on your precious cup when we return.”

Siegfried roared and rushed her. “Filthy Northern whore!” His voice boomed loudly through the quiet morning. The warlord lifted Adelaide by her shoulders, but still she laughed. Every second that she cackled only further infuriated the Dol'Vrah emperor. He was shaking with rage, and with weakness. He couldn't hold her weight aloft for very long. Siegfried dropped her within seconds and she landed easily.

“Pitiful.” She said and spat on the ground at his feet. “You won't survive a day back in the horde. Vius will break you like a bitch.” She sneered. Siegfried flinched at the cold touch of metal against his skin as she caressed the spot where his left eye had once been with the blunt side of the blade. His obvious fear somehow both disappointed and excited her. “What happened?” She asked, finally coming to stand directly in front of his eye. Adelaide impatiently drummed her fingers against her knife while she awaited his answer.

“A falling star was said to have landed a week's ride east of the front. Dol'Vrah legends promise unbreakable blades made from the remnants found in those craters.” Siegfried obediently answered. “I left immediately with only the messenger and the witness. No one else knew of the treasure. When I laid eyes on the crater, I killed them both.” He stated with familiar, unaffected simplicity. “I approached the crater. Six of these...” He trailed off, fumbling for a description.

“Metal men.” Adelaide snapped, eager to reach the end of his tale.

“...Yes, metal men. You've seen them and survived unscathed?” Siegfried's surprise was evident. Adelaide's face was utterly blank and she could see that this unsettled the warlord. “I defeated three.” He continued when it became obvious that she would offer no direct answer. “Then, something passed overhead, and I was on fire. I could hear more of the... metal men... approaching as I burned and so...” He trailed off again, but his companion remained silent.

Adelaide already guessed what had happened next but she wanted to hear him say it aloud. “I ran away.” He finally muttered with his half-gaze turned to the ragged boots on his feet. Adelaide was no longer tapping on the blade. It had begun to shake in her grip. Something of a monster, she had indeed become, but more monstrous still was Siegfried. At least Adelaide was loyal to the cause of conquest. His scarred appearance was a more fitting form for the hideous soul within, she thought, for his selfishness could cost them everything.

“I ran, too.” She said. He looked at her and she could see some hope for redemption in his eye. The stare meeting his had only grown colder, though. “Except, I ran towards the horde.” Adelaide snarled as she watched his hope flicker out. “I ran towards the army we built, so I could bring their full fury down upon the enemy you have let grow upon us. I can't even number the forges that now burn around that glowing pit they've dug.” She paced and gestured wildly as she spoke. The knife glinted with each wave of her right hand. “Our entire empire may crumble because of you, you greedy fucking yellow-bellied bastard!” Her roaring voice carried nearly as far as Siegfried's had.

Her voice quieted as she took several quick steps towards the warlord. “I've worshipped you like a god all these years. I mourned you even while I worked to ensure the survival of our empire. Now, I wish you had died that day. Then, I wouldn't have to pretend that you're the fucking warlord while knowing you should be scrubbing horseshit from my boots with every other slave.” She berated him until she realized that with every second she wasted on Siegfried, the metal men were multiplying.

The disfigured Dol'Vrah was speechless. No one had spoken to him with such open revulsion in his decades of life. Adelaide was several yards away by the time he began to follow her again.

The sun grew higher, then low again as they walked. She could think only of Siegfried and how she loathed his very presence behind her. She no longer respected him enough to fear him. “I should stab you once for every day that you've lived as a coward.” Adelaide hissed over her shoulder as the sun declined behind them. She'd kept the knife in her hand for hours as if with every step, she was still deliberating whether or not to plunge it into him.

Her hateful remarks came less often as evening settled in. She finally sheathed the knife sometime just before the sky began to shift colors with the sunset. They walked on in the deepening dark until they found a cluster of trees around a small pond. The water was clean enough for their parched throats and they drank deeply, subconsciously compensating for the insufficient food they'd managed to find along their way.

That night, Adelaide dreamed of the tireless marching of the metal men. All of the soldiers falling before her mind's eye didn't horrify her nearly as much as the chains brought for her by her steel enemies. Her heart pounded her into waking with a sharp gasp. The haunting gray of early morning hung above a thin mist swirling over the ground.

The same question that had begun her day for so long surfaced in her drowsy mind. Where was Siegfried? He wasn't slumped against the tree where he'd been when she fell asleep. The general had already decided Siegfried wasn't worth looking for when movement and sound to her left drew her attention. There was just enough light for Adelaide to watch the fairly clear water dripping brown from his beard while he drank. She couldn't bear to look at him any longer. “Wash your damned face already so I can shave that awful beard.” She barked at him as she stood. The redhead stretched her aching muscles, and felt a hard shove send her into the pond.

One huge foot held her to the muddy bottom. She struggled, but her oxygen-starved body couldn't unbalance the warlord. When Siegfried finally let her rise, she could barely crawl onto the bank. Adelaide coughed and wretched until all water and filth was purged. Her hand went for her knife, finally ready to end her lord's life. Her fingers found nothing to grasp. The sudden fear behind the soaked locks clinging to her face sparked a rumbling laugh from Siegfried.

He wagged the knife he'd taken from her while she slept, taunting her while a grin turned up one corner of his mouth. “You will shave my face, after you wash it. Then, you'll cut my hair, and when we stroll into our camp, everyone will kneel to me. Whether you'll kneel as a general or a slave depends on how you behave between this moment and that one.” Siegfried watched her mouth fall open as he spoke, blood-shot blue eyes wide. No one could surpass the manipulative mastership of Siegfried.

Her hand quivered in awe when she accepted her own knife like a precious gift, but the weapon was steady as its flawless edge sheered the hair from his cheeks, his jaw, his neck. How had she slept through the sounds of him sharpening the blade to such a precise edge?

A Dol'Vrah sentry squinted towards the distant horizon. She lifted a spyglass and the rudimentary lenses provided just enough focus to distinguish two figures approaching the imperial encampment. She gave the appropriate call and waited for more detail to become available to her sharp eyes.

The rare and valuable spyglass soon fell forty feet to the ground and shattered, but no one noticed. The words the sentry called out just before it fell had turned the horde of thousands silent as a crypt one ear at a time, as every eye turned towards that direction. Three words spread from lip to lip like a disease.

“Lord Siegfried returns!”

While they were still too far for the un-aided sentry to see, Siegfried put his arm around Adelaide's shoulder and she slipped her comparatively thin fingers into his huge hand. “Do you hear them, my love?” He whispered into her ear. Her only answer was her tongue licking the lingering taste of his blessed blood from her lips, beneath her half-lidded, power-drunk eyes.

Word of the warlord's return spread throughout the camp as Adelaide and Siegfried approached the command tent at its center. Slaves brought a bathing tub and heated water while pages carried summons to the other generals, who were already preparing. Riders and ravens bearing unofficial announcements of the reclaimed throne went forth in every direction. Schemes of usurpation were smothered by the mere mention of Siegfried even while Adelaide still scrubbed the remaining dirt from his skin.

While Siegfried ate his dinner at the command table and began laying out a campaign against the metal men, Drefen stared at Adelaide. The redhead had denied him even a single glance in return, making a subtle effort to save the other general from execution. Vius had always maintained a looser, more practical alliance. He and Adelaide knew all along that the human warrior only truly heeled to the command of Siegfried. The master smith was already devising an independent bid for the Black Throne when he noticed blue eyes finally turn to Drefen, then himself.

An idea had occurred to Adelaide.

A few hours later, Adelaide leaned against the head of the command table. She watched Siegfried, glutted and drunk, slip from consciousness. He slumped in his throne and his bloated gut appeared to be the only thing holding him upright. While he'd been eating and drinking himself into a stupor, Adelaide's idea had grown into a plot. Satisfied that the warlord was deeply asleep, and that there was not a shred of dignity left in him, the redhead slipped into the night, unseen by anyone. In her hand were two halves of a long-broken crown.

First, she visited Drefen. The mage commander cloaked their passage to Vius's tent. With their voices hushed beneath a visible fog of enchantment, they adjusted their plan.

The Dol'Vrah were loathe to surrender their armor and weapons that following morning but every piece of metal to the last scrap was collected. The warlord promised all would be reforged and returned once the horde's greatest enemy was defeated. Drefen and his mages were busied with their own bookish tasks while Vius's smiths melted iron, steel, bronze, copper, and every other metal they'd found. Soon enough, there was no time to mourn swords and shields. All available hands were called to begin the second phase of Siegfried's plan. When their construction was finished, a half-dozen massive metallic spheres of differing hues had to be guided towards the east. The polished orbs were carved all around with sigils and circles and already trapped so much energy that the hum emanating from them could be heard and felt. Dozens of soldiers and slaves alike were crushed by mishaps along the way, but no one cared much. Any life lost for the empire only added to the collective glory of the Dol'Vrah.

Whether the slaves chosen to test the expanded range of the heat-sensitive sentinels were lucky or unlucky depended on one's point of view. Instant death by mortar shell was perhaps preferable to the more creative demises delivered by their masters. The encampment of the horde had been moved horrifically close to the metal men's crater. The spheres were carefully placed while each day was more tense than the last.

With no metal armor or weapons left, the horde was incredibly vulnerable and everyone knew it. There were almost certainly spies among them, employed by the few free kingdoms still resisting the Dol'Vrah Empire. If word of their weakness spread before they could break down the spheres and re-arm themselves, a multi-facetted assault could equal the threat of the metal men. Mages supervised the sights where arcane circles were being cut into the terrain surrounding each sphere. Sentries watched from towers and patrolled the well-marked perimeter just outside the range of the automaton's heat vision. A quick response would be their solitary hope against any attack from within the crater.

The final preparations were being laid when a terrible shrieking of metal cut the air. Those closest to the crater felt blood leaking from their ears, then their noses, and finally their eyes just before collapsing. At the bottom of the glowing pit, the monstrous drill's screaming brakes had brought the machine to a stop. The silence left behind was soon filled by the distinct, rhythmic clanking of steel limbs marching. All power within the crater had been diverted to the metallic foot-soldiers.

Every automaton mindlessly marched forth from the crater. Metal feet crushed the bodies dropped by the braking drill underfoot as they crossed the imperial perimeter.

Siegfried's green eye went wide when he heard the dying screams of those already being torn and blasted apart by the steel legions. He turned to Drefen, who appeared paralyzed with horror. “What are you fucking waiting for?” The warlord bellowed and the mages' commander came to.

“It's.. It's not ready.” He stammered. “I don't know what will happen if we attempt-” He was interrupted by Siegfred grabbing him by the collar of his black robe.

“What you should know, then, is that we will all die if you fail.” Siegfried hissed and all but threw Drefen away from him.

The mage commander scrambled away, already barking commands to his subordinates. Incomplete as the ritual supposedly was, the general and his battalion had enough power to begin the spell. A pale glow enveloping all of the spheres grew brighter as more voices joined the chant. Lightning crackled in a halo around each orb before arcing outwards to connect them. The energy radiating outwards swirled up a great wind that aided the mages in lifting the metallic spheres. Each massive orb began to spin on its own axis as it hovered. The rotating spheres then began to orbit the crater, faster and faster with each revolution.

The terrible shrieking of the drill began again, then stopped, then started. Steel centurions turned on each other while others fired their weapons at the ground and into the air. Some pulled off their own limbs or fired plasma blasts into their own metallic skulls. They collapsed, one way or another, among the hundreds already slain. The shrieking of the drill drew louder until even Adelaide was dabbing at the crimson trickle from her ear while she observed the hellish scene of flesh and steel from a relatively safe position.

The deafening shriek finally waned, only to suddenly erupt in an explosion that shook the ground for miles surrounding. Hot iron and molten rock shot high into the air before raining down like burning hailstones. Though his forces were fleeing the scorching hail, Adelaide could already see the glow of victory on Siegfried's face. She watched it falter as he realized the spheres were not slowing. He turned to find his redheaded general had left his side. Siegfried didn't see the remains of the metal men as some force drew the fragments back into the crater.

The powerful explosion and more powerful magic had torn open a portal that was devouring increasingly large morsels of metal. The monstrous drill at the epicenter of it all was wrenched free from within the world's surface by the vacuous anomaly.

Siegfried turned his back to the arcane light and found Adelaide. She was approaching Vius, who was gripping a massive iron chain. Each link was as long as Adelaide was tall but the thick iron was still clattering against itself in the arcane wind. The master blacksmith was struggling more to maintain his hold on the chain with every step he took towards the crater, and Siegfried.

Drefen had reappeared though his eyes were aglow with the same hue of light emanating from the orbiting spheres. He had played his part of ignorance well, and Adelaide rewarded him with a kiss on his pale lips. Siegfried's confusion gave way to the sudden weight of betrayal when Drefen placed the re-forged crown of Adelaide's kingdom upon her brow.

The warlord charged at them with a roar that would be his last. Vius released the chain. Unhindered, it whipped through the air with terrifying speed. Siegfried caught it with his waist and both disappeared into the blinding storm of wind and magic. The three generals stared in his wake for a long moment, as if the warlord might somehow survive and fight his way from the portal's grasp to kill them. Drefen awaited Adelaide's order while his power drained dangerously low.

“Close it.” Adelaide finally said.

The light disappeared and Drefen collapsed along with the portal. He didn't have enough power left to slow the orbs. None of the mages did. The spheres' orbit broke and the arcane satellites soared out of sight to devastate unsuspecting landscapes far away. Adelaide nodded to Drefen's limp form and Vius put the unconscious general over his shoulder. They started towards the command tent, already trying to fathom their incredible losses. “All will be righted in time.” Adelaide said to Vius over her shoulder as the command tent came into sight.

Drefen woke to find himself sitting in a chair, facing the Black Throne. Vius's huge hand thrust a goblet into his grasp before his eyes were even fully opened. When he could focus, the vision he beheld brought a smile to his thin lips. The generals lifted their cups to the throne where Adelaide sat, and she lifted hers in return. Candlelight flickered on her armor, and on her crown.

“Hail unto Adelaide, the first Empress of the Dol'Vrah.”

RPGC #19: Beware The Metal Age - Discussion

Late to join the official party, but I'm sitting at about 5,700 words while I wait for friends to read & review my final draft. Planning to submit the perfected project late tonight/early tomorrow after one last revision!

I don't know any of y'all, but I am excited to read your entries. LOL

Abyss of Arrogance {cloudy & Rosenrot}

How could darkness feel so tangible? How could an absence of light seem to flow over him, like the lightest touch over every inch of him? How could the Void feel like fingers pushing into his mouth, his eyes, while still more unseen tendrils pulled him apart? It was maddening, beyond maddening, to feel so full and so empty all at once. The hazy remnants of Aulvok's psyche questioned itself, for there was nothing else to entertain. He could not escape this place. He wondered if these sensations were caused by something in this awful place that he'd never seen nor heard in the immeasurable stretch of time he'd been here, or if he was creating the sensations in his own mind. There could be no real answers in this prison of nothingness. There were only the questions that lingered for so endlessly long that he began to call them friends.

When he was first cast into this prison, he'd relived all of his memories until he could no longer stand it. No matter how Aulvok picked at and peeled apart his past, he still couldn't find anything that would lead him out of his prison. He wasn't even sure what this place that contained and drained him was at the beginning of his internment. The downcast demon prince had finally surmised himself to be swallowed up by one of the Voids of Kin. That being, from which his own mother, the red goddess Malkir, and her benevolent twin had spawned, commanded all the unimaginable power of a collapsing star in a simple wave of its long white hands. There was no way to know for sure, though, if the darkness that flowed into and through him was the same one described to him by his mother, in the ancient epoch past when he was only a neophyte at her breast. All his remembering really did for him was remind him of a wicked paradise lost; the unholy legions he'd commanded, his fell-forged armor, the weapons with which he'd slaughtered countless thousands, and the hundreds of broken crowns, each still with its cracked skull, all that he'd collected over centuries had been snatched away from him. The glorious spoils of endless, terrible war were gone and he could see no way to regain his beloved treasures.

When remembrance finally yielded nothing, he fantasized. Oh, the wonderful, terrible things he'd longed to do to the beings that had put him here. Yes, once he finally escaped, they would pay for every moment he'd spent imprisoned. He would make them regret locking him away with nothing more to do than plot revenge. It was a very long time before Aulvok discovered his sadistic fantasies had been a mistake, as his unfulfilled desires became more and more torturous to the only creature they reached: himself. When he realized he would never hear their dying screams, he found that it was he who tried to cry out in the dark. He had tried to scream, but the dark tendrils... That was when they had first found their way into him. He'd choked on the velvet darkness until he could no longer remember anything but that place.

That was how he'd survived so long, finally, by letting the Void swallow him as he swallowed it. Acceptance had preserved him, like a specimen sheltered beneath a glass dome, protected even from himself. Unknown to Aulvok, his captors had gone to excruciating lengths to remove all traces of him from the world of men. While he was still begging his eyes to see something, anything, in the Void where they had left him, angels hunted every demonic centurion that had sworn fealty to Aulvok. Cabals of human cultists that still worshipped their fallen lord, unaware of his hopeless position, were slaughtered. The Four Heaven's legions scoured the land, destroying every thing that carried his seal or his name. Statues were shattered, paintings shredded, and books burned until all that remained of Aulvok was the memory of his horrors still haunting those mortals unfortunate enough to have witnessed his hellish campaign firsthand.

Aulvok had been imprisoned so long that even tales of him had passed out of history. Every witness to his deeds had long died and turned to dust. For a time, scholars had scoffed at the mention of such a boogeyman. It was merely an allegorical lesson on hubris, or something like that. A disaster incarnate like him could never have existed, for there was simply no evidence. His hellish siblings mourned in their own fell-kingdoms and the realm of men prospered. Generations lived and died until his name went unspoken altogether. At long last, Aulvok's captors rested. There was nothing to tethering him beyond the Void, and so there was no way to release him from Kin's vacuous prison.

Nothing, except a single book, so prized by its possessor that he had guarded it, even from angels, until the final day of his twisted life. The first and final slavish acolyte of the Demon Prince Aulvok had wretched his last breath with his gnarled fingers still wrapped around the tome. The single surviving image of Aulvok's visage, crowned with curved and twisting horns, was carried on the page facing the name that waited to be spoken again. The arcane verses that followed could drag the most wrathful child of Malkir back to the mortal plane. That tortured slave had been so completely enthralled by his master's wicked will that he'd been carried by it through all the centuries when benevolent soldiers had roamed the land in force. The book survived with ease once their countless wings were folded, thanks to the sacrificial devotion that had tended it for so long.

Space Oddity

As her terror subsided and her heartbeat began to slow, Emilia could think clearly again, or at least relatively so. She wanted, no, needed, to know what had transpired between her departure from Earth and her entry into stasis. The ship's computer... She thought. That was her only hope for piecing events together until her memory returned. There should be an interface somewhere nearby... She pressed her hand to the frigid ceiling to turn herself. In her earlier cognitive fog, she hadn't noticed how emaciated she had become. The tendons in her hand moved and flexed visibly beneath the skin as she pushed away. Fixated on the bulges of her wrist bones and the stick-like arms they were connected to, she didn't immediately notice the figure in her field of vision. How did this happen? A malfunction in the stasis pod? Or was she already this malnourished when before she'd entered the pod?

The questions in Emilia's mind were accumulating rapidly, which only deepened her need for answers. If the rest of her body had been this severely damaged, what if her brain was equally atrophied? What if my memory never recovers? Then it was only more imperative that she learn as much as she could from the computer. She pulled her mind away from her horrified fascination with her own anatomy to re-focus on finding the nearest interface. Before she could move, though, her eyes found something much more interesting.

At the sight of him, she reflexively jerked away in momentary shock. She had thought all of the other pods were empty. Was he another hallucination, like her vision of the steel-walled hallway? She stared at him for a handful of seconds that seemed like minutes. Skepticism was evident on her features. She expected him to vanish at any time. When he didn't disappear with a blink of her eyes, Emilia decided he must be real. “Who... Who are you?” She asked tentatively, continuing to stare.“Do you remember anything?” He was just as gaunt as she and from that she surmised that whatever had caused her condition had affected him as well. Dishearteningly, she realized he was probably afflicted with the same lack of anamnesis that she was experiencing.

Space Oddity

Silence. Silence and darkness stretched in every direction, interrupted only by the occasional point of light made by a distant star. All that existed in this void were barren masses of rock and metal, asteroids and exoplanets, expelled from their home systems by cosmic forces and left adrift. These, and one tiny craft moving along through the endless black. It maintained a steady pace but the movement seemed almost irrelevant in comparison to the vastness of space.

Inside the craft, the pervasive silence had seeped through the hull. It hung especially heavy in one room, like the silence that comes before a great storm, when all things that can have fled in fear and all that remains is what will soon be swept up in the approaching chaos.

This room was dark except for six tiny lights, five blue and one green. The blue lights glowed on the open doors of empty stasis pods. Their sleek surfaces were barely illuminated by the status lights. Only one pod was closed, the green light indicating that stasis was being successfully maintained within it. Then, with a singular tone that brushed aside the perturbing silence like so much dust, the green light became yellow.

The process of reanimation had begun.

Faded images and sluggish figures drifted in and out of mnemonic fog as Emilia lay dreaming, if one could even call such undeveloped fragments “dreams”. Her brain was just beginning to resume higher functions. The stasis process had used a series of chemical solutions to force her body into complete metabolic cessation, right down to the cellular level. Now, it was restarting her with a different set of injections delivered by the intravenous line connected to her right arm. Her eyelids quivered and her fingers twitched as the second round of stimulants was moved through her veins by the sluggish beating of her heart.

Finally, her pale-green eyes slowly opened. It was dim at first within the pod but the lights were growing brighter by the second. Her pupils failed to contract at the same rate, though, and the light began to sting. It took several seconds for her groggy mind to think to simply close her eyes.

There was a soft hiss and the sound of liquid flowing. Emilia's eyes snapped open. With a final dose, reanimation was complete. Her reflexes were fully restored now so the crisp, bright light filling the pod was no longer blinding. Another hiss accompanied the opening of the pod doors opened and Emilia felt her body begin to float away from her pod. There was no artificial gravity in the stark white room, nor anywhere else on the ship. Her self-awareness returned piece by piece. The tension of her hair on her scalp, tied back tightly with an elastic band, the squeeze of a neoprene uniform against her skin from neck to ankle, the chill air prickling the hairs on her bare arms, the softness of the socks on her feet and the boots over them.

There was a tug on her arm that quickly became painful. The I.V. line was pulled taught, keeping her tethered to the pod and shifting the needle in her vein. She winced as she pulled the thin steel from her arm. Drops of blood floated away in tiny crimson bubbles until the smallest of scabs formed over the wound.

Her mind felt clearer with every passing moment. Her eyes followed the disconnected I.V. line as it was autonomously reeled back into the pod. A stab of terror reached into her chest when she saw that the other five pods were empty. Where was the rest of the crew? Was she completely alone here? What happened? What had gone so wrong? Her heart raced and her head throbbed as she tried to remember but stasis was not without its side effects. She could remember her name, her profession, even departing Earth for this mission, which had clearly not gone as planned. The memories of everything thereafter were increasingly incomplete, though, as she unsuccessfully tried to retrace the events that had led to her entering the stasis pod. She closed her eyes in an effort to concentrate better.

Her back brushed against the ceiling as she continued to drift weightlessly through the room. The sensation struck a familiar chord somewhere in her mind. She opened her eyes to see that the sterile, calm white of the stasis room had been replaced by stainless steel and emergency lights flashing red all around her. A different place, a different ship. She was weightless still, but looking down a hallway that was somehow both familiar and foreign at once. Her back brushed against something. She began to turn. Her blood became ice and time seemed to slow as she started to scream and then...

White.

Emilia stared up at the paneled ceiling of the stasis room. Her eyes were wide and her heart continued to pound. The scream was still stuck in her throat as she floated, paralyzed by a fear of something she couldn't remember. She tried to calm herself to no avail. Her mind was overwhelmed by the primordial urge to flee, but from what?

Elsewhere on the ship, a message flashed on a computer screen:

Stasis terminated...
Reanimation successful...
Pod 6 vacated.

The Travelers Guidebook To Conquering

The end of the line, the very southern tip of the continent. Adelaide stood on the beach and stared out at the sun setting over the ocean. The dark water blazed with ever-shifting streaks of red, orange, and gold. The redheaded warrior had never seen the ocean until she'd arrived in Newport eight days ago. Her long journey had not yet taken her to the coast before this. It was a beautiful sight, but it did little to calm her churning thoughts. She'd spent the last week weighing her next course of action, but could make no decision. The doubts that clouded her thoughts were proof enough that she was not ready to return home. Where to go next, then? That was the question that plagued her. Indecision bred frustration that only compounded with each passing day, keeping her awake at night and irritable through the day.

Some distance away to her left, the docks were clogged with fishermen and their ships returning home before the daylight disappeared. Mentally exhausted but unable to stop her mind from turning, Adelaide walked back up the beach towards the port. Taller than all but the largest men, she had no trouble cutting through the crowd and soon made her way into the village, heading for the pub. She hoped a few drinks would help to sedate her.

She'd heard that Newport was once a thriving settlement. The resident fishermen had brought back huge hauls every day. Merchant ships had frequently stopped there as well, but in recent years, catches had been growing smaller and smaller. Trade in Newport dried up along with the fish supply and now the town was struggling. Strife was apparent throughout the village. The people were thin, their clothes worn, and homes were in obvious need of repair. The tavern was the only business that remained lucrative, once filled with celebrations of success, now packed with those seeking to forget their troubles.

When Adelaide pushed open the door to the pub, it was already becoming crowded inside. Soon, it would be full of drunken, boisterous people, but the night had only just begun, so for now it was relatively quiet. Most of the other patrons were fishermen come to drink away the day's disappointment. They sat around tables in groups of four or five, only occasionally speaking to each other. Some stared at the redhead as she crossed the room to an empty table in one corner.

She drew attention wherever she went in Newport, standing out from the natives in any number of ways. Most people this far south were smaller with dark hair and tanned skin, and she had none of those traits. The intricately designed tattoos exposed on her neck, as well as a discolored burn scar that marred the right side, were the subject of many whispers. Adelaide was utterly unaffected by the gazes following her through the tavern. She pulled her axe from its sheath on her back, setting it on the floor. The steel blade hit the wooden boards with a heavy thud and she leaned the haft leaned against the table. Her right hand rested on the table, never more than a few inches from her weapon.

The wanderer tossed a bronze coin onto the tabletop and leaned back in her chair, though her thick leather armor made it less than comfortable. A server soon brought her a mug of ale, one of the few things still brought to Newport by the merchant ships. She was eager to calm her uneasy mind and downed nearly half of the stein in a few deep swallows before resting it back on the table. It was a cheap draft, but also a weak one compared to the spirits she'd had in other lands. Adelaide had drunk away a handful of coins each night she'd been in Newport and had yet to find herself truly intoxicated. Tonight seemed as though it would be no different. She appeared to be tuning out the other patrons, apparently lost in thought as she continued to sip her beer in silence, though she still kept a distrusting eye on those around her.