12th Galena
With the return of Highmax the hero, indefatigable wielder of the blades, Hero of the People, the morale improved throughout the fort. In Apiks they had a sense of the old, the Elder days which gave birth to them shining forth from his eyes. In me, they found a leader and a scapegoat. Even the children revile me, undead beast that they believe me to be. But they follow when ordered, and leap to obey my commands. But these are but two points of the triangle, and the third has been vacant for far too long. Highmax is back, and in him the children see someone they can model themselves on, and the men have someone they can respect, born and forged in the fires of war as he was.
The anger in me is gone. It is not that Highmax changed me, it is more that he helped my mind struggle from the bog and be free again. I revel in the feeling of peace…while it lasts. For nothing can last forever, and my mind has often been an unreliable place in any case. For I have been stormed by ice and fire, by the wrath of the very gods themselves. My will has been the play thing of Armok and a bug to be crushed by Fain. But I stand here in this place, and I will not fall, for with my demise they will win. A slow grin spreads across my lips, the first to grace my face since this accursed undead siege began. The Forumites around me, those that were eyeing me with fear, flinch and look away. They know what this means. They know and fear it. When Th4DwArfY1 the Abomination smiles, his enemies die. I walk away, citizens draining from the corridors before me, my mind whirling with ideas. I will not fall. Highmax has taken Ur, but I will kill the army of damned before me.
I am back in my office, and the walls warp and ooze as if the plaster had become liquid. Strange figures pressed against the bulging walls, faces struggled to become free and, failing, turned aside with a silent screech of rage. The ceiling came closer and closer. Soon I was on my back, and the ceiling hovered above my nose. It plunged downwards and engulfed me, casting my diminutive figure into a white abyss. This is travelling, the art I learned so long ago from Armok, unwittingly taught. In this ivory sea I see threads, severed from me but floating yet. Like vipers they strike, one attaching with ephemeral cords to each limb. With contempt I brush them off, for no longer am I a puppet to dance upon the strings of Armok. I gather the thwarted strands to myself, twisting them to my purpose. Like blazing lines of light they flash before my sight, colours swirling in front of me. I try to follow one colour, but cannot. Suddenly, as if pricked by a needle, the bubble of vibrancy bursts, and I am in some other place, the sights and sounds of real life surrounding me.
The place I came to was the thing spoken of in the darkest thoughts and dreams of villains, vagabonds and idiots. There was no cohesion to the place, a landscape of muted browns then bright, intruding greens. A swamp of grey liquid stretched off to my right, the excess of some foul forge working the Light only knows where. The only thing to indicate its presence was the sound of beating, incessantly churning in the background. I follow the noise where it leads, and am spat out into a clearing. Trees with drooping, green leaves hang almost to the ground, their growth stunted despite their colour. From an excess, much like a boil, in the ground there issued forth a stream of foul lava which oozed in a winding line towards a grey anvil beside a stream. A crudely made hut of green leaves and grey wood served as shelter. The water from the river went in cheery, bright and bubbling, and was released on the other end as an almost stagnant grey discharge that slowly moved towards the swamp. The odd dead fish with flashing scales drifted amongst the grey debris of industry.
I walked towards the hut from which the noise was coming. As I approached I noticed it was bigger than I had thought, and was propped in the middle by a carved log. Faces reminiscent of those I had imagined in the walls of my office seemed to be trying to strain free, jaws frozen in eternal torment. I ignored it, for I was focused on the inhabitants, who to the man had leapt up from their squatting over a thin stream of the earth’s life blood. Where it met the forge this cherry red substance hissed and steamed, and billowing clouds of dense mist rose from it. There, one of the figures plunged a lump of iron into the source of the steam, pulled it out and started hastily beating it, lacking the expertise shown by the Forumite smithies. Seemingly unaware of me, the pale creature continued to bash the iron until a hiss from one of the others stopped it. Startled, it turned and let the partially finished sword drop to the lifeless ground.
In a deep voice I proclaimed to these green-skins, these Goblins as they called themselves, that I was here on a matter of business. One came forward, a filthy loincloth which seemed torn from the back of a wolf cinched around its emancipated waist, and said in a halting tongue “You speak of businessss, ssstunted one? I sssay to hell with you, sscourge of our kind! I will perssssonally kill you for the glory of Armok, and recccceive my reward!” So saying, it lunged towards me. I barely blinked, and trained by Highmax as I was, easily swatted the beast aside with my sword, its body falling into the lava to twist and writhe in an agony more real that the carved pillar could ever hope to depict. I wiped my blade upon its tattered cloth just before it was consumed in fire, and in the light of my burning foe grinned at the remainder, some dozen or so, who huddled in a corner. The smell of fear seemed to pervade the fetid air, and I grinned wider and deeper, a predatory bent to my face.
“Now, friends, who wants to bargain for their very lives?” No answer came from the forgers, so I sat down and explained what was expected of them, my sword lying innocently across my legs. When I left, the hesitant sounds of forging started up again behind me, churning out weapons and armour.
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Just a bit of back story for what I'll be posting next. Very sorry to take so long, but I have felt exhausted lately. Really, if I had written anything it would probably have been worse for you.
Hopefully this will be the start of a build in momentum.
Poll
Author
Topic: Necrothreat II - A Fort Cursed by the Gods! (Read 472385 times)