It was nearly done. My Great Plan. The focus of my entire year of Overseeing. I haven’t mentioned it in this account yet, for it was my greatest and most terrible act. It was both brave and foolish, much like myself. I can only hope that whatever benevolent gods there may be will forgive my soul for this atrocity against the very nature they helped to create. May the light be with me. May the light be with us all.
26th Obsidian
This world was hewn from the fabric of reality, shaped and turned by the tears of Armok. But there was something here before, something predating this insubstantial reality we live in. A world of power and strength, of heat and flame. A world to be exploited. My need for wood was at last sated. I recall how I had stood and watched the final sapling grow to its full strength, my hopes pinned to its fragile, slender length. I recall the feeling of satisfaction as it was full-grown, its life put to use in my great plan. “Cut it!” I had said sharply, not wanting to see its sap on a hatchet, like blood on an axe. I’m acting like a damned elf, I grouched to myself. A woodsforumite ran forward, darted a look at me, and plunged his blade deep into its bark. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. The sounds of doom. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. A necessary doom.
Ay, the elders of old would weep crystalline tears to see such misery wreaked upon the world of their making. Indeed, Apiks, chiefest amongst them, was compelled to face the threat of Necrothreat; the dead. In so doing, he caught a glimpse of the land he so seldom saw, but often thought of. A world of green and tree, of sky and brook. A land to fight for. A land of fire in its own right, the blood shed upon the verdant green a testament to its bite, and its beauty. Ay, the elders would weep. But from the fires of death does greatness rise, and Necrothreat would be the biggest bonfire the world had ever had the honour to bear witness to. Let the Elders weep; we would be the ones to act!
Th4DwArfY1 shook his tired head, and rubbed the grains of sleep from his eyes. His beard rose and fell, bunched and then collapsed again to flow on his chest as he yawned. It hadn’t been a hard day, writing this record, but it had wrangled more emotion from him than any event in his life. Nay, he thought as he assessed his fatigue. It had taken more out of him than even witnessing the events themselves, for then he had merely been one taking place in the inner most workings of madness; now he could consider free of such strangling things as insanity.
Th4DwArfY1, he who had sought the ultimate courage of fighting. Th4DwArfY1, he who had faced the dreaded yak, had met the storied NAV, dealt with Apiks, fought with Highmax. Th4DwArfY1, whose name is both curse and blessing in the Mountainhomes, whose very presence made the undead tremble and the living weep. First of all Forumite, secondly man and thirdly Abomination. This man was afraid and trembling like a new-born kitten within the confines of a dank, dark office. This legend was writing his legend, and in so doing was felling himself one word at a time. His mind plagued by what he had done, Th4DwArfY1 sat in his disgustingly lavish office, the Silence spreading like dread wings on either side of his still body like a dark cloak. At his sudden, indrawn breath the darkness trembled, then shattered as he softly began to hum, a slow, mournful tune as old as the bones of the earth themselves. Rising from this halting tune, he fashioned words and strung them like jewels along its midnight length. Let us now hear what he sings, but give him privacy as well. For in that room a legend dwelled in the very pit of despair. A patriotic man shirked his duty to sing and write a story. So yes, let’s leave him for a bit and listen to his song; and if he sheds any tears along the way, who is to know but the shadows in his still office?
Along the road of life and death
I travelled long with ne’er a breath.
Betwixt the hills that plagued my life
And over plains I met my strife.
Oh, my world is shrinking every day,
I long to see some hills again
And watch them march beside my way
Where long I slept upon the lane.
Ay, the trees there clumped in mighty groves
And apples throve and grew around.
And yes, upon the fairest heights
I wandered, laughed and made my peace.
And yet I came towards this plane
Where none that live are ever safe.
I wept in tears, and flooded land
In grime and darkness, drought and sand.
I sought the light and found the blight
That scoured my mind and blinded sight.
I looked for life and death I found
That spread upon the grass and ground.
As his song ends, let us depart from this place entirely, leaving Th4DwArfY1 to his silence and thought. Nay, listen not to the tremulous noise of quill scratching on paper. Instead, let us focus on the words themselves and leave him to his own thoughts, be they light or dark.
I stood beside the huge, churning water wheels. Hundreds of gallons of water pushed the great, wooden arms around to create the 999 power needed. The sound was quite deafening, and those Forumites nearby complained of the noise. Their complaints were disregarded for the greater good. 1000 power was thrummed through gears and axles, sped along its way by the mighty force of nature that was the River, by some called the Bloodwater. The power sped through its lines and limbs, spearing a dining room before it shot beneath my feet to pierce the very stone. From there it spread its gleaming strands through metal and stone, mechanism and screw. And then it hit the blood of the earth and, flinching, rebounded to speed back to the top, shooting past where it had begun its journey. It twisted and twined in courses known only to it before it stopped, halted, leashed and reigned before Apiks. It was he who rode this sea of energy, and in the last moments of Necrothreat he became a star of vibrancy. Highmax looked with awe at a sight his magic could not hope to accomplish, but which Forumite ingenuity had leashed for its own purposes. I gave a nod to Apiks, and fire, molten streams of death, were summoned at his beck and called. Apiks strained, strained, strained and released.
Carnage. A hash of screams and death. They stay with me today, those screams which pierced through to my hiding place, where I cowered, the Abomination scared of his own final act of madness upon the world. You could say that my actions that day scared me sane, knocked the haze of Armok from my mind like some drunken stupor I had never even known existed. Highmax stood for a second, tears glistening as gems in his eyes. Apiks hung in the balance, the power coursing through him fit to destroy the very fabric of reality. Or loose fiery death on the world. And I wept and hid, bemoaning my sanity, for it meant that I could not hide from myself, that thrice accursed being. Highmax came to, and unslung his sword. He pointed to the raging inferno of power and a blue twister of thin but strong power leapt eagerly out, blasting into the energy around Apiks, merging with it. The glow around him, like cloth, became threaded with jewel-like blue. Now Highmax and Apiks strained, and legions died. NAVs corpse was engulfed by the flames, a gleam of thanks shining in his eyes as his beaten and tortured form was shrouded in cleansing fire.
And still I hid; my greatest shame.
To my office I had fled, I had barred my door. I had ignored the screams and shouts, the mad capering of my Forumite companions. For I knew there was no joy in this. The very land, like the Undead NAV, was tortured and twisted. It groaned, and my heart ached. The green that had so struggled to grow was engulfed by encroaching sheets of writhing flame, and crafts the First Forumites had made in their sweat went with them, their like never again seen upon the earth. A long-dead Forumite’s final craft of beauty was taken forever from us, and my heart tore just that little bit more. Oh, the woe I felt could have engulfed the entirety of Necrothreat, no need for the eviscerating flame beyond the gates! My mind rested on artists such as Meepo and NotaPirate, and I wept a broken apology to their dead spirits.
And still Apiks set on his high seat above the world of fire that Necrothreat had become upon my whim. His sweat upon the wheel was turned to fire enchanted by Highmax and the water. From liquid came the strength to make such heat; even in my state I let loose a grim, tear-choked chuckle at the thought before my despair again took me. My head began to throb in time to the grinding of the frantic gears. They tore through my mind like Highmax’s swords, like knives through butter. But before me grew a shaded figure, at first seen as nothing but woeful fancy. It grew as a sickly plant does, deformed and broken, a hand clenched in white intensity upon a staff of ebony. The face of the figure, shrouded by a black cloak and hamed in shadow was he, and his very voice sent ripples of dread through me. I looked into those eyes, red flaming things, and knew I was looking at Amok. For the slimmest of seconds I thought I could confront him, but before that baleful gaze I collapsed inwards, into the black void of my inner being. Armok stood before me, death made flesh, hate made alive. I loathed and feared him, and so I wept, and wept. Another shame.
His voice came, the whisper a snake makes as it creeps after prey in long, sickly grass. It rose from this to an almost reedy, nasal voice, then finally settled for deep, booming; commanding. “WELL DONE, WORM” spake he, and his voice dripped sarcasm. I cringed and lay prostrate and prone on the ground, my face sleek and wet. “YOU ARE TO GO OUT THERE AND ORDER IT STOPPED, FOOL. THIS PLACE WAS NOT MADE TO WITHSTAND THE INTENSITY OF THE DEPTHS! THERE IS A CHANCE THE ENTIRE WORLD WILL FALL FROM THIS ACTION OF YOURS! BEGONE! FIX IT!” His voice grew dread and terrible to behold, and I flinched and writhed, and then he yanked me upwards onto the balls of my feet. My terrified mind comprehended what he had done. Puppet strings. My eyes glinted from something less physical than tears, and I opened my mouth. Armok waited, the dark pooling about him; he thought I was going to meekly obey. I grinned, quick and vicious, and if darkness could look surprised, it did at that moment.
“APIKS!” My voice was not the boom of Armok, nor the steady, gravelly pitch it usually adopts. My voice was both the wind and the pick. The entire fortess shook under its potent force, and the issuing flame halted for the merest fragment of time. And then Apiks replied, and I was lifted from the ground on wings of pale, gleaming silver. My face was cleansed of such earthly things as tears and my mind no longer consumed by sadness. I was myself, and I was furious. The power of Highmax’s magic was laced throughout my omnipotent wings, but it pulsed red, a bright, magma pitched burgundy. Armok gaped as the power of magic and engineering flowed into me in a roaring river, and I swelled under its influence. The roaring torrent of magma still spread below the open sun and sky in Necrothreat.
With another vicious grin, I sent the gaping shade into the Nameless Void as easily as if brushing off an annoying bug. I waited, and sure enough it returned, screaming, roaring; the wrath of a god pitted against the power of a Forumite. Another grin. I knew what I’d put my money on. From the Nameless void he flew, a bat out of hell, and I stood with my wings of power and waited, feeling the strain of Highmax and Apiks as they fed both me and the pumps power. With a roar of anger, I met the coming god, power for power. His physical shape blurred, and he became liquid, flowing over my beam of energy. With a growl I used my force in the time-honoured tradition of war; as a club, I used the crackling, red-and white mass to crash with the force of a wagon into his side, tossing the being of Amok through wall and lock, key and door, past the startled faces of Forumites still locked in their pointless revels. With a screech, Armok became one with the Blood of the Earth, became one with it, shade and darkness bathed in flame and light. One more scream that shook stone and soil, and Armok had gone. None know where he is to this day, and as I stood and watched the roiling mass of magma I did not dare to hope that it was the end of Armok. But he was gone, for the moment.
I felt a tugging, and saw the stream getting thinner. More power needed. I stood ready to give the energy up, my wings of power. But I hesitated, my mind sharper than ever before, than even the time I had dealt with the spirits of the dead. Inside me a kernel awoke, and I knew what to do. In me the colours swirled. The White of the river and Apiks, the Red of myself and the Blue of Highmax. And I knew, in that moment, I knew. The only way to do this was with love for the land, with patriotism. This could never be without my help, without my love for the land holding it together. I threw my head back and felt rather than made my neck muscles cord in thick, wiry ropes of muscle. In one hand the Essence of Apiks, in the other the Essence of Highmax. I grinned one final time in my office, the harsh edge shown to Armok dimmed into a passionate love of my homeland. From my heart issued a third, red colour; the Essence of Th4DwArfY1. I hurled all three colour to Apiks who caught the force of falling mountains with a tense ease, as if catching a viper and sill knowing it may bite. This force he fed through the pumps, and fiery destruction was once more rained upon the land. Th4DwArfY1 collapsed in his office, panting and wheezing in a room that held a chair and table, and placed upon them as if by the hand of fate a quill and paper….
Now leave the three heroes to their battle, as Th4DwArfY1 slumbers whilst his power is spent to cover the land in fire. Nay, don’t look down just yet, do not see the ribbon of water being stalked by the sea of flame. Nay, leave the Three to their battle. Do not hear the cuss of Apiks in a tongue unbeknownst to any there, nor see Highmax’s straining face as he silently mouths the fated words “Well Bollocks.” Instead, let us look to the future, where a glimmer of hope shines
But from the flame a new beginning arises, from the destruction life shall spring. To make a sword the flame is used, to purify the metal. And thus was Necrthreat purged by the three. Thus was the Army of Ur defeated for a time, and thus did The Patriot, The Warrior and The Lore Lord wreak havoc upon their beloved home, so that it might live again.
And so, as the flames and blood of Necrothreat spilled on the old fields of war, Highmax, the old war veteran, slayer of Ur, used the power of his magic to aid in the force that could end the final days of the war for Necrothreat... And what a feat, by Th4DwArfY1, the Loremaster and the swordsman!
The dead, without voices, screamed silently as the life blood of the fortress enveloped and entombed them; their great siege was over; they had lost this battle... And thus marked the end days of the Great War against the Necrothreaders…But when could a second such war arise?
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And done! At last! Sorry for the...very large amount of time
Anyway, the lag isn't much improved; but considering that a pump stack is firing magma outside that isn't a surprise. That thing took ages to make, too; the entire year. Though I shouldn't complain, as if Highmax and I hadn't been working on making pump materials in the forges, the Jackal Defender of the Tombs would have killed us.
I shall post the save in a bit.
Poll
Author
Topic: Necrothreat II - A Fort Cursed by the Gods! (Read 470787 times)