Well boys, this is it! The end of Murdermachines, poorly written by yours truly! Read on!
Armok looked down at his favorite fortress, Murdermachines. He knew it was doomed, be it from voidspawn, demons, goblins, or even simply the stupidity of an overseer. He knew it could not last. There would be a quick burst of blood and then nothing. The constant flow would stop, and Armok would have to move on. So he decided to do something about it.
Flame thought about the shattered military. There were too few dwarves to draft. Even with tricks like the danger room and the shaft of enlightenment, there was still no way to train enough dwarves. Her only hope was to reinforce what she had. With adamantine.
Down in one of the many catacombs, in a forgotten stockpile, there laid a skeleton. Nobody knew who it belonged to, their profession, or even their gender. All they knew is that it was dwarven. There was no moss or lichen on the bones, they had lain there so long the moss had long since died. The bones lay in a rough arrangement, where the corpse had been placed all those years before.
Slowly, the skeleton's bones began to blacken. The gnaw marks from vermin began to fill in with fresh bone. From the joints grew rough gray ligaments and muscle. Over the muscle formed shining gray skin. Through the skin the glow of the earth's blood could be seen. Closed eyes and a mouth formed on the face. The eyes opened, revealing a fiery glow beneath. Finally, a magnificent beard of glowing blue strands grew on the face.
Armok rose from where he lay. He walked into the nearby catacombs, raising his godly hand toward the coffins.
Wolfkit chipped away at the adamantine, cutting it into a boulder. Suddenly, his pick met no resistance. The adamantine crumbled away to reveal a grinning, contorted face. He barely had time to cry out before being consumed in fire.
Flame stood in front of one of the coffins of her former bodies. She occasionally visited the catacombs, for sometimes her past lives remembered helped her in this one. Suddenly, her perception seemed split. She felt as if her whole body was itching terribly, but it didn't. She saw darkness, but she also saw the coffin in front of her. She pushed the coffin lid open, but she stayed standing where she was. And she saw herself standing in front of her coffin, and she saw herself rise out of the coffin in front of her, fully formed and very much alive.
All around her, corpses rose from their coffins, flesh forming on their bones. And in the center of it all, a dwarf with metal skin and glowing eyes. A god. Armok.
Armok turned his glowing eyes toward the overseer. He opened his mouth and spoke. "I HAVE GIVEN YOU A BOON, TERRYSLAYER. USE IT WISELY. YOUR BROKEN MILITARY MAY NOT BE ABLE TO WITHSTAND WHAT IS COMING. SO I HAVE GIVEN YOU THE TOOLS TO FIX IT."
As he spoke, a cry was heard from the depths.
"DEMONS IN THE DEEP!"
A second cry echoed down from above.
"VOIDSPAWN! DWARVES TO THE GATES!"
Flame, shaking herself out of her stupor, looked around at the newly risen dwarves. They were somewhat confused, but they knew gods were involved somehow and took it in stride. They'd seen stranger things at Murdermachines. Terry, who had been buried nearby, couldn't remember anything and said his name was Datan. Void spirits left their bodies and found their old favorite bodies. Also, they were all naked, which would have to be fixed.
The nudists streaked their way straight to the nearest finished goods stockpile where they put on cast off goblin clothes and the occasional dead migrant sock. Flame set about assigning anyone who had ever been in the military to a squad. In the meantime, hordes of undying and fearless civilians held off the voidspawn and demon hordes. AnimaRytak was restored to the position of militia commander. The forges made armor and weapons galore. As the smiths dipped the steel into the magma for heating, it emerged glowing blue like new adamantine, but with the weight of steel. They dubbed the new metal Armoksteel. Dwarves were assigned their weapon of choice. The military suited up for battle.
Flame dispatched the newly risen military to surface and the adamantine mines. None too soon - dwarves whose corpses burned in demon flames could not be resurrected, and dwarves turned to voidspawn could not be turned back after death. She herself went with the crossbowdwarves to the depths to shoot flame demons.
Soldiers led by Microblighted and Flame ran down to the depths. The demons had made it is far as the cavern outpost before meeting the dwarves. They were barely injured by the brave civilians, who had merely delayed them. The demons charged, expecting to make short work of the beards.
Bolts flew and struck true, exploding many of the more incorporeal demons before they had even reached the dwarves. The demon charge was stopped in its tracks by a wall of Armoksteel and dwarven muscle. Demon and dwarven limbs flew and blood and goo flowed across the stone. But the demons were being pushed back. Every dwarf that fell rose again seconds later and rejoined the battle. The demons were powerful and terrifying, but there were only so many against the infinite onslaught of the dwarves. The demons were dead and beaten.
At the same time, more soldiers led by Anima rushed to the surface, where the voidspawn were just barely being held back by civilians aided by Prosnorkulus and a few other soldiers. A patriarch dueled him, pushing Prosnorkulus and the soldiers back while leaving the civilians vulnerable to attack by the soldiers. Several dwarves had already been turned and fought their comrades, eyes empty.
The new rush crashed into the voidspawn horde, pushing it back. Anima's axe and hammer joined Prosnokulus' sword. Heads shattered, limbs flew, taint flowed like rivers. The patriarch lost first one arm, then a leg, crashing down against the wall. It lost another arm, then its head. The last of the voidspawn thralls died. The day seemed won.
But the victory was not to last. From the walls sounded an alarm - more voidspawn! An army the likes of which the world had never seen, their black carapaces glittering in the sun, patriarchs and overlords standing high above the trees. The army stretched back as far as the eye could see in all directions.
And leading the army was a colossal patriarch, hundreds of feet tall, with a carapace that absorbed all light and eyes that glowed like fire.
"FLAME," the patriarch boomed, "SEND OUT ANIMARYTAK TO FACE ME IN COMBAT, LEADER VERSUS LEADER. IF HE WINS, I WILL MAKE YOUR END SWIFT! IF HE REFUSES, I WILL CRUSH THIS FORTRESS TO DUST!
Flame, having arrived at the surface by now, shouted back. The patriarch did not hear because he was miles away. The army marched closer.
Dwarves readied their weapons for battle. The crossbowdwarves retreated - bolts were useless against a foe that could break both legs and keep walking. The first wave came, all thralls, who clogged what traps were left before dying against the dwarves' blades. The second wave came, a mix of soldiers and more thralls, which died too. More and more voidspawn came, in an endless flood, dying and dying. The dwarves were bogged down amid the corpses and knee-high blood. Dwarves died and rose, but some were turned before dying and did not rise again. The dwarves were slowly pushed back into the fort.
The dwarves had the advantage inside the fort - the voidspawn had to stop and unclog the tunnel of corpses every so often. During one such break, Anima spoke to the rest of the dwarves. He had to shout over the noise of the voidspawn screaming rage though the wall of voidspawn bodies and the carapace crunch of the voidspawn eating their own dead.
The dwarves were exhausted. They had been fighting for days with no rest, food or drink. Their bodies regenerated after each death, but not their morale. The dwarves were all in various stages of rot from the voidspawns’ poison. As they stood waiting, one dwarf finally gave into the rot and collapsed, dead. She quickly stood back up, revived and fully regenerated.
"IF THIS KEEPS UP, WE'LL BE OVERWHELMED. WE'VE BARELY MADE A DENT AND WE'VE BEEN FIGHTING FOR HOURS. THERE ISN'T ANYONE HERE WHO HASN'T DIED AT LEAST THREE TIMES, EVEN ME. SO LET'S TRY SOMETHING ELSE. LET'S OPEN UP AN OLD ENTRANCE AND TAKE A FEW DWARVES TO GO KILL THE HUGE GUY."
There was a general murmur of assent.
"OKAY, I'M GOING TO GO MYSELF OBVIOUSLY, I WANT NCOMMANDER, MICROBLIGHTED, THE MAD FOOL, PROSNORKULUS, AND SABER. WE'RE GOING TO GO OUT THE OLD BLOCKED-OFF DRAWBRIDGE ENTRANCE, THE CINNABAR AND RUTILE ONE. BALTHARAAZ, SANDIEGO, MR.STRANGE, GROMBARDRIM, SCALIPER, DERM, TRYRAR, YOU GUYS IN THE BACK, HOLD DOWN THE FORT WHILE WE GO. I'M GONNA SNAG A CIVILAN ON THE WAY THERE TO TAKE DOWN THE WALL. WE'LL TRY TO DO THIS SNEAKY UP UNTIL WE GET FOUND AND THEN WE MAKE A DEAD RUN FOR THE BIG GUY. LET'S GO!"
Anima and his crew filtered out of the crowd of militiadwarves and into the fortress proper. The first civilian he saw was none other than Baelor, carrying a pot of booze to the sober militia. Anima told him to drop it and come with him. With a miner, they could make their own exit. The group ascended to the soil layer and Baelor began digging. After a short while, the tunnel broke out behind the massive patriarch.
They emerged into a silent ring of voidspawn. Of course, the voidspawn had heard them digging through the earth and prepared. The titanic patriarch towered over the circle, blocking out the sun. He shouted down at the small group of dwarves. “I SEE YOU’VE FINALLY WORKED UP THE COURAGE TO DIE BY MY HAND, ANIMARYTAK, BUT YOU’LL HAVE TO EARN THAT PRIVILEGE!” He waved a gigantic hand and ordered the voidspawn forward.
Instantly the voidspawn exploded in shrieks of rage and bloodlust. The circle closed quickly around the group and voidspawn blood fountained into the air as the two forces met. Anima shouted over the chaos for Baelor to get back in the hole and barricade the entrance. Baelor darted back down, vanishing from sight. “ALRIGHT,” Anima shouted, “WE GO FOR THE COMMANDER!” The group began slowly moving toward the colossal voidspawn. It seemed familiar somehow…
Down in the depths, a second demon wave flowed from the adamantine tube. They burned and slaughtered everything in their path. No dwarf lived long enough to sound the alarm.
The voidspawn continued to press the entrance to the fortress. As dwarves on the front line died, the voidspawn would fight the dwarf’s comrades for the dead body until it was resurrected. The dwarves had to win the tug-of-war every time, but the voidspawn only had to be lucky once. Inevitably, corpses were spirited away and devoured, or worse, changed into thralls. The defenders dwindled.
The same was happening to Anima’s brave crew. The Mad Fool was the first to fall, then Saber, then Prosnorkulus. Half the group was gone and they felt no closer to the commander, who laughed at their struggles from above.
Armok stood in the forges, changing ordinary steel into Armoksteel. Flame ran in to pick up more bolts. As she glanced over at Armok, he boomed, “FLAME. YOUR DWARVES ARE DYING. YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO.” Flame did indeed know what to do.
Some overseers learn how to use more powerful Overmagic than others. Flame was one of these. She headed for the surface.
Flame’s walk turned into a run and then a sprint as she neared the fighting at the entrance. The brave dwarves had been pushed back all the way down to the old depot room. Flame readied her magic as she reached the first defenders.
“SUPERDWARF ADD!” she shouted. Instantly, her arms and legs became a blur. She rocketed past the dwarves and into the midst of the voidspawn. “DEEFUSION THREE SIX!” She easily wove between the swinging weapons and furious voidspawn. Turning back for a moment, a bolt from her crossbow obliterated the head of a voidspawn swinging an axe at a dwarf’s neck. She jumped, using a screaming thrall as a springboard, launching herself a good thirty feet in the air. She landed on the face of an overlord, jumping away onto another enraged overlord. She headed for the massive patriarch.
Anima pressed his now exposed back against a tree as he watched Microblighted’s corpse being carried away. The patriarch laughed at him. “YOUR ALLIES ARE DEAD, ANIMARYTAK. EVEN NOW, MY SOLDIERS ARE IN YOUR PRECIOUS FORTRESS, KILLING THE LAST OF YOUR FRIENDS. GIVE UP.”
Anima was furious. Not much could get into his black heart, but this did. How dare this creature taunt him! “I CHALLENGE YOU TO SINGLE COMBAT! GOD AGAINST GOD! TERRY!”
“AH, YOU GUESSED CORRECTLY, VOIDGOD. I HAVE FOILED YOU AND YOUR ILK AT EVERY TURN. YOU GREW ENRAGED AT ME. YOU DEFEATED ME AS I DEFEATED YOU. BUT YOU COULD NEVER BEAT ME.”
“VERY WELL THEN. I ACCEPT YOUR CHALLENGE!” Terry shouted as he swung one of his massive axes down at Anima. Anima blocked it with his own axe, the collision sending out a shockwave that knocked branches from trees and kicked up a cloud of dust. The voidspawn moved back to make room for their general to maneuver.
The last dwarves backed slowly down the tunnel. Most were civilians that had picked up weapons from burned militia or wrestled them away from voidspawn. All hosted void spirits. More void spirts floated invisibly around the dwarves.
The demons had come up behind them, slaughtering the defenders. No one knew where Armok had gone. The fort was lost. The dwarves were just fighting to survive. Outside the tunnel, voidspawn and demons fought over who would wipe out the last of the dwarves.
The hallway dead-ended. There was no way out. Zasit heard the demon pounding on the door. There would be no more flight. It was time to fight. Zasit loaded her crossbow and aimed at the door.
The demon burst through the door and ran head-on into an Armoksteel crossbow bolt. It roared in pain and charged.
Zasit reloaded her crossbow and fired a second bolt. She fell into the old rhythm. Load. Aim. Fire. Load. Aim. Fire. Load, aim, fire, load, aim, fire, load-aim-fire-load-aim-fire-loadaimfireloadaimfireloadaimfire loadaimfire
The demon ran, then walked, then crawled, then slithered. Its roars became weaker and weaker under the hailstorm of bolts. Zasit did not think about why her quiver had not run out, or why she had any bolts at all – she had run out ages ago. Finally, the demon burbled its last breath. Zasit lay back against the wall, exhausted.
Anima was just a bit too slow. The sword took off his foot, boot and all. He landed on the ground and raised his hammer to block the next strike. He cast off his physical form. Terry did the same.
Anima’s soul grew, equaling the size of the black spirit facing him. His hammer and axe became extensions of his power, the light and darkness of the void. Terry’s weapons simply vanished.
The two gods traded blows, equally matched now. Shockwaves reverberated from the battle. Sparks of dark and darker flew from each blow. The forest burned with impure light. Voidspawn and fleeing dwarves watched the two gods battle.
But chaos reigned this day. The dwarves were defeated. The voidspawn reigned supreme. As Anima grew weaker, Terry grew stronger. Finally, Terry smote Anima with a fist glowing with dark power. Anima fell to the ground. Terry raised a fist, creating a sword that sucked in the air around it.
Anima raised his axe and hammer to ward off the blow. Terry’s sword fell, shattering the axe into a thousand pieces. It fell again, shattering the hammer. It fell a third time, taking off the Voidgod’s head.
Terry prepared himself to absorb the dead Voidgod’s power. As he spread his arms, he heard a scream of rage from one side. He turned to see Flame flying through the air at him. She forsook her earthly body and became a small point of bright light. He slammed into Terry, sending him reeling. They both screamed in pain as light and darkness annihilated each other.
Flame quickly flew over to the Voidgod’s corpse. He dipped his hands into the Voidgod’s soul. The energy was sucked into Flame, causing him to grow in size and his light to become a little dark around the edges. Terry stood up, shrieking in rage that he had been thwarted. Flame held his hands open, the shards of the Voidgod’s weapons floating into the air.
In his right hand coalesced a sword of light.
In his left hand coalesced a mace of darkness.
Terry screamed again and swung his sword at Flame. Flame parried with his mace and swung with his sword. Terry jumped backward, away from the blow. Terry created an axe and swung. The two fought viciously. Terry was stronger, but Flame had speed. Flame blocked a blow from Terry’s axe. “THERE’S A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ANIMA AND I” Flame shouted. “I DON’T PLAY FAIR!”
Flame stomped on Terry’s foot. He followed it up by smashing Terry’s right shoulder with his mace. Terry screamed in rage and pain, dropping his sword to the ground, where it exploded in blinding light. Flame swung his mace again, this time for Terry’s head. He grabbed the mace with his lower hand. Flame severed both left arms with his sword. Terry let go and charged. Flame sidestepped and smashed Terry’s legs in rapid succession.
Terry screamed and became a ball of darkness. He flew into the crowd of voidspawn, possessing a large overlord. The overlord attacked Flame, going for his legs. Flame simply stomped on the overlord’s head, crushing it into the ground. Darkness leaked around Flame’s foot and became another ball of darkness. Flame dropped his sword and grabbed the darkness before it could get away, annihilating the ball and part of his hand. It was over.
Armok appeared in the sky. Voidspawn, demons, and dwarves stopped and looked up. Armok spoke.
“YOU HAVE SUCCEEDED. I DID NOT THINK YOU HAD IT IN YOU. I THOUGHT DWARVES WERE GOING TO DIE OUT ON THIS WORLD. BUT YOU HAVE NOT, AND YOU HAVE SHED MORE BLOOD THAN ON ANY OTHER WORLD. SO I HAVE DECIDED TO REWARD YOU. I HAVE CREATED A NEW WORLD FOR YOU. THE STRUGGLE WILL CONTINUE. THE BLOOD WILL FLOW. AND I WILL BE GLORIFIED.”
A massive rip appeared in the sky. A different sky showed through. A sky not marred by the smoke of burning trees and corpses. A new sky.
The void spirits went first. They forsook their bodies and rose through the rift. The voidspawn rose next. They screamed and clutched at the ground before finally losing their grips. The demons beat their wings and cried out before being sucked into the portal. Flame was last. He looked out over the fields of corpses and commanded: “AUTODUMP DESTROY. CLEAN ALL.” The blood and corpses vanished. Flame flew up into the rift. The rift began to close. Armok vanished.
But just before the rift closed completely, a tiny wisp of darkness passed through.
The dwarves had sat quietly through everything. They now looked around at the now abandoned forest.
“Well, now what?”
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Topic: MurderMachines's Successor (Read 30515 times)