Prologue: The SevenThe following characters are in!
Howldyne (dgr)
The Last (Glass)
The Ashen (Nakeen)
Yog-Har the Unyielding (Prophet)
Ttipcmov, tFlfimseoh (TricMagic)
Ten-Tick Rani (micelus)
Thakk Kal (Criptfeind)
My sincere apologies to everyone who didn't get in. If I thought I could run this with 13 players I would.
You were not terribly concerned when news first starting coming in. The world has always been full of horror and war, and this sounded no different. Then it sounded larger, perhaps, but no different in concept. By the time you realized something was truly amiss, wheels had been set in motion. It wasn't the invading hordes that the Underworld feared, but the ruinous impact they had on the delicate nuances of the world. Processes and features that few knew they needed were knocked aside and cast askew by endless torrents of imbalance and irresponsibility from on high. The Underworld, much like your vaunted fortress, were not impregnable bastions the interlopers would pay dearly to contest. They were tombs you would drown in if you did not move quickly.
For most, this meant a difficult decision between abandoning their sanctuary and duty to flee on foot, or hunkering down and trying to withstand forces they were wholly unprepared for. You had no such difficulty- your castle could move under its own power, ferrying you to safety whenever you wished.
Or it could, if it weren't so unwieldy and slow.
You made it as far as the Well of Skellan, a vast shaft alight with spectral green energies and open to the surface world, before hitting a rather literal wall. Your stronghold was a marvel of engineering, but you had never intended it to scale sheer cliffs, and finding a more gentle incline to the surface would probably take more time than you had; while you were trudging below ground, the Usurper was roaring across it, and it'd do little good to escape the chaos of the Underworld by running into the legions of the enemy.
The LastAnother day, another apocalypse.
Granted, this one is a little more *energetic* than you're accustomed to. You seem to recall the fall of your kind feeling very reasonable and unavoidable at the time; the Pewter are often credited with "toppling" the Stonelings, but it's more like they twisted them up and let them topple themselves. Every setback and failure of that lengthy catastrophe was well founded in Stoneling motives and structures, not just a Pewter Ploy to destroy each other for no reason.
Beyond that, you've weathered apocalypses aplenty. Turns out when everyone's a powermad genocidal maniac, everywhere gets its turn at unfathomable ruin sooner or later. Some were larger than others, some were closer than others, some were more avoidable than others. But all of them were carved down somewhere as the day the world ended.
This time, though, the dam really does appear to have burst. The Pewter don't go down easy, but they're at least wily and flexible. The Silver shatter their foes or themselves, and they're currently un-shattered enough to rule the world. The Cobalt vie with horrors not even you want to know about. The Green Gold hold the line against every bogeyman from outside civilization, every contemptuous conqueror within civilization, and each other all at once.
They are *ALL* falling. Nothing can stem the tide. If it hasn't stopped yet, you're well and truly prepared to accept that maybe it isn't going to.
Fortunately, when one lives as long as you have you remember things. Little tidbits here and there, handy for a rainy day. Like where a particularly buoyant dragon was interred, and the gist of how to inflate sturdy materials- like preserved dragon hide- into a floating balloon one might use to drift to safety.
Now you just need to figure out how to dredge the mutated corpse of a Primordial horror from a pit stretching impossibly far down into the Underworld itself.
The InventorsThe dragon carcass was right where The Last knew it would be. It was no accident that it ended up down here- a mortal champion (Soson the Black, maybe?), knowing he'd have but one shot, aimed and timed his strike perfectly. The projectile is still lodged within the beast, right where it pierced several of the creature's air sacs, bringing it down at just the right moment to drop it into the pit, where it perished from the netherworld energies below. Both corpse and ballista bolt have been warped by their long time stewing within such a nexus of power, but are impressive nonetheless.
Of course, retrieving such an item is no small task; the fortress itself was useful- but not ideal- for both descending into the still-potent base of the Well and hauling such a massive prize out of it. Howldyne is displeased to note additional damage and irregularities to its function, but if The Last's scheme doesn't work he'll have to abandon the whole thing anyway.
Dissecting and repurposing the beast proves a little more difficult. No two dragons are the same- indeed, no one dragon is the same one moment to the next. As Primordial horrors, they are feared and reviled for their constant shifting of flesh, mutating constantly to fit their current needs or debased whims. The process isn't quick enough to be used in battle, but over long periods of time a dragon can become virtually anything. They tend towards gargantuan winged reptiles as a matter of convenience, but this one displays the immense variability within even that basic consistency- the thing's organically branching wings are meant for forward motion, while its internal structure contains a complex assortment of gas chambers to keep it eternally aloft.
In any case, this makes even The Last's immense stores of knowledge useless for knowing exactly what they're dealing with. Even if it didn't, the mutating energies of the Well might; there's no way to tell how much of the current beast was like that at the time of death. Certainly it appears... hollow, in a manner that is unlikely to be conducive to life but might be expected from forces aligned with death.
Nonetheless, with two of the greatest minds in the world working under threat of certain doom, the corpse is harvested and repurposed into a series of floating balloons, anchored to the castle and positioned to catch spectral energies rising from the well.
It sort of works.
Technically it performs its function- the castle indeed rises through the well. But its progress is bumpy and slow, and given the many variables involved it's difficult to tell how much of that is from which design or environmental factor. Nor is there a great deal of time to iterate; getting out of the well with their prize is only the first step in a long journey to stave off destruction.
Further complicating things, it appears obvious that this strategy will not work in the long term. It served well enough to raise the castle straight up within a confining tunnel and aided by spectral updrafts. Getting it to fly horizontally out in the open is likely a bigger hurdle than can be settled before the Usurper catches up to and murders the both of you.
You eventually compromise by repurposing most of the airsacs and wings as sails of a sort. Derided as barbarian technology used by irredeemable scum by the Jadeblood and never much used by the Stonelings, sails are an unorthodox solution, and neither of you doubts you could do much better given more time and information. Nonetheless, what you produce helps catch the otherworldly winds blowing at gale force in the wake of this doom, dragging the castle along faster than its concerningly malfunctioning legs could carry it.
Perhaps if you can make it to a nearby fortress renowned for its forgework, you'll be able to enact repairs, even improve the design...
The AshenThe Last Ashen Lord is a heavy title to bear, but you find it suits you. Much as a mace is only dangerous because it takes as much resolve to stop as to swing, so too is this mantle empowering. Now you know you cannot fail.
And fail you will, if you cannot do something drastic. The Usurpers are being Usurped in brutal fashion, their armies shattering like brittle iron and their cities cracking like heated stones. Even the Green God is dead, his followers wailing mournfully in the dark. You cannot survive here for long.
Fortunately, you know of another way. A mad way. A desperate way. A way none would even consider under normal circumstances. A way many now desperately lunge for.
You know it can be done, because in the very oldest legends of Ashulak and Jadespawn alike, there are references to things coming from... outside. Some tales claim the Primordials themselves emerged from the Ashen Wastes, as do some myths about the barbarian hordes that threw them down.
Perhaps these tales are embellished. Perhaps they are foul lies. Perhaps traversing the Wastes requires unfathomable luck or some special trick or condition. But if anyone can lead your people to not only survival, but ascension, it is you. If anyone can master the void where the world is not, it is you.
What you cannot do is accomplish this alone. Rumors persist of singular beings emerging from the Wastes, but they are rare tales of singular and brief horror. Those said to have conquered and mastered this place are always said to have come in great numbers; it stands to reason that those wishing to do the reverse would require a large and varied host as well.
You head to Kautharam, an impregnable and widely-famed fortress, where vast hosts will no doubt have gathered. Some of them will no doubt be unwilling to accept whatever terms the masters of that place have imposed in exchange for shelter...
The UnyieldingThe enemy of your enemy is not always your friend.
You knew this, of course. Many of your greatest foes were nemeses to each other; convenient insofar as they might weaken each other or provide you an opportunity, but you wouldn't celebrate the victory of one over the other.
This certainly appears to be the case now. Word is that these new invaders are sweeping across everything like a plague, without regard for allegiance or utility. In the tradition of the best conquerors, they come to destroy, not rule, and have little interest in the petty distinctions and squabbles of this land's natives.
Worse, their coming has complicated your own vengeance. At first you assumed this would be an opportunity, if nothing else, but the torrent of refugees, desperate alliances, and abandoned holdings has made finding and reaching your targets all but impossible. The death of the sun and collapse into utter darkness hasn't helped, either. You are accustomed to hostile terrain, but this is a new level of horror to operate in.
What you need most is information, and there's one obvious place to find that- Kautharam, the City of Iron Spines. Its walls are said to have been forged by the gods themselves, though the irregularity of the tales hints at a less savory origin. If you were going to make a stand, you'd want to do it here- but you are no friends to its masters, so you'll settle for interrogating whatever rabble have come begging at its gates. Perhaps then you can formulate a plan...
The WarlordsKautharam is not what you expected.
The fortress itself holds, as near as you can tell- indeed, the tops and slits of its walls bristle with weaponry. Its immediate surroundings, however, are a charnel pit, blanketed in corpses and stalked by murderous bands the city will not waste ammunition or blood contesting. No particular pattern or motive can be discerned from this massacre; perhaps the world has simply gone mad.
Nothing out here is truly dangerous to your forces, but neither do you trust any of it. Having patrols ambushed or supplies pilfered is an irritation you cannot afford, so you're forced to either find a defensible location to camp or be quick about your business. You have a lot of ground to cover, and so decide to appropriate one of Kautharam's abandoned outer towers.
The one snag in this plan is each other. The Ashen's legions and The Unyielding's partisans are the only major players around the city right now, and you warily keep a distance from and eye on each other. After confirming both their immense strength and lack of immediate hostility, parley is made and accords are reached. At a minimum, you will comb the landscape in tandem.
You opt to settle around different towers, neither of which contains occupants able to put up any real resistance. The region between and immediately surrounding these towers becomes a sort of haven, refugees and even armed bands flocking to the shadow of far greater powers.
Your efforts prove inefficient but effective. Most of the survivors here are worthless rabble, unfit to serve and unable to provide useful information. Nonetheless, sifting through great swathes of them eventually yields a few shards of worth, and convinces each of you of the merit of the other's plans. Information and more recruits will both be vital in the days to come.
That brings you to talk of a more longterm alliance. Neither has much to lose from such an arrangement, and though fleeing into the Ashen Wastes would not have been The Unyielding's first choice, he'd be stuck defending a relentless hellscape against impossible odds one way or another.
Pact sealed, you rally your forces, including some new additions, and follow reliable information towards Augaras Tone, a monastery-forge apparently in the throes of civil war and some kind of slave rebellion, yet largely intact in both skilled warrior-smiths and exquisite arms and armor.
Hammer, Anvil, Scalpel, TongsAugaras Tone is a small but well fortified settlement renowned for its fine metallurgy. Originally the farming and trading outpost of an underlying Jadescale warren, it long ago achieved prominence on its own merits, and last you heard was ruled by the Zaras Clan of warrior-smith-monks.
Closer investigation reveals this to still be the case... mostly. The Zaras Clan has apparently been split by an eclectic mix of divisions, ranging from succession to philosophical concerns you are unfamiliar with. The fighting has been largely nonlethal as yet, and they have maintained the fortress well enough against all comers so far, but it remains a deep and obvious flaw.
The other problem is that their servants have turned against them. They apparently made use of mechanical-beast hybrids down in some catacomb-workshops, and for reasons they have been too preoccupied to investigate properly, these minions have turned against them, forming a sort of third faction.
All of which means getting your hands on their vaunted metalwork will be complicated but possible... but that's not your immediate concern. Your immediate concern is that there's a walking castle crewed by two gods and their servants, and a massive horde commanded by two other gods. Both are after, at least loosely, the same thing.
Negotiations are a little tenser than either side would prefer. The forge-gods don't take kindly to threats regarding their works, while the warlord-gods don't take kindly to obstinate fools who can't defend what they own but try anyway. Each is aware, at least, of the value the other can provide- with additional manpower to crew and defend the castle, it just might be feasible to get it moving at an acceptable speed. With a mobile fortress to take shelter in, braving the Wastes might be far more palatable.
Eventually the topic of metallurgy helps move things along. Howldyne's expertise with fusions of flesh and metal are of obvious benefit regarding the rebelling slaves. The Last's great age provides wisdom unexpectedly relevant to some of the more esoteric philosophical divides present. The Ashen is a fair but stern entity qualified to judge trial by combat between prominent claimants. Yog-Har is cunning enough to sense compromises and outmaneuvering the monks have not. It is unlikely either duo could gain complete access to the storerooms alone, but all four of them could at least salve a majority of the fortress' current issues.
With this in mind, you are able to come to an uneasy agreement to join forces. No party involved is entirely happy with the compromises involved, but no party involved has the luxury of passing up an opportunity or being mauled by a needless adversary. With four gods present, the monastery's troubles are quickly resolved... at least, insofar as four outsiders in a hurry can resolve generations-old feuds boiling over. Regardless, it is sufficient to supply your newly combined army with parts for the castle and arms for the soldiers.
Now a potent but unwieldy juggernaut, your migration heads towards a major trading center on its way to the edge of the world.
The MirageYou thought you wanted it all to burn.
If someone had asked you what you'd think of the world being destroyed, of the great cities tumbling down and its armies slaughtered and the sun itself spiraling down from the sky, you'd have most likely said joy. Jubilation at a corrupt world facing justice, glee at a cruel world tasting its own medicine, exuberance at watching another do what you could not.
The problem is, you and your flock are part of the world as well, and this new horror makes no distinction between guilty and innocent. You've seen Glowcoil fleeing the devastation just as desperately as any of the master races, even begging to be taken as slaves so as to be protected. Nor are they any less disturbed or blinded by the loss of that hateful green sun, if a bit more graceful in blindly crawling along in its absence.
It was not your first choice to come to Askan Askral, The City of Glass. Famed as the City of Pleasures, there was never a more wretched hive of scum and villainy, but there was always work for your people- whether in a collar or for coin.
It's a ruin.
You don't think the Usurper has made it this far yet, so the current devastation is most likely due to panic, some sinister ploy, or somebody settling old scores before you could. Building a city out of glass is impractical for a reason, and what works well for a wealthy king on a golden throne usually shatters the instant he stumbles. Amusingly, it's no less populous as a result- as a major landmark, it's the only port in this storm, and so filled to the brim with desperate bands searching for or hiding from something.
One such band catches your eye for all the right reasons. It's large, it's varied, and it's eccentric- and not just any eccentric. Castle-on-legs eccentric.
You graciously offer your services- to their disdain, as usual. At first. People always underestimate the difficulty in getting different peoples to work together- "A strong lash smoothes any dent," as some currently dead bastards used to say. They ignore the little tensions and differences that build up in any group, let alone a varied one.
At least until you point them out. Much to this lot's great fortune, this is done to demonstrate the value of you and your kin in remedying such flaws, rather than leveraging them for a dagger to the spine.
This time.
Ten TicksWhen you heard the intriguing whispers coming out of the north, you thought perhaps you could find something useful. Your investigations yielded little, however, and so you soon abandoned such inquiries. If you had known what you do now, you wonder if you would have refused to quit so easily, or never started to begin with.
When rumors of an entirely more concrete sort began, you likewise thought perhaps you had found some allies or servants. As you approached, the tide of refugees and dire omens intensified, and you thought perhaps you had found a new employer instead. Every great conquerer needed skilled locals and a talented exile to lead them against her former kin.
Once again, you were mistaken.
The creatures were like nothing you had ever seen before- high praise indeed. Vaguely avian things clad in garish teal and gold feathers, their faces like heart-shaped masks of bone. Each limb, even their neck, was composed of a twisting spiral, and lines clearly divided their hands and face. You could not avoid the unnerving sense that these beings were two fused into one.
You could neither avoid the sense that they had no interest in diplomacy. The band you ran into was a smaller kill-squad, scooping up fleeing refugees and isolated pockets of resistance. It was easily routed, but not as easily as it should have been- though gangly, they were very large, and the bizarre curved hand-blades they wielded cut through armor alarmingly well. Their movements were alien and bizarre as well, a sort of twitching dance that seemed to foil even your veteran efforts.
You noticed in examining the mild damage that a peculiar sort of residue was left where their blades hit- mostly invisible to the naked eye, but incandescently blue to those with vision for the mystic. After ruling out poison, you came to suspect some sort of tracking substance, and prepared accordingly.
Even with the ambush, the leaner, larger hunter squad was almost a match for you. You beat them off, but just barely and largely due to dueling and wounding what appeared to be their leader. Abandoning all tainted gear- no matter how vital- you lunged back south, overtaking many of the refugees you'd passed to get here.
Licking your wounds at the smouldering ruins of a small trading town, you caught word of a large and bizarre caravan heading east- a fortress on hideous legs, bearing sails of dragonflesh and escorted by hardened but eclectic soldiers. To your veteran mercenary ears, that sounded like a potential employer if ever you've heard of one.
Perhaps they will have need of Ten-Tick Rani, the only woman alive to best the Usurper in battle and live to tell of it.
The MemoryYou're not sure what you're waiting for.
Nonetheless, waiting you are. The memories were very insistent on this. There's something very important you need to do, out here at the edge of the world. The outpost here was never very fortunate, situated near savage wilderness as it was. If it wasn't being burned to the ground by barbarians, its workers were being stalked by hideous beasts. Even the bounty it relied on was never stable, the spore-trees subject to their own obscure whims and cycles. Still, the spice it did produce was too valuable for people to stop trying.
Until now. It was abandoned when you got here, which seems like an ominous portent. It also makes the world feel strangely empty, like you and your followers are all alone out here. You know that isn't true, but this is more solitude than you've had in a long while.
When fate finally arrives, it seems so obvious. A vast caravan trudges along, rumbling the earth with its might, yet you can tell its mortals are nervous. You wait patiently for them to arrive, as they first slow down at your presence, then insistently speed back up so as not to lose any more time. They try to swing around you, but you lead your people out to greet them.
Negotiations are brief. You introduce yourself and mention that you're here to join them, their gods glance nervously and suspiciously at each other, and then none of them has the time or inclination to stop you. Your followers merge seamlessly with theirs- perhaps moreso, as yours are under orders to mingle with and assist their generally clannish flocks.
Your destination surprises you, but it makes sense in hindsight. You recall how empty the world felt- no one around, hardly even any wind, largely silent of beasts. Perhaps that is how the world shall be from now on, a still and silent place. Or perhaps it is only your world that you no longer belong in, and others shall find life and joy there again.
Regardless, you are needed elsewhere now.
Author
Topic: The Last Ember [Turn 0: The Ashen Wastes] (Read 4982 times)