The sun was high in the sky when the first smoke was seen.
It moved upwards, in circles, slowly making it's way to the sky, getting thinner and thinner until it became transparent, and then disappeared altogether.
Maybe it became clouds, maybe they would bring rain...the weather was mild, more to the cold than to the hot, though.
The ice was creaky, as Urist walked on it, but it would have sufficed. He had to, it was the only way in...the only one he knew would have survived.
In gripwhips, cold lasted for three seasons. Only in summer did the ice melt away.
Snowstorms were frequent. rains also. The weather was not too uncomfortable though, and nobody ever died of freezing.
A noise, from behind him, made him shudder. a little clop, then another. He slowly turned his head, and saw it. a deer.
he gave a loud sigh of relief. it was not Vord. There were no entrails or blood covering his horns, and his eyes were not murderous.
Maybe an off-spring. Certainly not a fighting one.
he could have enjoyed some meat, but the thought of angering Vord was enough to refrain him.
He continued to walk towards gripwhips, the ice crackling under him.
He had to enter the fortress before night. The few people he had encountered and brought with him to have company and avoid the night beasts had run away at the sight of the smoke.
Red, blood-like smoke. The idiocy of the dwarves in all it's power and glory.
There was nothing that would have kept them from running away, "blasphemy! balsphemous place!" was all they uttered as they ran away.
but Urist had to go.
So he went, past the icy moat, were once working magma pipes had kept liquid all year round.
He went past the frozen waterfall, and when his feets touched the golden road he knew he was at the beginning of everything.
There it was, the bridges of gripwhips.
Made out of pure silver. With the finest masterwork mechanisms, and obviously...bright dwarfenly closed. There was no way to get in. Unless a ghost decided to pull the lever.
He sweared. He though noone would have come before him, but somebody had, and that somebody was so idiotic to close his only way out.
if only someone...he staggered clop clop clop and with fast reflexes he jumped to the left, avoiding the charge of an enormous deer...
"there you are vord" was all urist muttered, as he grasped his weapon, a battleaxe made of fine Steel. He would have wanted back the adamantine one, though he had left it behind, in the moment of danger.
and vord answered with a low growling. Not made for deer, but for a monster of hellish doom.
His horns were bloody, old rotten entrails were on top of them like trophies. His teeths were sharp, sharper than what a normal deer teets would have been.
His hoofs were pointy, and left bloody tracks were he walked.
he pointed again at urist. preparing to charge.
Urist knew he had to dodge.
But the only thing was where.
Vord charged again. Howling like a beast of madness, and urist yelled in rage as he himself charged Vord. Axe at the ready for a mortal strike.
A mortal strike which never came. As fast as lightning, he jumped to the side at the last moment. Jumping in the frozen waterfall. The ice went with a crack, and he ended up engulfed in the frozen icy water.
Vord stood still, looking around, smelling for the dwarf. Where did it go? he wondered to himself, than clopped his way towards the ice.
Frozen steel hands grabbed him by the neck, and threw him in the cold water. Vord howled, screamed as water as cold as death itself entered his mouth, his nose, his lungs, and then, the strong hands kept him there. Down there. To die.
Urist pushed himself out of the frozen pond, shivering.
With one hand, he threw the frozen to death vord onto the riverside.
He chopped his head off, and threw it in the pond before it froze over again.
He grabbed a couple of rocks, hastily preparing a bonfire. And there, he sat, shivering for the cold, while the deer meat was being cooked.
it seemed to him like an allucination...but the bridges...were now down...
"curses...curses you all..." he muttered, as a cold sleep got him, as he laid there, waiting for the cold to go away. Not willing to separate himself from the cold steel armour, his only hope against whatever still lurked in there.
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Topic: Let's go back to Gripwhips... (Read 4012 times)