10th Galena.
One of the stranger things to happen in my many lifetimes occurred today. I was in the dining hall and drinking to drown my woe, the stress of leadership, and the fact everyone was looking at me strangely. “Foolish peasants”, I mutter drunkenly into my beard, “I didn’t kill him”. Naturally, when it appeared that IronTomato was dead by dark arts, they suspect the Abomination. Never mind the fact that witnesses put him in his study, he was blamed. “Damn foolish peasants.” I drink from my mug, rivalling NAV in my drunken ambition. The room went silent. I stood, swaying drunkenly and sloshing my beer about. “What’s this!” I hollered, spittle flying from my mouth. “You lilly livered bastard peasants not fit to talk in the presence of your overseer, eh?” The sneer ran off my face like water from a rock when I turned around. The Forumites were staring at something at the end of the room, not me, with awe on their faces.
The thing pulsated on the wall, a violent purple colour which made my drunken mind all the madder. Small bursts of energy shook the crowd in waves, and violet bolts of lightning flickered at the edges. The thing hovered an inch from the ground, lighter purple fading into a deep, angry red colour in the middle which swirled like molten magma. The entire room was bathed in its glow, and the crowd around it were painted in its shade. Muttering under my breath, I walk towards it, shoving citizens to the ground as I go. One boy wouldn’t move, so transfixed was he, and I dealt him a boot which sent him flying across the room. As I walked on, I heard the sound of what seemed to be Timeless Bob babbling about his mother. With an oily smirk once again on my lips, I went on my way. With a well-practiced flick of my wrist, I swept my blade from its sheath. The iron was engraved with the sacred runes only Highmax knew, and as such gave the blade strength. I barely even paused to wonder why the red light highlighting the figures pulsed in time to the purple.
“Get out of my way! I yell, and a corridor opens for the Abomination. The people finally stopped gawping and moved quickly, fearful of my blade. As they should be, I think. They owe me much. I leapt onto the table nearest to the dark heathen spell, as I thought it to be, and roared a challenge into its swirling depths. No reply. I howl again, making slashing figures with my sword as the wind picks up, waving my beard in front of my face, tugging at the people’s clothing. Another howl issues from me, and everything slows. The lightning at the edges extends…oh so slowly extends…towards the center of the swirling pit of colour. They touch in the vermillion middle, and a light explodes outwards, bathing everything in its intensity.
I sit up from the floor, dazed and uncertain. My sword lies before me, and stretching I reach to pick it up. A sound of creaking mail and leather, then a studded boot slams down on it, trapping it beneath. “Some welcome,” comes a voice long absent from my memory. “How fares things, Th4DwArfY1, proud overseer of this fortress.” I scramble to my feet, not even bothering with the sword. It would do me no good against this foe, expert as he is on all things bladed. My eyes gaze into the cold, cobalt depths of Highmax, and try to find some warmth there. There is none, only hard steel and…contempt. I make a noise in my throat, half fear, half irritation.
“You’ve come back,” I say, tears from the blast of light still in my eyes. He nods gravely, moving back a step as he does so. Free of his chilling gaze for a second, I eye my blade but make no move to regain it.
“There is work to be done now that Ur lies dead. Come, I’ll tell you all that has happened… Unless you wish to kick another of the civilians before we depart.” His stern countenance made something in me break, and blood rushed to my face. Drawing myself upwards to my full height, I wrapped authority around myself like a cloak. The insolent pup, a mean soldier to speak in such a way to the overseer! He shall pay for this. I glare at him, and rant in his face, spitting at his feet.
“Do I wish to boot another civilian? Well, I can if I wish to. For I wear the clothes of office, and none can strip me of my rank! You killed Ur, you say? What have you been smoking, you low-born soldier! Go to your barracks immediately, before I have you whipped at a post like the dog you are. BEGONE from my sight, wretch!” I sag, my energy spent on my tirade. The mug of ale, miraculously still in my hand, though empty, I threw at his feet, and the shards bounced off his steel boots.
He merely stared, a hint of…pity showing in his eyes. Then they hardened again into inscrutable steel, and he moved liquidly and fluidly, the Swordsman moving through forms practiced since birth. But no sword did he wield, only his hand. It was enough. More than enough. In slow motion I see his hand rise above his head, and then time asserts itself and the back of his hand is a blur that I cannot follow.
I sat up, gasping, rubbing my eyes to clear the white light crackling in my vision. Highmax stood above me, and I staggered to my feet, not willing to be seen prostrate before him. “What do you think you’re doing??? GUARDS!!! DETAIN THIS MA…” his back hand takes me under the chin, and my vision wheels to encompass the ceiling before I fall to earth, a metallic taste in my mouth. His steel gauntlets cut a jagged furrow down my cheek, and blood runs down my chin. I groan, unable to sit up again, and lie there on the cold floor, with Highmax above looking down in judgement. He sits down cross legged before me and talks in a soft voice, sorrow evident in his tone.
“What has happened to you? You are not a Forumite anymore. You are what they say of you, because you believe them to be right. Abomination.” I flinch, head hitting the ground, and try not to listen, to cover my ears. My arms don’t seem to want to work, and I realise Highmax is holding them down with his magic. “I saw. You kicked Timeless Bob, insulted the people of Necrothreat, those you swore to uphold and protect. You have turned into an Abomination.” I shake, trying not to hear, not to listen. Highmax looks down, resolute, a statue, a picture of the Forumite’s who mock and disrespect me. I try to spit in his face, but all that happens is froth bubbles on my lips. “But I can make you whole again,” he whispers.
Light. Sudden, blinding light. It shoots out of Highmax in multi-hued tendrils, and wraps around my legs and arms. A rainbow of light dances in my eyes, and I lose all track of time. As if through a thick jell I see the hand of Highmax slowly shoot a blazing trail towards me, red light like a comet’s tail flaring our iridescently behind it. When his hand touches my forehead, I feel fire, fire like molten lava deep beneath my skin, purging me of my shame and anger. As the soothing magic of Highmax works on my troubled and grief-torn mind, I slip from the colour and into the embracing dark of sleep.
Poll
Author
Topic: Necrothreat II - A Fort Cursed by the Gods! (Read 447831 times)