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The Sietch will be brought offline for HPG systems maintenance tomorrow (Thursday, 2 May 2024). Please remain calm and do not start any interstellar wars while ComStar is busy. May the Peace of Blake be with you. Precentor Dune
Libertatis Imperium (Gate)
- Thread starter charclone
- Start date
charclone
Well-known member
Indeed,but could she survive? we should not compare all candidates,only those who could survive.Both Zorzal and Diablo could do that,Pina - i am not sure.
charclone
Well-known member
Survive what?
She has some experience on the battlefield, and has her order of knights, so she is lacking in troops, yes, if a hypothetical civil war were to break out, but she also has the option of winning over potential allies and their forces, not to mention, if she is declared heir by Molt, or he intends to put it as such, then she has the backing of his troops, including the Praetorian Guard (who are not the Roman style, they are instead closer to the Varangian Guard or the Beefeaters/Yeoman Warders if they were a unit fit to be deployed to the battlefield at a moments notice).
But at the moment, there is little indication of a civil war breaking out. I'm only following canon loosely, as the original was... rather rushed.
Survive politics.She could win on battlefield,but still get poisoned or backstabbed by some senators,like poor Ceasar.
When Zorzal and Diablo are smart enough to prevent that.
charclone
Well-known member
No, Zorzal isn't. He's the one that thought using a 'secret' police to enact a reign of terror was a good idea, and trusting the woman he took as his slave while betraying the deal he made with her, as his advisor and agent.
Zorzal would not last a decade. He might not even last more than a year or two, before being killed.
Diabo is smart enough though, yes.
Pina has the chance to learn, and isn't completely unaware of the relevant politics, being a member if the Imperial Family, she just isn't involved with handling the senate. The second half of the story is going to focus on her getting that experience, on her learning, while dealing with her brothers and other situations.
You have point about Zorzal,he would be killed by somebody,unless Bouro/if i remember his name correctly/ keep his alive long enough to sire son with some demihuman girl from his clan,and let him become future ruler.
Chapter 53
charclone
Well-known member
The demigoddess kept her face stern and steady, as she walked past the wooden spikes. At their tops were the heads of the Queen's enemies, both political and foreign prisoners. Their bodies were tied to the base of the wooden poles.
The Queen was everything the Huntress-Queen loved in a ruler: bloodthirsty, ruthless, a hunter, someone to tolerate no weakness, and above all: pious. She tolerated no threats to her rule, foreign or domestic, and dealt with them all with bloody ruthlessness, torturing and executing any foe she caught.
It made the demigoddess' stomach twist in disgust.
The city, once a beacon of the queen's people's civilisation, had been transformed. When she first arrived, the mountainside city still had some buildings not dedicated to military use. Temples to gods other than the Huntress-Queen, festival grounds, an arena for footraces. The merchants' district still had a few stalls, remaining only because they still had a few things the queen's lieutenants had found desirable. Those same lieutenants' heads decorated the city gates, alongside the merchants.
What few parts of the populace had thought of resisting her had been crushed, simply by the demigoddess appearing; a symbol of their goddess' favour in their queen.
Mortals could challenge nobility, with risk, but to challenge a god was considered foolish and suicidal.
It made the demigoddess want to gnash her teeth and break the bloody, arrogant, and murderous queen beneath her foot.
As she passed a mustering point, the training warriors paused, long enough to turn to her and salute, before returning to their training. She was an old sight now, having been here for over a decade, acting as an advisor to the queen, one oft-ignored, unless the goddess gave her specific instructions on what to say, usually something bloody and cruel, all shaping the future of the long-eared people into something even more violent.
Still, it meant she was well-informed of the status of the war.
Even after so many years, the elves stood strong. Their armies won most engagements, and more and more warbands were being destroyed, often by the other demigod Emroy. His bloody axe and dark laughter heralded the sound of death and destruction on the battlefield.
But she had no word of her dark-haired friend… and almost lover, not directly. The queen was furious at the failure to capture or kill any of the elven mages, who wreaked a bloody cost in any battle, and vanished if their army was on the verge of defeat.
That was both a blessing and a curse, one that made her heart ache.
She strode through the dwelling of the queen. A small, compared to the elves', palace, but a palace, nonetheless.
She barged into the council chambers, uncaring of the interruption she caused, her weapon in her hand. She took invisible delight in the brief flash of displeasure on the Queen's face before she motioned for the messenger to continue.
"…thus, the warband was destroyed. Only I and a few others who were to carry messages escaped," The tired-looking warrior said, glancing at the demigoddess. She shook under the queen's glare. "By the chief's last count, there were seven hundred elves on wyvern-back, and thousands more on foot, with many mages."
The queen pursed her lips, as she stroked one of her ears.
"I see. Then, they are headed here?" She asked.
"The chief believed so, your majesty,"
The Queen closed her eyes in thought, her ears straightening to the top of her head. She leaned back.
"My warband will march to meet them," She said after a moment. "With so many flyers and soldiers, an enemy king must lead them."
She sprang from her seat, drawing her blade to hold it above her head.
"We will crush them, sacrifice their king to our goddess, then take their homes, and the blood of their weak will nourish the fields that will feed our people! Our strength will never tire!"
The demigoddess left amidst the cheers of the queen's soldiers. She was like that nearly every time, it was a wonder her people never got tired of it, with the promises made never coming true.
She walked through the palace, knowing how it would play out. The queen would suffer heavy casualties but would repulse the half-hearted assault by the elves, as they had done before. Their numbers would cease to grow, with so many potential mothers slain on the field or serving as warriors.
The plan was dreadful but effective. The elves were carefully herding their own numbers in battle, careful to lose as few as possible while inflicting as much damage as possible. Fields burned, stores destroyed, wells poisoned.
Famine and disease would do more damage.
The Huntress-Queen would rage about it for a year, before blessing the survivors to have even more female children, and less male, to encourage greater ferocity and competition, all the while, the elves strengthened themselves.
A flicker of movement out an open window caught her eye. She blinked, and for a moment, saw through the morning mists a figure walking through the courtyard, a black sword in their hand. Gone in the next breath.
The demigoddess blinked again, then shook it off.
She continued on her way, seeking out her one ally in this place.
The queen's daughter and heir leapt up in surprise, stuffing the scroll behind her back as her door opened, before relaxing upon seeing the demigoddess.
"You scared me, I thought you were one of my mother's lackeys," The young woman sighed, her dark hair framing her face as a smile grew. "Look what I found amidst the ruins of the old temples: a love poem!"
The demigoddess smiled but placed a finger to her lips.
"Your mother is headed off leading a warband. Another incursion," She explained. "So someone will show up to tell you that you are in charge."
The young woman groaned.
"I hate this, I hate my mother's… insanity. The city folk had more people, and larger armies than us," She groaned. "They had more food, and could even forge metal from ore, rather than repurposing old scraps. Yet my mother insists on her… insanity. We only beat the cities because they were fighting each other, and kept paying us to help them, and that left us rich, and them weakened."
The demigoddess felt a mental nudge from her patron.
"It is the will of the goddess that the strong rule," She said mechanically, her tone conveying her annoyance with the situation.
The princess bit back a snort.
"Anyway, I'd better hide this again," She said, storing it along with hundreds of others in the space beneath her room. A forgotten old cellar had become her library, despite the queen's belief that books made those who read them weaker, by making them reliant on the written word for memory. "Okay, well, I guess I'd better go take charge of my mother's 'kingdom'. More like a band of lunatics."
The young woman gave a long-suffering sigh, as she left to go fulfil her duties.
The demigoddess accompanied her.
Several days later, with no word of any battle, the young woman still ruled.
She chaffed under the laws of her mother, but at least none would dare challenge her when she showed an occasional softness.
The demigoddess frowned as she noted one advisor that had been left behind, who seemed to be smirking, as she accompanied the queen's daughter to the latest court.
"My lady, my warband caught these elves. I offer them to you as a sacrifice to your future prosperity, when you rule," The woman smiled. She gestured and the doors were opened to admit several warriors. With them, a child.
The young elf was at most twelve, with skin darker than that of any elf the demigoddess had seen before.
"These foolish weaklings asked for protection through our lands," The cruel woman laughed. "Thus, I offer you the son of their leader, as your first kill, so that the blood of the weak will nourish your future strength."
The demigoddess saw what was going on.
The princess was no killer, her mind was sharp, but it was better suited to wordplay or managing food supplies. She had never taken a life, though her mother was planning to make her do so.
But, as a defiant face of refusal flickered across the princess' face, another warrior rushed in.
"The queen is dead! Her forces were slaughtered by the elves! They are coming here!"
The room fell silent.
"Boy," The princess, no, the queen said. "Take your people from our lands. I grant you mercy, take your people south."
The elven boy slipped from the nerveless fingers of the warriors and ran.
The advisor made a sound of protest.
"Can your warband stop them?" The new queen asked. "Can you succeed where my mother failed?"
The advisor's face flickered.
"… no. Not with you as queen," She snarled. "Your mother instructed me to ensure you were properly hardened as a warrior. But you are weak."
"But stronger than you," The queen reposted. "Strong not in arm, but in knowledge. My mother took all of her warriors and got them slaughtered. The cities had more than us, more food, more warriors, more quality weapons. Their weakness was division."
The demigoddess blinked; she knew her friend, she had the wit, but… she had never seen her make a stand like this.
She froze. The Huntress-Queen had been paying far more attention to her once she had arrived, yet now… she had only felt the attention, once, days ago. She should be demanding her to act, to silence, yet again, someone speaking against her will.
There was nothing but silence.
"My mother's strength won, but we now live barely above squalor. We lose how many warriors to disease and famine?" The queen continued. "How many are born, only to stave to death before their first year? My mother was a fool. She led us to ruin, and now the elves come for our capital!"
The demigoddess saw warriors gathering, angry, but with agreement written on their faces. A few glanced at her, and a look of surprise flashed across their faces.
'Of course, I'm saying nothing against her, and I am the Huntress-Queen's agent, thus, there is an implied consent,' She thought gleefully.
As the new queen continued to rant and encourage her people, stripping away her mother's lies and foolishness, the demigoddess pulled on the line that connected her to the goddess, curious.
She gasped, as she found herself at the feet of two titans. One, topped by rabbit ears, desperately stabbing at the other, a giant figure shrouded in blood and darkness, with wild eyes glowing out of them.
The dark one looked at her, pinning her in place with merely its attention.
"Ah, you still defy her? Good. I will keep her busy. Your friend is coming with a plan. A blasphemous plan," The giant rumbled, and the demigoddess dimply recognised it as that of the demigod she had encountered years ago now, at the battle for the river. "But it is a plan that will work, now that I am a god of war, darkness, death, and madness!"
The giant laughed as it parried one of the Huntress-Queen's blows with a shield.
"Go, and be ready for this one to stand in your way."
She found herself, once more, in the court. Braziers burned, and the warriors around were cheering.
The new queen was smiling amidst them.
"We will go across the sea, beyond the mountains, and there, away from the elves, we will regain the strength my mother wasted!"
A hand touched her back, and the demigoddess looked over her shoulder.
From the shadows, she saw the face of her elven friend. Older, weathered by pain and stress, but still the same. The shadows moved around her, like black smoke, and something about the shadows made her nervous.
Her friend whispered.
"Emroy became a god, and I found old secrets, things that have made the other gods want me dead," She said quietly. "But it will end the threat of the Huntress-Queen, and free you. Meet me, tonight, near the temple in the mountains."
The Queen was everything the Huntress-Queen loved in a ruler: bloodthirsty, ruthless, a hunter, someone to tolerate no weakness, and above all: pious. She tolerated no threats to her rule, foreign or domestic, and dealt with them all with bloody ruthlessness, torturing and executing any foe she caught.
It made the demigoddess' stomach twist in disgust.
The city, once a beacon of the queen's people's civilisation, had been transformed. When she first arrived, the mountainside city still had some buildings not dedicated to military use. Temples to gods other than the Huntress-Queen, festival grounds, an arena for footraces. The merchants' district still had a few stalls, remaining only because they still had a few things the queen's lieutenants had found desirable. Those same lieutenants' heads decorated the city gates, alongside the merchants.
What few parts of the populace had thought of resisting her had been crushed, simply by the demigoddess appearing; a symbol of their goddess' favour in their queen.
Mortals could challenge nobility, with risk, but to challenge a god was considered foolish and suicidal.
It made the demigoddess want to gnash her teeth and break the bloody, arrogant, and murderous queen beneath her foot.
As she passed a mustering point, the training warriors paused, long enough to turn to her and salute, before returning to their training. She was an old sight now, having been here for over a decade, acting as an advisor to the queen, one oft-ignored, unless the goddess gave her specific instructions on what to say, usually something bloody and cruel, all shaping the future of the long-eared people into something even more violent.
Still, it meant she was well-informed of the status of the war.
Even after so many years, the elves stood strong. Their armies won most engagements, and more and more warbands were being destroyed, often by the other demigod Emroy. His bloody axe and dark laughter heralded the sound of death and destruction on the battlefield.
But she had no word of her dark-haired friend… and almost lover, not directly. The queen was furious at the failure to capture or kill any of the elven mages, who wreaked a bloody cost in any battle, and vanished if their army was on the verge of defeat.
That was both a blessing and a curse, one that made her heart ache.
She strode through the dwelling of the queen. A small, compared to the elves', palace, but a palace, nonetheless.
She barged into the council chambers, uncaring of the interruption she caused, her weapon in her hand. She took invisible delight in the brief flash of displeasure on the Queen's face before she motioned for the messenger to continue.
"…thus, the warband was destroyed. Only I and a few others who were to carry messages escaped," The tired-looking warrior said, glancing at the demigoddess. She shook under the queen's glare. "By the chief's last count, there were seven hundred elves on wyvern-back, and thousands more on foot, with many mages."
The queen pursed her lips, as she stroked one of her ears.
"I see. Then, they are headed here?" She asked.
"The chief believed so, your majesty,"
The Queen closed her eyes in thought, her ears straightening to the top of her head. She leaned back.
"My warband will march to meet them," She said after a moment. "With so many flyers and soldiers, an enemy king must lead them."
She sprang from her seat, drawing her blade to hold it above her head.
"We will crush them, sacrifice their king to our goddess, then take their homes, and the blood of their weak will nourish the fields that will feed our people! Our strength will never tire!"
The demigoddess left amidst the cheers of the queen's soldiers. She was like that nearly every time, it was a wonder her people never got tired of it, with the promises made never coming true.
She walked through the palace, knowing how it would play out. The queen would suffer heavy casualties but would repulse the half-hearted assault by the elves, as they had done before. Their numbers would cease to grow, with so many potential mothers slain on the field or serving as warriors.
The plan was dreadful but effective. The elves were carefully herding their own numbers in battle, careful to lose as few as possible while inflicting as much damage as possible. Fields burned, stores destroyed, wells poisoned.
Famine and disease would do more damage.
The Huntress-Queen would rage about it for a year, before blessing the survivors to have even more female children, and less male, to encourage greater ferocity and competition, all the while, the elves strengthened themselves.
A flicker of movement out an open window caught her eye. She blinked, and for a moment, saw through the morning mists a figure walking through the courtyard, a black sword in their hand. Gone in the next breath.
The demigoddess blinked again, then shook it off.
She continued on her way, seeking out her one ally in this place.
The queen's daughter and heir leapt up in surprise, stuffing the scroll behind her back as her door opened, before relaxing upon seeing the demigoddess.
"You scared me, I thought you were one of my mother's lackeys," The young woman sighed, her dark hair framing her face as a smile grew. "Look what I found amidst the ruins of the old temples: a love poem!"
The demigoddess smiled but placed a finger to her lips.
"Your mother is headed off leading a warband. Another incursion," She explained. "So someone will show up to tell you that you are in charge."
The young woman groaned.
"I hate this, I hate my mother's… insanity. The city folk had more people, and larger armies than us," She groaned. "They had more food, and could even forge metal from ore, rather than repurposing old scraps. Yet my mother insists on her… insanity. We only beat the cities because they were fighting each other, and kept paying us to help them, and that left us rich, and them weakened."
The demigoddess felt a mental nudge from her patron.
"It is the will of the goddess that the strong rule," She said mechanically, her tone conveying her annoyance with the situation.
The princess bit back a snort.
"Anyway, I'd better hide this again," She said, storing it along with hundreds of others in the space beneath her room. A forgotten old cellar had become her library, despite the queen's belief that books made those who read them weaker, by making them reliant on the written word for memory. "Okay, well, I guess I'd better go take charge of my mother's 'kingdom'. More like a band of lunatics."
The young woman gave a long-suffering sigh, as she left to go fulfil her duties.
The demigoddess accompanied her.
Several days later, with no word of any battle, the young woman still ruled.
She chaffed under the laws of her mother, but at least none would dare challenge her when she showed an occasional softness.
The demigoddess frowned as she noted one advisor that had been left behind, who seemed to be smirking, as she accompanied the queen's daughter to the latest court.
"My lady, my warband caught these elves. I offer them to you as a sacrifice to your future prosperity, when you rule," The woman smiled. She gestured and the doors were opened to admit several warriors. With them, a child.
The young elf was at most twelve, with skin darker than that of any elf the demigoddess had seen before.
"These foolish weaklings asked for protection through our lands," The cruel woman laughed. "Thus, I offer you the son of their leader, as your first kill, so that the blood of the weak will nourish your future strength."
The demigoddess saw what was going on.
The princess was no killer, her mind was sharp, but it was better suited to wordplay or managing food supplies. She had never taken a life, though her mother was planning to make her do so.
But, as a defiant face of refusal flickered across the princess' face, another warrior rushed in.
"The queen is dead! Her forces were slaughtered by the elves! They are coming here!"
The room fell silent.
"Boy," The princess, no, the queen said. "Take your people from our lands. I grant you mercy, take your people south."
The elven boy slipped from the nerveless fingers of the warriors and ran.
The advisor made a sound of protest.
"Can your warband stop them?" The new queen asked. "Can you succeed where my mother failed?"
The advisor's face flickered.
"… no. Not with you as queen," She snarled. "Your mother instructed me to ensure you were properly hardened as a warrior. But you are weak."
"But stronger than you," The queen reposted. "Strong not in arm, but in knowledge. My mother took all of her warriors and got them slaughtered. The cities had more than us, more food, more warriors, more quality weapons. Their weakness was division."
The demigoddess blinked; she knew her friend, she had the wit, but… she had never seen her make a stand like this.
She froze. The Huntress-Queen had been paying far more attention to her once she had arrived, yet now… she had only felt the attention, once, days ago. She should be demanding her to act, to silence, yet again, someone speaking against her will.
There was nothing but silence.
"My mother's strength won, but we now live barely above squalor. We lose how many warriors to disease and famine?" The queen continued. "How many are born, only to stave to death before their first year? My mother was a fool. She led us to ruin, and now the elves come for our capital!"
The demigoddess saw warriors gathering, angry, but with agreement written on their faces. A few glanced at her, and a look of surprise flashed across their faces.
'Of course, I'm saying nothing against her, and I am the Huntress-Queen's agent, thus, there is an implied consent,' She thought gleefully.
As the new queen continued to rant and encourage her people, stripping away her mother's lies and foolishness, the demigoddess pulled on the line that connected her to the goddess, curious.
She gasped, as she found herself at the feet of two titans. One, topped by rabbit ears, desperately stabbing at the other, a giant figure shrouded in blood and darkness, with wild eyes glowing out of them.
The dark one looked at her, pinning her in place with merely its attention.
"Ah, you still defy her? Good. I will keep her busy. Your friend is coming with a plan. A blasphemous plan," The giant rumbled, and the demigoddess dimply recognised it as that of the demigod she had encountered years ago now, at the battle for the river. "But it is a plan that will work, now that I am a god of war, darkness, death, and madness!"
The giant laughed as it parried one of the Huntress-Queen's blows with a shield.
"Go, and be ready for this one to stand in your way."
She found herself, once more, in the court. Braziers burned, and the warriors around were cheering.
The new queen was smiling amidst them.
"We will go across the sea, beyond the mountains, and there, away from the elves, we will regain the strength my mother wasted!"
A hand touched her back, and the demigoddess looked over her shoulder.
From the shadows, she saw the face of her elven friend. Older, weathered by pain and stress, but still the same. The shadows moved around her, like black smoke, and something about the shadows made her nervous.
Her friend whispered.
"Emroy became a god, and I found old secrets, things that have made the other gods want me dead," She said quietly. "But it will end the threat of the Huntress-Queen, and free you. Meet me, tonight, near the temple in the mountains."
Very, very nice. I love these flashbacks!
charclone
Well-known member
Unfortunately, this is the second to last flashback, and the story is only around half done.
That's fine, I also like the main line story, the flashbacks are just gravy on top.
But we knew now,how warrior bunnies become so fucked.Logical explanation,but sad.
I hope,that King Richard manage to do sometching about that! with help of Queen Tara,of course.
Finally all caught up. Love this story. Are you setting up Richard and Pina? Cause If Zorzal is up to his old tricks and takes out Molt then it'll set Pina against Zorzal. And Pina having the long patrol at her back would make her position thst much stronger.
charclone
Well-known member
No. As it stands, Pina is not exactly Richard's biggest fan. Tara is who is with Richard. Pina actually sees some parallels between Zorzal in Richard, though those are due to some of her assumptions, rather than based in fact.
That being said, thank you!
Chapter 54
charclone
Well-known member
The convoy came to a stop.
Richard had, as part of his university program, visited an archaeological site excavating an old Scottish fort. It had been ancient, likely built on an earlier site, though they hadn't dug deep enough to tell, and most of the ruins had been covered by dirt, or worn away with time.
He remembered the cold, and the odd formations of hills, hinting at the locations of ancient ruins. Falmart was warmer than Scotland had been, but mist hung heavy across the sparse forest that had grown amidst the old city.
He took a deep breath as he got out of the vehicle, Tara already standing next to the door.
"Not much to look at," She said, looking around. "But, I do see this as being a place where a city might have been founded. Cliffs nearby provide protection on one side, the dried marsh we drove through would have provided defence on that side, the river feeding the marsh and city another."
"Well, buried ruins don't tend to look like much more than a few hills," Richard replied. "But I am willing to bet that we are in the right place. That slight bump, going around the perimeter? I'm pretty sure that used to be a perimeter wall."
As the two of them talked, some distance away Corporal Thomas groaned, sitting on a fallen log.
"Why did we get tagged for fucking babysitting duty again?" He asked, glancing at Corporal Fields. "You hear anything, Fifi?"
"No, but I bet the sergeant volunteered just to annoy," Philip rolled his eyes. "Now stop laying about, we're on patrol. The area isn't secure."
"Anyone else see that?" Richard called out, a few hours later. "Saw something in the fog."
"Where?"
Corporal Harry Thomas frowned, even as he and others spread out to search. They had been here for a few hours, while some sort of scanning equipment was set up. The mist was not dissipating, something that set his nerves on edge.
Hell, his nerves had been on edge ever since he had stepped out of the Hummer.
His gut had saved his life more than once, especially here in this fantasy land. An ambush by bandits spoiled, an elf found at the bottom of a well and another with several broken bones hidden amidst bushes some distance away, a well-hidden wire beneath sand leading to an IED being found when he stepped over it, all because he had a feeling.
Harry shook his head to clear it of memories and old fears. For all that he was a jokester, and lazy, he knew full well when to take his job seriously.
A flicker of movement in the distance caught his eye.
He signalled with his hands, creeping forwards, his rifle up and ready. Flanking him was the rest of his squad, covering him.
He moved forwards, then froze, and sighed.
"Just a damn rock," He called back, before inspecting it. Then he paused. The movement had been from a piece of fabric tied to it… and fabric wouldn't have lasted through the ages, would it? "Hey, got carvings on the rock, and it looks like someone was here to tie some fabric to it."
Past the rock had been a set of ill-maintained, and age-worn steps, yet, in the dirt and dried mud near the half-buried steps leading up the mountain, were prints, many footprints.
"Looks like people have been here within the last year," Harry heard one of the Canadian soldiers with them, further up the mountain path say. "I think I see a cave up ahead."
His stomach tied itself in a knot and his skin crawled.
"Hey, sarge?" He called. "Somethings wrong."
"Wrong? How… no birds," Sergeant Puckett swore under his breath. He reached for the radio. "Major, are you seeing any wildlife in the area? Or hearing anything?"
The radio crackled, and the voice of Major Johnston crackled through it.
"Negative. We're still making sweeps through this damn fog. Report if you have an idea as to what made them so scared."
"Acknowledged."
"This… this land is Hardy's," Harry spun around at the unfamiliar voice, then cursed for forgetting Rory had joined their expedition. "Above the ground, yet… she has a claim to it. It is her domain."
"You… really don't like her, do you?" He asked.
The demigod in the form of a young girl was gripping her oversized halberd tightly, her eyes darting around. Such a nervous picture was at odds with her normal confident character.
"The rumours of this place being cursed… I suspect Hardy was the one who cursed it," She said, ignoring his question. "We should finish and leave, quickly."
Richard looked out from the cliffside over the mist-filled plains that hid the ruined city. The midmorning sun rose in the sky yet failed to penetrate the mists below.
Behind him, Dimmu inspected the shrine that had been found in the cave.
"So," Tara said, walking over to stand next to him. "This… is not what I was expecting."
"Never seen ruins before?"
"Plenty. But…" Tara hesitated. "None so old that they were buried. Or, if I did, I never noticed them."
Richard snorted.
"That's fair," He reached out towards Tara's hand, letting her grasp his. "But it doesn't take much to bury ruins. Just some wind, dust, and plant life. Wind carrying dirt off the mountains, or across the plains, depositing it at the foot of the mountain, where the ruins catch the wind, would eventually leave it buried."
"You've seen it before?" Tara asked.
"Yeah, plenty of times. Online, mostly, for classes," Richard shrugged. "But I've been to other archaeology sites. Old abandoned Scottish fort, half the thing was buried by time, even after people worked for years. It was around six hundred years old if I remember correctly, and it was more heavily buried than this. But that was all due to topography if I remember my classes correctly."
Tara hummed, simply enjoying the moment.
A flicker of movement far in the distance through the mists caught her eye.
"Something wrong?" She heard Richard ask. She shushed him, dread of an unknown threat growing in her heart, not fully understanding why.
She listened.
The chatter of soldiers. The crackle of radios. The sound of rubber boots on stone and grass.
The wind against the stone and cliff face. The distant rustling of trees.
The rustling of trees, in the distance, didn't match the wind. And there was another sound, that they matched… it sounded like… when Thoos, Vel's wyvern, flew close to the ground, but louder despite the distance.
Cold claws grasped her heart.
She turned, pushing Richard toward the small cave, and opened her mouth to shout, when the Ancient Fire Dragon, the sun gleaming off its crimson scales, burst from the upper layers of the mist. Far too close for comfort at the speed it was travelling.
"Contact! Fire dragon, approaching fast, West!" Edgar's radio crackled with an American sergeant's voice.
He was already spinning around, orders being barked, when he felt it, the wind as something passed by, large and fast, directly overhead.
"Bastard came for round two!" He roared. "Captain Riley, get those launchers from the trucks up that cliff yesterday!"
From up above, the crack of rifles could be heard, muffled slightly by the distance and thick fog.
The troops left with their transports were not lax, already manning the .50 cals on some of the vehicles, or handing out what few disposable rocket launchers and SAMs they had.
Blood pounded in Major Johnson's ears as he hefted an M72.
He'd faced the dragon before, early on, only two weeks into the Falmart campaign, while it had been attacking a village. They saw the smoke and went to investigate.
By a minor miracle, none of theirs had died that time, though the wreckage of the village dampened any high spirits they might have had. Far too many villagers had been killed. The only solace was that they had given the dragon what they had hoped was a mortal wound, shredding its arm with a well-placed Stinger missile, forcing it to flee in pain. Most animals wouldn't survive such a wound.
The dragon, it would seem, was different from most animals in tenacity.
Combat boots tore into the stone and dirt up the path as they climbed.
Edgar motioned, as they neared the fighting just past the edge of the mist, for missile teams to take position. They could see the beast, gossamer red scales glittering in the sun, vast wings nearly blotting it out and beating against the air, as its one remaining claw swiped at the ground. Smoke drifted up from where the flames had been sprayed.
The scent of charred flesh made one soldier stumble to the side and empty the contents of his stomach.
"Fire!" Edgar ordered.
The missile streaked out, and as the wings rose one more, fire blossomed against its hide.
For a moment, it looked like it had done nothing as the wings kept rising.
Then one rose higher than the other, free from its host, tumbling away as the dragon screamed and fell, disappearing behind a small cliff on the mountain.
"Quiet!" Captain Riley barked as a few soldiers started to cheer. Her voice strained. "Get those rockets up!"
Edgar winced as he felt the ground tremble with the impact.
"Incoming!" Someone yelled, boulders tumbling down.
They pressed themselves flat against the cliff as they passed, the stones bouncing down the angled cliff. For a brief moment, there was silence as if the world held its breath. They heard the dragon roar, still alive, and the crack of their comrades' weapons.
"Go, go, go!" A sergeant barked.
"Get eyes on and finish that bastard!" Edgar shouted. "Someone contact HQ, let them know we grounded the bastard!"
They pressed on, and as they crossed over the cliff, they saw the dragon.
Its hide was torn and rent. Blood poured from the hole where its wing once was. But it was fighting still.
"Put it down!" Edgar roared.
It was almost comical, how the dragon, with its one good eye, glanced at him. It seemed to recognise the threat, and like a wounded animal, it tried to flee, scrambling towards a cave.
The missile struck the ruined shoulder, where it had lost its arm, before it reached the cave, too small for its bulk. Once more, the mountain shook, as the crashed into it, this tome headfirst as it stumbled, its head vanishing inside the now large cave, debris littering the area around it.
The dragon struggled, but it was plain to see its death was imminent, as a crimson tide poured from its wounds.
"Christ, that bastard is tough," Someone groaned next to Edgar.
With one last heave, it slammed its claw against the cliff face, before falling still.
"Check the wounded," Edgar ordered, and set about organising relief for the wounded survivors. "I want a casualty report and inform HQ about the dead monster. We need a medivac as well."
"Eight dead, twelve wounded, two missing. Two of the dead and four wounded were from the falling rocks. Dragon did the rest," Riley reported, her face pale. "That priest is unhurt, but…"
She glanced at Tara, covered in dragon blood.
"…Richard… I shoved him towards the cave then… everything happened so fast," Tara shuddered. "Next moment, I was struggling to avoid being crushed or eaten."
Edgar forced his jaw to unclench.
"The other missing?" He asked.
"Sergeant Peterson. We… found part of his leg, but the rest of him is missing." Riley reported.
"Major, Captain!" Corporal Ross saluted. "We just dug Sam out of the rubble near the dragon's head. He's in bad shape, but the medics say he'll live. We also found this in the dragon's good eye."
They stared at the mangled piece of dragon blood-soaked metal. Bits of the eye still clung to the twisted remains of Richard's sword.
Tara stood and walked away, her face stony.
"The dragon forced its way into the cave, right?" Edgar asked. "He probably got hit and was buried deeper. We should have what we need to dig him out, and with any luck, Sergeant Peterson. Get to it."
"Sir… the cave wasn't very deep. I think the dragon…"
Edgar cut the American corporal off.
"Don't, just… don't. Caves like that probably have a back area, where the water came from when it was formed, so, until we have a body, we will search."
"He is not dead," A voice called out.
"Rory," Edgar glanced at the demigod. He blanched at what he saw. "What the hell happened to you?"
"Thrown off the cliff by the dragon," Rory stated, matter-of-factly. "But Richard is not in Emroy's domain, which he would be if he had died. Nor is he in Hardy's, despite this being part of her domain, and dragons being hers."
The small demigoddess frowned.
"I never considered it but… why are dragons, creatures of magic and the sky, part of the goddess of the underworld's domain?"
Richard had, as part of his university program, visited an archaeological site excavating an old Scottish fort. It had been ancient, likely built on an earlier site, though they hadn't dug deep enough to tell, and most of the ruins had been covered by dirt, or worn away with time.
He remembered the cold, and the odd formations of hills, hinting at the locations of ancient ruins. Falmart was warmer than Scotland had been, but mist hung heavy across the sparse forest that had grown amidst the old city.
He took a deep breath as he got out of the vehicle, Tara already standing next to the door.
"Not much to look at," She said, looking around. "But, I do see this as being a place where a city might have been founded. Cliffs nearby provide protection on one side, the dried marsh we drove through would have provided defence on that side, the river feeding the marsh and city another."
"Well, buried ruins don't tend to look like much more than a few hills," Richard replied. "But I am willing to bet that we are in the right place. That slight bump, going around the perimeter? I'm pretty sure that used to be a perimeter wall."
As the two of them talked, some distance away Corporal Thomas groaned, sitting on a fallen log.
"Why did we get tagged for fucking babysitting duty again?" He asked, glancing at Corporal Fields. "You hear anything, Fifi?"
"No, but I bet the sergeant volunteered just to annoy," Philip rolled his eyes. "Now stop laying about, we're on patrol. The area isn't secure."
"Anyone else see that?" Richard called out, a few hours later. "Saw something in the fog."
"Where?"
Corporal Harry Thomas frowned, even as he and others spread out to search. They had been here for a few hours, while some sort of scanning equipment was set up. The mist was not dissipating, something that set his nerves on edge.
Hell, his nerves had been on edge ever since he had stepped out of the Hummer.
His gut had saved his life more than once, especially here in this fantasy land. An ambush by bandits spoiled, an elf found at the bottom of a well and another with several broken bones hidden amidst bushes some distance away, a well-hidden wire beneath sand leading to an IED being found when he stepped over it, all because he had a feeling.
Harry shook his head to clear it of memories and old fears. For all that he was a jokester, and lazy, he knew full well when to take his job seriously.
A flicker of movement in the distance caught his eye.
He signalled with his hands, creeping forwards, his rifle up and ready. Flanking him was the rest of his squad, covering him.
He moved forwards, then froze, and sighed.
"Just a damn rock," He called back, before inspecting it. Then he paused. The movement had been from a piece of fabric tied to it… and fabric wouldn't have lasted through the ages, would it? "Hey, got carvings on the rock, and it looks like someone was here to tie some fabric to it."
Past the rock had been a set of ill-maintained, and age-worn steps, yet, in the dirt and dried mud near the half-buried steps leading up the mountain, were prints, many footprints.
"Looks like people have been here within the last year," Harry heard one of the Canadian soldiers with them, further up the mountain path say. "I think I see a cave up ahead."
His stomach tied itself in a knot and his skin crawled.
"Hey, sarge?" He called. "Somethings wrong."
"Wrong? How… no birds," Sergeant Puckett swore under his breath. He reached for the radio. "Major, are you seeing any wildlife in the area? Or hearing anything?"
The radio crackled, and the voice of Major Johnston crackled through it.
"Negative. We're still making sweeps through this damn fog. Report if you have an idea as to what made them so scared."
"Acknowledged."
"This… this land is Hardy's," Harry spun around at the unfamiliar voice, then cursed for forgetting Rory had joined their expedition. "Above the ground, yet… she has a claim to it. It is her domain."
"You… really don't like her, do you?" He asked.
The demigod in the form of a young girl was gripping her oversized halberd tightly, her eyes darting around. Such a nervous picture was at odds with her normal confident character.
"The rumours of this place being cursed… I suspect Hardy was the one who cursed it," She said, ignoring his question. "We should finish and leave, quickly."
Richard looked out from the cliffside over the mist-filled plains that hid the ruined city. The midmorning sun rose in the sky yet failed to penetrate the mists below.
Behind him, Dimmu inspected the shrine that had been found in the cave.
"So," Tara said, walking over to stand next to him. "This… is not what I was expecting."
"Never seen ruins before?"
"Plenty. But…" Tara hesitated. "None so old that they were buried. Or, if I did, I never noticed them."
Richard snorted.
"That's fair," He reached out towards Tara's hand, letting her grasp his. "But it doesn't take much to bury ruins. Just some wind, dust, and plant life. Wind carrying dirt off the mountains, or across the plains, depositing it at the foot of the mountain, where the ruins catch the wind, would eventually leave it buried."
"You've seen it before?" Tara asked.
"Yeah, plenty of times. Online, mostly, for classes," Richard shrugged. "But I've been to other archaeology sites. Old abandoned Scottish fort, half the thing was buried by time, even after people worked for years. It was around six hundred years old if I remember correctly, and it was more heavily buried than this. But that was all due to topography if I remember my classes correctly."
Tara hummed, simply enjoying the moment.
A flicker of movement far in the distance through the mists caught her eye.
"Something wrong?" She heard Richard ask. She shushed him, dread of an unknown threat growing in her heart, not fully understanding why.
She listened.
The chatter of soldiers. The crackle of radios. The sound of rubber boots on stone and grass.
The wind against the stone and cliff face. The distant rustling of trees.
The rustling of trees, in the distance, didn't match the wind. And there was another sound, that they matched… it sounded like… when Thoos, Vel's wyvern, flew close to the ground, but louder despite the distance.
Cold claws grasped her heart.
She turned, pushing Richard toward the small cave, and opened her mouth to shout, when the Ancient Fire Dragon, the sun gleaming off its crimson scales, burst from the upper layers of the mist. Far too close for comfort at the speed it was travelling.
"Contact! Fire dragon, approaching fast, West!" Edgar's radio crackled with an American sergeant's voice.
He was already spinning around, orders being barked, when he felt it, the wind as something passed by, large and fast, directly overhead.
"Bastard came for round two!" He roared. "Captain Riley, get those launchers from the trucks up that cliff yesterday!"
From up above, the crack of rifles could be heard, muffled slightly by the distance and thick fog.
The troops left with their transports were not lax, already manning the .50 cals on some of the vehicles, or handing out what few disposable rocket launchers and SAMs they had.
Blood pounded in Major Johnson's ears as he hefted an M72.
He'd faced the dragon before, early on, only two weeks into the Falmart campaign, while it had been attacking a village. They saw the smoke and went to investigate.
By a minor miracle, none of theirs had died that time, though the wreckage of the village dampened any high spirits they might have had. Far too many villagers had been killed. The only solace was that they had given the dragon what they had hoped was a mortal wound, shredding its arm with a well-placed Stinger missile, forcing it to flee in pain. Most animals wouldn't survive such a wound.
The dragon, it would seem, was different from most animals in tenacity.
Combat boots tore into the stone and dirt up the path as they climbed.
Edgar motioned, as they neared the fighting just past the edge of the mist, for missile teams to take position. They could see the beast, gossamer red scales glittering in the sun, vast wings nearly blotting it out and beating against the air, as its one remaining claw swiped at the ground. Smoke drifted up from where the flames had been sprayed.
The scent of charred flesh made one soldier stumble to the side and empty the contents of his stomach.
"Fire!" Edgar ordered.
The missile streaked out, and as the wings rose one more, fire blossomed against its hide.
For a moment, it looked like it had done nothing as the wings kept rising.
Then one rose higher than the other, free from its host, tumbling away as the dragon screamed and fell, disappearing behind a small cliff on the mountain.
"Quiet!" Captain Riley barked as a few soldiers started to cheer. Her voice strained. "Get those rockets up!"
Edgar winced as he felt the ground tremble with the impact.
"Incoming!" Someone yelled, boulders tumbling down.
They pressed themselves flat against the cliff as they passed, the stones bouncing down the angled cliff. For a brief moment, there was silence as if the world held its breath. They heard the dragon roar, still alive, and the crack of their comrades' weapons.
"Go, go, go!" A sergeant barked.
"Get eyes on and finish that bastard!" Edgar shouted. "Someone contact HQ, let them know we grounded the bastard!"
They pressed on, and as they crossed over the cliff, they saw the dragon.
Its hide was torn and rent. Blood poured from the hole where its wing once was. But it was fighting still.
"Put it down!" Edgar roared.
It was almost comical, how the dragon, with its one good eye, glanced at him. It seemed to recognise the threat, and like a wounded animal, it tried to flee, scrambling towards a cave.
The missile struck the ruined shoulder, where it had lost its arm, before it reached the cave, too small for its bulk. Once more, the mountain shook, as the crashed into it, this tome headfirst as it stumbled, its head vanishing inside the now large cave, debris littering the area around it.
The dragon struggled, but it was plain to see its death was imminent, as a crimson tide poured from its wounds.
"Christ, that bastard is tough," Someone groaned next to Edgar.
With one last heave, it slammed its claw against the cliff face, before falling still.
"Check the wounded," Edgar ordered, and set about organising relief for the wounded survivors. "I want a casualty report and inform HQ about the dead monster. We need a medivac as well."
"Eight dead, twelve wounded, two missing. Two of the dead and four wounded were from the falling rocks. Dragon did the rest," Riley reported, her face pale. "That priest is unhurt, but…"
She glanced at Tara, covered in dragon blood.
"…Richard… I shoved him towards the cave then… everything happened so fast," Tara shuddered. "Next moment, I was struggling to avoid being crushed or eaten."
Edgar forced his jaw to unclench.
"The other missing?" He asked.
"Sergeant Peterson. We… found part of his leg, but the rest of him is missing." Riley reported.
"Major, Captain!" Corporal Ross saluted. "We just dug Sam out of the rubble near the dragon's head. He's in bad shape, but the medics say he'll live. We also found this in the dragon's good eye."
They stared at the mangled piece of dragon blood-soaked metal. Bits of the eye still clung to the twisted remains of Richard's sword.
Tara stood and walked away, her face stony.
"The dragon forced its way into the cave, right?" Edgar asked. "He probably got hit and was buried deeper. We should have what we need to dig him out, and with any luck, Sergeant Peterson. Get to it."
"Sir… the cave wasn't very deep. I think the dragon…"
Edgar cut the American corporal off.
"Don't, just… don't. Caves like that probably have a back area, where the water came from when it was formed, so, until we have a body, we will search."
"He is not dead," A voice called out.
"Rory," Edgar glanced at the demigod. He blanched at what he saw. "What the hell happened to you?"
"Thrown off the cliff by the dragon," Rory stated, matter-of-factly. "But Richard is not in Emroy's domain, which he would be if he had died. Nor is he in Hardy's, despite this being part of her domain, and dragons being hers."
The small demigoddess frowned.
"I never considered it but… why are dragons, creatures of magic and the sky, part of the goddess of the underworld's domain?"
When you mentioned fog,i excepted this :
,But,if Hardy lack King Arthur,Fire Dragon would do !
Jokes side - i bet,that Richard was send back in time to fullfill some prophecy,and when he come back,He finally marry Tara !
P.S about ruins - in Poland we had so called Zyndram hill/Góra Zyndrama/ with ruins made from stone which do not interested anybody.becouse they "knew" that it was made by knight Zyndram after 1410.
Till somebody send archeologist there - and found,that it was walled village from 1600-1800 BC.Made by dudes who seek amber and delivered it it Egypt later.
,But,if Hardy lack King Arthur,Fire Dragon would do !
Jokes side - i bet,that Richard was send back in time to fullfill some prophecy,and when he come back,He finally marry Tara !
P.S about ruins - in Poland we had so called Zyndram hill/Góra Zyndrama/ with ruins made from stone which do not interested anybody.becouse they "knew" that it was made by knight Zyndram after 1410.
Till somebody send archeologist there - and found,that it was walled village from 1600-1800 BC.Made by dudes who seek amber and delivered it it Egypt later.
I have a question. Richard is alive and not in Hardy or Emroys realm. But...does Richards faith matter? We never got Rorys thoughts on Earths faiths like Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, ect ect. So lets say Richard is Christian. Does God have no domain on this world? I mean, Emroy sounds pretty accepting and kinda cool and all. But I got to imagine the soul of a Christian, Jew or Muslim wouldn't be too happy by being in his domain and not the one they were promised. Ya know?
True,but answer depend on on thing -
Do we have one Real God - and it must be only one,no matter which,or at least one Real pantheon -
Or,there is no Real Gods or pantheons,only kind of Warp gods which exist when somebody belive in them.
If we had Real God/pantheon,He/they would destroy Gate gods.
If not,notching change.
charclone
Well-known member
Yeah... I know its a cop out, but its something I am not touching, because it risks dominating the story. So, whether God exists or not, isn't going to be elaborated or touched upon. Same with where the souls go. Only nominally touching it with locals only, when absolutely necessary, though people may reference their beliefs.
Chapter 55
charclone
Well-known member
The Demigoddess watched the trail of people leave the city from where she was perched on the cliff. Finally, as the sun began to dip down, she turned and entered the temple. She had never been deep into it, only entering the outer areas, but she knew it was the main temple of the Huntress-Queen.
She paused at the scent of death, beneath a carving a massive dragon set into the cliff face.
A trio of priests lay dead, with not a mark on them, but their bodies lay twisted in agony.
"You're here, good," Her friend stepped out of the shadows, a beaming smile on her face. "Come, let's be done quickly. Our friends are waiting for us, to celebrate this final victory."
The thought of seeing the friends she had made, of going home, banished any doubts.
She met her friend's smile, nodded, and they both plunged into the shadows of the inner temple.
Consciousness came slowly to Richard. He groaned, as he realised an aching pain came with it. He shifted and blinked as the blurry memories of the attack came rushing back. His heart raced, and he tried to move.
Around him, he saw little. Dim shapes from a light above. Something rolled off his chest, landing with a dull, heavy thud, amidst stones. The sudden change in weight made Richard cough, tasting the dry air. He felt around in the darkness, finding stones around him, and rents in his chest plate. His legs and arms felt sore and bruised, but intact.
He slowly pushed himself up, then flinched as something struck his head. It took him a moment to realise that that sensation had been what woke him. A warm liquid ran down his face. Finding a small beam of light from somewhere above, he wiped his face and placed his hand into the beam. It shone crimson with blood.
Richard frowned, glancing upwards, as he heard more drops land both near him, and up above.
He began to feel around the edges of the cavern he found himself in, carefully stepping over unstable rocks and debris.
His foot came down on something soft, and very much not a rock.
Gently, Richard felt the body, feeling around for a recognisable appendage to check on their pulse.
His hand felt the shape of a flashlight. Hope flared in his chest as he felt for the power switch.
He recoiled, flinching as the light flared into his face.
The lens was cracked and the casing was battered, but it was functional.
Richard pointed it at the body. He gagged, glancing away from the mangled corpse.
A distant sound caught his attention, making Richard point the light in its direction, revealing a passageway.
A passageway of worked stone.
Richard looked up, with the flashlight, seeing a yawning hole of broken stone, going at an angle.
"Guess the cave used to be a whole lot bigger," He guessed aloud. "Old complex, based on the worked stone, is my guess."
The sound got closer, and Richard reached for his sword, touching only air. He frowned, then glanced at the corpse. Tentatively, he tried to ignore the gaping wounds and missing parts, pulling the pistol from the holster, thankful it had survived and stayed with the body.
He glanced at the giant tooth embedded in the corpse's face, neck, and torso, before tearing his gaze away.
Carefully, he made his way into the passage.
The spear opened the fanatic priest from hip to thigh.
A rolling wave of darkness swallowed her compatriot, before leaving the masked priest to drop to the floor, cold and lifeless.
'I granted you your power. I can take it away!' The Huntress-Queen's voice echoes, not just through the demigod's mind, but also through the very magic of the temple. 'I might not be able to see you, but you are mine!'
She glanced at her elven friend, who just winked at the unspoken question, as they dashed through the labyrinthian temple, far older than either of them realised. Deep into the Earth, past long abandoned shrines to forgotten gods and statues of ancient warriors.
Richard gasped, shuddering. He leaned against the wall, nearly losing his grip on the pistol and flashlight.
He blinked, not recognising the stonework under the light. He glanced behind him, expecting to see the cavern. Instead, a branching hallway stretched out behind him.
He found his breath short.
With no other option, he pushed ahead, regretting he hadn't thought to check the soldier's radio.
Moments later, he stumbled.
The demigoddess leaned against her spear, feeling its weight for the first time in years.
"She… took the power back," She panted.
Her friend offered a shoulder, helping her to keep moving forwards.
"Well, the idiot is too late. Just a little further, right? She's out of pawns, and Emroy is still fighting her. The other gods… I… they don't like her either. She wages war against them and serves no purpose but her ego," The elven mage hesitated. "But the power I took… has a price. Once we deal with her, we'll talk about it, yeah?"
"What… did you… take?" The demigoddess found her breathing heavy and slow.
"… Apocryph," The elf said, as they came before an elaborate set of carved and ornately decorated doors, power radiating from the other side. "The antithesis of the Gate, the gods… and reality."
Richard blinked, finding himself beneath a large stone, in the process of pulling himself through the gap between it and the floor. The gap was large enough to crawl through, but still uncomfortably tight.
Ahead, in the fractured light of the flashlight, a door, like the one he had seen in the vision, lay shattered and thrown from its hinges.
Something flickered just past the light.
Slowly, Richard approached. He saw a small room, with an ancient skeleton on the floor. Flesh and clothes had long deteriorated. Embedded in a strange, door-shaped carving was a spear, glittering with an unearthly light.
The same light glowed through the cracks in the door carving.
Richard frowned, then focused the flashlight on the skeleton. The bones were scorched black in some areas. Yet, in others, around the hands mostly, a black mist hung.
Richard knew that bones decayed. He didn't remember the formula, and even if he did, he didn't know enough about local conditions to estimate the rate of decay. For all he knew, the person could have died a century ago, or ten millennia, and that was before factoring in the obvious magic at play.
He eyed the false door warily, reminded of the ancient Egyptian belief of using false doors as a threshold between the land of the living and the land of the dead. He preferred not to learn the truth, especially was magic being real.
Something in the dark growled behind him.
He spun, bringing the pistol up. A strange, giant mole-like creature glowered at him with blind eyes and large teeth. He flicked the safety and squeezed the trigger.
The gun clicked empty.
For a brief moment, he stared at the creature, and it stared back at him. Then it tensed to lunge with its stubby legs.
Richard spun and grabbed the spear.
Everything went white.
Old wounds, from millennia ago, long forgotten, ached.
Emroy, in his dark realm, smiled and laughed.
Palapon felt the ancient vengeance come to fruition. To them, it was a taste of so many flavours, sweet, savoury, and so many others lacking any words in any mortal language.
Dimmu, his priest and agent, sighed as he felt his god's hand on him.
Hardy blinked in confusion. Her very being suddenly in two, yet whole.
Memories far older than her came to the forefront. In one, a demigod raged. Her name and past eroded, yet she had stolen divinity. A hole ached in her heart.
The other, an ancient god. A murderer, vainglorious and cruel. With an ego that competed with her delusions for greater size. Who's realm was that of hunters… but had long strayed from those that hunted for purpose, instead, becoming that which was murder, an affront to the hunters of the wild.
Hardy, goddess of the dead, the underworld, and successor to the ancient god, for the briefest of moments, died as her being was sundered.
Richard blinked, as he saw the scene play itself out. He was but an incorporeal ghost, but he saw and understood, on some instinctual level that defied the senses, what was going on.
He saw the god, who had once been a desperate Warrior Bunny, driven to horrific extremes by her own mistakes and choices, reach out and possess the dark-haired elf mage, despite the danger that the power she wielded posed.
He felt the anguish and horror the human, former demigod and Greek woman from Earth's distant past, felt as she saw her friend and lover turn her power against herself to wound the Huntress-Queen.
He understood her rage as she drew upon the last of her strength, driving her spear – blessed and empowered by the Huntress-Queen – into the door to the Huntress-Queen's domain, into the goddess' metaphorical heart.
He felt the rush of power that exploded outwards, ripping the ex-demigod apart, as her soul was poured into the remnants of the goddess' power, churning the tattered remnants of their souls together into a new being.
All became nothing.
Then, he saw them, the ex-demigoddess, and the Huntress-Queen, struggling and fighting.
He felt the weight of the spear in his hand.
Richard gasped and shuddered, the spear in his hand. Its blade gleamed mere centimetres from the cracked stone gate.
Acting on a guess, and the remnants of the vision, he grasped it with both hands and struck the stone door with the spear.
She paused at the scent of death, beneath a carving a massive dragon set into the cliff face.
A trio of priests lay dead, with not a mark on them, but their bodies lay twisted in agony.
"You're here, good," Her friend stepped out of the shadows, a beaming smile on her face. "Come, let's be done quickly. Our friends are waiting for us, to celebrate this final victory."
The thought of seeing the friends she had made, of going home, banished any doubts.
She met her friend's smile, nodded, and they both plunged into the shadows of the inner temple.
Consciousness came slowly to Richard. He groaned, as he realised an aching pain came with it. He shifted and blinked as the blurry memories of the attack came rushing back. His heart raced, and he tried to move.
Around him, he saw little. Dim shapes from a light above. Something rolled off his chest, landing with a dull, heavy thud, amidst stones. The sudden change in weight made Richard cough, tasting the dry air. He felt around in the darkness, finding stones around him, and rents in his chest plate. His legs and arms felt sore and bruised, but intact.
He slowly pushed himself up, then flinched as something struck his head. It took him a moment to realise that that sensation had been what woke him. A warm liquid ran down his face. Finding a small beam of light from somewhere above, he wiped his face and placed his hand into the beam. It shone crimson with blood.
Richard frowned, glancing upwards, as he heard more drops land both near him, and up above.
He began to feel around the edges of the cavern he found himself in, carefully stepping over unstable rocks and debris.
His foot came down on something soft, and very much not a rock.
Gently, Richard felt the body, feeling around for a recognisable appendage to check on their pulse.
His hand felt the shape of a flashlight. Hope flared in his chest as he felt for the power switch.
He recoiled, flinching as the light flared into his face.
The lens was cracked and the casing was battered, but it was functional.
Richard pointed it at the body. He gagged, glancing away from the mangled corpse.
A distant sound caught his attention, making Richard point the light in its direction, revealing a passageway.
A passageway of worked stone.
Richard looked up, with the flashlight, seeing a yawning hole of broken stone, going at an angle.
"Guess the cave used to be a whole lot bigger," He guessed aloud. "Old complex, based on the worked stone, is my guess."
The sound got closer, and Richard reached for his sword, touching only air. He frowned, then glanced at the corpse. Tentatively, he tried to ignore the gaping wounds and missing parts, pulling the pistol from the holster, thankful it had survived and stayed with the body.
He glanced at the giant tooth embedded in the corpse's face, neck, and torso, before tearing his gaze away.
Carefully, he made his way into the passage.
The spear opened the fanatic priest from hip to thigh.
A rolling wave of darkness swallowed her compatriot, before leaving the masked priest to drop to the floor, cold and lifeless.
'I granted you your power. I can take it away!' The Huntress-Queen's voice echoes, not just through the demigod's mind, but also through the very magic of the temple. 'I might not be able to see you, but you are mine!'
She glanced at her elven friend, who just winked at the unspoken question, as they dashed through the labyrinthian temple, far older than either of them realised. Deep into the Earth, past long abandoned shrines to forgotten gods and statues of ancient warriors.
Richard gasped, shuddering. He leaned against the wall, nearly losing his grip on the pistol and flashlight.
He blinked, not recognising the stonework under the light. He glanced behind him, expecting to see the cavern. Instead, a branching hallway stretched out behind him.
He found his breath short.
With no other option, he pushed ahead, regretting he hadn't thought to check the soldier's radio.
Moments later, he stumbled.
The demigoddess leaned against her spear, feeling its weight for the first time in years.
"She… took the power back," She panted.
Her friend offered a shoulder, helping her to keep moving forwards.
"Well, the idiot is too late. Just a little further, right? She's out of pawns, and Emroy is still fighting her. The other gods… I… they don't like her either. She wages war against them and serves no purpose but her ego," The elven mage hesitated. "But the power I took… has a price. Once we deal with her, we'll talk about it, yeah?"
"What… did you… take?" The demigoddess found her breathing heavy and slow.
"… Apocryph," The elf said, as they came before an elaborate set of carved and ornately decorated doors, power radiating from the other side. "The antithesis of the Gate, the gods… and reality."
Richard blinked, finding himself beneath a large stone, in the process of pulling himself through the gap between it and the floor. The gap was large enough to crawl through, but still uncomfortably tight.
Ahead, in the fractured light of the flashlight, a door, like the one he had seen in the vision, lay shattered and thrown from its hinges.
Something flickered just past the light.
Slowly, Richard approached. He saw a small room, with an ancient skeleton on the floor. Flesh and clothes had long deteriorated. Embedded in a strange, door-shaped carving was a spear, glittering with an unearthly light.
The same light glowed through the cracks in the door carving.
Richard frowned, then focused the flashlight on the skeleton. The bones were scorched black in some areas. Yet, in others, around the hands mostly, a black mist hung.
Richard knew that bones decayed. He didn't remember the formula, and even if he did, he didn't know enough about local conditions to estimate the rate of decay. For all he knew, the person could have died a century ago, or ten millennia, and that was before factoring in the obvious magic at play.
He eyed the false door warily, reminded of the ancient Egyptian belief of using false doors as a threshold between the land of the living and the land of the dead. He preferred not to learn the truth, especially was magic being real.
Something in the dark growled behind him.
He spun, bringing the pistol up. A strange, giant mole-like creature glowered at him with blind eyes and large teeth. He flicked the safety and squeezed the trigger.
The gun clicked empty.
For a brief moment, he stared at the creature, and it stared back at him. Then it tensed to lunge with its stubby legs.
Richard spun and grabbed the spear.
Everything went white.
Old wounds, from millennia ago, long forgotten, ached.
Emroy, in his dark realm, smiled and laughed.
Palapon felt the ancient vengeance come to fruition. To them, it was a taste of so many flavours, sweet, savoury, and so many others lacking any words in any mortal language.
Dimmu, his priest and agent, sighed as he felt his god's hand on him.
Hardy blinked in confusion. Her very being suddenly in two, yet whole.
Memories far older than her came to the forefront. In one, a demigod raged. Her name and past eroded, yet she had stolen divinity. A hole ached in her heart.
The other, an ancient god. A murderer, vainglorious and cruel. With an ego that competed with her delusions for greater size. Who's realm was that of hunters… but had long strayed from those that hunted for purpose, instead, becoming that which was murder, an affront to the hunters of the wild.
Hardy, goddess of the dead, the underworld, and successor to the ancient god, for the briefest of moments, died as her being was sundered.
Richard blinked, as he saw the scene play itself out. He was but an incorporeal ghost, but he saw and understood, on some instinctual level that defied the senses, what was going on.
He saw the god, who had once been a desperate Warrior Bunny, driven to horrific extremes by her own mistakes and choices, reach out and possess the dark-haired elf mage, despite the danger that the power she wielded posed.
He felt the anguish and horror the human, former demigod and Greek woman from Earth's distant past, felt as she saw her friend and lover turn her power against herself to wound the Huntress-Queen.
He understood her rage as she drew upon the last of her strength, driving her spear – blessed and empowered by the Huntress-Queen – into the door to the Huntress-Queen's domain, into the goddess' metaphorical heart.
He felt the rush of power that exploded outwards, ripping the ex-demigod apart, as her soul was poured into the remnants of the goddess' power, churning the tattered remnants of their souls together into a new being.
All became nothing.
Then, he saw them, the ex-demigoddess, and the Huntress-Queen, struggling and fighting.
He felt the weight of the spear in his hand.
Richard gasped and shuddered, the spear in his hand. Its blade gleamed mere centimetres from the cracked stone gate.
Acting on a guess, and the remnants of the vision, he grasped it with both hands and struck the stone door with the spear.