Archive: 3 posts

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In Peace And now, after hundreds of years spent searching, the demon was back where it had begun. It had never fazed him before, the silence and the calm. It was just another part of the battle. It was the time for preparation, for the sharpening of blades and hammering of armour. But now, to know that the rush of battle would never come again, peace was the very last thing he wanted. His armour, his true form, stood within the alcove across from him, hollow eyes bearing endlessly down on him. It took him to a day in his childhood. A young wolf without a pack had attacked him as he carried logs back to his family?s lodge. He?d fought with it for a while, throwing dirt and yelling and roaring, and once it tired it began to follow him instead for company. The wolf and he developed a respect for each other as they met each night to hunt and fight. But the day came when he was called to arms, having to abandon the wolf and their days of hunting and play fighting for life in the barracks amongst men and monsters. That wolf was once his suit of armour, and now as he looked on, he felt a fear, fear of what he would become if he did not don his armour once more. Without that wolf, peace meant nothing but rotting now, a retired tool of death gathering dust on the kingdom?s shelf. The suit was still all a suit should be, revealing no weak points, no humanity. Wind and rain and mud had fed this suit until it embodied them. It wasn?t armour built for a knight, but for a monster, the thought of which no longer stirred him anymore. The kingdom had called for monsters and that was what had come. That first battle was a foul memory. If only he was then what he is now, he could have lead the charge. But on that day, he was small and cold. Brave, yes, but not ready for the events to come. He was lined up next to the Veregna, skinny, long limbed, gaunt and rat-like. They supported themselves on knuckles and feet. They could sport only the helmets and weapons the kingdom had provided, their bodies inconceivably disproportionate from a human. They had turned up in large numbers, as was often the case. They were natural looters and scavengers, and everyone new to expect them. They weren?t too tough, but they ate the dead, gathered weaponry, and saved tired and wounded soldiers a little time to recover. The Lopinhyar were the only other race he remembers militarizing themselves for the battle. Short, greasy frog like beasts. Very awkward to fight from horseback, being short, smelly and coated in sharp spines. They fought with rope and spear, and while the majority of them only provided a wall of meat between the enemy and allied lines, the Knights of both sides avoided them. Full armour was a constriction in itself, but against rope and rags a knight could easily tire and become overwhelmed by their numbers, and they weren?t so disciplined as they could always distinguish friend from foe on the field of battle. And there were the men, perhaps the strangest of all. There was no roaring or war cries or screams, they marched in synchrony and showed no fear or pity. The fort was silent. Up above somewhere would be the lord, no doubt sleeping happily on his wealth and power. He too was a warrior once, but had taken to fighting from behind his own lines, never coming within reach of the enemy?s blades. And the farmers and working folk were content too. War meant siege and supplies, increased pressure to produce food and goods without any rewards to compensate. They were in their element now, letting the days drift by without any significant events to discern one day from the next. This was only the first day. With the blood soaked kingdom through the mountains ravaged and abandoned, no organised force would oppose the kingdom for at least four generations, when likely there will be disputes as to who should be ruling the kingdom. And even then, it would be treachery and deception, backstabbing and house masters wrestling for control. Battle would not be an occurrence. His Grazers remained next to the bed. Weapons of his own design, they served as a small shield centred over the forearm, with two hooked blades just above the fist, and sharpened edges either side for slashing and parrying. The key to their versatility was that the hands were still free, for whatever they may be needed, and the Grazers were light and wouldn?t hinder the swing of a sword or draw of a bow. Killing and protecting had become his purpose, and so he had become skilled in such pursuits. His childhood had been uneventful and the introduction to battle amongst monsters and beasts had taught him a lot about the importance of preparation and equipment. He had forgotten to prepare for peace. He had no family, or friends. No stories or humour, no luxuries or gold. He had asked for none, and so the kingdom had not offered. The sun was lurking beneath the horizon, the birds singing and the sky violet-red. A good time to be out, for the dull walls of his holding only held sorrow for him. He had live his whole life outdoors. The peasants were already out tending the fields and performing various menial but otherwise necessary duties. A child was wailing a scythe at the blades of wheat and making a poor job of it. His heart was in it, but he wouldn?t progress any further without someone to teach him. The first day in the forest, the training site for many of the kingdoms swordsmen, he had been tasked with the protection of a coffin of sand from attackers. He was amongst other youngsters, and a woodlander had their backs too. The woodlanders came form a span of the kingdom that was empty for centuries after fear rose from a series of poltergeist murders. The trees and undergrowth came creeping in, but the few who had stayed embraced them, constructing tree houses and rope bridges and developing their own way of life. The woodlander had fought with ease in his natural surroundings, and a few of the juniors had got a few good hits. His own sword however, had missed all its targets, and he?d been knocked down several times. He spent night after night trying to destroy the sandman in the barracks. One night the woodlander stepped in from behind, and showed him how no matter his efforts, there are some things that cannot be done by everybody. He was small and soft, and the sandman was large and tough. He would never be able to break it with a sword. The woodlander visited every night, teaching him about the mind of the enemy, his vision and hearing, about conditioning and preparing for the situation. The woodlander only wished to pass his knowledge on, rather than let it waste away with his ageing mind. In the confines of the city walls he could not fight battles and so there was no call for his skills. But teaching was something for fathers and elders. Monsters and killers struggled to pass information on, especially when it could one day come to stand against them. The knight could not teach, nor would he do so given the chance. Two Aggrad giants passed by with a full tree over each shoulder, pleased no doubt with having breakfast so close by. A shadow at a loom in one of the windows had pulled the curtain shut as he had passed. He recognized her now, peeping between the curtains. A mother maybe, she had brought the cullis gate down on two of his men in the battle. The Blood Ridden kingdom had launched a rage driven counter attack after their cities? destruction. Only yesterday?s sunrise had it landed on the city walls. They were without siege equipment, slaughtering whatever living thing they could catch before the gates, where the knight and his force had met them. His squad was hard, some living through much of the same hell he had. The gates were closed regardless of the outlook of the battle, and the archers had rained down their profession on the skirmish. Only the knight had survived, caught under the gate however. A position had been offered to him as the lord?s house guard. He knew the duties of a guard, because he?d killed many. It was a different world inside the head of a guard. Some of the greatest fighters he had known had ?retired? to become guards at some point, for the riches or the honour. Men who had fought in hundreds of battles and become magnificent combat elites could die as a guard, from an inaccurate crossbow bolt, a fire within the castle, an assassin?s blade as you slept. He would not die in such a way. He had not honed his skills all his life to die playing the wrong field. If someone was going to beat him, they would have to beat him at what he does best. He had considered policing the population within the denser areas of the city. The thought of handling obnoxious drunks and criminals one after the other did not appeal to him all that much either. He could leave the city, without connections or responsibilities he had always been as free as anyone could want to be. No one would pursue him, and he has no oath to the lord. Finding food and lodgings would be no problem. But the kingdom had spread far since its victory. What were once hostile holdings had become part of the kingdom and he would not be able to march in and kill every moving object as he used to take such pride in doing. The Basillion faded into his mind. Men were only one dimension of battle. Thoughts can be influenced, techniques copied and emotions twisted, but beasts were different. Their expressions had different meanings each time you met them, their style and methods of assault un-predictable and difficult to be fully prepared for. The Basilion?s flame and speed had shuddered the air around him as he battled it, it's head reeling in and out as a thousand needle teeth slammed and clasped either side of him. The monster was fast on a forward assault, but lugged around whenever he had flanked it and approach from its sides. He?d tried to jump its back and plant his blade in any place he could, but was given no such chance. The beast?s head was universally oriented, no blind spots. It couldn?t lunge backwards on itself, but it could see enough to know where to strike out at with its tail. He had been knocked out through the cave mouth, and dared not go back on with the beast ready to strike at the entrance as it waited him. He would fare no better now. Some battles are not meant to be won. He had considered burning the beast out of its cave, or even firing arrows into its lair, but it would not have been his victory. It would have been the arrow or the smoke?s victory. The beast was the better at what they did, and if he were to murder it from afar he would deserve no better a fate himself. The world was fortunate the Basillion did not share his human ambition to defeat everything it could find. The Knight would need to visit that cave again soon, if he did not find a better way to end his existence. Tamer Times Jawheed the tamer was another to find himself often a spare hand since the victory of the kingdom. Convention and order had triumphed, and the once maddened and unappeasable beasts of the ragged lands had joined humanity for a sustainable lifestyle. The hunters became scavengers, the destroyers became builders and the hell mediums turned to the arcane and became mystics. Tamers were no longer needed in a time where the beasts tamed themselves. It was the power of dominance, the control of the uncontrollable that he lived for. The times when he found a new creature lurking the swaps at night or cruising the sky in the middle of a thunderstorm, they had been the moments that made his life worth living. His profession was once the helm of honour and talent in human society, no one more admired than those who could turn rampaging beasts into powerful militarized weapons and ancient creatures into guardians of kings and treasures. Now he was at time where he felt like a retired king, laughed at for trying to milk his old heritage for what he could. He?d stopped telling people what he was long ago. Fortunately, his abilities were not completely useless. Monsters and beasts lived amongst humans in great number now. To any man or woman he was just an outlandish traveller, which did often bring a suspicious gaze upon him. But to the beasts, he could appeal to their primality, their unbreakable loyalty to nature. If it came to it, he could spark of a conflict between two beasts to cover himself as he made off with the perfumes and soap case, or challenge their strength and have them push a wagon of stolen goods all the way up a mountain for safe keeping. He liked to enjoy life, to laugh and joke and fall over drunk and wake up in an eagles nest somewhere in the mountains. He was only a serious face around the Hollridnen, The ancient beasts that lived in the ragged lands before proper settlements were established. In this time it was beast against beast, and as was their nature, there was very little trust or honour between them. Many could reform or reincarnate in some sense, and felt no pain. Fear would not be present. Mercy neither. Few beasts would operate together, if only to bring down the bigger foes before turning on each other for the spoils. Hollridnen still remain in the ragged lands, not through an attachment to their home, but stubborn against human will to dominate. The Hollridnen very rarely listen to the tamer?s voice. For this reason Jawheed had familiarised himself with shortsword and axe. Weapons of speed and agility, easy to hid and unveil quickly. But no matter how good he could handle his weapons, he?d never intentionally face one of the Hollridnen. Taming one would be a legendary feat, gaining him renown with all in the new kingdom and re-igniting the age of the tamer, but despite all of this, he still dared not try just yet. So for now he cruised along on stolen goods and humour, waiting to meet the right accomplice for the job. The Tavern was virtually empty now. The sun was reaching the peak of its arc and most folk had gone out to perform whatever duties there were that would earn them a living living. The coin spinning on the table before him seemed to fuse the two images of the king and the bear into one. Furstone, the wooden trade town Jawheed had found on his travels, was a centre of hunting and animal worship. There was even a college to teach men how to act like animals. Bears, tigers, wolves, Eorbohm?. Uncatchable creatures with two tails, slick fur and long gummy tongues that can lift their whole body. It was actually very entertaining watching people acting like animals. They were good at it, with or without a college. Furstone?s main feature was the large bear statue at its centre, looking to the moon. It was a mythical creature, or more likely, a legend that had left the lands long ago. A werewolf that no one was aware of was murdered in his sleep, and brought back by a practicing spirit guide. He was granted a bear?s body, fairly accessible in a hunting village, but his transformations under moonlight still remained. With the strength of both bear and werewolf, and angry at the village for hiding whoever murdered him, he begun a violent rampage. Most the villagers were asleep and didn?t have time to grab weapons. The spirit guide tried to return him to his corpse but was mauled before he could utter a word. The next morning the ?Beowulf? as he had been named, was nowhere to be found. Jawheed was hoping he could find some clue as to where he might find this creature, but no one had any information. Even the marvellous Furstone trackers had no idea. On reflection, he?d actually found nothing useful in the town at all. He?d need to move on soon, stealing food and gold to live off had become difficult here, suspicious eyes ever-present, and all the more noticeable risky when he stood out so distinctly from the other villagers. The women taunting him weren?t helping either. In Peace ?So are you going to kill something?? The child had been watching the knight prepare. After a while he?d walked up and stood there next to him just watching. He was aware that the child was an orphan. It was a guess, but it was a certain guess. He had the look and smell of a farmer family. No doubt they would have been out in the fields when the attack came, he must have been fetching water at that time of day. The though of water grasped at his emotions and invoked anger within his memory. Such a simple thing to be so angry about. He could hardly remember the feeling. ?My dad killed a goat once.? ?It ran at me looking pretty mad, and he hit it with a shovel. He doesn?t know how to cook meat and nor does mom so we went to sell it to the Hillcrops down the road. Their dad got mad and asked us if we were joking, and threw the dead goat at us. It was dead funny? then he started yelling at us to stay away from his farm.? ?I started throwing beans after that, whenever he wasn?t looking. I swapped his pitchfork for a dinner fork and put a coat on one of his pigs. We told him he was just goin mad because he didn?t eat enough cabbage.? The knight had yet to show any interest in anything other than his own thoughts. But the boy continued ignorant of his unappreciative audience. ?All they ever did was eat animals and shout at people passing by. Veeeeeerrry greedy indeedy. I bet the king hated them. We didn?t need animals, cept for Betty and Geuran, our oxses. They were married oxses, so we let them work together.? ?The lord, loved the Hillcrops. He loved their pork, he loved their beef and he loved their goat. It was enough for them to be loved, but it did not save them from his ignorance.? The City of Verteranis was close to the Dragon?s Jog, the infernal valley that connected the ragged lands to the blood ridden kingdom. It was an obvious striking point, and yet the lord was confident he need not spare men to maintain a watch around the city. In truth, he didn?t. The city had survived the attack completely unharmed, and losses were minimal. Those living beyond the city walls had been dealt a poor hand. The child had not heard his words. He was crouched down by a snail a short distance behind, trying to guide it onto a stick. He was young, perhaps seven or eight, his demeanour well composed in comparison to others his age and background. ?Huh, HUH! WYAAAGH!? The snail cruised past the knight and off into tall grass besides the road. ?I bet you?re a man with a mission. Dad always said that when people walked like that. Like, heavy, but steady. Not like that fat Mr Hillcrop. Like you do it a lot.? ?I do too. People are so lazy that they won?t even come out here to eat, so I have to haul it up to the town. I bet if I didn?t take the greens they?d sit there and eat their furniture!? The road had been pleasant so far, in shade of the previous day?s events. Surrounding the city there had been a few corpses, well, many, many corpses at the gate. But once the city was small enough to hide under a thumb, all evidence of battle was gone, leaving just the grass and the trees. He liked this better. Seeing the dead brought out the devil in him. Conflict was to him what a school of trout was to a fisherman, who hadn?t even been able to cast his rod. A chance missed. Between the two gates, barely the space for 15 men, he?d murdered one or two, and his fight was done. The gate had came down on his heel as he grasped at a figure running for the street beyond. Left for him was the scene beyond the gates, farmers and half dressed guardsmen fighting off ghastly creatures of teeth and bone, and then the rain of arrows flattening it all to pulp. No one could be sure of how long it would be till the ragged lands began to quarrel again, but for now the roads were busier than what they usually see. Explorers had taken the chance to see the districts, most probably from Shoreside or the Canyons. You can?t blame someone whose horizon is two thousand feet above him for wanting to get out a little. There were also the guard parties. A force of both men and beast, the league of prosperity fancied itself as a multi-handed god of order and farthership. Most of them tried a smile as they walked by, some even offered a greeting. They seemed inappropriately happy, but then, now was as good a time as any to be euphorically optimistic. Tamer Times The Aggrad carrying him was gigantic; a think skinned brute, head capable of an impressive ten degrees turning either way. They were mentally engaged with slow riddled thoughts. Since beasts joined men their minds have developed not forwards but sidewards, the Aggrad carrying him being a victim of such developments. Human. Human. Spearssss? step step step step step. Words. Worrrdddddsssssshhhssshh. Bogber. Bright sun! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ??..I eat now. Feeding is near. Jawheed backed out of his thoughts. He was in a good position, on the back of the monstrosity, but there was nothing to latch on to in its head. He?s more likely to control it by pulling its tiny pokey ears to steer it. The beast beneath him turned slowly, the cage sliding around his back and bringing the company into view. Several guards lightly dressed, spears at hand, good strong leather and wood boots capable of enduring miles of punishment. He could only guess they were heading towards trees now, since the Aggrad ate barely anything else. The field was a healthy green, with a littering of blue and red flowers. The setting sun cut across the field and embraced the iron plates of Jawheed?s cage. Bogber was happily grunting as he tore away a branch with his teeth. It was odd, tasting the tree. It actually made Jawheed hungry. mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm?.. Tear a tree chew a tree. humans are watch. Little giants eat little trees, aha they always are watch. The cage rattled. The beast seemed to be exerting some sort of effort within his mind. A juvenile, poking ants with a stick kind of effort. There?s a crack as trees come down either side of the giant, the leaves and branches surrounding the cage. A fruity orb dangles right in front of his the tamer?s worn face. One guard let out a ?woohoi? as they made for the oranges themselves, Jawheed still struggling with the first. He was under the impression that if he closed his jaw the immense weight of it all could shatter his teeth and possibly crush his entire skull. The Aggrad, Bogber, had a dream that night. He was carrying large rocks, enough to flatten thirty men, to a large pile under the stars. In fact, it wasn?t like looking into his mind, it felt more as though he was present within the dream. He couldn?t back out. Maybe it was his dream?. Bogber was checking the tower every time he added a new block to it. Time was racing, the tower seemed to be extending from the earth as though it were being pushed from beneath. Bogber stood at the peak as it rised towards the stars. He seemed greatly content, as though he had finished a century long pilgrimage. Jawheed?s huge fist crashed down against the base of the tower, then he backed up and rand at it with all his force, his feet carving up the earth as he pushed. There was the rumble of crumbling masonry and suddenly the tower lay destroyed across the earth, a body at the end. It was Jawheed?s body, and he looked down on it with a sense of accomplishment and heartless pity. He felt a hunger rising with him, and stomped off towards a patch of trees for dinner. Waking up in his little iron container, Jawheed felt like himself again. He was spending too much time too close to the beast, and it was having an odd effect on his mind. They?d been walking for a while from what he could gauge. The area where they had sat down the day before was out of sight. He also noticed the guards were gone. They were headed to the Orgnol. It was a large structure near the centre of the Faint woods, towering over the trees and generally looking like the crown of the planet. The story of Orgnol was that it was built by the first tamer, a mage who had great interests in mindplay and feral creatures. Like all mages, he was the descendant of a demon, a Schwarl, the puppeteers of the devil. Hideous, much like his ancestors, he developed his magic to allow him to control others around him, namely the ferocious creatures that were in abundance at the time. The mage would be the beginning of the tamer?s dynasty, and in his honour and memory the Orgnol was constructed, a giant circular plateau from which he could manage his powers. He?d died after attempting to amass an army of creatures had lead to a breakdown and an enormous battle between the hundreds of great beasts that had gathered. Very few were allowed near the Orgnol. It wasn?t an enforced law, but the rumours and battle scars were enough to keep any would-be investigators away. Some of the colossal skeletons still littered the edges of the structure, twisted, torturous beasts with more skeleton above the skin than below. There were other aggrad in view, also carrying small cages upon their backs. Small in comparison to the aggrad at least. Jawheed could make out two girls, tiny children of about 6 years, in the back of one of the cages. A few hundred feet up the path, beneath the glaring midday sun, a gate opened before the first of the giants, and into the darkness they walked. In Peace The demon had the found the knight early into his military career. It was at Hidereons core, a gigantic open-cast mine that had broken through into a city of undermen. The knight, merely a page at the time, was at the head of the party heading down into the cavern. The tremors of a thousand feet charging down all sides of the mine face had caused a collapse in the city beneath, and an underman commander had been crushed. His merciless, war thirsty spirit would not pass into the afterlife by any means other than death in battle. A roaming spirit suffered a blind and empty existence in a time when chanellers and psychics dared not practice s?ances in case they were found and executed. Aware of the battle that was about to take place in front of his last standing position, his angry, vicious spirit lunged forward and met a body with too little heart to push him back out. He had entered the young knight. It was guaranteed death in battle; the boy should have been slaughtered in an instant. As the battle went on he found himself flying on a maddening hope towards the open valleys of victory. He seemed to have learnt more than he thought possible, parrying blows, ducking under enemies and bringing their blades down on each other. Speed had been his only strength in the past but now he was holding a heavy hammer and locking heads with pole arms and pikes. The emergence hole had opened through onto an upper platform of a toiling zone, and the footing was unsteady. The knight had misjudged one step within his new confident, battle ready self, and had fallen a deep drop down to the layers below. The fall had granted his face no mercy, his voice coarse and painful to hear, the damage seemed too much to be living by. The undermen couldn?t discern whether he was one of their kind or the enemies. He lived with them for a while, learning their ways, and slowly, of his own. Since the battle he?d been darker, spending most of his time alone and remembering little of his time on the surface. He worked in the forges, the undermen pushing past him as if he were the leaves of a tree. He could not eat or drink, yet he never starved. Anything he at turned to a sizzling acid in his mouth before evaporating in a dark, dirty mist. One day he?d attacked a pushy underman in rage, rage that he couldn?t explain. He was exiled from their kingdom after the execution process of drowning in boiling water had not killed him. That is how he became an undying, a human hosting a demon?s soul, specifically one that would only allow his death on its own terms. He would have to die in battle, or live forever. And aware that his skills improved with every battle, he knew he was going to be alive a long time. After that, he had made peace with the demon, reliant on each other that they were. Once his own skill grew, the demon?s skills became outdated and he learnt to control it. Now it added an edge to him, a fearless locomotive force in combat, heavy with the sin of the demon and the drag of nearly 75 years of fighting. It was late afternoon when the child came running back to the old stone arch under which he was sitting. The horizon still yielded only calm and warmth to his eyes. ?There?s a big wooden tent with a huge chef cooking stew and a balcony on its roof. Well, its like a tent but with wooden corners and rooms, c?mon!? The canvas and wood setup was atop a small hillock, beach brown and cinnamon red, overlooking a small plains area from a credible height. The door was flapping about in the breeze, the smell of fanatically cooked meat and stew drifting out with a dressing of firelight and laughter. ?Igh tell yough, it's a dambd good jhob they dhint come dish weigh or I wuddah smacked em n snacked em.? The elf, fat and greasy, was certaintly the heart of the party here. There were a few occupied beds, axes and such on hanging posts, the large stone fire pit with the wok hanging over it in the middle of the room. The elf had glanced at the armoured figure as he?d entered, but quickly directed his chatter back to the woman and children sitting towards the back of the tent-den. He was wagging his ladle oblivious of the stew that was splattering his audience in steaming brown soup. The orphan was standing near the wok bowl, looking occasionally at the chef as he recited his opinions on what sounded like a force of raiders that had attacked allies in the night. ?A battle?? While people never really questioned it, they always heard the echo in his voice. His armour was hollow by necessity, but it still seemed as though someone was whispering the words with him as he said them. Yauhiit, the tent-goer nearest him, looked up as he passed a iron nail between his palms. ?They snuck in during the night, very professional. Whatever guards had seen or heard them had died to soon afterwards to be able to react. They burst in on our tents simultaneously, taking some of our men off in cages and attacking anyone getting in the way. Some were Veregna, and some Undermen, but many were of a race I am not familiar with.? The ladle-raving chef approached, a strafing waddle and more serious look on his face. ?We were up here just to be hunting, not much around on the plains. Yauhiit came up here for his wife, cept? there weren?t one up here. He woke us just in time for us to see the last of their forces go down into the valley.? The orphan had also caught some of the conversation, and was on his toe tips looking over the cauldron at them now. ?Aren?t you worried about where you wife is?? Yauhiit didn?t react to the boys questioning. The cook stepped in to answer his question. ?He has eight wives, that Yauhiit. Hah, he has hundreds, but he only speaks with a few, those that he cares about. Not like the chieftain who just ignores them. We?re all glad he wasn?t taken, the chieftain?s gone and we can?t afford to lose the only man capable of succeeding him, since he?s old and frail and unlikely to survive any conflict big or small.? He was more sincere in his tone now, his face solemn and deflated. The Yauhiit very much embodied unity as a tribe. Their leader, who always must be called Yauhiit, would have to marry any woman that wished to have a partner within the tribe. The Yauhiit must teach every man of the tribe to hunt and fight daily. They always built their neighbour?s tent rather than their own, to show faith in each other. And, they would all gather for a communal meal every night, at the centre of the camp. The Yauhiit wore nothing that would distinguish him from any other man in the camp, for which there were many reasons. ?It will be dawn in a few hours, I will follow them then.? By now the orphan boy and the other children were pinning up blankets between posts to make small tents, and flicking soup at each other. The orphan had taken a bite out of a hanging clove of garlic when no one was looking. Given that he spat it straight back out, kicked it under the canvas and pulled every muscle of his face towards his nose, he presumably didn?t like it very much. ?What, you?re just going to walk after an army that took off with an entire camp overnight?? The cook was chuckling a little, aware since this figure had entered that he was not one for humour. ?You say this party surrounded the camp undetected, attacked fast. They won?t be carrying food and supplies because they would slow them down. They will be from a local holding. Are there any cities near here not complying with the Lords? law?.? ?It?ll be Skygate. It's not the kind of city to fall to a force of raiders, but I doubt it?d be too hard for them to sneak in and out disguised as traders or pilgrims.? The attention of much of the tent had now turned to the conversation between the cook and the knight. Most of the bedded figures were propped up on elbows, listening in on the discussion. The woman approached with a child on her shoulders, his arms wrapped around her head. ?The lore of Skygate revolves around the site that gives it such a name. At the city?s centre stands a large cone shaped structure, built long enough ago for no one to know who by. It contains the collective knowledge of an entire race dedicated to learning the many workings of this world.? ?The city is the largest of the Ragged Plains. It could hide an entire army, and each of the twelve gates sees at least five hundred pass through each day.? ?You may wish to travel there yourselves, this place is not safe.? To this, the cook said nothing. The children jumped about and generally seemed quite happy about the immediate future, the woman seemed pleased with the children?s joy and Yauhiit, who had been silent for the entire conversation, relaxed his concerned composition and lay back in his bed. In Peace It clearly hadn?t gone to plan. Jawheed woke to find his cage shattered and the Aggrad that was carrying him was lying on his face. Back story: Gerith Nagol, City of the dominant, was a city of giants long ago. When beast were sentient, the giants ruled, and Gerith Nogol was their centre of control. The story was that a giant had built a tower towards the stars in order to obtain their knowledge too. In this surreal temple they accumulated knowledge of everything on the planet. At this time humans were merely slaves, convenient for the construction of smaller, more intricate devices than the giants could produce. One such device was the lock on the door of the temple. Humans curiosity lead to the entry of a man into the temple over night. He saw the knowledge within the darkest chambers and released it back into the world. The city fell into chaos as thousands of intelligent men and woman organised forces and outnumbered the giants 50 to 1. With knowledge of all the locks in the city, they gained control. However, the giants were still a powerful force, and destroyed the city and the people within. Humanity survived, and the remaining giants spread outwards and found refuge in various natural dwellings. Soon enough man crept back into the ruins of the city and rebuilt it, not as their prison but as their home. Gerith Nagol was a large and wealthy city, and the population was never truly threatened ever again. Now the temple lies dormant, inaccessible and with only a drizzle of knowledge still locked within. The path up is extremely steep, so that only a small person may walk upon it. Humans decided that physical strength deducted from mental strength, and that if anyone were to ever be trusted to use the chamber to store knowledge once again, they would not only have to be human, but very small, and very strong minded. From this original outlet of information many intelligent beast were erased or driven to self-destruction. It was not until humanity learned the art of transferring sentience that beasts could once again become civilised. Today, Gerith Nogol?s true name is forgotten by most, and the city is known as ?Skygate?.

2012-01-29 13:58:00 Author: Unknown User

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In Peace and Tamer Times are two different storylines set in the same overall plot. Its only somethin i wrote to pass the time at work, and i developed the story as i wrote it so right now the story end where i've written to. It'd be nice to see what people think of my writing and i'd appreciate a genuine response as to whether anyone enjoyed reading it. Thanks guyahs.

2012-01-29 14:01:00 Author: Unknown User

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If that's what you wrote to pass the time at work, it boggles my mind what you would do if writing was all you did.

2012-01-29 15:28:00 Author: Lady_Luck__777 Posts: 3458

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