The Rattleskull (A little late to the party.)

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Rekats Rovert
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The Rattleskull (A little late to the party.)

#1 Post by Rekats Rovert »

So I'm kind of late, but! I wanted to have my story here too. Not for the contest though. This is something I've been buggering about with for years, and I'm finally getting it done.
Be gentle. It's a little silly.

Prologue

Bolts of lightning pounded the bare rock of the dying world. Nothing more would ever grow here; nothing could live in the atmosphere of ash and poisonous gasses vented from the volcanoes. The oceans were gone, evaporated in the infernal heat of the sun’s unfiltered rage. A black whirlwind tore across the barren ground, its sound like the screams of the souls which once inhabited the land. The pain here would reverberate across all worlds, trembling, shrieking, but somehow only brief, in the grand scheme.

Arod Kirith told himself this as he tried to stand erect again, leaning on the Black Stave, an old man with white hair and beard made sooty and tangled from his struggle. His world was only one of an impossible multitude of others. He surveyed the land, looking for his nemesis. All was fire and swirling blackness, the sky was composed of clouds of the stuff, spewed from hundreds of volcanoes, mocking what once could have been heavy, fertile rainclouds with their thundering and lightning. He was running out of breath. The temperature would have broiled a normal man in seconds, if he didn’t asphyxiate first. Arod was balanced, though. He focused his understanding of telacy, drawing breathable air to him, creating a barrier against the heat. He was relying heavily on the Black Stave, and it was tiring him to draw so much of his power from it—there were some very good reasons why the artifact had been forbidden to be used—but he’d run out of options. He was the last man of his world, and he was losing his battle.

He looked toward the Peak of Daranvath. His home for so many years high in the mountains was one of the few remaining structures on the planet. That was his enemy’s goal. Arod had focused nearly all of his energy to this point in guarding it from the onslaught. His shields and barriers of telacy were finally fading. The lightning blasts were being steadily aimed toward the Peak. More and more fell. Many weren’t natural, but products of his enemy’s twisted understanding of telacy.

Arod gripped the Stave tightly and focused. A vent nearby ruptured the blackened rock and sprayed toxic gas fifty feet into the air. After it had exhausted, lava boiled out and flowed freely, joining with a large pool of the lava where there once was a lake. Arod blocked this out, concentrating on the Peak. Soon his feet had left the ground and he was rushing through the air toward his former home. And just as before, Terror came down from the clouds to meet him.

The being still retained some semblance of humanity, just as he’d appeared when he came to him just a month earlier. Back when the world was still alive and as yet oblivious to how near oblivion was. A man of handsome, almost delicate features, neatly kempt black hair and a smile too perfect, white robes of an emissary and the bearing of a king. He’d been looking for the Book, and Arod had refused him. Arod had seen the danger behind that perfect smile, those gray eyes that promised so much death, so much hatred. By his refusal, Arod had doomed his entire world.

“How long will you keep up this pointless stand, old man?” asked Terror. It was the only name he’d given Arod, the only name fitting. He’d traded the white robes for black woolen slacks. Sharp bony spines had sprouted from the left side of his head and ran down his spine. His left eye was now a brilliant orange light and fangs grew in his mouth, ruining the perfect façade. His skin had taken a pale cast to it, and tufts of feral hair grew wildly on his body. His left arm had grown grotesquely muscled, ending in long sickle fingers.

Arod was breathing heavily, but his concentration was still strong. All he needed was an opening, and he could strike at Terror. “I could ask the same of you, but you’re a convicted little runt. You’re wasted on this folly, you know that? I’ve seen more successful thefts by wolves from a sheep pen.”

Terror only smiled, an ugly thing now, slowly circling Arod in the air. “Cute. You know what? I think I feel a change of heart. Instead of grinding your body to a pulp and extracting your soul to torture and feed upon for a millennia, perhaps I’ll let you go. That’s right, just, let me through, and you can chase after me again when you feel nice and rested.”

Arod circled with Terror, shifting the Stave to prepare to defend himself. “This is madness. You don’t know what you’re doing, your goals are folly! You just don’t understand!”

“I understand I need that book you’re keeping. You can even play librarian and just let me check it out. What’s your policy on late fees?”

“Enough!” Arod focused the Black Stave and sent forth a volley of force at Terror.

The creature easily dodged the attack. Instead of countering, he laughed. Arod shivered in the grip of the abominable heat. “Funny, when I came here the first time, I was told that little stick there was also on your list of “do not touch” things? Breaking our own rules, are we?”

Arod fired again, flying over Terror. Terror took the blast, and then outstretched his still human hand. Bolts of lightning struck at Arod, nearly breaking his grip on his shield. He began to drop from the sky.

“Ah-ah! Not so fast!” Terror clenched his fist, and Arod stopped, suspended in midair. He writhed in the grip of the dark telecy, tendrils of smoke-like substance caressing him. “We still have negotiations to make! Though, you rejected my offer—despite, might I add, how gracious it was.” The creature floated around him in a circle, his arms behind his back in a diplomatic fashion. His claws clinked sickeningly. “So how about this. You give me the pitch, tell me what it’ll take to get you to switch this infuriating shield off and let me take the book.” He turned away from Arod, looking out at the Peak. “What’s it going to take?”

Arod saw his chance. “The only way that shield will break is with your destruction.” He whipped the Stave in Terror’s direction, emitting a wave of fiery force.

Terror spun around as the wave struck him, sending him flying into the force shield. He hovered there, doubled over and cringing. Arod felt the grip release him, and he flew to Terror, aiming the Stave down upon him. Terror looked up at him slowly, his face contorted in pain.

“Leave this world and return to the hells you came from, you monster.”

Too late, Arod saw the grimace of pain turn to a wicked grin. Terror outstretched his clawed hand and the wave of force blew against Arod, the concentration on his personal shield broken. The heat was unbearable and he screamed, falling out of the sky.

He regained control of the elements just as he struck the rocky ground. His body was burned all over, his long hair and beard singed. He trembled, using the Stave to try to stand up once more.

“A good show, a good show indeed, old man!” Terror had landed on the ground nearby and was sauntering toward him. “If only it hadn’t been so damn predictable! Ah, well. That little stick there wasn’t meant to be wielded by mere men, you know that.” Arod felt his body lifted again into the air. He refused to loosen his grip on the Black Stave. “Only the gods could really contain that kind of power. Take it away, and you’re just one of the Scribner’s lackeys. Only, you probably didn’t even know that, did you? He had some middleman set you up here, just another way to bury the book somewhere where enterprising fellows like me won’t get their mitts on it.”

“The book,” said Arod, his voice feeble, “Is not meant for mere men, either. Despite their grasp of the power.”

“You doom yourself further, old man. First you decide, well! Let’s keep that dusty tome locked away, let’s allow for the destruction of an already fragile little realm! Who was it that gave you such power of decision? Who gave you the right to decide for an entire world?”

“No… you couldn’t be trusted… I was right!”

“Spare me. You played God with your decision, then with your hubris.” He stretched his hand out and Arod felt the Stave being pulled from him. He began to feel his access to the air shorten as he put more and more of his strength into holding onto the Stave. “And now you deny me. For, Arod, I am a god. I have been created from divine essence, and now I’m here for my birthright.” The pull strengthened, the Black Stave slipped further out of Arod’s grip. Pain wracked his body as he cried out in agony. “Killing you would be senseless, when you’re already as broken as the land of this world.” Terror outstretched his claw and a bolt of lightning came from the dark heavens and struck Arod. “But I shall find some small enjoyment in it nonetheless.”

Another bolt hit Arod, and another, so many that it became a continuous blast. Arod tried to focus, but all he could do was scream. The Black Stave had failed him. He waved it in the air, trying to deflect the onslaught of pain. After a moment, all he could do was think of a strange green void. It reminded him of somewhere from his long gone youth, a little grove with a tiny pond, and a blissfully blank blue sky. He finally stopped screaming. He smiled instead, feeling himself drift there.

He let go of the Black Stave. The lightning stopped. He tried to look around, but he was still in the midst of a broken world, black twisters and geysers of lava all around, the ground quivering in its own pain. He looked to Terror, and saw that the Stave was still in his hand.

“What are you doing?” said Terror. He was enraged. It gave Arod a strange sense of comfort. “Drop it, old man. Drop it and I’ll make your passing quick.”

The end of the Black Stave glowed with a bright green fire. It flew from the artifact’s tip and struck Terror. The creature shrieked as the last of his humanity melted away, revealing the beast underneath. Terror howled in rage, and released a torrent of power at Arod. It funneled into the Stave instead. Arod felt the ancient, dark wood grow hot in his grasp, and then cold. Finally, it absorbed all it could, and it shattered, the pieces falling through his fingers, and his grasp on telacy diminished. The shield surrounding the Peak of Daranvath vanished.

Terror stood tall and cried out in victory. His eyes burned with orange light as he looked toward the Peak. “You see? I AM a GOD!” Lightning flashed madly above him. The twisters roared and the ground quaked. He hovered into the air, staring down at Arod with ravenous hatred. “Die now, Arod Kirith, with the remains of your broken world.” He outstretched a clawed arm, black energy whirling in his palm.

Arod ignored him. He couldn’t stop thinking of the green grove, the little realm that still clung to life. The pond. The trees. The animals. The unbridled peace.

He felt himself slipping away as Terror unleashed his dark telecy down upon him, and soon he was gone.

Terror looked upon the place where the aged wizard had lain. There was no trace left of him. Either destroyed or used the last of his strength to slip to another world. Either way, good Either way, he is broken.

He looked up at the peak. He howled in time to the whirlwind’s roar, the groaning volcanoes, the shrieking thunder. All of the worlds would know his power, and they would speak his name and bow. The time had come. His reign had begun.

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Rekats Rovert
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Joined: Mon Jun 25, 2007 5:17 am
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Re: The Rattleskull (A little late to the party.)

#2 Post by Rekats Rovert »

Part 1


Though there’s nothing in the thing itself, bits of it come back unbidden, playing in the archaic dusk till the white blip becomes invisible…
—Ciaran Carson



Wyatt Earp: What makes a man like Ringo, Doc? What makes him do the things he does?
Doc Holliday: A man like Ringo has got a great big hole, right in the middle of him. He can never kill enough, or steal enough, or inflict enough pain to ever fill it.
Wyatt Earp: What does he need?
Doc Holliday: Revenge.
Wyatt Earp: For what?
Doc Holliday: Bein' born.
—Tombstone





Chapter 1

Four nebulous beams of sunlight, broken by the divided panes of a picturesque window, rested on Juniper Savin’s shoulders as she sat at her desk, waiting. Waiting. She tried again to read the stack of papers before her. Printed paper, printed blocky letters in black ink, spewed unceremoniously from a machine. It had been eons, it felt, since she’d seen anything so perfectly legible, without the flair of penmanship and the inevitable flaws that rode along with it.

A beetle bumped against the window and buzzed in a loud, annoyed tone against the glass. Summer was receding once more in Talas, the land Juniper had settled herself down in. Specifically, in the province of Gehynnd. How long, now, had she used the cozy cottage at the edge of a backwater village as a base of operations? Twenty of this world’s years, perhaps. Twenty years without seeing a document printed out of a machine, with electricity. The people of Talas were well on their way to perfecting the printing press—for a very long time, Juniper had thought of that as her mission in this world. Nudges here, hints there, strange visions in a wealthy merchant’s sleep sprinkled throughout…

Looking away from the papers, she reached under her desk and opened a boxy cabinet. Cool steam billowed out. She produced a contour bottle and a silver cup, and once the cap was popped from the bottle, she poured. She still remembered the girl, who had thought cold boxes were the pinnacle of technology. She remembered the girl, who had run from a dying subterranean world. She remembered the girl, who had been plucked from her surely doomed existence into a realm of pure possibility; life without the constant drone of air filtration pumps, the moss culture farms, the mile-thick, blank, closed ceiling. She remembered the girl who had been instructed to harness her strange abilities, and had tackled every obstacle, every battlement, every challenge to get to where she was. Juniper clung to that past life, and she mourned. The dying world had been her responsibility. She had been its queen.

She took a drink of the sweet, bubbling brown liquid; another traveler from another world, far-flung from the careless agrarian folk of Talas. That wouldn’t last much longer, either, she knew. The provinces had been in a silent turmoil for nearly a year. The power of the Griots and Druids, the mystic ruling party of the lands, was being uprooted and hammered by the power of wealth and democracy, brought upon by men of more common birth. She detected powerful dreams every night now, high caliber numbers that often suggested utopia, or the violent demise of an opponent. Each type came from either side; in politics, both parties were full of schemers, altruists, villains, and opportunists. Recently she’d decided that fixing this squabble would be her purpose in this world. It all boiled down to compromises, and the right visions with the right people could turn the trick perfectly, allowing for peace. Her contemporaries, and even her superiors, could scoff at her ultimately boring goals, but she’d seen enough strife in her time as a ruler. It was time to give back.

Or, it had been. The contents of the ream of papers on her desk could contain any instruction, any pledge of duty for her to follow, from the shores of a blossoming world to the edge of a world at the brink of annihilation. So far, she hadn’t been able to breach the first page of the document, which merely bore the title:

A Prophecy Specifically Tailored, regarding
The Dreamweaver Known as Queen
Contains Traditional Plea of Succor, commenced by
The Scribner, Dragon Artimus
Please Wait For Personal Clarification, from
Superior Dreamweaver
Your Promise Is Remembered!

Queen; her codename, upon being initiated as a Dreamweaver. Just one more way to remember that girl from a world of pipes and steam. The Scribner; the one who ultimately decided which world went one way and which went another, supposedly keeping harmony and balance; the schemer, altruist, villain and opportunist all wrapped together. That dragon, the dragon, was contacting her specifically. Racking her brain, she tried to hypothesize just why she’d been selected for a prophecy.

Vaguely she realized that the sunbeams had disappeared. She was sitting in the dark. Moisture had collected on her fingers, condensation from the cup which she held. She took a sip—warm. How long had she sat there, since strolling into her office that afternoon and finding the stack of papers waiting for her there? Where was this superior Dreamweaver, and why hadn’t the Scribner mentioned their name?

There was a knock on the door to her little office. She started, suddenly filled to the brim with anticipation. She killed it in a practiced couple of breaths. Focus. A ball of light materialized against the ceiling, illuminating the room as she opened herself to telacy. “Come in,” she said.

A round, bald man with a long white beard and spectacles entered, wearing thick woolen overalls over a black shirt. He held a wide brimmed hat in one hand, which he hung on a hook by the door. He would have fit in anywhere in Talas, or a multitude of other worlds. He smiled brightly and deposited himself with strange grace upon a sofa opposite Juniper’s desk.

“So,” began Queen, “How long did you wait out there, in my home, until you sensed I’d grown impatient?”

The man furrowed his brow. “Why, I’ve waited for this moment my whole life. I’m waiting for moments to occur in the future, as well. I found a little inn yesterday in this world that has the most delightfully peppered steak I’ve ever tasted! I’m waiting for that to be my dinner, perhaps after we’re done here, perhaps decades from now, if they’re still around.”

Queen suppressed a sigh. “So it’s you, then. The Dreamweaver that’s to tell me what this is all about?” She gestured to the papers.

“Oh, that’s what they tell me. Used to be, they’d send me to build up kingdoms, or lead a colorful array of heroes into some mighty battle and just have all sorts of adventures! Now, it seems, I’m just an errand runner.” He drummed his fingers on his knees absently.

“Well, I’m sorry to hear that your position has been lowered. I don’t think I’ve met you before, though. What do they call you?”

“No, you haven’t. And, they don’t really have a set address for me, whoever they are. They are a lot of people, come to think of it…”

Queen felt she was being evaluated, and that she was failing. “Then what shall I call you? Or, is it unimportant?”

The man waved his hand. “Ah, it’s no matter, really. They tried to tell me to pick a name, you know; they did it with all the learners. Well, after going to all these strange places and seeing the strange people roaming them, I decided I didn’t want a title. The Dreamweavers just happened to pick me up before the Artisans or the Crafters could. So, we may not have even met, had someone else been a little bit quicker to jump to the gun. I’m sure you’re just thanking that Scribner all the strands and lines were laid so that we got to meet after all, huh?”

Queen stared at the man for a moment. “Would you like a cold drink?”

“Not if you’re using telacy to chill it. I’ve got funny aversions to that, just a mark of experience, call it.” He still smiled sunnily, fingers clasped on his portly stomach.

“Just regular electricity, good sir.” She retrieved a second glass.

“Oh, aye? Not of this world, I don’t think, is it?”

“A generator in my basement. Quiet-running, maintenance-free.”

“Nuclear powered, is it?”

“Not quite.” She matched him with a brilliant, toothy grin, growing tired of the man’s smirk. “Ever heard of remmigon?”

The man blinked, and the smile dimmed. “Let’s say I haven’t, please.”

“Natural telacy properties, occurring geologically. So in a way, I guess I am chilling your Coke with telacy.”

“Then I’ll have to refuse. I try not to use the gifts too often. It might just be a broken circuit up top,” he knocked on his temple, “But I’ve a mind that in telacy, you have to give back whatever you take. Nothing’s really magic; every action has a reciprocal reaction.” The man stood up, coming to the desk and removing the first paper of the stack, reading it. “Regardless, I believe I do indeed have a place to be tonight, another moment I’ve waited for my whole life. So I’ll try to be brief.” He set the paper down beside the others and looked at Queen with a furrowed brow. “Everything is more or less covered there. It’s some fairly serious business.”

Queen leaned back in her chair. “How serious? Regarding individuals, cultures, or dimensions?”

“The third option.”

“Are we talking multiple-realm dyscession? Or single-entity containment?”

“Guess it’d have to be the first one. More than just unsettled movement though—heh heh, or a constipated timeline, I guess—of a few worlds, but a full breakdown.”

“A breaking of multiple worlds?” She tented her fingers below her chin. “That sounds… improbable, I’m afraid to say. Broad-scale apocalypse of the kind I think you’re suggesting would have far-flung consequences on other realms.”

The other Dreamweaver leaned forward over the desk. “All worlds.”

Queen frowned. “Disruption on a universal scale is impossible. The Scribner has stated in the past that contingency effects would occur in the event of his destruction, or an override of telacy interment, or a host of other situations. There are too many edi-ide beams between dimensional anchors, too many parallel syntax… what? What are you laughing at?”

The man was chuckling, walking back to the sofa. “All that mumbo-jumbo. I’d forgotten how much Confessor latched onto the jargon in his teachings. Ah, nevermind, kid. Believe me, though, it’s possible.”

Queen blinked. “I haven’t seen or heard from Confessor in a long time… I suppose he’s keeping tabs on me, of course. How is he?”

“Last I saw your old teacher… hmm. The old fox was on a sort of diplomatic crusade on some itty-bitty world full of fuzzy critters or something. Anyway!” The man looked at the couch longingly, but remained standing, pacing slowly across the room. “The documents there will tell you mostly what all to do. I perused them myself. Not quite as straightforward as I’d have done it, but I guess the Scribner likes to keep things interesting. You’ll also be waiting for a good five years more, give or take. Probably take, at the rate things are going. Waiting, laying low, ear to the ground and looming your thumbs.”

“So as not to alert the enemy to my position, I suppose. He’s here? This world?”

“That’s the thin of it. Other worlds, too. He has access to the telacy and he’s not nearly so conservative as I, you could say.”

Queen paused, rubbing her brow. Another beetle struck the windowpane behind her, drawn to the light. “They’ve found one of the Felusial artifacts, then, haven’t they?”

He nodded. “The mother of all contingency plans, thwarting any of the little dams and abutments we’ve put in place.”

“It’s that bad, then?” Queen said quietly as she took the next sheet of paper, which had the traditional plea of succor written from the perspective of the Scribner.

“Bad enough that we can’t take steps to stamp out embers before they engulf us, lest we light a powder keg.” The Dreamweaver stared blankly at a shelf crammed with ornaments and knickknacks from other worlds. “And the soles of our feet are lined in oil… if only we’d been more discerning in where we’d stepped earlier, we wouldn’t risk this immolation…”

“Maybe we should put on fireproof shoes,” said Queen.

The man grinned to her. “Now you’re talking! Ah, nevermind all that. I’ve just been musing about it a bit too much, I guess.”

Queen focused on his words a moment. “Soles of our feet… this is Dreamweaver work, isn’t it?”

“To an extent. As much as your drink was chilled by telacy, you could say.” He grabbed his hat from the hook by the door and made to leave.

“So that’s all you have for me, then?” said Queen. “Am I in this by myself?” She stood up to show him out of her home. “Someone decided that I was best suited for this job, and delegated it to me? The most diabolical plot to ever strike our worlds and the Dreamweaver with almost zero experience gets the job, alone? Who is making the decisions here?”

He was silent as they arrived at her door. He opened it and stepped outside, placing his hat on his head. “Not alone. Confessor told you of the Valema?”

“Yes. An amalgamation of individuals whose frequencies align to form a spectrum coil.”

The man turned to her, eyebrows raised skeptically.

“A band of heroes.” She shrugged. “Or at least, people who do great things in their worlds.”

“When the time comes, you’ll form one, Queen. Not of Dreamweavers, or Peacekeepers like you’d expect, but regular people.” He placed a hand on her shoulder, fixing her with a significant gaze. “This battle isn’t going to be about us, wizards and witches and magicians. This is a fight for everybody. This is a… a new beginning, I firmly believe. Maybe that’s why they gave you the job; the rest of us are too deep in our little clique. I know I couldn’t go around and lead regular folks! Not anymore.”

“So that’s why you get the errand jobs.” She smiled at the wry grimace of the other Dreamweaver as he tried to hide a wide grin. “I’ll do my best, I promise you.”

“Ah, you’ll just do what you do. But if anyone comes by to dissuade you from taking this quest, promptly show them the door. Now, you have some reading to do, and I have steak to eat. I wish you good luck, Queen. More souls than you and I can imagine are riding on this.” He turned away and proceeded down the stone walkway that led to the dirt road. A low wooden fence surrounded her yard. He stopped there and waved back at her, and was on his way.

Back in her office the weight of what had happened settled on Queen’s shoulders. The first real task of her career as a Dreamweaver, and it pitted her against the unraveling of the universe. She sat at her desk, suddenly wanting dearly to sleep.

Dissuade me? she thought. Who…?

But it didn’t matter. They wouldn’t succeed. Anxious as she was, Juniper Savin was not a quitter, and full well remembered the oath she’d taken, the one mentioned on the cover page of the prophecy, and she remembered the joyous pride she had felt as the words had left her lips.

By the light of moon, by the crash of thunder, by the pride of heart and the slipstream of time, I will uphold the fates of all living. I will offer light, and I will guide the beams of reflection. I will answer when called, and will call when overrun. For the fulfillment of prophecy, for the turn of time. Justiciar, arbiter, wielder of the fabric of worlds: I am Dreamweaver.

She took the next page after the long soliloquy of the plea for succor. She at first thought it would tell her about the members of the Valema that she would find, or the worlds she would have to go to. Instead it detailed the motivation of the villain behind the plot, and why exactly a Peacekeeper force hadn’t tracked him down and eliminated him just yet. The words rolled across the page, and Queen found herself beginning to doze. Their enemy was dangerous, powerful, and cunning. She raised her eyebrow at a quick paragraph telling of how he’d caused the collapse of one world already, despite a Dreamweaver agent stationed there. Not a true Dreamweaver, true, but a wielder of telecy all the same. As titillating as the information was, it was fairly standard. Come, see, conquer, crush, rule. Either she couldn’t see the part where the adversary, a being that bore many names and faces, was previously entwined with Dreamweaver business as the portly Dreamweaver had seemed to reference, or the Scribner had left it out.

Before she retreated to her bedroom, she reached the bottom of the selection, which revealed the foe’s true potential for wiping out existence as the universe knew it: one of the Felusial artifacts, a curious, extra-dimensional artifact called a Book of Secrets.

That night, for the first time in nearly twenty years, Queen found herself warding her dreams against nightmares.

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Rekats Rovert
Templar GrandMaster
Posts: 667
Joined: Mon Jun 25, 2007 5:17 am
Location: Ohio

Re: The Rattleskull (A little late to the party.)

#3 Post by Rekats Rovert »

Chapter 2

The deep, whirling sea of white stretched into the bleakness of the fading day. There was no sound save for the wind, a ghostly rattle that boggled minds, drawing those fools that tried to breach the frozen lands to their confused, and soon forgotten, deaths. The horizon played tricks on the mind, appearing near, and then far between instants. Shadows sat on the horizon, lurking buildings and monuments of the dying, forgotten land.

It’ll look like a tower of light, the man had said. A tall human swathed in dark sackcloth, with leering eyes and a small, toothy smile.

There was neither mark nor trail in the shifting snow. At some spots, he’d be walking on rock. The next step could be a dune of snow, or it could send him plummeting into a buried ruin.

You won’t see it until you’re at a certain, perfect distance. Just as a planet can’t live unless it’s a certain, perfect distance from its sun…

What do I do, when I’ve reached it?


The man had laughed. He had looked at the ceiling of his hovel, pushed aside with a hundred others like it in the city, and laughed. It’s spreading the winter, it is. It’s unstable… Oh, heavens help you, but the book is unstable!

Dante moved across the White Freeze at a steady pace, muttering to himself. Of course the White Freeze wasn’t spreading. That was ridiculous, as ridiculous as the seedy, dirty man’s offer to fly him straight to the spot he needed to go. Somewhere north, somewhere into the land of the Obermeister.

Something rose out of the snow before him and Dante’s fur bristled. He leaped back nimbly on his four paws, watching as the shadow began to take shape—but no, it wasn’t growing. It was an illusion, the snow was being blown from a tall structure and uncovering it. It could have been a sort of stone tower at one point, cylindrical and immense, but the top was jagged, broken off and buried somewhere in the snow, deep beneath Dante’s paws. He carefully walked around the tower’s remains, and saw that only a part of the wall was still erect. Bricks poked up briefly from the snow, covered and uncovered in the span of moments. It was just another relic of the Ones of Ages, a testament to the Obermeister’s supremacy. It wasn’t suitable as a shelter any longer, and so Dante moved on.

He found himself growling under his breath, thinking of that fiend. The Obermeister, the ruler of the north, he who holds the wolves in his fist, and who unleashes them as he pleases. He who destroyed the Ones of Ages, as the legends said. The creators of hundreds of beasts, of machines that could walk and speak, but certainly not fly, whatever the legends said. The creators of the vast cities that loomed beyond Dante’s sight, sometimes appearing to shift and wander, as if they, too, were on some mad quest.

He paused. Was he mad? Already? He looked down at himself, curling his tail around his legs as a gust blew in from the east. A talked animal wasn’t so rare, really. The cities of Calket were home to humans of course, but some talked creatures preferred the walls, the bustle, the stink, even. Granted, a talked fox was a rare sight within city walls, if the stares he received were any indication. He shook his head and kept plodding through the snow, his thick fur protecting him. But I’d still like a fire right now, or even one of those buildings to hide in, just for a while…

He began muttering again. If he died out here before coming across this pillar of light the creep human had told him about… well, what else was there, back there in the forests? Another legend to chase? No. This was it for him.

To his left there came into view a tall, narrow structure. Dante looked toward it, contemplating finding a machine that could give warmth, something that the mice and hares would hide by. Prey was scarce this far north; why hadn’t he thought of that? He was losing touch of something, day by day, that was for sure.

“She’ll live again,” Dante murmured into a swirling gale. The narrow structure suddenly seemed much farther away, much smaller than before. Dante growled in frustration and kept moving north, across the snow. The Obermeister…

The Ones of Ages, or as the men of the south called them, the Exiles—their mention often accompanied by an oft-practiced spit—were indeed great crafters, constructors, and— there was no avoiding the term—magicians. Few examples of their handiwork remained, so far as Dante knew. Some old buildings, most of them crumbling derelicts; a mass grave which repelled snow by some perverse magic put in place by the Obermeister, turning the cemetery into a sprawling trophy; an emptiness which begged rumor, legend, and suspicion to fill. Few of the creatures they had engineered remained, skeletons and illustrations only, shut up in some House of Preservation by an intrigued southerner. Some had integrated into the land, like the bachytran, or the voluua. Most had been killed off by the Obermeister, or by the inevitable grinding wheel of nature itself, removing the intruders which could find no place to belong. Some were still alive, though; those able to evade the Obermeister’s scouring, or ones that were dangerous in their own right.

After another hour of northbound wandering, a silhouette rose against the eerie sky. It formed into the blocky, angled square of one of the buildings Dante had been looking for. He approached it, trudging quickly through the thick mat of snow. If he was lucky, a machine would still be active he could plunder warmth from. The door had fallen inward long ago, buried under ice.

Once inside, Dante glanced around the dark building. In some places openings had been made, by broken windows or sections of walls, and ghostly whisperings blew through, creating a low howl. Dante kept his guard up, thinking of wolves, the police of the Obermeister who ruled these forbidding wastes. Hopefully this was not one of their haunts. Hope was all Dante really had to go on, in any case. There was no sign or scent of any activity. Nothing alive, anyhow. Maybe it wasn’t wolves that haunted here.

The dank shadows cast a morose sort of dance. Dante’s joined these as he preceded further inward, a tinny sensation suddenly nagging his inner ear. He fancied that a still working machine was reaching out to him in some extrasensory manner, pulling him closer to the warmth it gave off. One entire side of the area seemed devoted to junked machines and metal poles. He slunk past a heap of metal scrap, skirted cautiously around a wide and seemingly useless snow-filled pit, and listened past the whooom sound of the wind, listening for any trap or malice.

He soon left the open area, and entered through a narrow stone archway into a wrecked jumble of metal beams and pipes. These seemed to surround more of the pits, although the ones on this side of the archway were much smaller. They were however deeper, like a collection of wells. The sensation in Dante’s head had become a buzz, in a higher pitch than any human could hear, but at a volume that didn’t quite drive him mad. He grunted lowly, shaking his head a bit to try to clear it, but to no avail. He tried to pull a scent from the air, but all was snow, stone, and desertion. And the metal, which had a strange, strong scent. But nothing else. He was beginning to think he was wasting his time, or perhaps had awoken a ghost. Grimacing, he pressed onward.

He soon came upon a run of stairs in a less-destroyed part of the warehouse. They were made of metal, and surrounded by another stone archway. Dante had the feeling of entering a building within a building as he silently padded his way up the steps, glancing at the ceiling above which inclined with the stairs.

At the top of the stairs, he was met by a chamber longer than it was wide, dominated by a tall table in the direct center of the room. Dante peered around the room curiously, seeing only a couple human sized chairs remaining. On the far side of the room was another stone archway. From his vantage, low to the ground, he could not see what was on the table. He approached a chair and carefully jumped into it and turned to satisfy curiosity. Bones were strewn upon the surface of the table, as well as dainty yet sharp instruments and probes, and what could have been some papers, maybe even a book. Dante saw leg bones and ribcages and spines, all in varying sizes, but no skulls. He may have recognized the creature with a skull, but even with the size of some of the specimens—one particular ribcage spanned nearly half the length of the table, so perhaps it was a horse or a deer—it was hopeless. More, it was pointless. Dante hopped down and went to the other archway, the ringing in his ears now something of a presence, almost a tangible thing, yet it still definitely came from within himself. Spreading madness, like the spreading of the White Freeze.

In this archway was another staircase, but this one was a lavish spiral, made of stone. Dante carefully lifted himself up each high step, twitching his whiskers nervously and shivering slightly. He hadn’t eaten since yesterday, an untalked rabbit which seemed as perplexed as Dante was that it had wandered into the unforgiving tundra. Maybe there would be food at the top? Food and some source of warmth, and something to stop the din within his head?

He hoped, but he didn’t expect it.

At the top of the stairs was another chamber, this one smaller. Or… was it bigger? Dante couldn’t tell at first. Breaching the top step deposited him into an alcove which surveyed the entire room, and upon reaching there the noise in his head stopped. Furthermore, all other noise stopped. The groaning of the wind from inside and out as the endless snow was blown about ended, and all was silent. At the far end of the chamber was a wooden pedestal, set into another alcove. Resting on it was something, a white something like snow, yet shapely and delicate. More alcoves were on the long ends of the wall, two on each side. Each held a door of gray wood, their brass handles dusty and turning green. Nothing to do about those; it was a dead end for him. Except for that far pedestal.

He set a paw upon the great red rug. Nothing still. He started to cross the room to the object laying on the altar on the other side of the chamber when a voice called out, softly, birdlike.

“Answer with thunder…”

Dante whirled and backed into a corner, away from the rug. His eyes darted to the statues.

“When they call your name…”

Had he heard that phrase before? He thought that he had. And that voice? Was it not familiar?

"Hello?" he called. "Is there someone... is someone there?..."

Speaking when no one was there to speak to wasn’t a habit that Dante was keen to pick up on. He was now convinced that something was here; the building was haunted, for sure. A ghost of the Ones of Ages had escaped its grave, and was here with him. Dante shuddered, but decided that it wouldn’t hurt him. If it was going to, wouldn’t it have done so already?

He approached the elaborately carved pedestal, which was set low, almost at his own height—strange, though, that it had seemed much taller when he had entered. He then saw what had been placed upon it so ceremoniously.

It was a skull. It had belonged to the bones of one of the creatures on the table below, he realized. Its long tapered snout resembled that of a deer, however, the back half widened into a broad, thick crest, under which a drawstring was looped into holes drilled into the creatures’ head. It slowly came to him what he had found—the skull of a Hoorun-Yek.

He reached out for it, laboriously and almost in suspended motion, likened to that of a dreaming state, and laid his paw upon the broad crest of the creature, expecting a divine shock to run through him. But there was nothing. He nuzzled the rawhide strand over his head and around his neck, pulling the skull off the pedestal. Still nothing.

He stood there for a strange moment, looking down at the skull hanging on his neck—hanging almost to the floor—in a strange daze. There was no machine, no warmth; only the skull.

Dante considered slipping it off. But then, perhaps there was some significance to it? Was it worth something to humans? What was it about Hoorun-Yek, other than their scarcity? They were one of the remaining creatures crafted by the Exiles. He distinctly remembered some human he had come across who had been suspicious of them. They were bad luck, that was it… but why?

Something deep within the building snapped with a heavy, resounding Clang! A noise like a whirlwind of howling, dying animals floated up after it, chilling Dante’s spine. The doors along the wall each creaked open at the same pace, and upon opening completely fell off their hinges, banging onto the rug. Inside each alcove was a statue, each bearing the contorted likeness of the Exiles. Dante watched these, expecting them to lunge for him, but they only stood still, forever glaring at the statues across from them. He huddled against the strange skull, looking towards the ceiling, waiting. All fell silent again.

“Phantom,” said Dante. His voice came out unexpectedly weak. “I tire of foolishness like this… your games won’t frighten me! Kill me, be done with this if you intend to kill me!”

Silence. Something rumbled with a low tremor, as if in an earthquake far away.

“Well? Have you shown me your worst, then?”

Suddenly the entire building began to shake. Noise returned to the room as a gale pounded against the side of the ancient structure and shook the foundations. The phantom had returned.

Dante yelped, darting for the staircase again, the skull around his neck tossing to the side and banging against one leg painfully. Instinct had activated though, and he blocked this pain. He ran under the long table in the lower chamber just as a huge stone fell somewhere around him and one of the chairs shattered into a million shards. As carefully as he could manage, he loped down the last staircase and into the metal forest.

The building ceased its trembling. Dante slowed to a stop, looking back at the archway and the staircase. As he did, something upstairs collapsed, and the stairway filled with rubble, forever blocking it. The building groaned, threatening to follow suit, but all became still save the constant roar of the wind.

Dante sighed in relief and started toward the door, feeling irritated and hungry. And cold. He decided to drop the blasted skull into the big, pointless pit in the first room. Let the damned rest with the damned, and be done with it… wait. What’s that scent?

Something had blended into the odor of decay and metal. Dante whirled around to face the far side of the room, filled with a jumble of metal beams and hulks of broken machines. The dank twilight cast betraying shadows every way… but something moved behind the machines. Large, sinuous, slinking…

Dante took a few steps toward the exit. Suddenly the white, empty cold outside seemed welcoming.

The shadow kept his pace. Dante stopped. The shadow stopped.

Hunted.

Dante bolted, hopping over one of the pits and dashing past a broken heap of a bizarre machine filled with glass. A clamor of motion was behind him in an instant, chasing him. Not a ghost this time; real flesh. Teeth. A predator.

He ran through the next archway into the spacious first area, and pulled a sharp left. He heard claws slide on the cold concrete behind him as his pursuer skittered, buying Dante a few more feet. He ran, the skull twisted around and now pummeling his spine with his bounding pace, the drawstring choking him. Into a maze of steel beams and more machines, darkness, corners. Corners were his salvation. He took them desperately, with no time for calculation. He was running on luck, now, primal luck.

Thudding noises from behind him told him his hunter was being led on a winding, confused chase. There was a bellowing noise, organic yet somehow alien, as it roared in hungry frustration. Dante stopped behind a tall structure, trying to decide where the door was. He looked up, lungs heaving. The tall structure was another machine, fitted with a huge cylinder of glass on top of it. He shook his head—why find the door? Out there with nowhere to turn, the creature would have him in seconds. He had to plan, fast…

The glass cylinder exploded as the hunter rammed its way through. Dante took off the way he’d come, hearing the creature leap to its feet after him, snarling in rage. He turned at random, and was out of the metal maze and on open rock floor. The exit beckoned, blowing in snow. He ran at full speed, deciding to take his chances outside instead of being cooped up like prey, and then remembered the big pit.

It was suddenly right in front of him, opening like a mouth. Dante tried to stop, but skidded on the fresh drift of snow which had blown through another busted section of wall, and instantly knew that the pit was deep, deeper than he could easily imagine, and the snow was loose, so very loose, and he’d fall for so very long; an icy tomb.

He stopped, unexpectedly running into a wall of nothing. The concepts of physics which all peoples and animals develop in their life told Dante that he should have kept going. Another wall of glass?

Something flew just over his head, ruffling his ears. The long form of his hunter landed on the opposite side of the pit, and he saw it. Its body was pale white, lean and lanky and very feline. Its long tail twitched in anticipation, and the long, curved claws on its powerful feet flexed. Its head was wide, allowing for a mouth that could bite off a man’s head whole. Long, sickle shaped teeth filled it to the brim. Its eyes glowed, red and hateful.

A weard. Another creature left behind by the Exiles.

It pounced, and Dante knew it would have him. He froze, taking a deep breath of cold air, staring at those teeth.

Something struck the creature in its flight, and it faltered, coming short on the wide pit. Dante flung himself back as its claws grabbed hold of the edge, shrieking and roaring in fury. Dante stared at it, disbelieving, as the red eyes glared back at him. The creature’s claws could find no purchase, and eventually it fell back into the depths with a resounding alien cry.

Dante fell to his belly, breathing and staring at the pit. After a moment, he approached the side of it, and peered over the edge.
Blackness. As he’d expected, the veneer of ice had given way to a tremendous well. He heard a soft thud after a moment, and a rumble as the monster died.

“MORIAN TECHNOLOGY PRESERVED.” Voop!

Dante leaped back from the pit. The voice had come from above him. There, a round metal orb had lit up with tiny lights.

“Hello?” said Dante.

“CAUTIONARY PROTOCOL ACTIVE.” Voop! “PROTECTIVE MEASURE AUTHORIZED, CODE EIGHT SECTION BLUE SETI SERO SEVEN.” Voop! “ERROR: MACRO-NUCLEO STATIS WAVE ACTIVE. WAVE LEVEL THREE.” Voop Voop! “MORIAN TECHNOLOGY PROTECTED FROM PROGRAMMED PERCEIVED THREAT. IF MALFUNCTION HAS OCCURRED, PLEASE FIND YOUR MAINTENANCE OFFICER IMMEDIATELY.” Voop!

Dante shook his head. “Something that still works… impossible…” He looked back into the dark emptiness below. “It was you that saved me, then?”

“CARRIER OF CLASSIFIED TECHNOLOGY PROJECT WAS STOPPED FROM AN APPROXIMATE SEVENTY FIVE FOOT FALL USING MACRO-NUCLEO STATIS WAVE.” Voop Voop! “CARRIER WAS ALSO PRESERVED FROM IMPACT BY UNKNOWN PREDATORY ORGANIC.”

Dante found himself smiling, the adrenaline floodgates closing and a peaceful sense wash over him. “Incredible… So my lucks still seem to be holding out after all. I’d thought it’d drained long ago…”

The machine had no answer for him. Voop! “ALERT! AUXILERY POWER AT FOUR PERCENT OF MAXIMUM. PLEASE SEE MAINTENANCE OFFICER IMMEDIATELY. MAJOR SYSTEM CATACYLSM DETECTED. EVACUATION RECOMMENDED.” Voop Voop Voop! “CARRIER: PLEASE FOLLOW INSTRUCTION FOR COVERT REMOVAL OF TECHNOLOGY PRODUCT. IMPERATIVE: RATTLESKULL MUST NOT FALL INTO THE OBERMEISTER’S HANDS.”

Dante removed the skull from his neck and looked at it, placing his paw carefully on the creature’s brow. “Rattleskull…”

Voop! “RATTLESKULL IS ACTIVE. MODEL GAL-SEPRA FIVE. KEYPHRASE LOGGED AND PUNCHED BY FLOYD NI-YUNG. PLEASE SEE THIS SCIENCE OVERSEE OFFICER FOR QUESTIONS REGARDING TECHNOLOGY PRODUCT.”

Dante looked at the pit again and then back to the Rattleskull. Active… but to what purpose? A weapon? An insignia? Another monotonous talking machine, left behind by a disappeared people?

He wanted to throw it in. Down into the abyss with the Weard to shatter, to be covered by ice and forgotten. Mysteries left behind, onward into his own abyss of frigid white.

He nuzzled the drawstring over his head again and flexed the Rattleskull onto his shoulders. The machine remained still until he found the main entrance and left the crumbling structure. He heard it offer a final Voop! and fall still, left with the ghosts. His back itched, thinking of the one that had nearly crushed him in the stairwell. Or perhaps had warned him. Ghosts could be tricky, fickle things. He ignored the alternative, that he’d had a spell of madness come over him.

No matter. He had a prize, of sorts. There was something special about the Rattleskull. Perhaps valuable, even. The book of secrets that the crazed human had told Dante about was probably just a dead end. Probably. The dead would have to stay dead.

He stumbled in the snow, and the Rattleskull fell from his back. He closed his eyes against hot, stinging tears. The dead would have to stay dead.

He regained control as the wind began to whip him, picking up speed. He’d head south, and find a purpose for his trinket. He shrugged it onto his back. Head south. Forget the past. Banish the memories. But he knew, secretly, that they’d linger, like a thick storm cloud. He looked to the meager twilight above him for stars to guide his way south, and trudged onward, back the way he’d come, telling himself that he wasn’t mad.

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Rekats Rovert
Templar GrandMaster
Posts: 667
Joined: Mon Jun 25, 2007 5:17 am
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Re: The Rattleskull (A little late to the party.)

#4 Post by Rekats Rovert »

Chapter 3

The old tavernmaster sensed there would be trouble the minute the man in the doeskin jacket and wrapped leather boots walked under his roof. The man was tall, with a mean, lanky build to him, his appearance made even more dangerous by the wide-brimmed felt hat and the rapier strung to his belt. A dusty cape hung over one shoulder. The tavernmaster, Burke by name, was pouring another glass of what the farmers called Hill Juice for the bulky man at the bar, his third glass. The bulky man was Rygel, the self-acclaimed Most Dangerous Man in the Province of Gehynnd.

“Couldya bour dat a lil’ fashta, Burkey? Got’n me an itch in m’ throad could lasht seb’n yearsh, Ah do!” Rygel reached a greedy hand for the small glass of dark brown liquid when Burke handed it to him, and emptied it into this gullet, slamming it down when he was finished with a tremendous belch. A posse of about half a dozen men surrounding Rygel applauded, some calling out wagers to how much longer the man would last. If Rygel hadn’t been so drunk, he would have run those men through with his saber, hearing some of their lower estimates.

Rygel was reckoned to lead the most daring and wicked of robberies, either against farm owners, merchants, or the King’s Guard themselves. Burke supposed that made Rygel very brave indeed, if it was true. Ten years had the reign of King Luther Nathan gripped the formerly disjunct provinces, bringing them together by force of his grand crimson army. Burke had heard that the Chancellor Druids had been killed in Springfields around the time he saw the first of the Redcoats in Gheynnd. They marched down the Westfed road, and marched back up the next day. A strange, boisterous man was with them, calling out to the villagers to hear of The Old World New, King Nathan’s plan for a world of peace. The man played music on a strange looking flute, and wore strange clothing, almost too colorful, and had a strange, harried look, like he was afraid that the Redcoats would turn their sleek black muskets on him at any time. Muskets! One for each man! How Burke had marveled at that, but it wasn’t long before the edict arose that all powder, slugs, and barrels had to be turned over. That, too, was part of the plan of peace and safe prosperity. It was rather effective, as soon as people started getting killed by Redcoats over their precious guns. Any fool that happened to slip tongue and allow Redcoats or someone working for the Kingdom—or even just some sod looking for reward—to know of their possession of a gun tended to disappear. Even a fool like Rygel kept to blades. Even a dangerous man like the man in the felt hat and the cape wouldn’t be caught with one, if there were any more by then. Gun makers tended to disappear as frequently as gun owners.

It was only just beginning to approach the evening hours, with a fair amount of light outside. Rygel’s men likely were planning something for the night. Burke could only hope it wasn’t his own establishment they would be targeting.

Burke looked up as he automatically began to pour another glass, and found the man in the hat standing with his back to the wall, his fingers on the hilt of his rapier. He didn’t have the same caustic look that the men at the bar had; his eyes were clear, even thoughtful. Suddenly Burke recognized him. There would be trouble here, today.

Rygel was laughing uproariously with the other men gathered around, attempting to overshadow them. His beefy face was plum-red, his eyes glazed over. The few patrons who hadn’t left the tavern when Rygel and his posse came in gave wary glances towards him. They may have been thinking about the bounty on Rygel’s head, perhaps that it would be easy to collect with the man so wasted. One such man finally caught Rygel’s eye.

“Ay!” Rygel called out, pointing past his men at the weedy-looking gentleman sitting by himself at a table. His posse cleared a path for Rygel’s big arm. “Ay, you need’n shomething, snow-head? Need’n some steel through yer midden’s eh?” He unsheathed his saber and waved it threateningly in the man’s direction, murderous glee in his eyes.

The man at the table gave a start, nearly knocking over his cup of wine. He stood up quickly to leave, but one of Rygel’s men leaped over to him and hauled him to the floor. Two other men helped the first to pull the man onto a table, holding his wrists and head face-down. Burke froze, holding the glass of Hill Juice. If he were to get involved, they’d kill him, and burn down the tavern. Burke had been in the business for a while, and seen many men like Rygel come and go through brief periods of power. His first tavern had been burned down by a man very similar to Rygel. His job was drinks, not the mitigation of justice; he just wanted to live.

And besides, with the man with the rapier here today, this might be Rygel’s last day in power.

Rygel stood up and laid the cold steel of his blade against the man’s cheek. The man, some weak-backed goods peddler probably, was blubbering apologies and pledges to Rygel.

“Whussat? Can’t hear ya, snow-head! Louder!” Rygel raised his blade, and slammed it down into the table, nearly slicing the man’s face.

The man screamed, “Let me live, Rygel! I’ll give you all my money! I’m sorry, everything I have is yours, Rygel! Aarrgghh!

Rygel shoved aside the man holding the peddler’s head and grabbed a fistful of his hair. He brought his head up and slammed it into the table. “Speak up, mushmouth! We ain’t goin’ nowhere, let’s hear an oath!” He pulled his sword free and brought the edge to the man’s cheek. “Think I’ma count’n till three, snow-head. Then we can see how much blood’s in that pretty face…”

Burke finally saw movement from the man in the felt hat. Not the quick flash of a sword he was hoping for, though—a dark, feral hope for Rygel’s blood. The tall man was taking languid steps up to the table, his hands resting on his belt in a casual manner. He looked like he might be going to ask where the nearest latrine house was.

One of Rygel’s cronies nudged his fat honcho, and Rygel looked up sharply. His jerking motion cut into the farmhand’s face, drawing a sliver of blood. Rygel and his posse only stared at the man as he adjusted his cape and sat down opposite the man who was getting a close shave.

“Rygel Margolo?” he asked.

Rygel nodded. “Ye’re who I think ye’re?”

“I’m just a highwayman, like you, Rygel.”

“Bullduck, ye’re no highwayman.” Without looking, Rygel threw the man by his hair aside. His knuckles were white on the grip of his sword. “Ye’re a warshed up rag, is all. You don’t even have a proper sword.”

“This?” asked the highwayman. He unsheathed his rapier, holding it erect where he sat. “It’s proper to my eyes, Rygel.”

One of Rygel’s men muttered, “Turn him out, Rygel.”

Rygel nodded. “I honestly thought you’d died out, William. Redcoats got ye, so I heard.”

The highwayman gave a slight smile, lowering his rapier so it lay in his lap. “Call me a ghost, then. Walking dead.”

Two of Rygel’s men took out knives and slunk to either side of the highwayman. The highwayman, in turn, didn’t flinch. He kept his eyes on Rygel. “You killed a friend of mine, Rygel,” he said.

“Aye, probably lots of yer friends. Yer’ve got friends everywhere. Not good for business, ain’t it? Just going after Redcoats, King Nate’s men? Them gypsies, now, they’ve got some fair treasures on them time to time. And some fair maidens, as well…” His fat lips curled into a lecherous smile.

“That’s who I’m here for.” He raised his rapier again, looking at it. “What would you call a proper weapon, Rygel?”

Rygel scoffed a laugh. “A saber. Not some little pointy thing like that. A saber, with a broad blade. Ye’ll find out here, shortly, I think…”

The two men with knives attacked, stabbing at William’s head and neck. William’s boots flew up, kicking over the table and sending his chair backwards. He rolled to his feet as the two men with knives dived for him. In a flash, the long blade of William’s rapier sliced across one’s arm and through the other’s stomach, dropping them both with shrieks.

Rygel lurched around the overturned table; he was a big man, but he could move with deadly speed, even while inebriated. The other two men with him unsheathed their thick, curved sabers and darted for the highwayman, who was flourishing his cape.

Two knives were suddenly sticking out of the remaining two thugs as the highwayman’s cape settled. His felt hat was perched precariously forward on his head, shielding his keen eyes. The hand that had thrown the knives remained in its final position, fingers splayed wide and reaching forward. Those grim eyes settled on the charging bulk of Rygel, who stopped before him in a swordsman’s stance, his feet between the writhing bodies of his fallen fellows.

“That fancy work don’t mean a litter a’ screamin’ wolf cubs to me. I want your head! It’s worth more th’n three’f mine, man.”

“The Redcoats would kill you on the spot if you even had all the gypsies in Town lined up behind my corpse. Even you should know that.”

Rygel laughed, a gurgling, raucous sound. “Well reward or no, killing you will be a nice way to warm up the night!”

Rygel ducked to the right in a feint, and then lunged left. The highwayman skillfully parried the attack, leaping backwards over one of the bleeding men on the floor. Rygel charged, slashing wildly with his heavy sword. The highwayman weaved around the big man and sliced his thigh. Rygel roared, twisting around and cutting through air. The highwayman jumped to the other side and cut into Rygel’s sword arm. Rygel whirled as the highwayman struck again and again until Rygel’s clothes were bloody tatters.

Finally, breathing heavily and still slashing with his cutlass, Rygel staggered to a wall, bracing himself against it and holding his sword up to face his assailant. The highwayman stared at him, stock still and holding his rapier ready.

“Come on, coward…” panted Rygel. “Don’t got any fight in you or what?”

The highwayman gave Rygel a cross, narrow stare, and then turned away from him.

Rygel leaped, bringing his sword high, ready to drive it into the man’s skull. The highwayman twisted with a flourish and his rapier stuck through Rygel’s neck, freezing the fat man with a gurgling groan. The heavy cutlass clattered to the floor. The highwayman shoved Rygel to the side, sliding his body off of his sword and onto a chair which shattered under the man’s weight.

The highwayman wiped his sword on the sleeve of one of the other dead men and sheathed it. As he retrieved his throwing knives, he glanced at the man they had been harassing, who was staring with wide-eyed shock and shivering like a corn stalk in a windstorm.
“Sit down before you fall down,” said the highwayman. “You can claim the reward, from the Redcoats or whoever you think will give you one.” The man did as he was bid, nodding.

Burke was staring at the wall, away from the whole scene, still holding the glass of Hill Juice. His hands trembled as the highwayman sauntered up to the bar and slapped a pair of gold coins on the counter. “Drink up, Burke. This should cover the damages.”

“Right…” The barmaster tossed the fluid down his throat. It burned, but it stirred him back to where he was. “You did more killing in here than they would have today.”

The highwayman blinked, adjusting his hat. “It wasn’t an innocent death here today. That should make it worth the while.”

“Aye.” Burke surveyed his tavern and sighed through his moustaches. “You’re not the type to be disagree’n with, though, Willie.”

“I understand. Sometimes we make our own rules when the current ones don’t work for us. How does that sound?”

“Like a load, Willie. A huge pile.”

The highwayman grinned. “I’d have a drink, too, Burke. I would, but now I know the truth about Rygel there. Now, I have business to attend.”

“He killed your friends? I’m sure sorry, you know that. I’ve never had much custom by the gypsies, but I’ve never had quarrel with them either. Guess not having to worry about money and all, maybe that gives ‘em a piece of mind. Maybe Kind old King Nathan should’ve taken away money instead of guns, he’d’ve made more friends that way. With the common low folk anyway, I guess the rich…”

“Maybe you should quiet yourself before that babble leads you into a dungeon.”

“Oh. Oh, yes. Or a knife, huh?” He looked towards one of Rygel’s sprawled cronies, at the gash in his throat. Suddenly, one of the others sprang up, groaning, and staggered toward the door. The twiggy man they’d assailed, still shaking like a poplar leaf, fell back against a wall with a shriek and collapsed.

The highwayman watched him go. He turned back to Burke with clear, earnest eyes. “May be a habit that will get me killed eventually, leaving one alive to tell the tale.”

“By stars… he heard me… he heard what I said!”

The highwayman stared hard at the tavernmaster. He produced another gold coin. “It’ll be one of their inquisitors that comes, if one does. You’ll find quickly that they can be bought. A Redcoat will kill you without remorse, but whatever it is that makes a man a man, an inquisitor still has it.”

Burke took the coin with numb fingers, putting it with the other two. More money than he’d ever had in his life and it was to cover damages, in one way and in another. “I’d thank you, but I know why you help me. Buggering with the Redcoats is your specialty.”

“That it is, Burke.” He looked to Rygel’s corpse. Burke found himself expecting it to come alive like the other had, gurgling laughter. “That’s why I came after Rygel tonight.”

“I don’t follow. He killed the gypsies.”

“He and King Nathan.”

Burke blinked, nodded, poured another drink. “So he’s working for the Redcoats. All those rumors about taking out King’s coaches and patrols…”

“Staged. Playing Rygel to be something to fear. Something you want protection from. The bounty on his head’s real, of course. Mind it’s on his head, only. The Redcoats wouldn’t want him squealing that his terror was all staged.”

Burke sighed. He swallowed the hill juice. “It’s the world we live in, ain’t it? Give a man power and all the cronies, phonies, and leeches come out of the bog. Start feeding on the weaklings and idiots that got lured in, ah?”

The highwayman said, “Now that does sound like a load. But you’re right. The wrong man with too much power makes for a scary world to live in.”

“You goin’ after them, Willie? The Redcoats what killed your friends.”

The highwayman nodded and stood up from the bar. “Every last one of them.” He turned with a flourish of his dusty velvet cape and walked out of the tavern at the same pace he’d walked in. Moseying with a purpose, like fog through a valley.

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Rekats Rovert
Templar GrandMaster
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Joined: Mon Jun 25, 2007 5:17 am
Location: Ohio

Re: The Rattleskull (A little late to the party.)

#5 Post by Rekats Rovert »

(Don't think many folks are keeping track of this [read: none at all] but I may as well see it through.)

Chapter 4

As Dante continued toward the southern Human towns, bearing the cumbersome burden of the Rattleskull on his shoulders, he heard a sound to his right, to the west. He turned to look, but the wind picked up suddenly, and with it, the snow blew harder. Dante turned back and decided to pick up the pace a little bit. There was a noticeable calm before an inevitable storm, he thought.

He looked up ahead, and through the blowing snow he saw his next destination. A faint pallor hung in the air, a yellow light that stretched some distance beyond his sight. It hovered in the air at twice the height of a human, and spanned a broad area. The snow beneath this plane of light ceased to fall, and the glow promised warmth. An iron fence spanned the perimeter, and up ahead of Dante was a massive stone gate. He had come to the Graveyard of the Exiles.

As he entered into the cemetery, he heard the sound again, like a long shriek. He ignored it as the chill wind of the tundra cut off, and warmth soaked his fur. He shook off the snow from his coat and pressed onward. Everywhere he looked, thumb-shaped silhouettes jutted out of the dirt and tough brown grass; pillars and plaques were spread among these, along with a handful of blocky crypts and mausoleums. The legend varied with each telling, but as far as Dante could gather, the Obermeister only had let dead Ones of Ages be buried here, sealing them away as some manner of immense and macabre trophy. And maybe the Obermeister had killed off all of the Exiles at their end, and maybe the Exiles had killed themselves, and maybe it was an elaborate hoax. The warm barrier of light though, that was real—some kind of magic, maybe. Or the last testament to Exile technology.

Whatever the cause and reason, what mattered was life could sustain itself in minute gasps here among the dead. The patches of grass and sinewy weed held a few mice, and Dante was famished. He ventured to the center of the great graveyard, where he’d stopped for a rest when he’d made his way north two days before. A tall pillar stood there, its tip just touching against the yellow shield. Surrounding it was a ring of white stones in the ground, and at its base was a plaque inscribed in the human language. He couldn’t read the Exile script, but it seemed to have numbers as well as letters. Something about the dead buried here, perhaps. As he reached the pillar he set the Rattleskull in the grass there, looking about instinctively, hoping nothing else was lurking among the tombstones. His tail shivered, thinking about the ghost that haunted the Exile building, and the weard that hunted there. Now here he was finding solace among the dead once more. He barked a quick laugh and trotted off, his madness further confirmed.

Soon after, he was creeping back to his shelter, a brace of field mice in his jaws. They were scrawny, but they weren’t used to predators and had been a quick catch. Tempting though staying here was, in the eternal shelter and glow of the sky barrier, among the tombs and catacombs of a civilization’s death, he would deplete his food source in the course of a week. After settling down to eat his catch, he heard the sound of something moving somewhere south of him. He was fairly sure south was the direction; one could become quickly turned about in the field of tombstones. Several somethings, animals, were moving about under the barrier. Not weard—a grim relief, that those terrors hunted alone. He tested the air—the scent was familiar, but still distant. They had come in through the other gate on the south end of the graveyard.

He buried one of the mice next to the bones of the first, and then rushed to the center pillar. Whoever or whatever was taking shelter along with him would undoubtedly go there, and they would take the Rattleskull. As Dante approached the pillar, he slowed down, trying to find the best point to look out upon the circle of stones before he went to retrieve the skull. As he did, another scent reached him, abruptly, as if what bore it had just warped into existence. It took him a moment to realize the scent was of a fox, and it was just where he’d left the Rattleskull. He moved slower still from tombstone to tombstone, finally ducking behind a big mausoleum where he’d have the best cover to look out on the pillar.

He peeked out toward the pillar. At first, he was frozen in shock. The fox that was standing in the stone ring had a build slighter than his, features keen and cunning. She looked over her shoulder at him, eyes like drops of honey smiling all on their own.

The vixen spoke, “Though waiting you’ve kept me, gladly I could remain for an eon here, knowing that in the end, here I would be no longer alone.”

Eve.

Dante took a step from behind the stone, struck dumb as he always was by her words. As he did so, she turned from him, looking at the pillar, her frame blocking the Rattleskull. And then her form changed, still vulpine but of another color; a black stripe stretched down the spine with another crossing the shoulders, the orange receding and silver flanking its edges, her build morphing to a faintly bulkier male.

No!” Dante charged at the cross fox, who turned to face him again, tilting his head curiously. Its facial fur was black as well, bordered by a rim of gray which gave way to the orange. “No, Eve, I’m here! I’m here, you can’t… you can’t…”

He slowed to a stop. The cross fox stared at him, still with an expression more of interest than of caution. It hit him, then, that he’d hallucinated. What was happening to him? He found himself staring down the dark-faced fox, panting, his heart a hammer.

Dante sat down on the turf and shook his head. “I’m sorry, friend. I meant you no harm, I just… I have been sealed in this perpetual winter so long, and I thought you were someone I knew once. Please, forgive me if I startled you.”

The cross fox only sat still, staring at him, the cream white tip of his tail twitching slightly, amber eyes gleaming.

“Please, allow me to offer you the worth of my hunt. I caught enough for myself twice over, and I’d offer the remainder to you.” The cross fox only twitched an ear, staring.

It occurred to Dante that this was perhaps not a talked fox. It would immediately smell the truth; that Dante had succumbed to a demon in his head, that he was crazy. Quicker than a talked fox would, anyhow. Dante tried to pick up any scent of this fox’s bearing—surely one that would stand still while being run upon by a mad fox would bolt immediately. But there was nothing there at all familiar; a placid shroud covering a myriad of sensations and demeanors like a cloud covering a starry night’s sky. It made Dante’s muzzle itch. He came closer, stepping gingerly upon one of the white stones.

“What are you, then? You’re no fox, or if you are, you’re more than just a common creature of Calket. Or are you lost here as well, broken by the cold?”

The cross fox looked over its shoulder. The sound that followed was unmistakable now, without the shriek of the wind to mask it; a wolf’s howl. A second joined it, and a third and fourth. They were close.

The strange fox looked back at Dante and, gold eyes smiling—he had to be a talked fox, if a fox was what he truly was—it moved away from the pillar towards a mass of headstones. As it did, Dante saw the Rattleskull, still against the pillar. Once again he found himself shocked still. The eyes of the skull were glowing with a darkened yellow light, like a lantern in a gold mine. He crept closer, enchanted. A tinny hum was coming from it, and it was beginning to tremble, rocking against the pillar.

Dante whipped around for the cross fox, but it had disappeared. He caught no scent of him, either. The apparition was gone as quickly as it had appeared. If it had really been there in the first place.

Another tangle of ghostly howls emanated from the graveyard. Dante pulled the skull’s rope over his neck and made it to the edge of the stone ring just as four wolves descended upon him from all sides, surrounding him in seconds.

The four talked wolves moved quickly, as if Dante were to try to make a run for it. They were laughing, trying to hide it under their breath, although if this was to conceal their enjoyment of their occupation, their attempts were futile. Dante looked from face to face at them, keeping his own countenance as frightened as possible. He knew he wanted to keep his ambushers confident, all the better to catch them off guard.

He had dealt with wolves of the mysterious Obermeister before—always ill-intending, always oddly-named. Once this was when he was trying to steal some of their food, other times when he was chased off of ‘official land of the Obermeister’, which Dante translated to, ‘Get away from us, you pest’. This time must have had something to do with a violation of being on the Obermeisters’ ‘Official Land’.

Unless it had to do with his skull he had found.

One of them stepped forward. “Good day to you, little one,” he said in a gruff voice that tried to sound humble, or at least amicable. “Allow me to introduce myself. I am called Ryker, captain of this wolf pack under the noble and gracious law of the Obermeister. These are my officers: Murb, Soretail, and Jylan.”

Dante nodded to them all in turn. Soretail looked to be a bit pudgier than the other three; he would make a break in his direction, if necessary. First though, he decided that he would try to charm his way out. Frightened as he was, the cleverness of foxes was a reputation he planned to uphold. Putting on his best easy smile, he said, “Good day, valorous constabulary of the Obermeister! What service can I perform for you this fine, fine day?” If nothing else, they could dismiss him as a lunatic.

The wolf’s smile faltered for only a split-second, and then he continued. “By decree of our noble and gracious lord, the Obermeister, talked animals may not venture beyond the realm of human lands. This decree was passed five nights ago. I wonder how you managed to slip by our patrols, hmm?”

“Forgive me, but I’ve not heard of such a decree.” This was the truth, he had not. Perhaps the wolf was just playing him. “I couldn’t guess how I stumbled by your most cunning and salacious noses, it must have just been my own luck.”

“Don’t bother greasing us like hogs for a spit, fox,” said the one called Jylan. “We’ve been following your trail for three days. Either your luck is as poor as you say, or you evaded us purposely.”

“I never said my luck was poor.”

He heard Jylan growl as Murb barked laughter, still circling Dante languidly.

Ryker said, “It matters not. The Obermeister has sealed the White Freeze from all except his own; the wolves, his acolytes, and those untalked creatures which reside here. For the purposes of your protection, of course. Furthermore, all which can be found here is property of the Obermeister.”

“Creatures…” said Dante. “I suppose that would include those created by the Ones of Ages, yes?”

“Speak of them again, fox,” said Jylan. “Give me a reason to skin you where you stand.”

Ryker laughed, coming to stand by Jylan. “Now, let’s not become blooded, here. I’m sure this is a misunderstanding! Isn’t that so, fox?” The wolf bore his teeth in a sinister smile. “The Exiles were said to suffer plenty of misunderstandings as well. And, well.” The wolf looked around at the forest of headstones and monuments to their demise. “You can see where they ended up.”

Dante shifted slightly, balancing the Rattleskull on his back.

The alpha wolf continued, “That’s an interesting little trinket you’ve obtained there. Pray tell, where did you come by that…interesting…thing?”

So that’s what this is about, thought Dante. He lowered the Rattleskull off of his shoulders to get a look at it. The glow in its eyes had diminished, so the wolves weren’t enchanted as Dante was when it had begun. But they still stared at it with their own eager, carnivorous eyes.

He sat back on his haunches and curled his tail around his legs, over the skull. “This thing?” he asked. “Well, it is an old family heirloom, you might say. Why do you ask?”

The wolf grinned, cunning and toothy. “I’m sure we could make it worth your while if you were to, say, forfeit it to the snow. Besides, how much family can you have to cherish it?”

Dante kept his face straight, not wanting to let anything out that could give his true emotion away. “What do you propose, courageous soldier of Calket? What do you have in mind for me?”

He easily hated the wolves. Their gregarious nature, combined with their imposing size compared to him, annoyed Dante at the best of times, and infuriated him at the worst of times, such as those currently unfolding. Further south in lands more populated by humans, they tended to be scarce, but he had met one or two, along with, of course, their sprawling packs. They had been more self-sufficient than these runts of the Obermeister, but they had still warded him from their land, and that bit of guidance was barely a half-step from an outright threat. The speed at which Ryker’s wolves had come upon him told him that the artifact which he had recovered was something that they wanted, and the meager façade of pleasantness they were trying to convey would not last much longer.

Ryker smiled again at Dante, then turned and signaled toward the big wolf on his right, Soretail. The latter wolf turned as if to bite at an itch, but pulled out of his skin, seemingly, a bag. Then Dante saw—around his waist were tied pockets and pouches, which were camouflaged with shed pelts pasted to the pockets, things could be carried without a passerby’s notice.

The bag was dropped on the cold ground at Soretail’s feet. Murb, at a nod from Ryker, bent down and pulled on a drawstring to open it. Dante peered inside and saw little round green rocks, like the eyes of cats.

“Do you know what this is, little red fox?” asked Ryker. Slowly, Dante shook his head no. A lie, of course; he did indeed know. Ryker continued, “This is glimmer, the currency of us four legged tribes,” he said, trying to mystify Dante. “Long ago, before humans cut our numbers and some of us joined with them and their ways of trade, glimmer was regarded as potent and valuable as a flank of venison. A whole herd of deer, even. It was said that certain animals could tap into it, could bend their wills in strange ways, control other animals, become invulnerable. Some could even fly.”

Dante looked to Ryker, then to the rocks, and to Ryker again. Maybe he was overplaying his advantage, but he wanted to appear sufficiently bedazzled. He had heard all of these tales and more about the power of glimmer—fly, indeed!—but he couldn’t see how they would be worthwhile to him. He didn’t possess any special powers or understandings.
Ryker said, “We found these beauties and some other trinkets in one of the, ah, unappropriated storehouses of the Obermeister, while on your trail. They would turn a much better profit with the humans than with our master, just as that skull would be a much better prize to our gracious lord than to the humans. So you can see, the trade would be an advantage for us both.”

Dante sat back on his haunches again in the snow, a polite, content smile on his face.
“Well?” asked the wolf. “Skull for glimmer?”

Inside, Dante was laughing. These wolves took him for an utter fool. Dante shook his head. “No, I’m afraid that will not do. I simply cannot give up my skull for that.”

Ryker’s salesman smile disappeared instantly, replaced with a frown of disdain. “Will not do?” he said. “Listen here, orange speck. We will get that skull. It is a Rattleskull of the Obermeisters’ property, to whom you owe your life! I recommend you forfeit it, in exchange for the glimmer… and for your life.” He and the other wolves began to advance, closing in around Dante with those same malicious smiles.

Thinking quickly was the only possibility now, if Dante were to keep his life. And the Rattleskull. He couldn’t leave it behind now. “Now friends, I’m sure we can work out some kind of deal,” he said as the wolves bared their teeth. In the back of his mind, he felt that if he were to run away and leave the skull, they would not pursue him far. Thus, he would show cowardice in the face of his enemies, and never could he return here—good riddance, perhaps. But the Rattleskull, he had gone through so much to get it! The weard had been a greater threat than these imbeciles, and though he’d been lucky, he’d survived. But more than that, the cleverness of foxes was at stake.

He had an idea. “Do you, by chance, have any gaming dice?” he asked.

Ryker stopped, as did the others of the wolf police. “What does that matter to you?” he asked suspiciously.

Dante grinned, seeing a way out. “Perhaps you’d like to gamble for this skull. And, perhaps, something more?”

The wolves became all ears. Ryker’s eyes narrowed. “More? Just what do you mean, more?”

“Gold, of course. That bag of pretty rocks won’t get you much with humans, I should think. Maybe someone from the animal tribes that recall the legends, but not the humans. They like the shiny yellow stuff. And, I know where there is a large stash of it, in one of the southern towns, quite a large amount indeed.” This was no lie; Dante really did know about hoards of buried treasure, and by telling the wolves, he was taking a gamble as well. “If you win the toss, I will tell you which town and house the gold is in, as exact as I can be, and I will give you the Rattleskull. If I win, though,” he said with his easy smile again, “Then I will keep the skull, and… do you have any gold?” Soretail and Murb nodded, taken in and taking in the stakes to Dante’s game intently. Ryker looked, too late, to his comrades. Obviously he would not have admitted their possession of gold to the fox, but now it was too late.

“Then, in that case,” Dante continued, “I will take the Rattleskull, the glimmer, and your gold. Do you agree to the stakes, Sir Ryker?”

The wolf glared at Murb, whom he pinned the reveal of their possession of gold on. Murb looked back at him, surprised, and then turned away sheepishly. Ryker looked back at Dante. He eyed him for a moment conspicuously. “Alright. I do. But one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“You personally show us where the hidden gold is when we win.” He smiled.

“Deal,” said Dante after a split-second hesitation.

Ryker’s smile dimmed briefly as he turned to Jylan. “Get the dice.”

Jylan reached into Soretail’s pouch. When he pulled back, he spit two white cubes into the snow. The dice were obviously human carved, made from bone. Tally marks were scratched into the six sides on each die.

“The roller with the highest mark wins,” said Ryker.

“Yes, of course, very good. Which of you will roll?” asked Dante.

The wolves looked to each other. They knew that if they were to roll and lose, their alpha would kill them. Therefore, they came to the conclusion that Ryker must roll, by the three officers looking at their alpha with a sheepish, pleading expression.

Ryker sighed at his underlings’ incompetence, and picked up the die closest to him in his mouth. Dante did the same. The other three wolves watched the two anxiously, as Ryker rolled the die in his muzzle, a smug grin of confidence upon his countenance. Dante held his more gingerly, using just his teeth.

Ryker’s and Dante’s eyes were locked. Dante’s face changed from his soft smile to one of intent, confident determination. Ryker opened his mouth suddenly, and the die rolled sloppily off his tongue and onto the pale stone.


(Man I hate that cliffhanger ending. But it makes more sense with chapter 5.)

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Rekats Rovert
Templar GrandMaster
Posts: 667
Joined: Mon Jun 25, 2007 5:17 am
Location: Ohio

Re: The Rattleskull (A little late to the party.)

#6 Post by Rekats Rovert »

Chapter 5

The die clattered on the table, the sound mostly eaten by the commotion of the huge room. People chattered noisily, hopping from table to table, eating the dangerous smelling food served by the cafeteria or from their own sack. Most of the people were in the tenth grade. The rest were adults trying to keep the more energetic kids to a minimum amount of space to wander, or to tell some brat to quit throwing his food across the room, to which the brat would shrug and scowl in defense.

“Langdon, this is the second time this week. Do it again and you’re going to get a detention, I’m going to have to call your mother, a whole pack of trouble for you, understand?”

“You didn’t see him! He threw it at me, first!”

“So you threw it back, instead of telling me?”

“I just wanted to give it back to him.”

And so on.

Most of the tables were long, with benches that folded out. There were about forty of these, from the front of the cafeteria to the middle. There, a line was quickly diminishing to get lunch. At the back was a cluster of twenty-five round tables with padded aluminum chairs. Some of these had been crowded around the big picture windows looking out at the parking lot of Bowersville’s Lincoln High.

But underneath the din and the odor of the cafeteria, another scene was unveiling.

The great stone fortress was ancient, crumbling, vibrant with mosses and ivy and a sinister presence. It rose up out of the murky forests surrounding the savage foothills leading up to the eastern ridges, a discarded structure from a bygone, dried up age. Inside, some tremendous and terrible force waited, sending out parties of necromantic horrors to attack the civilized world. Thus the adventurers had tracked their way here, to put an end to the evil.

The drawbridge had lowered easily enough as a small party strode up and dismounted their horses. The rusted portcullis beyond the bridge slowly rose up, the jaws of an eldritch maw, gaping into darkness. That was when the troll charged them.

It came from the copse of trees to their right. Roland’s chainmail wasn’t enough to stop the first of the troll’s claw as it rent his arm. His companion, Terrace, the Elf ranger, sank an arrow into the beast’s hide, dashing backward, getting clear. It cried out, and Roland saw his chance. He swung his longsword, imbibed in magic to strike all the heavier, and…

“That’s a hit,” said Martin. The twenty-sided die read 17. “Damage?”

“Also seventeen.”

“Dang, nice. The troll screams out as you chop into his side.”

“Anything good spill out?”

“Uhh, not yet… Eric?”

Another elf was hanging back, twisting his fingers around intricately and muttering. As the troll readied to strike at Roland again, a bolt of lightning crackled down fried it, sending it into spasms. It tried to break away. Roland swung at the retreating troll with an oath to his deity, as justice was about to be…

“And what are you boys doing?”

The tension shattered. The scene faded, and the drum and bustle of the cafeteria flooded back to Anthony Robin’s senses. He hated that part more than anything, the interruption. He and the other three turned sheepishly to look at the teacher.

Martin said, “Nothing. It’s a game.”

“Hi, Missus D.” said Anthony.

“Hello, Anthony. What kind of game?”

Eric and Greg were studying their character sheets and fiddling with their pencils. Martin, the dungeon master, was trying to come up with a good spin for Miss Degenhart. Something that didn’t sound so dangerously geeky.

“It’s a role playing game,” Martin said. “You fight monsters and stuff.”

“Oh really? You’ve got a lot of cool dice there. What’s that one for?” Degenhart was pointing at the d4, the four sided die.

“Uh well,” said Anthony

“It’s um.”

“See, there’s different weapons.”

“Swords and things.”

“They have different attributes.”

“So, a bigger sword uses bigger dice.”

“Or any kind of attack.”

“Like from a troll, a goblin or something.”

A balled up piece of hamburger bun sailed across the other side of the room.

“Oh, come on,” said Degenhart in a world-weary tone. “Well, as long as you all aren’t gambling.” She stormed across the cafeteria.

A suspended lull hung over their round table. Suddenly Anthony felt eyes all over his back, judging him. He felt very atypical, with the dice and the books and the character sheets. He loved the game, but Dungeons and Dragons was for basements and quiet dining rooms.

“Third time in the week,” Eric finally said.

“So what? It’s unusual,” said Martin as he opened up one of the books, the Monster Manual. “Playing DnD at lunch, I mean.”

Greg fished into a brown bag on his lap and pulled out a plastic baggie of Pringles. “The second time they thought we were gambling.”

“Yeah,” said Eric. “I don’t see how you can gamble at DnD though!”

“Same way you can bet on boxers,” said Martin.

“I’ll bet your boxers have Power Rangers on them.”

Fighters, stupid. Or race horses, or plane departures and arrivals, or anything. You can put a bet on anything.”

“I guess so,” said Greg, noisily munching Pringles.

Eric rolled a die. “Ten bucks says my wizard can beat your ranger!”

“It’s on! I bet my chips!”

They began frantically rolling dice, shooting arrows and casting spells, giggling. Anthony looked down at his own character sheet. Roland the Paladin. A virtuous fighter, someone that held their own, a man of bravery, valor, strength. And a charmer, don’t forget, Paladins were charismatic! They could talk you off your feet and then some! Everything Anthony was not.

Greg and Eric were now arguing about some rule regarding attacks of opportunity. Martin had his nose in his book, the game forgotten. Anthony only knew them by their association of the game. And he knew that they didn’t play it the same way he did. It was all numbers and rules to them, but Anthony, he saw the shine of armor, the splash of blood. Smelled the fierce odor of the troll, heard its scream and his own. He put himself there, where he was strong.

Anthony straightened his glasses on his nose, cleared his throat. Yes, he saw that there were eyes on him. A gaggle of giggling girls he didn’t know a couple round tables away. Beyond them at another table was Emily, who looked toward them only briefly, definitely not giggling. Anthony only knew Em from a couple of classes together in the past year since she’d moved from Florida, and he was fairly certain he’d never seen her smiling. And then there was Jesse Snyder and his friends, who were part of the flying hamburger conspiracy Degenhart was dealing with. Anthony could feel their eyes on him, picking out their next target. And maybe, thought Anthony, they could be completely justified by their choice. He was a short, scrawny black kid with big doofus glasses, a neatly pressed buttoned up shirt, bluejeans that could stand to be an inch longer.

He pulled out a bottle of Sprite from his backpack under the table, pretending to read over his character sheet, thinking of valor and gleaming armor, fighting dragons and crossing swords. Magic. Honor. There was none of that in his world. Just the complacency for normality, or whatever it was the mass majority decided counted for normality. He sighed; life should be fuller than what’s allowed in the confines of novels and DnD.

Eric and Greg were laughing uproariously, trying to have their characters fight increasingly ridiculous enemies—George Washington, King Kong, a swarm of lunchroom pizza.

“Aw man, I’m dead. I’m dead! I hate Sour Patch Kids.”

“How can you hate Sour Patch Kids? What is wrong with you?”

“I like the red ones, but all the others just make me want to puke.”

“Well these ones are green. Roll a fortitude save!”

Anthony looked up in time to see another classmate, Harry, sit down at their table with a tray of rotten looking food. Eric nodded to him. Eric and Harry had been friends for some time now, longer than Anthony had known any of the boys at the table.

“What’s good, Harrison?” said Greg, holding back a snicker.

Harry hardly used his full name. He rolled his eyes and said, “Whatever, Gregory. What are you nerds doing?”

“Us nerds are playing a fun filled game of DnD, sir,” said Eric, giving Harry a playful punch in the shoulder.

“Ooh, riveting. Very droll. What level dungeon masters are you?”

Martin cocked an eyebrow over the rim of his book as Eric and Greg laughed like loons. “Did you pull that joke off a T.V. show? It sounds familiar.”

“Aw, lighten up Marty,” said Greg. “And if you must know, I’m a level fifty-seven dungeon master.”

Martin sighed. “Dungeon masters don’t have levels.” This made Greg laugh all the harder, spilling Pringle crumbs on the table.

Harry took a bite of his hamburger, shaking his head. After a moment he looked toward Anthony. “Hey man, you’re in Mr. Louis’s class aren’t you?”

Anthony looked up. “Yes. AP English, why?”

“I needed to ask you something after school. About that project. Something about making a diorama about flappers and decadence and crap. Eric says you’re the man for that kind of stuff.”

Anthony looked at the boy with sandy hair. Something in Harry’s eyes suggested he wanted something more than help with a book report. But maybe that was his imagination; he was spending too long in fantasy-land with Roland the Paladin. He said, “Sure, I’ll be by the benches at the end of the parking lot after school.”
Martin looked up from the Monster Manual. “Are you guys reading Great Gatsby too? I’m about to burn mine, it’s driving me crazy.”

“Right?” Harry looked away, the curt glance he’d given Anthony reminder enough to wait up for him after school. “It’s so dumb, it’s about a guy that has parties or something. I’m like three chapters behind.”

“Me too, it’s so boring.”

Anthony returned to considering his character sheet. Harry just wanted help with a project is all. He’d become too engrossed in the dumb game, too apt to identify the mundane as mysterious. That was all there was to it. He was somehow not accepting of reality, and it was stupid. He lived in a real world, not in a crazy and cliché fantasy ripped out of Tolkien’s universe.

And yet…

Something always seemed off about Harry, as if the kid was always on the verge of busting out laughing at nothing in class, or just getting up and walking out. Anthony had even seen him talking to Detective Bagwin on occasion. Particularly after the strange events that left a large crater in the woods on the west end of town a few years back. What kind of kid was buddies with a police detective? What did he really want with Anthony?

Eventually Harry got up and hopped to another table briefly—Anthony only noted that it was Emily’s table, another oddity. Though, despite that perpetual frown, Anthony had to admit that Em was cute. Not in a bubbly way like the girls giggling at the Nerd Table, or the way Hermione was in the Harry Potter movies, but in a mysterious way, a dismissive way. Deep brown eyes. Hair like a cool night in some exotic place, far away. She was always aloof, hardly ever talking to anyone. He’d heard whispers from other girls he sat behind in class that she was stuck up and haughty, and usually other words that Mrs. Robin had taught her boy not to repeat. But somehow, that sense of detachment made her attractive, to Anthony. Like some treasure gleaming far beneath the bottom of a turgid sea. Cute wasn’t the right adjective; Em Layne was ethereal.

Harry probably saw things the same way. Despite his quirks, girls always seemed to want to talk to him.

Anthony shrugged and kept his head low, sipping his Sprite and letting the cacophony of the lunch room wash over him. He wasn’t a risk taker, he wasn’t an adventurer. He was a nerd. To cement this affirmation in his mind, he pulled out a book from his backpack—of course it was Lord of the Rings, a more recent edition that had come out with the movie, with Christopher Lee on the cover in Sauraumon the White garb—and read it until the bell rang for class, keeping Harry’s proposition in the back of his mind.

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