They were heartbeats, once...

They were heartbeats, once...

Postby Rance » Tue Nov 11, 2003 5:28 pm

They were heartbeats, once -- they were laughter, and smiles, and sadness, and cheer. They were love and hatred and emotion-incarnate. They were humans, and dwarves, and elves, and gnomes; they were svirfneblin, and trolls, and drow ...

.. all turned bones. All turned corpses, all exhumed -- they were children and wives and men and priests turned mindless, moaning, flesh-hungry beasts.

They marched against Myrken, on an autumn night, by the hundred. One by one, they fell under brave swords... and all the while, their general had been laughing.

Frost settles now on lifeless, rotten bodies -- the fields are strewn with the remnants of the walking dead, with limbs and heads and broken jaws. Spades were fallen, and shovels jutted from the earth where undead hands had dropped them. The smell of fire still lingers in the air where whiskey had been burned about the Broken Dagger.

Silence ravages the landscape -- the smell of dead flesh is abound and sickening. Their eyes are turned up towards the skies, against moonlight and sun alike .. but they are not eyes -- never had been. They are balls, simple and chrome, set into sockets where life once lingered.

The soldiers move the bodies, one after the other .. but still so many remain. Still so many stare. None of the bodies had identities -- they were from lands far away, from lands unexplored. They were from the underground, from graves so far away. They were not of Myrken. From whence had they come, and how?

Salvation of Myrken lies in those cold eyes. Far below, Audmathus laughs.
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A Cold Morning

Postby Thorn » Wed Nov 12, 2003 4:02 am

It was a cold and misty morning when a lone figure stepped outside, to help the soldiers who had already started the digging. A long piece of cloth was tied about her own eyes to bandage them against the bright light, even as she picked up a fallen spade. Her nostrils flared, and the smell nearly made her sick, even as Thorn came beside one of the many soldiers, and struck the ground with her spade, helping that large pit along. She would grab festering bits with worn hands, dragging them now into that very pit.

This would take forever, with how many had come.

All the same: all having those cursed eyes. Thorn would let her hand linger to her pocket a moment, where she had gotten one of those ball bearings, taken the night before. Wind would catch auburn hair, allowing it to blow in the breeze even as she flicked her ears.

His end would come soon. For her suffering, and the suffering of so many of Myrkenwood.

Audmathus would suffer.
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Postby Vanidor » Wed Nov 12, 2003 9:55 am

The spherical piece of metal danced in the air. A flash of metal in the overcast day. Eyes of emeraldine watched the endeavour going on. Soldiers and townsfolk slowly picking and moving the chaff of last nights assault upon the township. Upon the people and their sensibilties. Myrken-folk and men of Thessilane died last night, along with these... people, or their bodies at least, from another land.

He hadn't been there, not at the tavern itself. Elsewhere, the Duke had been. Overseeing something of importance to his military presence. Life went on, even with a mountain of pain and hardship layered against the shoulders. Still, Angelmar had tasted dried ichor and putrefied flesh. It had been later on that he noticed them. The cold and lifeless gaze of metal. How odd that it reminded him of one of his wife's friends. And the incident in which he, himself, managed to aquire one of those bits of metal.

Tossed again. Dancing in the air once more between gloved fingers. Caught and then looked at. "Remarkable, Lieutenant. Every one of them has these things... A good guess that this bit of information will lead us to him." The officer at his side nodded mutely, his face a bit pale from the work going on around them. Brutal, it had been. Mindless hacking and slashing. He watched as his Duke rose the ovoid piece of metal to his own left eye. Held it there for a moment...

"The eyes are the key, Lieutenant... I have a feeling deep in my bowels. Gather me up some of them, if you would..." The officer simply nodded once more, and left his liege standing there. Looking at life through one eye of emeraldine, and the other through an orb of metal.

One should always be drunk. That's all that matters... But with what? With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you chose. But get drunk. - Charles Baudelaire


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Heart is more than a beating muscle.

Postby Kaz » Wed Nov 12, 2003 2:54 pm

The minotaur had taken part in the defense of the tavern and those in it from the advance of the plentiful undead. In that time, the one-eyed warrior had seen brave hearts weild whatever was at hand, from a small, quick boy with a line of wire, a limber and ready white-haired elven, a bloodied but fierce holy man, to rows of uniformed soldiers, all turning out to defend the living. The less able to defend themselves. Though the mahogany-pelted warrior had not been out in the thick of the fight, as had others who fought so fierce and decimated so many, the minotaur was content with the contribution made. Besides. Slamming barrels around had been... well... yes, the warrior would admit it. Fun. It had been a while since skills were put to anything useful, other than keeping them sharp in drills. No minotaur would deny that they enjoyed battle. Kaz certainly wouldn't.

Getting the myriad bites and clawings and rough wounds from spade and shovel and anything else the undead masses had found to weild against the living was a necessary pause. After that, though, a discarded shovel washed off, the horned warrior had moved out among those who were doing the same, the really ugly job. That of cleaning up the corpses. Until exhaustion overcame even the minotaur's long endurance, the bovid's help was to be had from anyone else who was doing the work. Then, when too tired to do much more than slog to a bath in the lake and then find a quiet spot in the woods that was clean of the stench, Kaz slept.

Upon waking, the minotaur pulls out a metal ball, and that solitary gaze runs over the thing, wondering idly. The few taken just after the fight had been given to Heldenbrand. This one was picked up off the ground, having been knocked loose by something from its perch. One of the exploding kegs the minotaur had thrown, for all Kaz knew. Either way, it was regarded. Vaguely familiar. The warrior would ponder this a while, sifting through memory for the references and place it had been seen before. Only later would it crystalize, and the minotaur remember. And that would raise a few... new, questions.

"Harrrum."

And that's all Kaz would say about the matter for now. After a rest, it was time to go back to helping. But a notion would be mulled over in the duration, wheels turning in between those reaching horns.
The boy waved a wooden sword at the minotaur he'd tried to 'slay'. "I wanna be a hero!"
Furred arms crossed loosely, the warrior's rumbling voice was mild. "What kind of hero?"
The boy scoffed. "There's only one kind!"
"Oh no," The minotaur replied. "There are a few. Ones that are heroes after they are dead, ones that are called such who do not deserve it, old heroes and young ones, new and tired. Willing and unwilling. Heroes to the masses, heroes to a few, heroes for the bards' songs."
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