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tmac attack

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They approached a small winding road that struck through the heart of Folich’s Ridge and swiveled unto its end—the Faithful’s Road, it was called. When the faith was young and the Old Blood first coursed through the old kingdoms, this humble path marked a pilgrimage to the north, the Cloud Reach, though it was not a reach just then, but a place of worship. It brought them to a small steppe in the mountain before winding east, and they steered west and back onto the unpaved forest ground.

The walk was easy and flat again. They struck the ridge's end and stood below a copse of great pines that huddled together like lovers. The vantage point was high enough to provide them with a clear view of the landscape and an even more splendid view of the night’s cosmic ornamentation.

The high forest was unrelentingly massive—from the outskirts of Sunreign it held over a hundred leagues into the north, its trees matching the height of small buildings, dominating the landscape of the northern half of the Republic until the border divided her from the tundra of the Pale.

From here Sirr Aeran spotted the twisting rapids of the Kullus river through endless tree lines as a serpent through tall grass, though here it was much less rapid and more placid and settled in the flat lands. The river looked the part of a shimmering, bejeweled snake of white and red as twin moonlights reflected off its waters.

Praeconum danced with two moons. Aeran surveyed the sky, taken back almost. So plentifully did the stars surround the lunar pair, it looked something of an art piece, a delineation. An incandescent chapel fresco of celestial orbs that flickered amber and silvery blue and auburn into the blackness, dotting a shadowy canvas from all ends the eye could see. Taking leave of the city carried its risks, but this was of the few blessings he supposed granted to him—the sky was without obscurity from the city lights, and it was without debate a splendor of magnificence.

14-May-2016 09:26:07 - Last edited on 18-Jul-2016 11:27:01 by tmac attack

tmac attack

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The Hold of Man that was Praeconum was always known for its lovely dual moons. The Twin Sisters, folk called them both here and in the colonies far in other distant star systems. The first, Aercal, was as smooth as a pearl, white as divinity and imposingly majestic. A massive thing, she was, consuming nearly a fifth of the sky, an eye of a hundred craters and shadowy basins snugged between great folds and ridges.

But she was barren—the twin, Mora, was the starkest contrast. Colored like crimson blood, she was the smaller sister, but life flourished on her surface—a thick atmosphere birthed sprawling forests of blood oaks and a velvet soil from which they grew from to mark her this sanguine appearance. There were supposed creatures that dwell its lands said to share a haunting elegance about them, all red like blood: Sirr Aeran heard stories of blood red elks with antlers like great chandeliers, and the falcons that roamed the airs had mahogany feathers the size of a man’s arm and rustic red talons that had the sharpness of daggers.

What struck fear in his heart were the moon dwellers. The red lunar cult. That Bleeding Demiurge of theirs.

Lunar stage lights highlighted the traveling pair. Cecilia lit up like some candle. She was a slender youth, twenty three years a highborn of the Old Blood and nothing short of immaculate. Tall and graceful, she possessed the type of refined features that her noble mother carried from the eastern Federation—a face with delightfully pronounced cheekbones and round, robust lips red as cherries that adorned a carefully sharp jawline.

Pulling back her silk cream hood with furred edges revealed how fine and fair a face she had, the kind that a descendant of the Senexian aristocratic blood would have, yet there was more to it.

14-May-2016 09:41:22 - Last edited on 18-Jul-2016 09:27:26 by tmac attack

tmac attack

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The moons’ lights displayed a thoughtful expression that had almost too much life to it and drew upon such gracious curvatures as she spoke and held cadence, it would demand the full attention of all those present.

A long and heavy cloak of white silks hung from her graceful shoulders, with golden embellishments of a suns fiery tentacles, accompanied by beige and cream furs which proliferated at the wrist cuffs and fluttered on the edges of her hood in the wind. The garment dressed a light armored tunic that shimmered like polished marble. It had little plates in a fish scale fashion, and a golden chain girdle affixed with an elliptical sapphire locket dangled from her supple waistline--a thick blue eye was staring from it.

In her right hand sat truly a grand tome dense with ivory pages and a golden shell of metalwork engraved with Sunreignian insignias and dictums— Cestra adeum Republiäs-Faith to the Republic-Aud Sanguis damor pracian; The Old Blood Runs Strong. Words of the ancestors, truisms ventured by the prideful and loyal.

Sirr Aeran said not a word for many a minute. The red moon Mora had taken his gaze, and he stood silent to contemplate. Old stories rushed back to him whenever he looked.

Sometimes, he felt the child all over again creeping up on him, the frightened boy curled under the blankets as mother read from the olden annals. Just stories ¸ he could hear the man in him retort. And that much he truly believed, that much he was content with. Still, something eerie played about the lighting of Mora, and there was no argument that the deep, profound red of its skin looked an awful lot like blood.

14-May-2016 09:41:22 - Last edited on 18-Jul-2016 09:29:12 by tmac attack

tmac attack

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Black haired and bearded, the Sunguard Sirr Aaren Kastier* resembled the ideal traits of one born in the Iydes: dark olive skin, a tan littoral complexion and fierce, dark brown eyes. His Templar’s armor was regal and decorative with crimson and brass, the Kastiero colors, and heavily plated with great luminescent angel steel pauldrons that rose over his head with burning white and gold gems in their centers. A thinner cloak of refined metalloids, he had, crimson and coiled about his chest, fastened at his left shoulder with a ruby gold brooch of a red falcon. A thick fox pelt of brick red was slung over his shoulders.

His sun-forged broadsword glowed in the decorative sheath, and the signature Templar tri-crystal beam cannon which locked into his right arm’s plating hummed assiduously.
It was a fantastic craft, the cannon. The gaping barrel was encircled with glowing ochre crystals that ran along the sides in a pyramid-like figure, and the trigger mechanism was enfolded and linked into the armor plating on his forearm. Iridescent light that hissed like sun fire swayed about it, the crystals seeming to breathe as though they were alive, orbiting round the barrel like satellites.

“They are gorgeous, would you agree?” she heard the girl say after a time.

“The moons?” he asked, surprised by the question.

She kept doing that thing with her hair, with the finger twirling daintily the few curling wisps in her perfectly straight silks. “Yes, both of them. At Sunreign, there are far too many lights, it snuffs out the beauty the skies give us naturally. You can see why I enjoy my walks. I may relish in silence from afar at the two. Particularly the red one. Oh, how I do adore it.”

“Get a bit closer and you may not be so adoring.”

“I would beg to differ.”

“I would beg we hurry,” he shunned the images of the lunar red from his mind and carried on, armor clapping and boots ripping through soil.

14-May-2016 09:41:23 - Last edited on 18-Jul-2016 09:35:55 by tmac attack

tmac attack

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They started down gentle slopes, passing between sharp, rocky slates that protruded like blades from the ridge’s brëäst. Eventually, the ground became soft with soil and dead leaves. Here, the high forest was said to have truly begun. The sentry trees loomed overhead once more, creaking like the old planks of ramshackle homes, watching them with ancient eyes. Aaren felt almost invasive, as if they were unwelcome guests in a foreign home.

They had walked for two miles in sheer silence. Nothing moved in the forest. Nothing made even so much as a whisper. A breeze would maybe rustle flaky fall leaves and shake branches, and the crushing of twigs and clutter at their boots had become something of an anticipated rhythm, but nothing more.

There was only flatness. Staring ahead, the Templar saw nothing but the endlessness abyss of black trunks blotting out the background.

He had them rear northeast for a quarter of a mile, north a bit and then northeast again, until they had come up upon the ends of the Kullus river, which ended calmly and quietly at Lake Marciella.

Marciella stretched a considerable distance towards the northwestern portion of the Republic. The Kulli, they called it. The Republic’s hardest men settled these lands, as they had since the First Epoch when the kingdoms of man were bequeathed the Old Blood. Feels old, that's for certain. Lineage showed that he could draw ancestry from these parts. But that thousands of years back, and time had that ill effect of making old connections lose their feeling. Or strengthen them, depending on your outlook.

Seeking to avoid the open, they both but skimmed Marciella’s outer edge. A small, rocky coast where coasting waves just barely kissed the tangling roots of hulking mountain ash trees, it was a modest break from the suffocation of the forest.

14-May-2016 09:41:23 - Last edited on 18-Jul-2016 11:29:28 by tmac attack

tmac attack

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"It’s just north of this lake, my lady,” he said, “it may be hard to tell, but I’m certain we are close." It wasn’t hard, in fact. The air was scented with charcoal and smoke, something was burning not far from the lake.

There was a soft wind, faint as a whisper. The waves made a steady splashing wet sound that was strangely quiet. Cecilia posed her hand up in a kind of graceful order to quiet Aeran, “Do you feel it? Something stirs in the earth. A humming sound.”

Kastiero decided he heard no such ‘humming’. “I don’t quite know what I hear. You may be deluding yourself. What I know is that we must carry on swiftly. I would not like to linger about this place,” he scanned wearily about, “we’re to leave immediately after this investigation.”

“Is that understood?” he commanded an answer. The Templar echoed his father’s coarseness.

But, as the last words left his mouth, the earth shook at his feet so violently that he was nearly thrown to the ground. The quake sent rippled disturbances through the calm lake waters, causing waves to reel angrily along the stony coasts and the great trunks of trees to creak agonizingly as they shook back and forth.

He caught himself, but then a second tremble came, this one shorter but more acute than the first. He knelt involuntarily, bracing himself by forcing his gauntlet into the soil.

The chaos was suddenly at end. Aeran pounced immediately to his feet, solar cannon alive and ready to fire. The barrel gleamed with a fiery gold light, the crystals whirring in an illuminative unison.

" Cecilia ?" he called forth urgently. The quake had shaken his voice. No riposte came. Rather the wind answered for her, it seemed, with a howling, malevolent breeze that ripped through the forest and into the lake clearing. It carried whispers with it.

14-May-2016 09:41:23 - Last edited on 18-Jul-2016 11:31:12 by tmac attack

tmac attack

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It took little frantic searching to realize he was alone. The daughter of Victor Solaras was nowhere to be found. As to how she vanished so abruptly was in itself enigmatic. Gods, this is a disaster. The girl vanishes on me in the worst manner possible.

The sunfire-forged blade rang magnificently as he drew it, alive with dancing golden fire that burned like a lighthouse through a sea of darkness. A thousand hot tiny filaments of heated conduits were hidden in the blade’s strangely shimmering metal work, hot from eating up the sun. And so was the great sword, it looked on verge of catching a flame it ran with such a hot golden red.

Gusts of strong winds responded once more. His crimson cloak beat in its wake. The sharpness of it felt like sharp needles cutting into his eyes, and scornful, whispering voices seemed to echo in and out of its cacophonous whistling.

Forward he went. Thick forest brush and tangles of thorny ironberry vines were crushed in the wake of his burning heavy armor. Aeran kept sword on guard and traveled at full pace. His cannon yielded a white piercing searchlight that projected itself onto an ever growing blackness. It was his only aid to vision.

The autumn night brought an ever cooling air, but his skin was hot and sticky with sweat under thick layers of plated Templar gear and the black undersheath plastered to his body. The whispers bid him follow, voices curling through mazes of black verticals. They wanted to hurt him, to break his spirit. And they grew louder still.

14-May-2016 09:41:24 - Last edited on 18-Jul-2016 11:32:45 by tmac attack

tmac attack

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Earthquakes frequented the northern half of the Republic, but this—this felt unnatural, and fearful more was the meteorite’s proximity. Did this dark object create such a violent quake? As to how, he had no such answer. Yet it seemed too make more sense than anything he reckoned.

There wasn’t a shred of evidence in the forest that would indicate the daughter of Victor Solaras had been present, yet Sirr Aeran held zero doubts of her whereabouts. The crash site was nigh. As he ventured forth, cool air grew warm, then warmer—hot, even, and the twigs and frail leaves that littered the ground diminished, and there was a black ash that took its place.

He finally emerged onto a receding tree line, and the impact of concaved earth that breathed hot, gaseous fumes was before him. Surrounding branches had been scorched to shriveled black, the ground carpeted with släg and charcoal while little orange embers fluttered about in the open scar of forest.

Granted it was a small carving into the earth. There were no skidding marks of something falling fast from the sky and ripping miles and miles through terrain. This was but a single mark with no trailing tail, a perfect circle of fire that had plunged into the Arthland as a pebble would fall vertically from a hand to break the stillness of a pond.

The cannon's light beam yielded a cavern of sorts when aimed into the hollowed earth. Aeran had seen craters from falling meteors when he had passed closely over Aercal on the Templar’s Golden Fleet, and this was not one. At least it wasn’t one now, had it been before. There was an elaborate depth to it, it was commodious and reached far into the pits of the underworld like a hundred rivers. Tunnels. He thought it absurd. What is this? Since leaving the city, all matters of this “meteorite” and Cecilia’s intrigue with it had ceased not to grow stranger and stranger. Then the thought came.

14-May-2016 09:41:24 - Last edited on 18-Jul-2016 11:33:47 by tmac attack

tmac attack

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Did something make these tunnels? There were several, far too many to regard as natural, jutting out in some dozen paths that slivered through rock and sediment.

Then his beam light echoed a reflection as he scanned the hollows. The familiar markings of Sunreign’s flaming sun and the words of the Republic confirmed his suspicions. The golden tome lay abandoned, opened sloppily with its pages crooked and torn in the dirt.

Armored boots met the ground with a metal clunk. Standing straight and traversing dim walls with his searchlight, Aeran was half-tempted to shout for the girl. But he also had half a mind to acknowledge the foolishness in such an act. If this was a matter of predator-prey, the unforgiving mistake of revealing his position would be mortally punishing. Yet, there was no greater cowardice and sin in the order of Templars than to abandon a forsaken ally.
Dangling roots decorated the ceiling as flakes of loose soil fell here and there, and the air had a stench of moist earth and mud. And smoke.

And it was burning hot. Thick beads of sweat trickled down his brow and the air was hot even in his lungs as he inhaled. A honeycomb of dugout tunnels beckoned for him, wide enough for four men to walk abreast. There were three or so that traveled directly south with but the slightest angle—he’d likely slide more than walk down those halls. Others were entirely horizontal, or extended at seemingly random directions: one at forty degrees from the plain, another perhaps sixty degrees, then thirty, both downward and atop and right and left and so forth. The place could have been comparable to an enlarged ant tunnel.

She had to have chosen one, though. A damp ground would have been accepting of foot impressions, and this ground was amply humid. The searchlight provided him his answer—a tubular hallway that dropped ever so slightly was marked with the lightest brand of boot prints.

14-May-2016 09:41:24 - Last edited on 18-Jul-2016 09:46:21 by tmac attack

tmac attack

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Let it be known that few walked with the feathered grace of Cecilia Solaras.

Powerful as the searchlight may have been, it failed even to touch ends with the cavity—Sirr Aeran cringed at the sheer length as the glowing beam of his cannon was swallowed into nothing. The tunnel was very long, he knew that much. As to how long he could not say. Walking in the repeating films of thick tree roots that looked like massive ribs and the steady whoosh of a hot gust padding his skin, he was nearly convinced he would walk this hall for eternity. The closer he believed to be in sight of the end, the darkness bettered him evermore.

It was her echo that indicated some change in direction. It carried through and around a bend—he hurried to track it. She was speaking to someone, something aloud. The words were too faint to make out.

The bend produced yet a second identical cavity of excavated gravel and dirt. This one though was hotter still. Black strands of hair plastered against his wet forehead and the back of his neck. Everything was so hot, he thought it a true blessing of his capability of commanding the sun’s fire, as this heat exhaustion would surely kill a man.

Then the path was at halt. He aimed the searchlight into a sudden depression that emerged—straight down into the earth this one went, sinking deeper and deeper into the darkness of the planet.

Words evaporated from its depths—the same tongue heard prior, foreign and ominous. The only way was down. He confirmed the length with his searchlight and braced himself before impact.

Hydraulic buffers constructed into his armor permitted him the freedom to execute such lengthy falls. The mobility was a blessing—and a curse now, he told himself, assisting him in this grave search. His heavy armored sabatons released that mechanical wheeze of pressurized air from the chambers of its plating when they found ground.

14-May-2016 09:41:25 - Last edited on 18-Jul-2016 09:47:25 by tmac attack

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~¤×¤×An Eschaton's Gambit¤×¤×~