RuneScape Forum Archive | The Maw from Whence they Came

tmac attack

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For a moment, the mutiny fever was in the air. Rorj remained silent, Baines the same. Cleye’s trigger finger itched. If it came to that, he’d be on the master-at-arms side without hesitation--this what not a place he could tolerate to remain in.

“The rat’s final trick is played,” Greesnworth drew out a stone from the wall, and pale light shone through.

The kapetan lifted his grand rifle and raised two fingers. “Breach and clear. Shoot to kill.” They positioned themselves safely from the wall, pairs parallel. Disciple fired off twin compression missiles, and the wall broke in an avalanche of earth and stone. A dangerous choice, risking a cave collapse, but Baines was relentless. The golem charged in, and sent flares in a thousand directions to blind the enemy. The four followed hindmost with aim and all. Cleye’s heart pounded with such ferocity it felt wont to burst from his chest. What would be there, what would he see? His eyes were fixed through his rifle’s glowing scope, and figures and lights on the inside of his visor shot waves of numbers in his sight.

No deserters awaited them. The flare smoke drew to the ceiling like ghost fog. It was, suffice to say, a cavern of immense volume, stretching without end it seemed. Walls on either side felt so distant. A light poured in from a thousand directions. Blinding, almost. The air tasted of metal.

27-Oct-2016 20:47:45 - Last edited on 28-Oct-2016 04:38:37 by tmac attack

tmac attack

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It had the faint appearance of a tree. Roots coiled and twisted and twined from its ancient, black trunk. From the ceiling it came, the shining light above, a godsent. So many, every wall had one, and the flooring was dominated by the coilings roots surging up like curling black snakes. It glowed a brilliant green, a plague color. A sound came from it, a fluctuating bellow that accompanied the flicker of this ghastly green. Something alive, something stirred.

“Lord’s sake…” Rorj’s voice trailed off in the vastness.

Baines approached in careful steps.

There were faces in the trees. Intertwined into the branches and roots, married as one. Some protrusions resembled an arm there, a leg over here, entire bodies fused into the bark like some foul experiment.

Cleye could not say why he approached. Curiosity, or fear so deep it drove him to the brink of madness. But he did, lost in the sight. It seemed the squadron was struck scared into silence.

“ Radiation detected in lethal quantities ,” Disciple declared with objective calmness. A shockwave broke the air. A twinkle of prisms, rainbow and crystalline, blinded them. Time did not operate in proper accord right then, Cleye helplessly sensed, things were hazy, events indistinguishable from their own predecessor and heir. There was a ringing then.

The sound of Greensworth screaming in all manner of unequivocal terror filled the air. Cleye turned suddenly to see the man lifted in the air as effortlessly as a ragdoll .raging pillar of horns ripping through his armor, fringed in his blood and gore. It had a thousand eyes, a hundred thousand, great orbs of yellow with a black slit that screamed damnation. The tentacles, horned and spiked… an army snaking around in a furious swarm. Rorj fired, his rifle screaming blue plasma. “Take it down!” Baines fired off volleys from his massive rifle. Metallic flavors burned Cleye’s tongue so furiously he felt his mouth caught aflame.

27-Oct-2016 20:47:45 - Last edited on 02-Nov-2016 17:31:42 by tmac attack

tmac attack

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He aimed and deployed ample fire upon the grotesques until his weapon ran hot as fire. Disciple unleashed flaming missiles without restraint. It was all deafening flares, screaming hot fluorescence billowing in all directions. The beast let out a monstrous bellow that shattered Cleye’s spirit into shards of glass.It was all deafening flares, screaming hot fluorescence billowing in all directions. The beast let out a monstrous bellow that shattered Cleye’s spirit into shards of glass.

They came in from behind. Those of the Roots, an endless armada of sickly, ghastly figures that radiated a tremendous blinding light from their cores. Baines met them ferociously, shooting without mercy. He seared one to a hot crisp, a second, a third. A fourth came to melee, and he crushed it with his gauntlet. Scores of them rushed in return. Cleye downed them in chunks, cleared a cartridge, loaded in his second, and cleared that one as well. Green eyes blotted his vision, a thousand of them in every direction.

“The ship, Cleye! The damn ship!” Rorj called out, slashing down a root man with his fire blade. Then he was grabbed, and swarmed, a dozen hands tearing into his flesh.

It was all heavy breaths and a world of black flying by. He was retracing their entry in full haste, tripping on grabbing roots and uneven rocks. His breaths grew short, wheezing at every attempt. He felt so close as cool air rushed in to greet him, the soft wet kisses of new rainfall. He would have to fly, he would have to fly very far away.

The taste of metal was on his tongue. Something cruel and unloving coiled his ankle and swallowed him in the maw of blackness.

27-Oct-2016 21:16:04 - Last edited on 28-Oct-2016 04:43:22 by tmac attack

tmac attack

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HIS MAJESTY'S DIVINE PROVINCE OF FIRST HEAVENSFALL

There was a serenity about the snowy pale that made for a good hunt. The governor's ship set out from sky-harbor at the first of daylight and descended twelve leagues into the cold wild, a dozen men in his escort. A prospector's golem had snapped shots of a grand pack of snow elk but two nights prior, some bearing as many as thirty points, and he had done the fine courtesy of conferring this sighting to his lordship. The townsfolk were jointly aware of the good Governor Victor Wroth's fondness for enriching the contents of his hearth mountings.

Underneath frozen briers by an ice lake somewhere in the far loneliness of First Heavenfall's hinterlands, the governor's rifle clicked as he engaged the bolt handle. Lord Victor had brought it ceremonially from its resting place above the fireplace of the governor's mansion, polished and slick as marble and nearly long as a man was tall. Through the scope, the largest of the herd looked a proper bull, regal and thick with muscle, unawares entirely of the uninvited company shrouded amongst the snow dressed tree lines and twisted shrub. Lord Victor would tolerate a party only of which could be counted upon a man's hand to trek the final miles of their day long tracking. Five in all, no more. "Keep the guardsmen at camp with the ship," he had decreed before setting out, "there is sufficient ale."

A faint wind had been blowing, and would certainly recur, so he fired. When he shot, the sound of his rifle reverberated through the vast emptiness of the valley. Murders of ice crows retreated from frozen branches, a hundred black dots against the sky. Upon impact, the herd dispersed in dramatic fashion and the great bull suddenly labored against a bloody limp.

27-Oct-2016 21:16:05 - Last edited on 24-Nov-2016 00:54:14 by tmac attack

tmac attack

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"A proper shot, milord," the kapetan of the governor's guard George Greymon observed.

"You broke its hind leg," Brutus grinned through the binoculars. He was the eldest of the good Wroth children, thirty-four and the tallest of them.

Lord Victor stood up from prone and brushed off new snowfall from his overcoat. "Come now. Better a quick death."

They found the elk huddled beneath a huge everbronze tree with huge gnarling roots coiling through the soil. It seemed not to note them, or perhaps in the midst of its dying it did not care for them. Blood seeped from the wound, soaked up by its thick grizzled winter coat that shone bright as pearls. Lord Victor knelt by the beast and opened its throat with a huge, cruel hunting dagger that glimmered in the pale sunlight.

Brutus looked the elken over and nodded. "Prayer?"

"When we return. For now, in silence," his father swung the rifle over his body and grasped the bull by its massive antlers. "Help your father carry the good beast."

Marcus watched closely with passive intrigue whilst they labored with the animal, gathering his furs closer to fight off the chill. He was the youngest of the Wroth children, tall and thin with hair as soft as silk and white as winter.

"The largest yet, lord governor," Kapetan Greymon announced, "truly, they seem to grow larger still with every passing season."

"Aye," Brutus and his father secured the bull's ankles to the metal braces of a sturdy steel rod, then lifted. "They've roamed south as of late," the governor went on, "It's a cruel cold."

"May be the storm brewin' up," Victor's armorer Giles Steel added, a grizzled man with thick barrels for arms and a full black beard fringed with ice. He was an old and dear friend to Lord Wroth. "23rd Air reconnoitered on the morning, flying beyond the Pale Fingers. Said the town would be snowed in a fortnight. Milord, surely I can assist," he hurried towards, but Victor raised a hand in refusal.

27-Oct-2016 21:16:05 - Last edited on 24-Nov-2016 00:54:32 by tmac attack

tmac attack

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As befit a man of his stature, it was commonplace for a chamberlain golem to attend the service of a lord. Jolly old machines they were, hard-pressed to serve and capable of much to spare a man hard labor. But Lord Victor would not have it--his chamberlain remained at mansion, for the governor was to carry his prize on his own feet, two miles in knee-high snow aided only by his eldest son. He called it a pious man's labor.

They marched across a barren field, silent as the snow. Faint winds tugged at their cloaks and a red sun crept behind distant mountains yonder. When they arrived at camp, amber liquid fire was waning against an encroaching dark violet in the sky. Twilight was impending.

His men were set out beneath the ship's thermalized-awning that glistened a silvery-blue, and they had raised a pair of spherule heat towers to huddle around for warmth whilst they drank and spoke. It was very cold. Yet there was much laud and praise from the lord governor's guard upon spotting him rise above the hill line, that huge white beast swaying heavily between him and his son.

"Marcus," his father called, the same hunting dagger in his hand. Marcus was to observe the entire ordeal, by request. The elk had been suspended vertically in their clinic chamber, and the lord governor had skinned away the white winter coat from neck down, using a drainage apparatus which pulled the blood from the beast and stored it in chilled vials. The coat was given to Kapetan Greymon. "We shall have these laced with filament, they shall make good for our warmth," he had told the kapetan. "Nothing to waste."

The drainage procedure was done in rapid haste. Then he cut nimbly by quartering, taking the front shoulders and hind legs, then the neck meat, proceeded by the tenderloins, his son at hand collecting each cut and preserving it in cooled fumigated caches, all until it was but bone and organ.

27-Oct-2016 21:16:06 - Last edited on 24-Nov-2016 00:55:00 by tmac attack

tmac attack

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"Which ones?" the governor had finally asked Marcus after the brief labor, sweat lining his brow. He motioned to the motley of innards with his knife.

Marcus was not his brother, suffice to say. His craft was knick-work and the study of the nature of flesh. It was no recurring feat that a member of the college would be given chance to sample an organism. These were the wildlands, the colonies, and these worlds were far from conquered. He was not made of the stuff his father and eldest brother were of, not once had he fired a weapon. Though, he was never rueful for the lack thereof.

"The heart, without a doubt," he began, examining the organic contents. The heart was removed, a huge swollen sangria sac with tendrils and tubes hanging limply. It was sealed in an airtight chamber that would remove every microbe prone to accelerate the decaying process.

"Liver," he went on, "the lung systems... here yes, in this chamber, father... ah, excellent." His countenance was pleased. The brain required particularly careful work."The stomach will be of great use. And the intestinal lining." Time went on and he listed organ after organ in which he would require for his studies, and by the time all was harvested and the elk was a hollow shell of its former self, bone in place and spare flesh strings curling from the parts not needed by the young collegian, there ship went forth into the night.

Lord Victor led a modest prayer whilst they rode. He had a fond, slow way of reciting from the scripture, natural and pleasant to hearken to in its own right. First Heavensfall held to the Lord Brother and his Writ of Harvest. He was a stern god, as it was said, but a lawful god, and his trio of sisters fell beneath him in the gyrating cycle of birth and life and termination. Within the governor's ship, their quarters were dimly lit, fluorescent blue light coruscating off their shadow-clad faces.

27-Oct-2016 21:16:06 - Last edited on 24-Nov-2016 00:55:43 by tmac attack

tmac attack

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"Her woeful wandering is interminable," he began under the low droning of the engine, "and holds upon it a great and arduous burden in which mankind is deeply endowed into the prosperity of. The Reaping Widow is solemn in her work, endless and rigorous." These men given in quiet prayer held to the belief that come death, all things return to the Necropolis, an endless cemetery bearing the souls of all things passed. Yet from these graves come tender crop, and she ambles through these eerie mists, the Reaping Widow, and sows from this eternal harvest to herald life anew.

"A vessel has come, lord governor, bearing strange tidings," were the first words Lord Victor received upon entering through the huge oak doors of the governor's mansion, the Commandant of Orbit Aeran Raymore awaiting him. It was a lone adobe, perched upon a quiet hillside that shot a full view of the city below. Marcus had returned to the college quarters, eager to observe the organs of this newly slain bull. Brutus had resigned to the barracks at Cloud Reach to endure yet another week of drills and penitence. Outside, nightfall had settled soundly within the streets. A heavy wind had been howling since their arrival, spelling out the distant storm.

Three men accompanied Commandant Raymore. Two were officers, but the third marked Lord Victor as a peculiar presence. It was the dean of the college, a tall and sharp faced and immaculately dressed Mr. Allice Chambers. The graceful and elegant Madam Cera Wroth, garbed in auburn furs over her sleeping silks, embraced the governor and kissed his cheek.

"My darling," she said, her soft green eyes meeting his dark, deep set stare. She felt frightened i his arms. Around him, the men wielded expressions that suggested something awry.

"Gentlemen," Victor addressed mildly, still holding Cera in his arms.

"Lord Wroth, sooner I would have sent word to your ship, but it heralds bad omens to disturb the hunt," Commandant Raymore smiled thinly.

27-Oct-2016 21:16:06 - Last edited on 24-Nov-2016 00:56:15 by tmac attack

tmac attack

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"Sit, Victor, please," Cera urged as she walked him to the chair. Weary, Victor settled himself into a great velvet chair carved in brilliant bright everbronze that faced the hearth. "Tell me." He said softly. There was snow on his huge slate governor's trench coat, glinting in the firelight.

"A merchant galley, passing through the Forlorn," the Commandant began, "raiders seized its merchandise, I fear."

Lord Victor gave pause, then turned to the dean. "A curiosity, Mr. Chambers?" He could see something in the man, an unease that tread fearful waters.

"My lord governor, a probing was brought in great haste to me regarding the nature of this crew's plight. The good commandant here apprised me himself in urgency." Mr. Chambers rubbed ponderously on the white hairs that lined his great beard, "in my observation, I could solely procure the members of this ship are afflicted with an extraordinary ... ailment, I venture to say. One profoundly immersed in scientific inquiry."

27-Oct-2016 21:16:06 - Last edited on 24-Nov-2016 00:56:31 by tmac attack

tmac attack

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MARCUS

"Gentlemen's frond, perhaps?" asked Ceth Dartmore as he entered Marcus's study room. He produced his pipe, a man's head carved elaborately in His Majesty's likeness.

"My good sir," Marcus indulged with his own, a blue crystalline eye crowning a spiraling helix. The leaf Ceth had brought smelt of dried piney brush and exotic spice.

"Come, see how it moves." Marcus's fingers graced a kaleidoscopic console. The mechanical snout stirred, eyes twitched, ears fluttered.

"You've robbed the Sisters of their work," Dartmore grinned, trails of vapor dancing like snakes from his lips. Marcus had known the young man since they were but toddlers, playing war in the gardens of the Wroth mansion courtyard during the gentle autumns. He was a botanist, an herbalist and field-worker upon First Heavensfall's complex web of floral life.

"But a detour, I'd daresay. The Widow will always have her reaping perforce. She has a way with always having what's hers, one way or the other," Marcus smiled thinly, played at another iridescent button with his thumb. A jaw opened and closed.

"It's hideous," Ceth announced, "give the old boy some skin, I do think he's shivering." He poured honey whiskey into a glass.

"In time. Every organ must function unerringly, first, in full rhythm. Akin to conducting an ensemble, perhaps, no single note can come a beat too late nor early, less the concert becomes a dreadful performance."

"Such poetry you speak, Mr. Wroth," Ceth said, blatantly sardonic.

"You are the most capricious of cunts," Marcus disengaged the console and poured from the elegant crystalline decanter of whiskey into his own glass, his sixth of the nightly routine. "Blessings of the king," he flashed the beverage and took a good long gulp.

27-Oct-2016 21:16:07 - Last edited on 24-Nov-2016 00:57:43 by tmac attack

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The Maw from Whence they Came