forums.rs

Forums

The Maw from Whence they Came

Quick find code: 49-50-801-65845929

of 4
tmac attack

tmac attack

Posts: 444 Silver Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
"His Majesty sent this to your father?" Ceth studied the fine detail on the decanter, grazing it with his finger. "Royal work, and extraordinarily done. A common man would practically have struck gold getting his hands on this. Consider that, eh? Say some ass-scratching gutter-rat happens upon this bottle in the dim night streets of town. What do you reckon he'd do?"

"A foolish man would drink it. A wise one would sell it, turn his profit into some fruitful maybe," said Marcus, "but you know how we are. Some men readily indulge and some are shrewd visionaries, the impulsive man and the cautionary man who bides his time, tends to his sweet crop until it grows grand and great. Therein is the greatest divide of character in our kind," the draw from the pipe was of such capacious volume it brought him to hard coughing.

"King's ass, Ceth, rubbish curing job." He laughed about it afterwards. The spiced leaf had made him ponderous. In the Arthlands, the capital folk would say "gentlemen's frond." Yet despite the 45,000 light years which lay between here and the King's domain, it had retained the same namesake. Ceth and the botanist division of the Lightways Institute had developed their own stock of the plant, breeding their own flavors and manipulating the gene pool to procure ever exotic aromas and tastes. He produced a new batch every turn of a new moon.

"The shrewd visionary's bound to buy himself a fair bit of indulgence come the end of his work," Ceth insisited, "what ought a man do when he has accumulated such wealth? He adorns himself in fine clothes, buys a healthy cut of land in the country, stacks it with novel servant golems attending to his every whim. When he sinks into his warm seat by the hearth, and drinks his mulled wine with Cortellie's 4th Symphony sounding quietly by in the corner of his den, he will taste it right then... a harmless joy. What else must he owe, yet triumph in this scarcely found treasure?"

27-Oct-2016 21:16:07 - Last edited on 24-Nov-2016 00:58:15 by tmac attack

tmac attack

tmac attack

Posts: 444 Silver Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
"I suppose I don't know," Marcus brooded. He glanced over at the elk cyborg behind the glass panel, a flashing, luminous metal skeleton interlaced with fibers and pliable filaments wrought in the shape of an elk. It was his child in some sense, a fruit of his labor. "Legacy. Else wise I fear his entire endeavor was in vain."

Ceth blinked at him, barely suppressing a frown. "When's the last you've taken your serum?" he asked.

Marcus could not blame his dear friend for inquiring. He had labored into the night and labored unto dawn, but every second was sweet to Marcus, a precious commodity. Yet he could not deny how tiresome it had been, and his eyes had grown rheumy and sank like a weary old man's, and he had not supped nor broke his fast. He must have looked thin as paper. "On my own accord, dear friend," he took a deep breath, settled himself into the finely carved iron oak seat. The college interior was, suffice to say, defined exclusively by grace and sophistication. "It is my understanding you have seen the crew of this newly arrived trading galley. That's why you've come, I suspect. To tell me of it."

"I think it would mean a great deal to you, Marcus," Ceth withdrew the pipe, suddenly serious, "truly, I have never observed so foreign and unnatural an affliction," he went on. The room grew very still.

Marcus could not help but notice an edge to his words, a countenance that not so far from nervousness. Or, he thought, perhaps Ceth was being only pensive. "Why is it so peculiar?"

"I had hoped you would find that answer for yourself. I fear it exceeds my profession," Ceth replied. "One quality beyond disregard was the aspect about this man, this kapetan. There are a dozen others within. Crewmen, mostly, one of which is the kapetan's son. Yet for a trader whose goods have been purloined, I could not fathom more sedated a man than one who has found the Lord Brother.

27-Oct-2016 21:16:07 - Last edited on 24-Nov-2016 00:58:36 by tmac attack

tmac attack

tmac attack

Posts: 444 Silver Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
He saunters about the quarantine as calm as autumn air, as if his affliction has been openly embraced."

Marcus dragged the pipe unto its end, until the embers vanished like candlelight. It crackled the way dry twigs would over a nightly fire. He placed it down and rose to his feet slowly. "The dean has been spending a great deal of time with him. " Mr. Allice Chambers was the kind of sir in which every gentlemen passerby was wont to tip their hat to, the kind of sir fair wives of esteemed generals would blush and fashion their fans at. Every conversation Marcus could recall engaging in with the dean was never short of pleasant and insightful. An easy man to speak to. And yet, Marcus felt he knew nothing of him, he was a distant shadow who ruled this grand place, this towering foundation of knowledge in the heart of First Heavensfall. He was sharp of mind, and there was not much he failed to see.

"I do believe so, though as to what was procured upon this ship's inspection I can say naught. A silence has taken them up, your father and his circle," Ceth brought his drink to its end and stood as well. He grasped Marcus's shoulder. "Ah, but do not permit these queer descriptions to unnerve you. Lie down for a while. You look pale as a ghost."

"Of course," Marcus feigned a grin. His aches and cramps had stolen up on him through the night, and now he could see the soft, fragile blue of his veins underneath frail skin. "I believe you have work to do yourself," he said.

"We fly south on the morrow, before the storm comes. There is a species of fungus that has shown incredible promise, a fine collection it would be to the genome archive. It holds an enzyme structured such that is appears entirely resilient to below freezing temperatures. Speculative, but... we are very excited," he went for the door, "Mr. Wroth," he bowed and shut the door, vanishing into the halls of the college.

27-Oct-2016 21:36:31 - Last edited on 24-Nov-2016 00:59:10 by tmac attack

tmac attack

tmac attack

Posts: 444 Silver Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
When all was quiet and lonely, Marcus began the cycle. The serum was stocked in two places in the entire town. His room in his father's mansion, and this very room, a study room Mr. Chambers had endowed to him for his "godsent work". He opened a grand drawer, and a platform eased its way out on its own, heralding rows upon rows of neatly stacked inoculations. Under their glass shone a serum the color of cyan, and the needle each protruded was as long as a finger.

It always hurt when it entered his gut. Not the needle, no, but the liquid, a thick, viscous material that would dissolve in the warmth of his blood. This time hurt as much as the first time, difference that he learned to prepare himself. He watched that glowing blue vanish into his body as he pushed down the injection, wincing slightly. Then it was done, he set the needle down, and fell back into the comfort of his seat. Aches receded. An acute headache turned to a mild hazy sensation; in an hour it would vanish entirely.

Man was something else in First Heavensfall. The passage of centuries had seen to that. Time had passed and man had changed with it, taller by a foot, and prone to build weight and muscle to fight off the cold. A commoner from the Arthlands may find himself staring up at his counterparts here in the King's first colony. In the days of the first Heavensfolk, it was a matter of survival, where those whose bodies gave way to the pernicious hardships of this world fell away, and the early days of the Lightsway Institute and its grand genetic manipulation projects bred a lot of humans as hardened as harsh as the earth they inhabited. "Nature's wrath is the great test of the Lord Brother against us," Mr. Chambers had described once in sermon, "and yet he bestows us with these grand minds, fixed on accomplishment, begging us to unleash this tool to combat his trial."

24-Nov-2016 00:59:35 - Last edited on 24-Nov-2016 01:00:10 by tmac attack

tmac attack

tmac attack

Posts: 444 Silver Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Yet it came with consequences. Ailments had come about, disfigurements and mutations as generations sprang up, struggling to cope with the nuances of this foreign world, its microbes, its cycles. For Marcus, the sickness was dystrophy of the body. His sisters had grown fulsome and healthy, his brothers as strong and sharp as the finest soldiers. Yet his own had grown frail as paper, his bones ached interminably, and some days his muscles felt so heavy and tiresome it became a toilsome feat to crawl out of bed. But few people knew that, and he intended it to remain such.

It was past time to shut down. He engaged a control that set his cyborg elk to idol mode, for the brain harvested had all the needed compounds and nutrients and electric signals to keep it as lively as if its vessel was made of meat. He decided he'd finish the installation of the motley of other internal organs in due time. With Lightsway tech, any organ was preservable for years, and an adept scholar could boast even decades with the right procedure.

Midday had struck when he stepped outside the huge metal gates of Lightways Institute, and a brisk wind was there to greet him. It was said the storm was coming in slowly, but its arrival would bring with it brutal winds and a blanket of raging snow and ice that would envelop the town. So, the Dome would be lifted, and from one edge of First Heavensfall to the other would this transparent shield cover leagues upon leagues of settled land. Only certain ships would be permitted entry or departure, military craft or the governor's own entourage. Trading galleys from the stars would have to make port at the outlying fortress of Clouds Reach, their goods shipped underground from the huge magnetic train networks carved through this cold world.

24-Nov-2016 00:59:35 - Last edited on 24-Nov-2016 01:00:28 by tmac attack

tmac attack

tmac attack

Posts: 444 Silver Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Every three of their years a hard winter would freeze their world in time. It would creep slowly on them at first, the autumn valleys of red and bronze and the gentle green moors dotted by the faintest coat of a light falling snow. Then she would grow, turning this holy ground as white as purity, and with her came a handful of blizzards so powerful that a ship not properly equipped would be swatted out of the sky like an insect.

Marcus began his walk to his father's mansion from the Academia Quarter, strolling into the busy streets of First Heavensfall. Merchants advertised the latest gadgets and goods from afar upon their glimmering platforms, their flashing bots displaying neon lighted bargain prices. Wives chatted about to their husbands on marbled patios between spiced coffee, and even at this hour, revelry and laughter sounded from the taverns as soldiers off duty and laborers alike convened to trade tales and speak of war and tidings. Pale sunlight glimmered off the hoarfrost of the street oaks, and the scents of earth and industry mingled in the air.

And through all and out, the occasion would come where a passerby would give Marcus a heartfelt smile, or a "good day", or even as far as an extended thanks. It was a courtesy beyond classical expectation for the son of the governor, for he had done these individuals the dearest of services, changed many a life here.

"Oh, my sweet boy!" Mrs. Steiner grabbed at his cheeks with tender hands wrapped in the softest black silk as he passed her in the King's Quarter surrounded by other marvelously garbed ladies of statesmen. Her husband, the Commissioner of Law Lord Aldric Steiner, had come some eight years ago from Highfort Haven, 30,000 light years away under the sovereignty of the Twelve Duchies. Up to the elbow was his arm lost in a firefight that nearly claimed his life, a barely failed coup staged by the Shadow Hand to remove Duke Morzhelm. The Steiner's fled and never deigned to look back.

24-Nov-2016 00:59:36 - Last edited on 24-Nov-2016 01:00:49 by tmac attack

tmac attack

tmac attack

Posts: 444 Silver Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Now, Mr. Steiner proudly held a role within Victor Wroth's circle, and from elbow down did a mechanical arm move as a nearly perfect facsimile to its fleshy predecessor, owed entirely to the work of Marcus.

"Madam Burke," she urged to a small, courtly woman with a soft, blemished face. Mrs. Steiner's accent was laced with the rough pronunciations of a citizen from the duchies. "This is the strapping young gentlemen I was referring to. The son of the good governor."

"My sincerest pleasure," Marcus said, kissing Mrs. Burke's hand. The women wore huge curved headdresses, jet black, with elaborate cockades of black feathers and a decorative nosegay of black and blue roses. Fine sable collars draped their shoulders over tight black corsets with a whirling bustle at their hips that spun as they moved like a bird's plumage. "I swear it, he does the Lord Brother's work," Mrs. Steiner went on, enthusiastic as she grabbed Marcus's arm as if he was her own son, "a blessing of a young man. My dear Aldric thought himself a cripple for life before Marcus took him up. Oh, the dreadful, long travel through the stars to come here... he was struck heartbroken, Madam Burke. And now, he says he can hardly tell the difference, such life his new arm moves with. A godly boy Marcus is, truly," Marcus could see the tears swell up in her eyes. She got worked up like this every time the subject was brought in.

Mrs. Burke, however, appeared delighted, "I do so apologize, Marcus," Mrs. Steiner said, gathering herself. She turned to Mrs. Burke and smiled. "This is the wife of Major-General Willem Burke. An old friend of your fathers, I do believe. They hail all the way from the capital, can you fathom? The trip..."

"I must say, dear boy, conversation on Lightsway Institute in the capital is not without great curiosity and intrigue," Mrs. Burke said. There was intent behind her stare. She had pretty, green eyes like olives.

"We are in the business of intrigue, madam," he replied.

24-Nov-2016 00:59:36 - Last edited on 24-Nov-2016 01:01:10 by tmac attack

tmac attack

tmac attack

Posts: 444 Silver Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
"Yes...some of our more scripture-bound zealots back at the capital may call it heresy. But the market shall ever lean towards progress, I daresay," she played with the curls in her hair. Marcus scarcely heard about that queer sect in the capital, but they were there. The oldest of the faith of Harvest. To them, flesh was not meant to wed machine.

"They are in the business of misinterpretation, I fear," said Marcus, grinning at the notion.

"My dear child, your vested interest may point you back to the Arthlands. The academic fever found in the Imperial College, why, let us say you'd feel right at home. Three square miles the school covers, and I hear just as far underground. Before we departed months prior, well, a bird perhaps tweeted into my ear a sweet serenade of something very clandestine in the making, somewhere in the halls of that facility. Oh, but I would fail miserably in portraying that to you. Perhaps one day my husband may be so kind."

That was curious. Books and recordings were his only insight into the world of the Imperial College, the grandest of institutions perhaps in all of the star systems. "Madam Burke, your withholding on this matter torments me."

She seemed amused by that and laughed. "Dear child, you must bare it, I'm afraid. A woman flapping her gums about these covert academic projects... I'd be spilling secrets of the state, now wouldn't I?"

"In good faith, madam. It'd be me you're spilling these secrets to, and I make the best of secrets. And those who share them with me. Madam Burke, I must remark, you have exceptional eyes. I could not fathom what faults the Major-General could ever dare observe whilst espying you. I have worked the craft of beauty before, you may know. Some come to me with qualms and fits about their faces, too large a nose, a slope of the jaw they'd rather be larger or sharper or smaller, and, humbly, I have satisfied each and every one of them.

24-Nov-2016 00:59:36 - Last edited on 24-Nov-2016 01:01:32 by tmac attack

tmac attack

tmac attack

Posts: 444 Silver Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Yet I would be brought to madness were you to arrive at my study displeased with yourself."

"Oh," proper as she was, Mrs. Burke reddened under her smile, "my dear, your flattery," she chuckled shyly, "Mr. Burke would be enraged to hear it," she leaned in to whisper, "he's a bit deficient on the poetic side, I fear. Some gentlemen have tongues of silver, but his is as cold as the cruelest iron. Oh, but you don't have to worry about that, now do you?"

"At times to my own detriment. My ladies, a pleasure as always speaking with you. I'm afraid I must go chase after my father. Madam Burke, please, I do pray you enjoy your stay in First Heavensfall. A tad chillier than the capital's likeness, but I assure you, its sweet spots will come to you in good time. If you should need me, my lady, just look for that ugly spire poking out from the skyline. We were never too keen on the grandiose architecture you may find back home. Good day," with that, he bowed and strolled his way towards the outlying streets, where the town grew quiet.

24-Nov-2016 00:59:37 - Last edited on 24-Nov-2016 01:01:46 by tmac attack

Quick find code: 49-50-801-65845929 Back to Top