RuneScape Forum Archive | The Oracle of ScapeRune

WolfLord7777

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It smashed into the pair of men stationed there, resolving itself as a man, clad in black and grey and sending the crates they had been crouching behind flying and all but shredding them in a flurry of stabs and slashes from a pair of black-bladed knives wielded expertly in his hands.

There was a second’s pause, barely more than a heartbeat, when nothing seemed to happen. Then the man was streaking towards the next two men, blades spinning and blurring in his hands. Bullets raked the ground near him, but none hit him. A pair of black streaks flew from his hands, and suddenly two more of his men smashed into the walls of the houses bordering the street, pinned by black blades a foot long.

Instinctively knowing that he was next, Buck ducked, just as another knife flashed towards him, cutting the air.
It ripped through his rock-hard helmet with ease, smashing his radio and nearly taking his ear with it.

Then he fell to the ground, rolling. He looked up, and he saw the foot-long blade buried to the hilt into the grey bricks. He shivered, then jumped to his feet, dropping his sword and drawing his rifle in one smooth motion.

But it was all over. The clang of his sword hitting the ground reverberated through the empty square, echoing off brick walls and cracked paving stones, just as the bodies of his last two men fell to the ground with soft thumps.

All the other members of his squad were dead. Lewicky, eyes wide with surprise, pinned to the wall by a black blade through his throat. Johnson and Jessi, his two corporals, covered from head to toe in slashes, all atleast an inch deep. All of them dead, all of them killed in a few seconds by one man.

Then suddenly they burst into flame, their bodies burned to ash in a second, their armour and weapons melted to **** in an instant.

Buck swallowed, shocked.

Then he ran.

Fast.

18-Jan-2011 01:30:29 - Last edited on 23-May-2011 10:31:43 by WolfLord7777

WolfLord7777

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***

Morr peered through the thick foliage of the tough, thorny bush he was hiding in, following his target with his eyes and his rifle. His thin grey armour plating felt tight and sweaty, and in the enclosed space of his helmet the air was stifling.

“Boss, I have eyeball on the target. Permission to engage?” Morr said into his mouthpiece, finger tightening on the dark metal trigger of his rifle.

“Negative Morr, do not engage. Maintain eyeball, but, I repeat, do not engage until further notice,” the voice of his commander came back.

“Copy that sir. Morr, out,” Morr replied, continuing to track his target.

A soldier in black armour and wielding a pair of mismatched pistols leading a man who looked far beyond his prime.

***

Selvaria ducked from tree to tree, pistols in hand. The humid rainforest felt oppressive, a feeling extenuated by the feeling of eyes watching her, a small prickling on the back of her neck, but whenever she looked there was no one there.

Damn you Dorn, she thought, why did you just suddenly disappear on us? Then felt angry at herself for thinking that. She had never needed a man’s protection before, and she would not start now.

Several hours ago, when the woke up in their makeshift camp, really just a small, well shielded fire and a few bedrolls, Dorn had vanished, seemingly into thin air. It was not the first time he had gone off without explanation, but he was usually back within the hour, if not sooner.

“Hawk, you’ve studied maps of this area far more than I have. How far to the nearest place we can place we can lie low until Dorn comes back?” Selvaria asked Hawk, without turning around, after all, who knew what might be lurking in this light-forsaken forest.

18-Jan-2011 01:30:36 - Last edited on 01-Jun-2011 11:25:17 by WolfLord7777

WolfLord7777

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“About a day south-south-west,” Hawk replied, “as the crow flies, but there’s a ravine about three hours away that we’ll have to go around. In total, maybe a day and a half of hard walking, maybe two days if we’re unlucky. But he should be back before then,” Hawk said confidently.

Selvaria grunted noncommittally. She wished she had Hawk’s faith, but Dorn was of dubious sanity at best, and at his worst he was totally crazy. For all they knew, had gone to the other side of Runescape; she wouldn’t put it past him.

Several minutes passed as they stumbled and tripped through the jungle; much thinner here than when they had started, but still thick enough to slow their travel significantly.

Then suddenly there was a slight rustling sound to her left. She spun, both pistols firing at the suspect bush.

She felt a heavy blow to the back of her head, mostly stopped by her helmet, but still enough to put her off balance.

Selvaria spun at her attacker, but, dizzy and slightly cross-eyed, she miss-timed it and stumbled. Which was a good thing for her attacker, as the pair of blades suddenly in her hands missed his neck and glanced off his dull grey breastplate.

Then the man dodged, drawing a knife of his own in addition to the heavy sword in his other hand, which he had presumably used to hit her with. As she continued her turn, his stuck his foot out, and her blades again missed their target as she fell to the ground, one stabbing deep into his thigh while the other slammed into his heavy knee-plate, jarring her fingers and making her drop it.

Selvaria rolled, drawing the pistol she had somehow managed to holster in that first desperate scrambled and turning to face her attacker.

But all she saw was a steel-capped boot slamming into her face, and then blackness.

***

18-Jan-2011 01:31:18 - Last edited on 10-Jun-2011 13:22:58 by WolfLord7777

WolfLord7777

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Blackness shrouded the streets of Ardougne like a veil, blurring everything in pitch darkness.

“Colonel, when’s that air support coming?” Captain Hopwil asked into his mouthpiece, looking at a hastily pinned-down map of his area of the city using the flashlight on the side of his helmet.

“Soon Hopwil, soon. I know you guys are hard pressed down there, but we’re hard-pressed everywhere and we just don’t have the numbers we need to give you your support. I can have a squadron of Skyclaws ready in about 40 minutes and a Falcon with 20 men ready 15 minutes later. Just hold out ‘til they get there,” the voice of Colonel Johnson came back over his earpiece.

“Copy that Colonel. Hopwil, out,” Hopwil said into his mouthpiece, sighing.

He turned to the eight men arrayed before him, all that remained of his command platoon. There wasn’t one of them that did*’t have some sort of wound, their armour was scratched and chipped from a solid day’s fighting and most of them were wielding unreliable weapons scavenged from the corpses of dead ScapeRune soldiers.

“We’re gonna have to wait for about 40 minutes for that air support. ‘Til then, we keep going as before, picking off individuals and easy targets and then moving out. We’ll be getting twenty new recruits in about an hour’s time, but after that we’ll be getting no more reinforcements. Black, Crichton, take the point, we’re going to B post to check up on Grieger’s squad. Hiedeger, Treyton, you take the rear,” Hopwil told his men, rolling up the map and tying it to his combat webbing as he did so.

He picked up his rifle, looking around at the other eight men, each standing ready to follow him. They were beaten, they were injured and they had a look to them that only came from days in the field, days of fighting non-stop, even though it had only been one. They might not be the best soldiers in the world, Hopwil thought, but they’re my soldiers. And I’d rather have them than anyone else.

18-Jan-2011 01:32:27 - Last edited on 10-Jun-2011 13:23:47 by WolfLord7777

WolfLord7777

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Through the loud chorus of artillery shells from the ScapeRune forces yet to enter the city, Hopwil picked one out. It was identical to all the others, but somehow he knew what was going to happen before it did.

Time seemed to slow, like the calm before the storm.
Hopwil looked up into the starry night sky, still rimmed by red from the fires raging inside the city. Five large shells fell through the air, making a piercing, keening whistling sound as they fell, plummeting towards Hopwil and his men. Hopwil’s eyes widened, then he screwed them shut, putting an arm in front of his face, burying it in his elbow.

The whistling sound became a shriek, followed by a flash of white light and a deafening roar. There was a split second of blinding agony and crippling heat, and then blackness.

Hopwil lay there on the ground, unable to see, hear or think, for what seemed like days, or years, although it could only have been a minute or two at the maximum.

He got up slowly, trying to open his eyes. Then he realised they were open. He felt a second of gut-wrenching panic at the thought of being blind, then remembered his basic training. If you are caught in an explosion, he remembered one of his instructors saying, it will take a few moments for your eyes to recover from the shock.

He blinked several times, shaking his head groggily. His vision slowly faded from black to grey to blurred shapes and muted colours. Then his eyes seemed to snap into focus and he felt a wave of nausea.

He stood slowly, his entire body burning in absolute agony.

The southern end of the street, where most of his men had been, was gone, along with most of the buildings bordering it. Pieces of masonry and steel supports, still glowing red, littered the ground, torn and bent and shattered, as if by a giant hammer. Hopwil could see the bodies of three of his men nearby, their clothing and exposed king incinerated in an instant, their armour melted to **** in a second.

18-Jan-2011 01:32:34 - Last edited on 10-Jun-2011 13:24:30 by WolfLord7777

WolfLord7777

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Hopwil vomited explosively, barely flipping the front of his helmet up in time. He had served in the Ardougne Army Garrison for 15 years, been in three battles and numerous skirmishes, but he had never seen eight of his closest friends and colleagues brutally slaughtered in less than a second, all evidence of who they had been, what they could have been, wiped out in an instant of fire and pain by savage invaders.

In that instant, when all hope and happiness had seemed to vanish from him, something blossomed inside of him, something indescribable. It was as if he could suddenly sense every life around him, what they would or could ever be, or what they might have been.

His eyes, normally hazel, suddenly flashed green, a perfect, uniform green, filled with a knowledge deeper than anything a mortal should have.

He grimaced, face contorting with rage, and picked up the rifle he somehow knew would be beside him. It was his own rifle, given as a gift to him from his father on his deathbed, made of white birch for purity and a strange metal he had bartered from one of the dwarven mines in the mountains, which he said was almost indestructible, to represent strength, the two qualities prized most by any Ardougne citizen.

It was still white-hot from the blast, and the silver inlay on the handle burned into his hand, but it felt as if it were somebody else’s pain, somebody else’s body being mutilated. The script on the handle burned deep, branding his hand forever with the motto of Ardougne, a motto that, it was said, dated from the first battles of the God Wars.

The War is Never Over.

***

18-Jan-2011 01:32:41 - Last edited on 10-Jun-2011 13:25:16 by WolfLord7777