ic Vision of Fire

[Supercape]

GM

 

The Fire spat, choked, and grumbled. 

 

"What have you done!" screamed Morgen, as the fire died. 

 

And then, but a moment later, it arose. 

 

The fire was ten, maybe twelve feet bone, spitting embers, its form that of a thin and tall skeleton, with whips of fire and smoke and ash curling from its body. It was bones, many many bones, and from its body came heat and dull red light. 

 

"You are not from this tribe, giant...." it croaked, as the tribe itself cowered and gave praise to the god of fire and sight. The giver of life. 

 

"I am Ember...the fire of this tribe. I kept them warm and alive through the ice, and further beyond. Countless generations past have burned in my flames, and I am their bones and will...."

 

"Who are you?" it asked. 

[Exaccus]

"I am the Unstoppable Dreadnought" he said, looking the being in the eyes "and i have come to bargain with you." he says simply, he'd dealt with beings like this before, kinda, whatever armitage had created lacked intelligence and power of this being, but in that same difference there was room for talking.

 

"I come from many many years hence." he adds "these ice demons that hunt and slaughter this tribe, they are not meant to be and must be undone." he states resolutely to ember "but i require this sight your apostle morgan speaks of to find them, so i can put them down."

 

"I understand however that beneficial though it may be to you, such things cannot be accomplished without a sacrifice." he ruminates, looking to morgan over his shoulder a little bit "though Morgan is willing she doesn't have much to give for that gift, i offer that you take from me and grant her what she seeks, for i have much more to give you, i will owe you a favor, i will become your instrument on the earth; for i know what the pact entails and that i would make a most mighty avatar of your will."

[Supercape]

GM

 

"Everything can be stopped with ice and time, bold one" answered Ember, his body still but smouldering and fiery. 

 

"I do not bargain, I protect. I hold back the ice, I hold back the demons. This is my will" he explained, voice low. It was surprisingly soft, but cracked lite a spitting fire every now and again. 

 

"I do not require sacrifice, but sacrifice is required. The fire gives light, and grants vision. It is through fire we see in the night and illuminate the invisible. I can see the demons, I can see the ghosts. But you cannot, and few mortals can..."

 

He pointed at the Seer. 

 

"You! Can you not see?" he demanded of the crazed man. 

 

"I can! I can!"

 

"Yes, but you see too much, and cannot make sense of it! Your will is broken. You see too much! too much!"

 

"Yes! Too much!" replied the Seer, tugging at his scalp furiously, and weeping. 

 

"How then, do we find the ice and stillness that cannot be seen?" asked Ember of Dreadnought. 

[Exaccus]

"Believe me, i have tried everything to stop myself." he mumbled "none of it worked." memories of the dark days following the loss of his foster home flickered through his mind.

 

he felt bad for the seer as he tugged and weeped, he couldn't help it, if there was something that could be done, he would've done it, but he was no psychologist and judging by embers words if it were possible he would've shielded his seer from the madness if possible.

 

but now he had this conundrum to ponder on, he was by no means a smart man, that much he accepted, but he was, if he said so himself a particularly cunning sod so after only a few moment of thought he put forth his answer.

 

"By disparity, Stillness and cold are the absence of motion and heat, shadows cast by fire." he offered "Censored from the mind and eyes by their absence from the sight."

Edited March 17, 2018 by Exaccus

[Supercape]

GM

 

"Such is coldness" replied Ember, floating now, a few feet from the floor. It was an impressive sight, if one was honest. At least, the tribe seemed quite impressed. 

 

"And such is fire"

 

The flames flickered just that little bit stronger. 

 

"And thus it is that fire is life, and fire is sight. An coldness is death and blindness" he went on, mulling every word. "What then, are you suggesting?" he added, quite plainly and firmly. "What is your heart set on?"

[Exaccus]

he pondered a little bit, he was not a smart man, he simply was not, but it was pretty clear what had to be done, at least in his heart and mind, so he tried to formulate it.

 

"I offer to pay the price for Morgan's sight" he stated simply "and offer of myself further than that to you in exchange for sparing her the loss of her eyes and mind." that was what he wanted, plain and simple.

 

"Ask of me what you will in exchange and i will do everything in my power to grant it, now or thousands of years hence."

Edited March 17, 2018 by Exaccus

[Supercape]

GM

 

"Morgen..." murmured Ember. "It is not a question of price, but of transformation. She is bold and brave, and would transform herself. One eye flesh to see in the mortal world, one eye fire to see the world beyond" he explained. 

 

"To do this would take will and an affinity to the ways of the tribe. Morgen could do it. I do not think you could. Why, would you burn out your eye to do so?" he asked. 

 

"No, I think instead you would need me. My fire, my light. Inside of you, or held in your hand. Or crackling over your skin. I could be your guide, directing you. It will burn, though, such is my nature. Burn to your bones..."

 

"And if I am here, the tribe will be without the everlasting fire. For I am it, and it is me. You must be swift!"

[Exaccus]

"Pain is something i can deal with, i accept." He states firmly "I will carry you within me into the heart of the ice demons nest and see them destroyed." He resolves to himself, he'd been on fire before of course, though armitages elemental was pitiful in comparison.

 

This was really gonna hurt, though he would endure, as he always had, dreadnought the unstoppable, the undefeatable, the unrelenting.

 

Flinging his arms wide "let our covenant be formed whilst time in on our side."

Edited March 18, 2018 by Exaccus

[Supercape]

GM

 

"You are strong" said Ember, approaching Dreadnought in an embrace. The heat was ferocious at even a few feet, and the touch would have burned any man. 

 

Ember was not solid, but made of burning bone dust. The skeletons of centuries of tribesmen and women, all feeding the fire that never died. As he embraced Dreadnought, the dust parted, and he was more smoke than fire. 

 

And then he was on the skin, burning...burning. 

 

Dreadnought did not catch fire, but he felt the burning, and felt his skin crackle and pop. 

 

And there he was after a moment of agony, a burned man. His skin blackened, cracked, and ashen, scarred and horrible. He could feel Ember in his bones and skin, and there was pain too, but more of a grumbling ache now, than anything more terrible. Whilst he felt uninjured, he could see that his appearance was of a terribly burned giant, and his flesh looked terrible. 

 

And now, he could see...although it hurt his eyes to look....a path of cold air blowing through the invisible world....a path to the ice demons....

[Exaccus]

the pain was immense, more than he could've imagined, and yet, everything he'd expected, his eyes, he was pretty sure, were boiling in their sockets as his armour glowed red with heat and small tendrils of whispy flame errupted from his mouth and nose with every staggered breath.

 

the way was however, clear now, he could see where he had to go, he knew what he had to do, but first he needed to address the tribe

 

"We go now to do what we must." his throat was scorched dry and rasped like it'd be sandpapered, even his invulnerable flesh could be made dry like parchment.

 

"Do not follow, for this battle will be titanic." he simply states as he takes off running, it felt oddly good to move like this, though the wind blowing against his flesh as he went, though it cold do little to cool the supernal fire blazing across his body it still felt good, once he was sure he'd cleared the tribes immediate vicinity his let his leg muscles explode as he launched himself like a rocket into the crisp night sky, his blazing vision fixed upon the path he had to take as he hurtled along like a comet.

[Supercape]

GM

 

With the eye of Ember, Dreadnought could now see what previously he could not. 

 

And what he could see was a hole. 

 

Sailing through the sky, he could see it more clearly now - on the top of a hill, where rocks were plenty and trees were few, a cold eldritch wind flowed down from a hole. 

 

He landed with a terrible force that could be heard for hundreds of miles. Stories would be told of the day the earth moved. Of Sky Gods and Cloud Maidens, Giants and Fires. 

 

And cold, cold, demons. 

 

From the hole came a whisper. 

 

"Ember! You come!"

 

It was cold and icy and empty, full of wicked cruelty. 

 

"The age of ice is nearly done, and we shall fall away from the earth. Yet we are here still, and glad we shall be too grind your bones! You ride the flesh of a giant, and we shall grind his bones too!"

[Exaccus]

"You will try. but you are but brittle ice, you have shattered on my flesh and melted away before ember, you have gnawed and bitten at humanity all this long age but your teeth were blunt and man endured and now i am here to break your fangs forever more!" he boomed in answer.

 

He wondered just how much of an effect ember was having on his mind and body as he began his descent into the hole "come forth and face the dreadnought if you dare, or disappear from this world with your heads bowed, whimpering our names! face your ends however you choose, it descends upon you now!"

[Supercape]

GM

 

From the black hole that was both there and not there, or, more accurately, was a hole in another horrible dimension, came a cold mist. It swirled and formed into the air. 

 

"We are the ice. We are leaving this world, but we will return. And we would leave our scars on this earth. From whence we came? The heart, the fear, the cold cold sweat of the dying. We are the frozen corpses that are lost through the ages. In us, things are preserved in icy beauty. It is fire that truly destroys, burning and transforming" hissed the mist. 

 

The ground around them seemed to crack. Something was coming up.

 

"Would you side with the fire that changes? that destroys and burns? or with beautiful eternity, giant?"

[Exaccus]

"always!" dreadnought answered, his honest heart shining through his voice "Change I champion when it is for the better, Cold stagnation i shall always oppose, that which does not change and grow, Dies, in mind and spirit if not body."

 

the ground rumbling and whelming under his feet indicated that something massive was working its way up, "As surely as your age comes anew, so too shall it end again, it is change that preserves us from stagnation and entropy."

 

Shifting his body weight to prepare for the emergence of whatever was coming. "but enough of this idle banter, i will see you take your leave now."

[Supercape]

GM

 

"Giant! You have made your decision, bold and brave. Come then, let us see if you chose wisely or with futility!" said the giant mist, who somehow seemed to form more solid. 

 

"Know that from Lemuria was I born! I am older and stronger than the burnt ash bones that live in you skin now - Ember be his name. He was born from the power of men, but I was born from the dark sorcery of ancient Lemuria, and those Eldritch rituals are still here! The snakes of Lemurian Ice you saw are but children compared to me!"

 

And with that, a cold wind blew...

[Exaccus]

Knowing too well that this was a battle he must not loose, dreadnought felt no need to restrain himself , grasping at the nearest, largest boulder available to him, driving his fingers deeply into its body as he hefts it from its resting place he sends himself hurtling back into the air. looking down at that little hill and the mystic mist swirling about it.

 

Lemuria was bad news, extinction level events, magic so powerful most modern mages had trouble understanding the theories behind it.

 

this creature couldn't be allowed to carry the day and whilst he had no idea how destructive his coming attack might be only that he mustn't let up against this foe before him.

 

Crashing back to the earth a good distance away from his manifesting enemy he flings the boulder with all his might, high into the stratosphere, at an angle that would bring it down ontop of the hill like a meteorite.

 

"Let the first blow of this battle be struck by the stone fist of dreadnought!"

Edited March 19, 2018 by Exaccus

[Supercape]

GM

 

"No, you speak falsehood!" hissed the mist. 

 

"The first blow will be struck by the ice! By the glacier! By the lizards beneath!" it sang, and moved forward. 

 

One could not say it was fast. It was, in fact, slow. But it was now several dozen feet tall, and curled in a fluid way. It was hard to avoid its strike, and despite its chilly mist form, there was much strength in the blow. 'Twas surely not the hardest that Dreadnought had been struck. He had surely been struck harder - Lord Nelson for instance. But still, it was a mighty blow, and it came hard. 

 

And more than that, as the mist touched Dreadnought, he felt his mind - his soul - touched by invisible icy fingers. A chill in his heart...

[Exaccus]

he felt himself weeze and cough a little bit as the touch hit him and felt his muscles seize up, by and by such a thing wasn't physically possible, he knew it was not!

 

Magic he swore to himself as he recovered himself from not only the blow but the icewatering pain of the burning withinin him.

 

"You're all bluster demon, where as i am ALL. FISTS!" he roared as with an explosion of motion he lunged forth, he had been something of a bruce lee fan and whilst he lacked training or overt experience in out and out fights he understood the principles of it all, explosive economic motion of the body to deliver greater force

 

So he twisted his hips and swung his shoulders as hard as he could and felt his fist connect  with the icy cold scales of the beast, another jault of pain dizzied him but through watering eyes he beheld the beast in anticipation of the results of his attack.

[Supercape]

GM

 

The Mist curled round Dreadnought's. Somehow, the invulnerable dreadnought still felt cold. As if the memory of cold was still alive in him, and eating his heart. 

 

The Mist seemed to not mind at all. It was like punching fog. 

 

"You see? Even your strength is useless!" said the Mist, its eyes white and arctic. "I have been alive for untold time. I am eternal? Who are you, Giant?" it asked. 

 

And from above...

 

The huge boulder was coming down, hot now. It left a trail of ember flares, which looked most pretty - like red stars spinning in the dark and clear night sky. It was hot now...maybe the friction of the atmosphere on its silicon surface. Maybe it was that. Surely that was what the scientists would say. 

 

But Ember, crackling over his burnt skin, would say it was life and fury. 

[Exaccus]

he felt the ice creatures solidify as it brought its claw down on him,  but this time he was ready for it, now fully accustomed to the searing pain he clenched his muscules at the last second to deflect the blow away from himself and harden his heart against the mental impulses to remember the cold.

 

"I am the dreadnought and I have been doing this for a while now, you're not the first demon to cower from my strength behind something like this, you will not be the last." he states simply as with a mighty kick of his legs he flings himself further away from the creature just the the whilsting of the meteorite grows loud enough to hear on its way down to the earth.

Edited March 20, 2018 by Exaccus

[Supercape]

GM

 

The mist "looked" up, as its blue form was best able to do. 

 

"From the sky! Not again!" it cursed. But all the curses in the world would not stop the meteor. The mist flowed around, trying to scramble back into the hole in the hill. 

 

And then the meteor struck. 

 

The shockwave would have levelled a few city blocks. The sound would shatter eardrums. It was as if the Gods had struck the earth with every lightning bolt, hammer, and fist at once. The blaze blossomed into a million shards of fire. No tree stood for a mile around, but splintered and sundered in the wake of the blast. 

 

And the landscape would never look the same again. 

 

And on the ground, the mist was oozing weakly across the burnt moss and grass, trying to flow back into the hole from whence it had came...

[Exaccus]

With his great weight and momentum the air around dreadnought felt hardened by the resistence it offered his hulking frame but he knew more than anything that he didn't want to be in the epicentre of the impact, even he would have trouble shrugging such a blow off....surely.

 

Landing with a boom somewhere in distance he barely managed to bring his arms up and slam them together in a simple guard as the stone rejoined the earth and a wave of sound, fury and force radiated outwards like a wall, crashing against him and driving even his great weight backwards, heavy boots carving furrows in the ground as it attempted to carry him away.

 

with a roar of defiance he dug his heels in further, feeling the stones and soil underfoot compacting as shards of shattered stones and hunks of burning aboreal mass tumbled over him, he just had to keep pressing back against the force till at long last he felt it waning and eventually dying down.

 

With little time to waste he leaped back towards the battlefield to look for what might've become of his enemy, hefting one of the displaced boulders around him and hurtling back into the fray.

Edited March 21, 2018 by Exaccus

[Supercape]

GM

 

The icy mist was seeping slowly back into the hole that, whilst distorted to a chaotic crack by the meteor, was not gone. It was seeping slowly, like a glacier. 

 

It seemed to be struggling to just maintain coherence, and even its slow crawl was an effort. 

 

"How right! Meteors, the lance from the skies! They have destroyed, and changed the earth on many times. How Lemuria feared and worshipped such sky spears!" it wailed. "And now, change again! For change to happen, their must be destruction! Ah, how terrible! How much more beautiful is icy certainty!"

 

"I am gone, but the hole remains! And Ice will always return - and win in the end!"

[Exaccus]

"Woe to the vanquished, demon! Curse and threaten as you like in your hole but know that you are beaten and dreadnought stands triumphant and ready for the next battle! Be it thousands of years hence" he boomed triumphantly as he scanned battlefield for the misty creature but eventually consigned it to wallow in its defeat

 

"And i do not stand alone!" He added before turning away and once more taking to the sky for the tribes grounds, returning ember to his rightful place now the battle was concluded.

[Supercape]

GM

 

And so, back at the tribe...

 

Understandably, the tribe were both scared from the meteoric blast, hiding under rock and tree, but also scanning the sky. It was fear, and awe, and looking for some divine intervention. They were presumably hopeful that such divine intervention would be positive. But the Gods ever work in mysterious ways, and who could know their hearts or intent?

 

Instead, Dreadnought landed roughly, causing a small impact that juddered nerves but did not uproot trees or shatter rock. Much. 

 

The Seer was the sole tribesman to be out in the open, grasping at his bald head and shouting at the skies. His intent and perception seemed confused - but such was his way. A sane man would not try to pull out his own hair when he had none. 

 

The Chief seemed more pleased. 

 

"What news, Giant? The Ski Maidens have blown a mighty wind and the Trolls beneath have stirred in their slumber most loudly! Are the Gods angry?"