ic Puzzle Box: A Grave Matter

[Supercape]

GM

 

And so...

 

As it turned out, it was not much further at all. A tramp through dust and mud, grey moonlight, and dotted gravestones. Avoiding the shuffling zombie and skeletons is spasm - or, if the mood so took them, crushing skull under boot and parting rotting head from rotting body with swift swipe of machete. 

 

And then, in a time that felt both short and indeterminate (my, how things felt strange in this strange place) they came up to a colloseum. 

 

Of sorts. 

 

For now it was crumbling rock, half collapsed, with patches of virbrant green moss and vaguely poisonous-looking creeper vines. 

 

And from its unseen centre, obscured by fallen masonry in repose, came beautiful violin music...

[Exaccus]

To say he didn't feel nervous would be to tell a most bold lie the hairs on his neck stood on end with anxiety as the anticipation of the comming encounter trickled over him, he was far from fearless...rather he had learned, through practice and experience to deal with the fear and excitement that combat brought out in him.

 

He had of course just freshly defeated a staff wielding dark magic user, though it would be fair to say she was naught but a jumped up dabbler in possession of an item that gave her the lions share of her powers, Luddwig the so called witchman had revived Tunbridge from an old hand that he had apparently overcome, humiliated and discarded and facs felt that such a person would prove to be far more formidable if not by sheer depth of power then by bredth of cunning.

 

"So...we got a plan or we gonna just crash the recital?"he asked, not directly too anyone so much as airing his thoughts to the assembled people 

[Supercape]

GM

 

"Crash and slash" muttered the Gravedigger grimly. Whilst still hurt, and hurt badly, he had at least had time to catch his breath. 

 

"Dont be such a meanie" muttered Pixie right back. "Its beautiful. The music, I mean!"

 

"Much as hate 'im, he has talent" conceded the Gravedigger. 

 

"I don't know what we should do" explained Pixie. "Nothing about this seems right. But doing nothing definately feels wrong" she concluded, with perhaps accidental wisdom. 

 

"I got me a plan. We go in and cut off his head!" determined the Gravedigger. "Seems right!"

 

With that, he started to get up from the ground...

[Exaccus]

"well im really more a fan of direct solutions myself..." he conceded as he turned to pixie and gave her a look he hoped carried his subtle intents to once again pull a all out win out of his back pocket through careful timing and cunning intentions!

 

"Gonna do your thing Pix?" he asked innocently enough

 

he was not about to let gravedigger murder anyone, that said if luddwig had shed his mortal coil already it may be nessicary to bring about his destruction, it all depended on how far gone he was.

 

He followed behind gravedigger after having transmuted to his trusty steel form once more for the first time in what felt like a short eternity, he wouldn't deny if asked that transforming into any substance felt good but none quite so good or familiar as that of steel, his ever reliable battleform, the first he'd mastered. hopefully tough enough to let him tank out whatever suprises might be waiting for him whilst he watched his plan unfurl.

[Supercape]

GM

 

Violence was surely in the air, and yet it might wait a moment for the music.

 

Ludwig was playing in the centre of the state and playing divinely quite lost in his art. He was of average build with a mop of long unkempt red hair and was Dresden in fine 18th century style. And yet his clothes hung in a scruffy manner.

 

His face was faceless. As if he was wearing a white porcelain mask.

 

 

[Exaccus]

Facsimile felt no hostility from the being before him, perhaps it was a trick of the mask or the moonlight but he seemed largely unconcerned with anything beyond his playing, which for his part facsimile was happy to let play out, though trying to feel what the music carried with it, for music without emotion was merely sculpted noise.

 

Waiting for a lull in the performance before announcing himself.

 

"Mr Luddwig I presume? We would have words with you." a simple statement but simplicity and efficacy were often paired,  he made sure to keep his stance neutral but ready as his silvery steel body glimmered in the darkness

[Supercape]

GM

 

The music stopped abruptly, and left in its wake a hauntingly beautiful silence that echoes around the masonry. 

 

Despite the entropic ruin of the place, the acoustics were still splendid. 

 

The white mask like face turned to FAscimile, apparently eyeless but clearly seeing all the same. 

 

"It is I" he said, in what must have been an Austrian or Germanic accent. 

 

"Strange to see the living. Even if you are not quite flesh, not quite blood, and not quite bone" he explained, in reference to Fascimile's stony state. 

 

"You witch-man! You bring de dead back to dance to yer tune!" grunted the Gravedigger, and yet for all his ferocity he was still. 

 

"Only one, I seek. My love, lost to cruel men and cruel kings" sighed Ludwig silently. "And what do you come to this place for? Why do you seek me?"

[Exaccus]

"My friend here is very upset about the zombies, the squid one in particular clobbered him whilst we were crossing the lake you see....though we did meet the ghost of a most strange and sad lady out on the water who warned us it was coming." he mentioned off handedly to see if any reaction from luddwig.

 

"She was rather...disquieted by her inability to find rest after her passing." he added "I don't suppose i could convince you to cease your spell and give rest to the weary now could i?"

[Supercape]

GM

 

"There are all manner of dead risen" said Ludwig, calmly. He turned his back and started wandering the empty fallen rocks, almost aimlessly. "Ghosts spectral, and the flesh of the fallen. And yet, I cannot quite reach my beloved...." he said, mournfully. 

 

"I cannot stop, you see. I must have her back, so terribly taken from the world. I cannot rest until she is in my arms once more. Ah! her taste!" he sighed. 

 

"The ghost you saw...was it her? Beautiful and pale, dancing on still waters?"

[Exaccus]

"they danced not." he answered "it would be hard to dance under such torment that is to have your soul fettered to the earth after passing."much like the steel it was made of his tongue spoke true and vained through the his words 

 

"But you must have some idea of this no? you are a student of those black arts, the creation of such existences is known to you." he added "I fear you have loved the idea of her more than the reality if you'd be so selfish as to keep her from her rest in this twisted half existance, this perpetual shadow." solemness filling his voice

 

"I imagine it will not be long before she is driven mad and looses herself utterly."

[Supercape]

GM

 

"Alas! Woe! Lamentations!" muttered Ludwig, his brow pressed against one forearm theatrically. "And yet..."

 

His white blank face turned towards Fascimile once again. "I trust you not. Wicked whispers in the wind, this place. I can hear them. Who knows what you say, who knows if it be true or false? Not you! And not I!" he continued, firmly. 

 

"All I know is my loss, my grief, and that it spurs me down a road from which there is no deviation, no, not none...." he added. "Let me play you a tune of my sorrow..."

 

He started mounfully playing on his violin once more...

 

"Let us kill him! kill him now!" he demanded of Fascimile. 

[Exaccus]

"What you choose to believe is none of my concern luddwig, only that you know what has brought me here to stop you." He answered resolutely as he turned to take his combat stance.

 

"This darkness runs deep but the dawn beckons." He wasnt sure exactly where he'd lifted that line from exactly but it was a pretty neat closing statement.

[Supercape]

GM

 

At this, the faceless Ludwig turned, and his face had no changed, to that of a deformed, angry ogre. A second later, again, it changed to a mournful child full of despair. 

 

"It is though, It is your concern. This place is not of my creation, but I have made it my own! It is the place of sadness and despair!" he said, dramatically. At this, his music took a morbid turn. Whereas before it was beautiful, and melodic, and sad, now, it was magnified in intensity. Still beautiful, still melodic, still sad, but like black lightning it struck the very soul...

[Exaccus]

already exhausted from the battle with the squid facsimile was in no position to shake off the assault on his senses and felt his already heavy arm grow leaden with the weight of sadness settling upon his steel heart, he lamented his damaged relationship with his brother, his inability to save Marcus skulll from the predation of the mistress of bones and his own foolishness, the officers that had been injured because he let them both go in an attempt to follow them to their lair even  the zombies he'd destroyed, all once people, people he'd failed to save because he wasn't here on time.

 

"Hoo...hah...experiencing some metal fatigue i think.." he laughed humorlessly as his legs creaked and bent ever so slightly as he slapped his cheeks ever so slightly to try and get his head back in the fight.

 

"I might bend...but you'll not break me..."

Edited August 25, 2018 by Exaccus

[Supercape]

GM

 

"Not so moved by my music?" said Ludwig, dissapointed. "Then if grief will not sway your heart, grief you shall come to..." he said, his sad voice now blended with cruel determination. 

 

A horrible jig was played, and the ground errupted in cold dirt and the smell of rotting flesh. From the earth ten corpses had jumped, and now covorted this way and that in a strage dance macarbe. These were not the corpses that Fascimile had smashed before. The flesh and bone and rot was the same, but they were sheathed in vile green energies, potent and powerful...

[Exaccus]

"You got these creatures gravedigger?" He asked, not really expecting an answer but indicating his intent to focus on luddwig

 

Springing forth and vaulting over the zombies and landing with a booming thud before luddwig and with a roar of exertion to beat bag the intense sadness swung with a steel hand not for the man himself but for the violin that seemed to focus his powers

[Supercape]

GM

 

"I got dem dead!" grinned the Gravedigger. He held up his machete and muttered some incantation Fascimile did not understand. 

 

"How rude!" came Pixies invisible voice, as she did unfortunately understand him. 

 

Rude or not, it worked. It was hardly visible, but the zombies started crumbling around them. Bits of fingers, toes, and other stuff fell of them. A few ribs too. They looked like they were more dust than flesh. 

 

As for Fascimile, he found himself with the violin held in his hand. Something crawled around his what-was-skin on his hand as he held it. This was a disgusting piece of nercomantic artifice. 

 

"Give it back!" wailed Ludwig who lashed out furiously at Fascimile. His zombies, crumbling magnificently, still decided to lurch at the two of them. Fascimile felt one slam into his back. 

 

As for the Gravedigger, he laughed a pained laugh, and multiplied. Several mirror images floated around his body, making everyone unsure who was who. The Zombies did not care and lurched at all of him, with one clipping him around his head with a wild swing of rotting arm. 

[Exaccus]

"How about no earwigg?" facsimile snapped in uncharacteristic sassiness "How about i break it over your idiot head?!" he boomed as he swung a heavy metal fist at one of the crumbling zombies, he was tired and he felt drained and sad he just wanted to curl up and sleep really, but some part of him however small just kept him going in the face of it all, the insanity, the personal cost, the fact he was likely going to have to fight gravedigger after when he refused to let the man kill luddwig.

 

Somedays it just doesn't pay to be a hero...but i am what i am.

[Supercape]

GM

 

"My head is lost already" answered the lamenting face which seemed to flow through a thousand different heads in a second, each more sad than the last. 

 

The zombies surrounding Fascimile were almost dust already, thanks to the Gravediggers spill, and the slightest tough caused them to disintegrate. NOt to say that Fascimile had a slight touch - no, his super powered punches could punch through steel. With a flurry of swings, the five necromantic horrors surrounding him were gone. 

 

The Gravedigger fell to one knee under a barrage of more blows before he gritted his teeth, gripped his machete and once again let loose his subtle spell. The zombies around him became as ash. 

 

"I am defeated!" moaned Ludwig. 

 

"You are dead!" snarled the Gravedigger, painfully forcing himself to his feet and swinging his machete as he advanced...

[Exaccus]

Facsimile leapt into action immediately, crashing down full force before gravedigger his ton and a half of steel body cratering the ground around his metal shoes.

 

"there is no need for that Gravedigger, he's defeated and powerless without his violin." he stated simply  but resolutely in the face of the raging man and his machette, tired and aching but all the same, ready to trade blows once again.

 

"I won't let you murder anyone, there has been enough death here, now is the time for justice and healing, not hatred and death." he felt his spine straightening a little more as he spoke "this is something i will fight you over without a second thought...though we're both pretty beaten up i cannot say for certain who might win."

[Supercape]

GM

 

"Justice and healing mean killin' sometim'" hissed the Gravedigger. "I can go to me grave if I need to. What I cant do is let 'im live. If he does, he gonna keep on risin' the undead. And they gonna eat brains. They gonna kill. So, Imma choose killin one witch-man. Better 'an killin a hundred or more by lettin' im live..."

 

"If somebody 'ad done what I'm going to do, then maybe my wife and children still be alive" he added, bitterly. 

 

"So what you gonna do, coward? Try stoppin' me thinkin that brave? It no brave. It be coward. You going to be killin' by not doing nuthin. But jus' so your hands not got bloody, you feel all proud and heroic. Pfah! You ain't got no way of stoppin im. Theres only one way...."

 

"So get out of my way or Ill go through ya...."

[Exaccus]

"What you choose to believe is none of my concern." He repeated himself "I am here to stop you and now you know why." He finished as he touched his hand to the rubble of the ruins of the mansion and became a towering stone figure.

 

"Try me little man, your way the killing will never end." He resolved as he gathered his strength again to break through his exhaustion, though his heart remained heavy from luddwigs magic.

[Supercape]

GM

 

"It wont end your way, either" replied the Gravedigger. "Killing wont ever end. Just be that some of us got the heart to try and stop it" he said. 

 

He gripped his machete. 

 

"You and me, then. If that's the way it gotta be, then thats the way it will be. I ain't going to kill you, just put you down a little...."

 

With that, he advanced...

[Exaccus]

"So be it!" He boomed as he strode forth to meet the grave digger in battle, his lumbering stone form rumbling and booming as he advanced.

 

Turning to steal a look at luddwig and also scan for pixie he would rely on power and brute strength to carry the day.

[Supercape]

GM

 

As Fasciomile approached, the Gravedigger muttered something inaudible under his breath. 

 

"Its a spell!" called out Pixie, with sharp hearing. 

 

Indeed it was. The Gravediggers image swayed and swirled in a dizzing eldritch manner, and before you could say Shazam! there were six or seven Gravediggers surrounding him. 

 

"Its an illusion!" called out Pixie, helpfully. 

 

Illusion or not, all images heaved a tired breath and then lunged forward, the machete point crunching into Fascimile.