Deciever, Story But Not Related to TES Options

[Tulustan]

‘DING DONG’ a bell boomed out from town square. Marcus jumped strait out of bed a cold sweat on his face. His short blonde hair glistened in the morning sun. “Up and at up boys, we’ve got ourselves some Aceluns to kill today!”

Putting the pillow over his face Marcus said “Jus five more minutes mom.” Which conjured a much-needed laugh from the other men in the room.

The covers flew off and the Sergeant picked him off the mattress. “You kill me thirty Aceluns today and you get tomorrow off. Hell you do that you get the rest of the war off!”

Knowing that killing thirty men was easier than arguing with the sergeant Marcus got out of bed and began to dress for another day of war. Going down to the armory he found that some armor had been added into his cubbyhole. Pulling it out he recognized where the militia had gotten the ‘new’ armor. It was the leftovers from the leading contingent of Aceluns.

Pulling the leather straps tight against his body he muttered “Sorry bud, but better me than you”. The equipment didn’t fit perfectly. The original owner was a bit taller and bulkier but the hardened leather would protect him much better than what he had been wearing.

Leaving the compound Marcus noticed the pungent odor of death. The day was already getting warm and the humidity wasn’t helping in the least. He headed towards the triage camp to check on Rat. “Hey there big gu-“ He started to say as he pulled the door open to Rat’s room finding no one inside. “Wha?” He said to himself. There was no way Rat could be out and about after all the hits he had taken yesterday.

The doctor came around the corner and saw Marcus standing in the doorway. “I see that you came back. I had no clue you took such a fancy to me?”

Marcus turned around and stated flatly “Oh well I guess you didn’t know this but I like my wine aged.”
“You do have a quick mouth don’t ya boy.” A smirk emerged on the wrinkled mans old face. “You’re lookin for your pall Rataghuw?”

“He didn’t uh-“

“Croak? Oh no no no, he heard the bell and simply got up. Headed towards the armory.”

Marcus looked surprised and angry. “You didn’t stop him!?”

“Yeah what’s an old fart like me gonna do against that monster? Look kid, I’ve been in the army longer than you’ve been alive. If there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that you don’t go try an stop someone that’s much bigger and stronger than you from killing your enemy. It’s just counter productive.”

“Thanks for that wisdom doc, once again such an enlightened conversation.” With that Marcus went towards his assigned area.

As he walked up the street the stench got worse and worse. The bodies of those that had not burned smelled terrible and were leaking fluids onto the ground making a viscous sludge.

Marcus saw a blonde head with tight curly hair bobbing on the far side of the barricade.“Holy compassion Rat! Look what ya did to this honoured user!”

“That bugger made POP when he hit!”

Marcus moved around the structure and saw what Curley and Rat were discussing. When Rat had saved Marcus the previous day the big man had smashed one Acelun into the barricade. They were simply looking at his remains. There was really very little to see, the man had become a splatter on the wall, his chest caved in and ribs breaking through flesh. A small amount of blood and other bodily fluids had continued to drip from his openings.

Marcus shook his head. “You sure your up to fighting Rat?”

The big man made his way towards Marcus with a surprising amount of grace. “Yeah, course I am. I think… I think I love war!”

“Well that seems enthusiastic enough.” Marcus made his way back to the defenders side of the barricade. “You guys think we can hold them for another day?”

Red piped in “Yeah, if what Curley and Bigs saw last night turns out to be tru-“ he had miss-stepped and fell on a corpse. “compassion! This is nasty!” He said wiping away some fluid from his face.

Rat and Marcus began to laugh at the mans misfortune. “Heh but in all seriousness what did ya see last night?”

The familiar baritone of Bigs came from behind. “The Acelun ships headed south. Dunno how far but I’d say that our navy is hurtin um somewhere.”

Marcus began to ponder that. “Why would they leave without full control of the city? They have no guarantee of victory.”

“Maybe it’s a trap for our- phyuk.” Red started as he blew some liquid out of his mouth. “For our ships?”

“No, it’s too easy to spot ships in this weather. Our ships could outmaneuver them bringing in supplies and reinforcements.”

“We don’t even know if we have any ships or a country left. We’ve been cut out of the big picture for too long. For all we know the war is over and we’ve already lost.”

Rat interjected with some of his wisdom “Yeh an we can keep fightin these bastards till we’ve got ourselves a country!”

“Really? Do you understand what reality is? Because if you do you should really make an attempt at returning to it.” Marcus said.

“Hey destiny ain’t fair. Mine will be that o’a hero not a dead soldier. Not you or a whole army’s gonna get in my way to make that hap-“

“THEY’RE COMIN!” Curley yelled.

The Acelun troops began pouring into the city. They began to form up inside of the gate where bodies had been cleared. Suddenly a horn made a call from somewhere outside of the city and the Acelun army marched forward. Within minutes the first elements had begun to reach the dead bodies. The look of disgust was apparent from the defenders even from that distance. The Tamultan archers let loose. A pitiful patter of arrows headed towards the horde moving up. A few were hit and joined their comrades on the cobbled streets.

The men kept marching towards the defenses. “Disciplined bastards these.” Bigs said as he readied the spear he had pilfered the previous day.

Rat grunted something about them being only half a man.

The leading elements were about a block out when they began sprinting towards the defenders.
“Brace yourself!” Red said.

Marcus looked quickly at Red, gave him a ‘well no duh’ look, and focused on the incoming enemies.
The first attackers were within feet when Bigs lunged forward with the spear skewering two of them the force knocking him on his butt. Marcus, Red, and Curley jumped in trying to keep the invaders away from Bigs. Marcus couldn’t keep track of all the weapons moving and a few had slipped through his defenses smacking against his body. None of the blows did any serious damage, the armor he had on was of high quality.

“Now!” Bigs said. Immediately the squad pulled back. The enemies were momentarily stunned at such a quick withdrawal. It was their death. Rat jumped down from the barricade swinging. The first of which took out three men. Bigs immediately jumped back into the fray doing precision stabs around Rat.

Marcus started running forward and yelled “PUSH!” and the militia did exactly that pushing the Aceluns back. Suddenly they were in full retreat pulling back to the gate.

Red bobbed out of a knot of militiamen on the far side of the street “We did it! We pushed them back!”
“I can’t believe that worked.” Marcus said disbelief spread across his face.

Rat looked around frantically “Not enough of em.”

Marcus looked at Rat questioningly. Really he wasn’t satisfied with a win? He had to kill even more?

Bigs piped in “No, Rat your right there’s not enough of them. Less than half our number was in that attack.”
Red had found his way back to the squad. “Ya kiddin me? We killed um! Chickens!”

“They aren’t pullin out of the city though.” Curley said. “They are just regrouping.”

A man came running from the west side of the city, where the docks were. “THEIR BEHIND US!”

[mALX]

Your descriptions are great! I'll use this as an example, but there were many others that were just as good:

The smell of burned skin and death had found its way into every nook and cranny of the city. Neither side had attempted to remove the dead from the streets after the clash.

[Tulustan]

Chapter 8

“Hey Hawke, we almost there?” I asked.

“Were actually there now.”

The area around us was no different from the last few hundred miles. A bit frustrated, I stated “No were not, there is nothing here.”

“Stop asking and just keep walking.”

“We’ve been traveling for days. Why are we in such a hurry to get there?”

“Jehmundi is trying to arrive before the other clans can stop him. He believes something is there that will give us the upper hand.”

“Upper hand in what?”

“It doesn’t concern you.”

Oh yeah right it doesn’t. If there is a war going on I want out at the first stop. I didn’t tell him that. He would probable just laugh and find a way to make fun of me. Some of the forward scouts began yelling about something.

Hawke listened to their yells intently then quickly flicked his head my way and with a grin on his face said “Sounds like we’ve arrived. C’mon lets go have a look!” He immediately increased his pace. The land had hardened up considerably in the last mile making it a lot easier for me to keep pace.

Cresting the hill the whole ruin came into view. The sun had begun to set leaving an angry reddish tint on the horizon bathing the place in healthy shadows. The ruins themselves were situated in a crater. Most of the buildings were just piles of rubble flattened from age and decay, but there were a few still standing fighting time. We began to descend into the city. All of the streets had a downward slant to them that sloped towards the center of the crater.

Turning towards Hawke I said “This is pretty creepy.”

“Yeah, not much is known about these ruins. They have been around for so long there is no history. Some people say that a hole between us and the underworld was formed at the center and began pulling the city in. Others believe that some magical weapon was used to stop a great war. The idea that most people these days believe though is that it’s just a massive sink hole.”

A sink hole, it was too perfect for a sink hole to outline an entire city. “What do you think did it?” I asked him.
“I think a bunch of gnomes dug out the city from the bottom because they were fed up that the theater didn’t make more plays about their kind.”

“Wha-“ I stopped myself. It just sounded too farfetched. There is no way he could believe that. “Do you really believe that?”

He smiled then said “Why does it matter what I believe. There is no proven or accurate history of the incident. There are no facts about this place at all.”

“Fair enough.” We kept walking towards the center of the ruins. The place was huge. I had believed Tanon to be one of the largest cities in the world but this place could have fit eight or nine Tanons inside the perimeter and still have room for more. How it could have sustained a population out here without a large source of water or farmland was beyond me.

The sun had descended by the time we had arrived at the center or at least what seemed to be the center. Everyone had begun to set up camp. “Fellessen you luck out tonight. I don’t think I’ll have time for our regular training session. Jehmundi will most likely need me to help search for what he’s looking for. So unpack and enjoy the night, just don’t guzzle the khundi juice again.”

I yelled “That was your fault!” but he was already out of earshot or just ignoring me. I began to set up camp. Once that was done I promptly laid down and after weeks of intense training and never ending walking. Sleep came fast.

* * *

“-ake up.” Darkness was all around me. Hawke was jostling me awake.

Groggily I said “I thought you said I wasn’t going to have to train tonight?”

“It’s not training. Jehmundi wants to see you, something’s changed.”

My brain was still fuzzy and was having a hard time processing the information. “What? Why does he want to see me? I look the same as always.”

“Not like that. Just follow me, and put your pants on.”

Heat went into my face. I had forgotten that I took my pants off before I had gone to sleep. Hurriedly I pulled them up to my waist and tied the straps together that held them up and sped after Hawke.

When we arrived Jehmundi began talking to Hawke excitedly but Hawke did not seem nearly as excited. Hawke’s face went from shock to anger to sadness to acceptance in the course of the conversation. The little of the language I knew was not enough for me to understand even a tenth of what the two were discussing.
“Go with Jehmundi, do as he says. Trust your training and you will make it out of this. See you soon.”Hawke looked over at Jehmundi nodded and walked away.

I watched as Hawke disappeared around a tent. Jehmundi grabbed my arm and yanked me in the direction I was supposed to go. What was going on? He began talking to me. I tried to respond. His face whipped around towards mine. A look of disgust was plastered on his face, then a look of understanding, and he immededitately broke out in laughter. I must have botched that translation.

The laughing stopped. His hand flung out and grabbed my arm and began to pull. I followed. He let go knowing that I would continue to follow him. He seemed like he knew where he was headed. Had he found an ancient magical artifact after all? Guess I would have to wait and find out. The structures around us were becoming more coherent, becoming less a pile of ruble and more that of a quiet deserted city.

“Oomph” I hit a wall. No, just Jehmundi, the man had stopped so suddenly. He muttered something pulling out a stone in one wall in front of us. A low gruble then a creak, a whole section of the wall moved. The passage that was uncovered was dark. Really dark, there was no way I was going to go in there.

Jehmundi turned around, looked me hard in the eyes then motioned towards the opening. Oh great, I was going first down stairs into god knows what, for god knows why. My feet began to move towards the opening. Soon I had taken a few steps and could see nothing. Jehmundi was behind me somewhere. I moved my hand close to my face and squinted trying to make out any detail. Nothing. Putting my left hand forward and the right one against the wall I resumed the descent.

How deep could this thing go? How long had it taken to dig this place out? My mind kept putting relevant thoughts along those lines out. Just walking gets so boring. “Ouch” My right hand had gotten pricked on the wall. Returning the hand tentatively I made a discovery that the wall was no longer stone. It was metal with what felt like a hell of a lot of sharply cut designs. The floor flattened out. Must be near the end hopefully. I noticed a large curve outward in the wall. This had to be an atrium of sorts. I reached out as far a possible with my left hand and touched nothing. Wherever I was now it was a lot bigger than the passageway I had just taken.

I heard Jehmundi’s footsteps behind me. A constant metal on metal ping for every footfall getting louder the closer he came. The pinging footsteps passed me and walked on for a bit, then complete and utter silence. What was going on? Surely Jehmundi had something to illuminate this room. Still nothing. I wanted to shout, make some sort of noise. It was caught in my throat and was quenched by something else in me.

Wind began to assault my left side. Wind? How? It got faster and faster making the loudest noise in the world. Something else joined in with the winds howl. Jemundi! He was chanting something. The force of the wind nocked me to the ground and its speed was still accelerating. My knees against the floor I tried standing up. The attempt was futile. Suddenly something grabbed my ankle and yanked me away from the wall. Every inch I was pulled the wind went down. Finally the thing had let go and only a slight breeze remained. I got to my feet and something collided with my face. Blood began pouring down my face.

My veins began to pump blood. Adrenaline raced through me. “WHY!” I yelled. Frustration over everything in my life bubbling to the surface. I felt a portion of something forced itself into me body.

“Because this is your destiny.”

“What? You can’t speak my language!”

“You are not speaking that language.”

What was happening? How could I understand him much less know their language. I had learned a few words and phrases from Hawke but he had given up soon after trying to teach me. “Wha, what is happening?” I stammered.

Calmly and evenly Jehmundi stated “The re-birth of the crystal walkers.”

“Why am I needed, and what the hell are the crystal walkers?”

“You are the sacrifice that has been prepared.”

“To hell with you!” Confusion finding the adrenaline coursing through my body lit into anger, like an ocean of kerosene and a match becoming a massive fire. “NO!” More of the essence from earlier flowed into my body and a tingling began to manifest itself inside.

“How do you plan on stopping it?”

“I’m going to kill you!” I felt strong now.

“Come and give it a try.”

Pulling out my sword I did. The voice had come from my left. Muscles tensing and a sudden release went into putting the sword through Jehmundi. Anticipation for the hit came and went. There was nothing there. My futile attack spun me out of control. The cold metal of the floor pressed against my back. My hand burst with pain and just like that the sword was gone. This was it, I was dead.

Jehmundi didn’t finish me immediately. Could he see me? “You westerners think everything is won by strength and power. Bigger equates to better.” He said with a sneer.

“Finish me then!” I yelled. No intention of letting him kill me I rolled away from where I fell moving closer to the wind. A low flicker emanated from the center of the atrium. It grew steadily until it was bright as day.
Jehmundi looked straight at me, his whole body glowing red, and said, “As you wish.” Quick as light he pulled two scimitars from their sheaths and charged. I jumped low into a dive and caught his feet in my arms pulling him to the ground. I scuttled away before he could get the scimitars into my flesh. Picking up my dropped sword and whipping my body around I just barely dodged a slash. Constantly parrying I was on the defensive. He fought like Hawke and I had not beaten Hawke once in training.

The wind was right behind me. One or two more steps and I would lose all footing. Three more strikes came in for varying angles and I blocked the but was forced another step back. He was purposely trying to put me in the tornado. ‘Let me help you.’

Why was Jehmundi offering help. “What?” I asked him.

“I sai- -othin-.” The noise of the wind had distorted his voice and followed up with another fevered attack. I sprang forward to the right trying to get some distance from the angry windstorm. “Ther- -s no esc-!” Jehmundi yelled towards me. He was already pushing me back, the few feet that were gained vanished quickly.

‘There is only one way out this. Let me help you!’ The voice was coming from inside my head! I had gone insane. That was the only answer. Well mine as well see if the ‘other me’ could help me.

A sudden sharp pain made itself known from my shoulder. In the seconds of self-contemplation my guard had gone down enough and now I was paying the price. ‘Do it!’

I couldn’t move my arms, my legs, nothing was responding to my commands. My eyes looked straight at Jehmundi but I had not directed them there. His attacks became more ferocious than before. My hands leapt forward with lightning fast precision that I had never before been able to attain. A quick kick went into Jehmundi’s gut, he crumpled. My foot had again gone out and hit him in his stomach.

[mALX]

I held my breath almost through this whole chapter! Awesome suspense!

My fave paragraphs had to be these two:

How deep could this thing go? How long had it taken to dig this place out? My mind kept putting relevant thoughts along those lines out. Just walking gets so boring. “Ouch” My right hand had gotten pricked on the wall. Returning the hand tentatively I made a discovery that the wall was no longer stone. It was metal with what felt like a hell of a lot of sharply cut designs. The floor flattened out. Must be near the end hopefully. I noticed a large curve outward in the wall. This had to be an atrium of sorts. I reached out as far a possible with my left hand and touched nothing. Wherever I was now it was a lot bigger than the passageway I had just taken.

I heard Jehmundi’s footsteps behind me. A constant metal on metal ping for every footfall getting louder the closer he came. The pinging footsteps passed me and walked on for a bit, then complete and utter silence. What was going on? Surely Jehmundi had something to illuminate this room. Still nothing. I wanted to shout, make some sort of noise. It was caught in my throat and was quenched by something else in me.