Optical
The Fall of the Eleventh
once again. Excellent writing, real characters.... wow. Nice work! 
Hammer and Steel
- Thread starter Tycho
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once again. Excellent writing, real characters.... wow. Nice work! 
Tycho
AFK Forum Warrior
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- Jul 31, 2011
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Zach the Founder: Part 4
"Tā shuí zàicì shàngzhǎng! Tā shuí zàicì shàngzhǎng!"
All the people of the village seemed to have gathered all at once to cluster around the warriors that had entered their settlement after the sheperd had run and told all the village all of what he had seen. Men, women, children, and babes all were around them, all in awe with tinges of fear and amazement as they looked at Zach, the other men given curious looks and secondary assignment of importance.
"Do you know what they are saying sir?" Nick whispered into Zach's ear.
"No I don't. Half a day is not enough to learn an entire new language."
"A pity, we could actually understand what they are saying."
The cluster had only thickened as time passed. One man lunged towards Zach with a hand extended to his head as if to grab some hair. The warriors began to reach for their clubs, but they wouldn't have needed them anyways; the man was pulled back into the crowd by the other people as they yelled at him in a berating voice. A small woman with two children stopped in front of Zach, smiling and speaking rapidly in the strange tounge as she gestured with the rather immobile but breathing forms of the children. She too was quickly pulled aside.
The tumult of voices speaking in that fluid language assualted their ears, making many a man dizzy. It echoed inside of their head, crawled into their heart, was inhaled and exhaled in their chest, reverbrating like the strike of a bell through their bodies.
"Āndùn xiàlái, āndìng xiàlái, suǒyǒu de nǐ. Nǐ yào zhèyàng duìdài wǒmen de kèrén cūbào?" An annoyed man came out of nowhere, shouting at the people in an exasperated voice with a frustrated face. Brightly colored robes covered his whole frame, soft wool dyed red, yellow, green, and purple, swamping his plump frame in light while his face was round with shoulder length hair. He shouted again in his language at the people of his village before turning around to the warriors. "Hello strangers, my name Qin." His tone was butchered and pulled apart pieces of the warrior's own language, and heavily accented as well. "Can I help you something?"
"Sure you can," Zach said stepping forward. "You can accept my thanks Qin for being a marvelous bastard."
A surprised look spread across Qin's face, and not just because Zack was shaking his entire arm so vigorously the short man seemed to bounce up and down. Realization soon replaced surprise. "Zach my friend, welcome back to my village. How are you doing?"
"Very good Qin, thank you for asking. Thank you as always for pulling me out of the water and helping me get back to my people."
"You very welcome Zach, we supposed to help guests and people always, no matter if good or bad."
"Still, you have my thanks for what you did."
"It nothing," Qin said with modesty, but he was still flushed with pride for Zach's kind words. "So what you come here for Zach?"
"This and that, but mostly talk. May I discuss some matters with you. In private of course."
"No worries, follow me Zacharias."
"So Qin, what exactly where those people calling out to me? Tā shuí zàicì shàngzhǎng? What does that mean?"
Qin finished lighting the fire inside of the hut for light. His grave face, illuminated by the flames walked towards the rough made table, and he sat in his seat, the oak wood creation groaning slightly with his weight. "Long story friend, but tell me first what you came here for."
Zach paused for a few moments before speaking. "I came here to see if you wanted to join my tribe. We have already created a new, permanent settlement, and want to see if you would like to join us. It's already thriving and such, but we could always use some new faces around who can help out and whatnot."
Qin leaned back in his chair, the little thing about to tip over, and arched his fingers underneath his chin. The immaculate brown colored beard that clung to his chin swayed lightly. "It seems interesting, will talk with people tomorrow about it."
"So you are considering it?"
"Well yes and no. We, what you call? Nomads? Yes, nomads. We wander from place to place to find new home from time to time. Static settlement, it bring dangers. You can't leave place after all."
"We shall defend it with all of our might, no matter the cost."
"Hmmm, maybe."
Silence filled the room for a few minutes as Qin toyed with his beard, Zach watching him carefully, scars rippling.
"So can you tell me about what they were saying earlier Qin?"
The other man frowned, looking at Zach cautiously. "Long tale," he said slolwly. "It very complex and detailed. You sure you want to listen?"
"Of course."
"Tell him to speak in his native tounge, and I shall translate for you."
"Qin, wait up for a second."
"Why Zach?"
"Can you speak in your native tounge?"
"Of course, but how will you understand?"
"Just tell me please."
Shrugging, Qin leaned even further back in his chair as he began. "Duìyú xǔduō dài, wǒmen yǒu zhèyàng de gùshì zài wǒmen zhōngjiān, liúchuán xiàlái de kǒubēi, cóng fùqīn dào érzi, yīgè gùshì guānyú yīgè nánrén shuí shàngshēng zàicì...."
"There is a tale, passed down for many generations amongs our people, from father to son, about a man who would rise again.... This man would be betrayed by a member of his people, attacked and left for dead as the crimson life force drained out of him and he was swept away by the black waters. He would initially pass from the realm of the living into the realm of the dead, seemingly lost from life and it's concerns."
"However, he would reenter this world with a blessing from the heavens. One that brought life back into his fragile body, healed him, and sent him on his way to confront the betrayor who threatened to bathe the entire tribe in blood and endless warfare as an example for future generations to follow, till those very people were wiped from the face of the world."
"This man would lead his people to become a powerful and cultured society, one that would be a champion for the world and a model for many to follow. But these people would meet another and grapple with them for power, one side led by the star banner, the other one with the double headed phoenix. At this point, either one could survive, but the one that does shall rule forever more until the stars burn out, the moon crashes into the world, and the sun wraps the Earth in fiery arms and brings it back into it's womb."
"Many foes shall come before and challenge the people of this nation, and each will fall until two are left, and in time eighteen will become two, two shall be one. It shall come to pass, as was fortold when the stars were first birthed into existence. So it has been said, and so it shall be."
The air in the hut was warm enough for them both to sweat, but Zach was as cold as if the lord of winter had reached out with an ice chipped hand and gripped him. All of it... it was indescribable the emotion Zach was feeling at the moment, something between ecstasy and horror.
"Does this tale of yours say what this man is supposed to do?"
"Alas no, it say nothing about any finer details than that."
"Than what is this man supposed to do?"
"First of all Zacharias, do no attempt to say you not that man. It highly clear what are you, so no denying it, we can see it."
"Recognized me how?"
"You can't tell?"
"What do you mean?"
Qin raised his hand and tapped his forehead and traced it down the ridge of his nose to the tip. "Right there, black mark on your face, clear as day."
Nothing could be felt on his face or head as he scrabbled trying to feel if something was there. "You sure Qin."
He shrugged. "Clear to me, not clear to you? Do not know why."
"But if I am this man, how am I supposed to lead? Does your legend not so anything of the sort."
"Nothing Zach, it say nothing. Legend not a guide or handbook for you to follow."
"He is right you know."
"I don't care if he is right or not, I want specifics on how I am supposed to do... all of this. How am I supposed to lead my people, even after I die?
"That is for you to figure out."
"Wow, thank you so much for all of the help, you know for selecting me instead of a person from the future who would probably be more interested in something like this instead of me. Was that really so hard?"
"You were the best pick that we had out of your people, and it's you that shall lead them. What is important to you, taking the easy road or the challenging one and raising your people to glory with the latter?"
"Do not lecture me on what is important here, I'm asking why should I lead these people? Anyone else could have been better than me, even my son for the sun god's sake, yet you pick me?! This is a lot of responsibility to give to a person, and I am supposed to do this how?! Tell me now!"
She was silent for a moment before speaking again.
"Poor Zacharias, how I wish I could tell you, but I can not. You must figure it out on your own."
"Are you alright Zach?" Qin's careful voice broke through the woman's voice in his head, slicing through it all and lifting the fog in his mind. "You alright?" he repeated once more as Zach banished the last thoughts out of his mind.
"Yes I am fine Qin. Why do you ask?"
"You sit there for minutes, looking like you arguing with someone. Was something the matter?"
"Not really Qin, I'm fine. Just tired after a long couple of days. May I take your leave and rest on what you have told me?"
"Of course Zacharias! I ready place for you in tent, what about your men?"
"Can you see to them as well? I'm not feeling well right now..."
"Of course, of course, of course."
Zach lay there on the ground in the tent, looking up at the fabric above his head, the moon bright and outlined, muffled only lightly with the stars as well by the cloth, and visible all the same. It was a good sight, one that would have been better had he been outside on a night like this. A beautiful crescent moon hanging in the sky, stars to light his way...
Sleep was not coming easily to him. Dusk had passed, and the moon had ascended to it's midway position in the sky, yet he was still awake, listening to the people in the huts and his men in the tents stir and snore, some getting up to dispose of bodily fluids outside of the camp. Qin's village may have been strange, but it was much like the place that he and his men had left days ago; a nice village, one where everyone was seemingly friends with one another and worked hard together.
He rolled over onto his side and stared at the tent flap as the breeze stirred it lightly. The small blanket was comfortable and offered only token warmth on a night like this. It was not needed, but Qin had insisted on it, out of politeness and worriedness, having his food and extra water sent to Zach's tent when he didn't appear for a communal supper that evening.
"You asked before why I picked you Zach, right?"
"Yes, and you were not very forthcoming with that information now were you?"
A sound like a sigh whistled in his head. "I can't very well tell you all of it now can I? But what I can show you is what would have happened if you had survived and Terry had died, but you had not been selected. Do you really want to see?"
"Of course I do."
"Fine, I'll show you what would have happened had your son been picked."
A flash of white in front of Zach's eyes, and everything around him dissapeared. He felt his body floating upwards, as if on a cloud of godly heather, soft and light.
The whiteness in front of his eyes stopped, replaced by darkness. Already standing, Zach waited for his eyes to adjust for a few minutes before looking around; he was in the cave, the white woman here as well, floating above the pool of water.
"Now watch Zach."
A single ripple pulsed outwards from under the woman, spreading across the water rapidly, a scene slowly appearing on the water.
A burial mound upon the hill where the village now sat, a long procession of people walking out of the settlement. Victor led the column, an older Victor with a rocky face and fierce looking wife while their children trailed behind them. On wooden slats was carried a wooden box, shaped in a rectangle and carried forth by weeping women.
An open pit far from the village waited for them, shadows in the depths of it as a cloudy sky rumbled with the groans of thunder. The box was set down inside of the pit as Victor began to speak before the people.
"It is a sad day for us, I know, but we must forge a new destiny for ourselves. We have been guided by my father for many cycles, through good times and bad. We must take his example of perseverance and go forward into a new dawn, and do what must be done. We have served him well and faithfully for much of our lifetimes, and now we lay him to rest. May the gods of the underworld be kind to him."
The box was set down into the pit, dirt pushed in after it till the pit was filled up and the coffin covered. The procession returned back to the village, Victor and his wife staying behind with their heads bowed over the burial mound.
Time speed by now, the village growing and sprawling out, stone walls rising up around it, buildings getting higher. People from different nations now arrived and left as more settlements were founded farther and farther away from the capital.
Zach saw everything; assassinations, destruction of tribes like Qin's, fires rising up out of the ground, laughing people crumbling away to dust and ash, cities built and rising up to the heavens before being smashed down as the sun itself fell from the sky to deliver a burning wrath to the people.
Finally it slowed down to a scene, so far in the future that Zach could not comprehend most of it; a bleak red sky with a crimson sun rising from the east above a muddy deluge on a ground full of tangled bodies of men and women, and with a horrifying realization, children. The walls of a city far in the distance rose up with tall fangs of glass structures clawing at the sky as if to rip it apart.
A crowd of people stood on great beasts that gleamed with a dull light. Oddly they had no claws, but that was secondary to the two groups of people standing slightly apart from each other.
One man, tall and sandy haired, was kneeling before one with olive skin and black hair who smiled cruelly and viciously. A metal blade was clasped in his hands as he looked down at the sandy haired man.
"Don't do it Neumann!" one of the people spoke out, obviously one of this "Neumann's" friends.
The man gritted his teeth and shouted back, "We have no choice! No use in all of us dying!"
"Your right Neumann, it's a pity that your mighty nation has fallen so far from where it was before." The olive man laughed out loud. "So you finally surrender. Good."
"Just don't kill my people Lucian, that was the parley deal."
"As it was. Don't worry, I won't kill them."
Neumann seemed to realize what the man was saying, and jumped up shouting at him, only to be silenced by the sword in his throat. The other men were fell upon by the olive skinned folk, and died quickly and noisily.
"Requiem in pace, bastards." The man named Lucian turned to his men and the great metal beasts. "Destroy them all." And so they did; a tortured city crying out with the voices of thousands, millions, and incomprehensible number of people all at once, who knew that they were doomed.
Zach was watching all of this in horror. "How... how does this happen?"
"Your son was the second best one to be selected, and look now: that will be the future if you do not lead. More blood will be spilt if you do nothing and stand by waiting for people to figure it out on their own."
"But....but...."
"Lead Zach, I know that you can. You just have to try. There are no guides for it, and I am sorry that you will have to sacrifice your entire life to make your people a better future then that one right there."
"Are you truly ready to do that?"
Zach steadied himself now as he looked at the woman, floating down to him. She had no eyes, but he could feel her watching him intently.
The city; oh had it cried out as it had been ravaged by the fires of a cruel race of people, people who cared naught for the amount of blood that fell across the world and ran into the sea. If that was the future of his people, to be sent to the fires like wild animals, Zach would not let that happen, even if his spirit was forced to wander the world forever more.
"Yes," he heard himself say. "I am ready."
"Tā shuí zàicì shàngzhǎng! Tā shuí zàicì shàngzhǎng!"
All the people of the village seemed to have gathered all at once to cluster around the warriors that had entered their settlement after the sheperd had run and told all the village all of what he had seen. Men, women, children, and babes all were around them, all in awe with tinges of fear and amazement as they looked at Zach, the other men given curious looks and secondary assignment of importance.
"Do you know what they are saying sir?" Nick whispered into Zach's ear.
"No I don't. Half a day is not enough to learn an entire new language."
"A pity, we could actually understand what they are saying."
The cluster had only thickened as time passed. One man lunged towards Zach with a hand extended to his head as if to grab some hair. The warriors began to reach for their clubs, but they wouldn't have needed them anyways; the man was pulled back into the crowd by the other people as they yelled at him in a berating voice. A small woman with two children stopped in front of Zach, smiling and speaking rapidly in the strange tounge as she gestured with the rather immobile but breathing forms of the children. She too was quickly pulled aside.
The tumult of voices speaking in that fluid language assualted their ears, making many a man dizzy. It echoed inside of their head, crawled into their heart, was inhaled and exhaled in their chest, reverbrating like the strike of a bell through their bodies.
"Āndùn xiàlái, āndìng xiàlái, suǒyǒu de nǐ. Nǐ yào zhèyàng duìdài wǒmen de kèrén cūbào?" An annoyed man came out of nowhere, shouting at the people in an exasperated voice with a frustrated face. Brightly colored robes covered his whole frame, soft wool dyed red, yellow, green, and purple, swamping his plump frame in light while his face was round with shoulder length hair. He shouted again in his language at the people of his village before turning around to the warriors. "Hello strangers, my name Qin." His tone was butchered and pulled apart pieces of the warrior's own language, and heavily accented as well. "Can I help you something?"
"Sure you can," Zach said stepping forward. "You can accept my thanks Qin for being a marvelous bastard."
A surprised look spread across Qin's face, and not just because Zack was shaking his entire arm so vigorously the short man seemed to bounce up and down. Realization soon replaced surprise. "Zach my friend, welcome back to my village. How are you doing?"
"Very good Qin, thank you for asking. Thank you as always for pulling me out of the water and helping me get back to my people."
"You very welcome Zach, we supposed to help guests and people always, no matter if good or bad."
"Still, you have my thanks for what you did."
"It nothing," Qin said with modesty, but he was still flushed with pride for Zach's kind words. "So what you come here for Zach?"
"This and that, but mostly talk. May I discuss some matters with you. In private of course."
"No worries, follow me Zacharias."
"So Qin, what exactly where those people calling out to me? Tā shuí zàicì shàngzhǎng? What does that mean?"
Qin finished lighting the fire inside of the hut for light. His grave face, illuminated by the flames walked towards the rough made table, and he sat in his seat, the oak wood creation groaning slightly with his weight. "Long story friend, but tell me first what you came here for."
Zach paused for a few moments before speaking. "I came here to see if you wanted to join my tribe. We have already created a new, permanent settlement, and want to see if you would like to join us. It's already thriving and such, but we could always use some new faces around who can help out and whatnot."
Qin leaned back in his chair, the little thing about to tip over, and arched his fingers underneath his chin. The immaculate brown colored beard that clung to his chin swayed lightly. "It seems interesting, will talk with people tomorrow about it."
"So you are considering it?"
"Well yes and no. We, what you call? Nomads? Yes, nomads. We wander from place to place to find new home from time to time. Static settlement, it bring dangers. You can't leave place after all."
"We shall defend it with all of our might, no matter the cost."
"Hmmm, maybe."
Silence filled the room for a few minutes as Qin toyed with his beard, Zach watching him carefully, scars rippling.
"So can you tell me about what they were saying earlier Qin?"
The other man frowned, looking at Zach cautiously. "Long tale," he said slolwly. "It very complex and detailed. You sure you want to listen?"
"Of course."
"Tell him to speak in his native tounge, and I shall translate for you."
"Qin, wait up for a second."
"Why Zach?"
"Can you speak in your native tounge?"
"Of course, but how will you understand?"
"Just tell me please."
Shrugging, Qin leaned even further back in his chair as he began. "Duìyú xǔduō dài, wǒmen yǒu zhèyàng de gùshì zài wǒmen zhōngjiān, liúchuán xiàlái de kǒubēi, cóng fùqīn dào érzi, yīgè gùshì guānyú yīgè nánrén shuí shàngshēng zàicì...."
"There is a tale, passed down for many generations amongs our people, from father to son, about a man who would rise again.... This man would be betrayed by a member of his people, attacked and left for dead as the crimson life force drained out of him and he was swept away by the black waters. He would initially pass from the realm of the living into the realm of the dead, seemingly lost from life and it's concerns."
"However, he would reenter this world with a blessing from the heavens. One that brought life back into his fragile body, healed him, and sent him on his way to confront the betrayor who threatened to bathe the entire tribe in blood and endless warfare as an example for future generations to follow, till those very people were wiped from the face of the world."
"This man would lead his people to become a powerful and cultured society, one that would be a champion for the world and a model for many to follow. But these people would meet another and grapple with them for power, one side led by the star banner, the other one with the double headed phoenix. At this point, either one could survive, but the one that does shall rule forever more until the stars burn out, the moon crashes into the world, and the sun wraps the Earth in fiery arms and brings it back into it's womb."
"Many foes shall come before and challenge the people of this nation, and each will fall until two are left, and in time eighteen will become two, two shall be one. It shall come to pass, as was fortold when the stars were first birthed into existence. So it has been said, and so it shall be."
The air in the hut was warm enough for them both to sweat, but Zach was as cold as if the lord of winter had reached out with an ice chipped hand and gripped him. All of it... it was indescribable the emotion Zach was feeling at the moment, something between ecstasy and horror.
"Does this tale of yours say what this man is supposed to do?"
"Alas no, it say nothing about any finer details than that."
"Than what is this man supposed to do?"
"First of all Zacharias, do no attempt to say you not that man. It highly clear what are you, so no denying it, we can see it."
"Recognized me how?"
"You can't tell?"
"What do you mean?"
Qin raised his hand and tapped his forehead and traced it down the ridge of his nose to the tip. "Right there, black mark on your face, clear as day."
Nothing could be felt on his face or head as he scrabbled trying to feel if something was there. "You sure Qin."
He shrugged. "Clear to me, not clear to you? Do not know why."
"But if I am this man, how am I supposed to lead? Does your legend not so anything of the sort."
"Nothing Zach, it say nothing. Legend not a guide or handbook for you to follow."
"He is right you know."
"I don't care if he is right or not, I want specifics on how I am supposed to do... all of this. How am I supposed to lead my people, even after I die?
"That is for you to figure out."
"Wow, thank you so much for all of the help, you know for selecting me instead of a person from the future who would probably be more interested in something like this instead of me. Was that really so hard?"
"You were the best pick that we had out of your people, and it's you that shall lead them. What is important to you, taking the easy road or the challenging one and raising your people to glory with the latter?"
"Do not lecture me on what is important here, I'm asking why should I lead these people? Anyone else could have been better than me, even my son for the sun god's sake, yet you pick me?! This is a lot of responsibility to give to a person, and I am supposed to do this how?! Tell me now!"
She was silent for a moment before speaking again.
"Poor Zacharias, how I wish I could tell you, but I can not. You must figure it out on your own."
"Are you alright Zach?" Qin's careful voice broke through the woman's voice in his head, slicing through it all and lifting the fog in his mind. "You alright?" he repeated once more as Zach banished the last thoughts out of his mind.
"Yes I am fine Qin. Why do you ask?"
"You sit there for minutes, looking like you arguing with someone. Was something the matter?"
"Not really Qin, I'm fine. Just tired after a long couple of days. May I take your leave and rest on what you have told me?"
"Of course Zacharias! I ready place for you in tent, what about your men?"
"Can you see to them as well? I'm not feeling well right now..."
"Of course, of course, of course."
Zach lay there on the ground in the tent, looking up at the fabric above his head, the moon bright and outlined, muffled only lightly with the stars as well by the cloth, and visible all the same. It was a good sight, one that would have been better had he been outside on a night like this. A beautiful crescent moon hanging in the sky, stars to light his way...
Sleep was not coming easily to him. Dusk had passed, and the moon had ascended to it's midway position in the sky, yet he was still awake, listening to the people in the huts and his men in the tents stir and snore, some getting up to dispose of bodily fluids outside of the camp. Qin's village may have been strange, but it was much like the place that he and his men had left days ago; a nice village, one where everyone was seemingly friends with one another and worked hard together.
He rolled over onto his side and stared at the tent flap as the breeze stirred it lightly. The small blanket was comfortable and offered only token warmth on a night like this. It was not needed, but Qin had insisted on it, out of politeness and worriedness, having his food and extra water sent to Zach's tent when he didn't appear for a communal supper that evening.
"You asked before why I picked you Zach, right?"
"Yes, and you were not very forthcoming with that information now were you?"
A sound like a sigh whistled in his head. "I can't very well tell you all of it now can I? But what I can show you is what would have happened if you had survived and Terry had died, but you had not been selected. Do you really want to see?"
"Of course I do."
"Fine, I'll show you what would have happened had your son been picked."
A flash of white in front of Zach's eyes, and everything around him dissapeared. He felt his body floating upwards, as if on a cloud of godly heather, soft and light.
The whiteness in front of his eyes stopped, replaced by darkness. Already standing, Zach waited for his eyes to adjust for a few minutes before looking around; he was in the cave, the white woman here as well, floating above the pool of water.
"Now watch Zach."
A single ripple pulsed outwards from under the woman, spreading across the water rapidly, a scene slowly appearing on the water.
A burial mound upon the hill where the village now sat, a long procession of people walking out of the settlement. Victor led the column, an older Victor with a rocky face and fierce looking wife while their children trailed behind them. On wooden slats was carried a wooden box, shaped in a rectangle and carried forth by weeping women.
An open pit far from the village waited for them, shadows in the depths of it as a cloudy sky rumbled with the groans of thunder. The box was set down inside of the pit as Victor began to speak before the people.
"It is a sad day for us, I know, but we must forge a new destiny for ourselves. We have been guided by my father for many cycles, through good times and bad. We must take his example of perseverance and go forward into a new dawn, and do what must be done. We have served him well and faithfully for much of our lifetimes, and now we lay him to rest. May the gods of the underworld be kind to him."
The box was set down into the pit, dirt pushed in after it till the pit was filled up and the coffin covered. The procession returned back to the village, Victor and his wife staying behind with their heads bowed over the burial mound.
Time speed by now, the village growing and sprawling out, stone walls rising up around it, buildings getting higher. People from different nations now arrived and left as more settlements were founded farther and farther away from the capital.
Zach saw everything; assassinations, destruction of tribes like Qin's, fires rising up out of the ground, laughing people crumbling away to dust and ash, cities built and rising up to the heavens before being smashed down as the sun itself fell from the sky to deliver a burning wrath to the people.
Finally it slowed down to a scene, so far in the future that Zach could not comprehend most of it; a bleak red sky with a crimson sun rising from the east above a muddy deluge on a ground full of tangled bodies of men and women, and with a horrifying realization, children. The walls of a city far in the distance rose up with tall fangs of glass structures clawing at the sky as if to rip it apart.
A crowd of people stood on great beasts that gleamed with a dull light. Oddly they had no claws, but that was secondary to the two groups of people standing slightly apart from each other.
One man, tall and sandy haired, was kneeling before one with olive skin and black hair who smiled cruelly and viciously. A metal blade was clasped in his hands as he looked down at the sandy haired man.
"Don't do it Neumann!" one of the people spoke out, obviously one of this "Neumann's" friends.
The man gritted his teeth and shouted back, "We have no choice! No use in all of us dying!"
"Your right Neumann, it's a pity that your mighty nation has fallen so far from where it was before." The olive man laughed out loud. "So you finally surrender. Good."
"Just don't kill my people Lucian, that was the parley deal."
"As it was. Don't worry, I won't kill them."
Neumann seemed to realize what the man was saying, and jumped up shouting at him, only to be silenced by the sword in his throat. The other men were fell upon by the olive skinned folk, and died quickly and noisily.
"Requiem in pace, bastards." The man named Lucian turned to his men and the great metal beasts. "Destroy them all." And so they did; a tortured city crying out with the voices of thousands, millions, and incomprehensible number of people all at once, who knew that they were doomed.
Zach was watching all of this in horror. "How... how does this happen?"
"Your son was the second best one to be selected, and look now: that will be the future if you do not lead. More blood will be spilt if you do nothing and stand by waiting for people to figure it out on their own."
"But....but...."
"Lead Zach, I know that you can. You just have to try. There are no guides for it, and I am sorry that you will have to sacrifice your entire life to make your people a better future then that one right there."
"Are you truly ready to do that?"
Zach steadied himself now as he looked at the woman, floating down to him. She had no eyes, but he could feel her watching him intently.
The city; oh had it cried out as it had been ravaged by the fires of a cruel race of people, people who cared naught for the amount of blood that fell across the world and ran into the sea. If that was the future of his people, to be sent to the fires like wild animals, Zach would not let that happen, even if his spirit was forced to wander the world forever more.
"Yes," he heard himself say. "I am ready."
mbkkbm
Silly American
nice update!
MoreEpicThanYou
The most Epic.
That... IS AWESOME.
This has officially TIED with PotU.
This has officially TIED with PotU.
hoplitejoe
Top fun-poster
- Joined
- Mar 22, 2010
- Messages
- 5,470
This is going to be one massive story.
Tomorrow's Dawn
Heroes Never Die
See my avatar. You broke my heart, METY
Just kidding, we're all entitled to our opinions.
Tycho, you've already written a really great story and I get the feeling this is going to be really big.
So keep up the good work and I'll definitely continue reading this
Tycho
AFK Forum Warrior
- Joined
- Jul 31, 2011
- Messages
- 3,240
See my avatar. You broke my heart, METY
Just kidding, we're all entitled to our opinions.
Tycho, you've already written a really great story and I get the feeling this is going to be really big.
So keep up the good work and I'll definitely continue reading this
I will try to Dawn, and you yourself have a great story that a love quite a bit (waiting for the next season of it anxiously). Thank you for the praise
.Yes it will be. I will carry this game into Final Frontier as well if I feel like it.
Thank you for supporting me here guys.
Also, I kind of ran into a strange graphics bug with one of the leaders... Now he just looks ridiculous.
Another update in 2-3 days time, which will be the final part of this series before the epilogue of Zach's saga.
Optical
The Fall of the Eleventh
I now know what my four favourite stories of all time on this forum are. This is one of them.
The other three (in spoilers for a slight deviation from the purpose of the thread. In this spirit, any further discussion should happen in the SG)
The other three (in spoilers for a slight deviation from the purpose of the thread. In this spirit, any further discussion should happen in the SG)
Spoiler :
MoreEpicThanYou
The most Epic.
except Arabian Nights is also on the list.
SouthernKing
crickety cricket
This is quite good 
Steel Knight
Warlord
subbed for an excellent story. This sounds exactly luke PotU
Tycho
AFK Forum Warrior
- Joined
- Jul 31, 2011
- Messages
- 3,240
Zach the Founder: Part 5
"Thank you Zach for bringing us here," Qin was saying as he looked over the settlement that belonged to his and Zach's people now. New houses were already being brought up and built for the new arrivals, and several people were attempting to teach them the local language. Already many of Qin's people were speaking broken pieces of it and were progressing along nicely, and some were already fluent and a master at the tongue.
"Not a problem Qin, I'm glad that you are here. I hope that you shall like the place good friend, we do everything we can to be as hospitable as humanly possible."
"I can tell." The air was filled with the smells of a great feast being created and organized by the denizens of the settlement, a welcoming one that Qin himself called "One of Eternal Peace and Fraternity". Zach simply called it a gift to the people who had come with them to a new home here in this place.
"What is the name of this place again Zacharias?"
"Erm... about that. Haven't really picked a name for it yet....."
"You need to pick one soon, for good luck you know." Qin chided Zach lightly with a wide smile on his face. "After all, you can't keep calling it "my village" forever now can you?"
"Sure I can, unless we have almost one thousand new children within in the next year or so which is very unlikely. So it's still 'The Village' to me. What would you call it Qin?"
"Shanghai."
"Very funny Qin, very funny." Both of them smiled as they watched the village from the very top of the hill. "If I could ask you, in the legends of your people, what happens after I die? I am still mortal after all, and living forever would not be as good of a thing as people think it would be."
"Well that's the part where our legends schism with each other. Some versions of the legend insist that you shall guide from above, others predict another person being picked and marked so, and other legends say that your people will have to guide themselves. It's a mixed bag as they say to what it actually is and we do not know what it shall be."
"A pity. That could have been used at a time like this."
They stood in silence on the hill, watching Humphrey, Nick, and Jack work with the warriors, whose ranks had swelled to over a hundred soldiers. The first of their kind.
"So have you seen her as of late?"
"Hmmmm?"
"The white woman Zach. Have you seen her?"
"No, not since I was guided to your people by her." The lie came easily and rolled off of his tounge simply. After all, he was not going to tell Qin about the hideous firestorm that he had seen wipe out countless people and commute their bodies to ash upon the cold winds.
Qin frowned. "The white woman is supposed to help as often as possible, whenever she possibly can, and give counsel and advice to the chosen person. How often have you talked to her?"
"Five cycles ago when the settlement was first founded, and three moons ago when we were guided to you Qin. Other than that, nothing."
"Hmmmmm. Odd."
"How so?"
"No reason. Anyways, I should go help the cooks down there prepare the feast. After all, we are guests in your place, now and forever."
"Not so Qin, here you are as related to us as family. But go ahead if need to."
Zach watched Qin stride down the rocky slope to the cookfires that belched smoke into the cloudy sky and the people who milled about like ants and huddled in groups, talking with one another or conferring with others about their tasks. "Life so precious, greed so destructive. Would you not agree Zach?"
He grunted as he sat down, a muscle twinging painfully. "Depends on what angle you look at it from. The greedy person's perspective or the creator's perspective. Besides that how long have you been listening in and not saying anything?
"Oh, several hours or so."
"Figures. Anything you want to tell me or warn me about now?"
"Well yes, but it's a lot more complex than that, don't you know Zach? Nothing is every simple and straightforward."
"Quit speaking in riddles and actually tell me what you are talking about. I do not enjoy wasting my time trying to figure out these things. Can't anything you say be easy enough to comprehend."
"Let me put it this way Zacharias, I am 'dumbing it down' for your sake. If I tried to tell you what exactly you needed to do, I'd be breaking the rules that I need to follow and at the same time you would not even begin to understand what you have been told. Sorry that it is complex to you, but you have to tough through it after all."
"Hmmm. So tell me why you chose to speak to me now instead of, oh I don't know, any other time? What's so important about this time to you?
"This is a juncture point, one that if I do not choose carefully the entire future in front of you will snap to a different path in a single instant. In essence, it is like running across a bridge a hands width wide and made out of reeds in picking the right decision that will keep your people out of the mire that may soon come."
"Sounds complex. Glad it's not my job."
"Very funny. But before you continue to poke fun at me, I would just like to infrom you that in a single instant I could turn your brain into so much mush, set alight with black flames, or make you lose your mind and send you plummeting to your death. Just thought I would let you in on that before I continued."
"How pleasent, but we both know you won't do it."
"Bright one aren't you?"
Silence filled his head for several moments as he picked up several blades of grass and began to twirl them into nots and loops, around and around. Clouds drifted by overhead, a cool wind blowing gently, the sound of water trickling in the gorge loud in his ears.
"So what is it that you wanted to talk about again?"
"Tonight at the feast, you will see a vision. To you it will last an eternity, but to everyone else, barely a moment, barely a heartbeat, barely a breath shall pass before you come back to your senses. Do not cry out, maintain good face. Afterwards, come to the very top of the summit, and wait for my commands."
"Fine. But if I may ask you a question?"
"Ask anything you wish.
Two questions really. What should I name this place that we have founded, and will this vision be better or worse than the other ones I have experienced before?
The name for this place shall come to you eventually, and the vision will depend on whether you thought the other visions you have seen were good or bad.
The feast was a regal affair, food adorning the tables and longbenches, everyone coming together in friendship and laughter that echoed in the air. Torches were lit and fires kindled, while drummers beat there leather covered items with a fast pitched beat that thrummed inside your chest and beat along with your heart. Women and men danced in a fervent fever around the fires, shadows falling away from them as children laughed and ran with each other. The moon rose like a crystal teardrop in the heavens, looking down upon the people, mortal lives soon to be turned to dust.
Qin ate quite a bit, but Zach could only toy with his food and nibble bits of it. Roast quail, gravy and turkeys, bits of the grain that Qin called rice, salted peanuts, leeks, tomatoes, watermelon, honeydew, and other fine dishes in a rainbow spectrum of colors in front of them, but all he could hear and think about was the drum beat, thmp thump thump thump thump thump thump, right along with his heart. As the people mingled on the ground, so did the clouds above, stars appearing and dissapearing suddenly and quickly, constellations splayed out across the sky. Color had smell, smells had sound, and sounds had color, all around them assualting their senses.
And then it began; the discords in the drum beats as missed notes and screeching ones filled the air and took form of hideous carrion birds, ones with dozens of eyes, ones rotting in flight, ones red and yellow and ones on fire or spread icy chips of water behind them in their wake. The drumbeat itself became less of a happy tune and more of a warlike beat, the sound of hundreds of blocks of wood smacking together in a crescendo of sound, the drummers themselves turning into statues with moving hands, blood pouring out of their mouths like rivers.
As Zach turned his head skyward, the moon turned into a grimancing, screaming face filled with pain and suffering cast upon it by some unknown force. The feasters at the table, people he had known since their births and his childhood morphed and changed. Olive skinned people with close cropped hair, people similar to Qin's own looking haughty and mighty, pale skinned ones with shaggy hair and mouths of yellow teeth, brown toned people with dark black shadows circling their eyes, ones with feathers in their hair while their horses nickered, unsmiling folk of blond hair and fiery eyes. Victor himself danced with his wife by the fire which stretched skyward to caress the moon as it cracked apart, blackness spilling across the sky, Victor's head that of a wolf's, his wife's a falcon. Qin was sitting at Zach's side, and when he looked over, a sharp fanged lion greeted him, black liquid running out of his eyes and his mouth in a torrential downfall.
The children were there one second, and the next they adorned the trees, hung by circlets of rope, their eyes empty sockets and their mouths filled with jutting spikes. Carrion birds that had been birthed by the notes went forth, roosting on the bodies of the children and picking the flesh away, revealing a writhing mass of insects beneath the skin. The guests at the table were worse off, cuts and gashes covering their skins as they ate and drank, sparks of fire flying out of their mouths, blood trickling from their wounds and eyes. Even the drinks they had, crystal clear water at first, changed into that of an oily black liquid, which screamed out like a great infernal beast was being cut and stabbed.
"Zach," the toothy lion spoke slowly, a thousand heartbeats as each part of the word was said. "You seem ill, is something the matter?"
Blinking once, Zach looked around at all of the people gathered for the feast. All of them were like they were; Victor and his wife dancing a merry tune with the drummers and other women and men near them, feasters drinking water and appearing perfectly fine. The children ran around screaming and jesting with one another, completely fine.
"Nothing Qin. If you will excuse me for a time..."
He didn't bother finishing the sentence as he got up and left, people staring at him as he walked away and was wrapped in a cloak of darkness. Qin began to get up, but sat back down after a few moments. Whatever Zach was doing, he wanted to be left alone right now. Shrugging, he went back to his food.
Unthinking, Zach stumbled along in the dark, up the slope of the hill, rocks digging into the heels of his sandals, stones dislodging themselves from the soil and tumbling down the incline, but he payed it no mind. What he had seen... that was not an omen, that was something from the bowels of a hellish mind, one that considered what he had seen a thing of beauty.
It wasn't real, it wasn't real, it wasn't real, it wasn't real, everything is fine, that was a... normal vision I guess, and she did warn me after all. Everything is perfectly fine, all of it is simply symboloby for something, I don't know what but maybe she will have the answeres, yes she will because she knows all the answers, does she not?.
"No Zach I do not have all the answers you seek."
Her voice stopped him as he looked up at the moon, still looking like it was smiling, a beautiful smile of hope and kindness at the world below it. It seemed to shift for a moment in the sky, but as soon as he blinked, it was normal once again.
"Are you alright Zach?"
The voice seemed distant, an irritable fly buzzing at his ear in the distance. He heard himself say "Now what do you think?" as he moved towards the precipice above the water. He looked over into the foaming river below, black as tar, and saw a shape rise out of it; the bloated body of Terry, the wound still adorning his neck, his skin blue and black with rot. He beckoned to Zach, speaking in a voice like bubbling water. "Join the waters Zach, it's not so bad once you get used to drowning. Come on Zach, it's not that bad, join the children of the water." The body of the man who had once threatened to take Zach's life arched his head back and roared with laughter, water pluming upward as the sound echoed off the hills.
And then that too was gone, Terry's body sunk beneath the waters yet again, Zach looking over the waters below him that writhed and swirled.
"Zach, you passed."
"What?"
"Most people would have gone insane from a vision like that, but you on the other hand did not. For a second there I thought you were going to fling yourself off of the cliff. I would not have been able to do anything about it, and you would have died again.
"So what I saw... not real at all?"
"Precisely."
"Thank the gods for that. Thank god it was only a test and another packet of omens knocking at the door."
"Oh that was omens, you just have to figure out what they are now."
...............
"Zach?"
"Wonderful. Just, wonderful. No, no, no, don't give me any hints about what they might be about, I'll figure it out eventually.
"Love the sarcasm Zach. They are omens, but every person will have ones like that."
"What do you mean next person?"
"After you die, someone new has to be marked. To continue leading your people as you give them counsel with me."
"Perfect. Just the thing I wanted. To see horrible visions of the future, and then have to figure it out for future generations to utilize. Isn't this great?"
"Return to the feast now Zach. Keep up a normal face and be polite. Tell no one about what you saw there."
"Sure, not that I would tell them in the first place."
"Sir, should we be doing that so soon? I mean really, the warriors have barely trained for anything at all, is it wise sending them back out there-"
"Just do it Nick. Get Humphrey and Jack to go with you. They need to go with you and help out any way at all."
"Still sir, I don't think that it is a wise idea to be sending the men out there so soon. They are so green they most likely piss grass, and the veteran warriors won't take them that seriously. There might be infighting and actual physical actions against one another."
"Do it anyway Nick. Do you not have faith in me?"
Nick bowed his head at that. "We will leave on the morrow sir."
"Good, good." Zach smiled at Nick and shook his head, but in his chest dread gripped his heart. Are those omens for now, or for later?, he wondered quietly to himself.
"Thank you Zach for bringing us here," Qin was saying as he looked over the settlement that belonged to his and Zach's people now. New houses were already being brought up and built for the new arrivals, and several people were attempting to teach them the local language. Already many of Qin's people were speaking broken pieces of it and were progressing along nicely, and some were already fluent and a master at the tongue.
"Not a problem Qin, I'm glad that you are here. I hope that you shall like the place good friend, we do everything we can to be as hospitable as humanly possible."
"I can tell." The air was filled with the smells of a great feast being created and organized by the denizens of the settlement, a welcoming one that Qin himself called "One of Eternal Peace and Fraternity". Zach simply called it a gift to the people who had come with them to a new home here in this place.
"What is the name of this place again Zacharias?"
"Erm... about that. Haven't really picked a name for it yet....."
"You need to pick one soon, for good luck you know." Qin chided Zach lightly with a wide smile on his face. "After all, you can't keep calling it "my village" forever now can you?"
"Sure I can, unless we have almost one thousand new children within in the next year or so which is very unlikely. So it's still 'The Village' to me. What would you call it Qin?"
"Shanghai."
"Very funny Qin, very funny." Both of them smiled as they watched the village from the very top of the hill. "If I could ask you, in the legends of your people, what happens after I die? I am still mortal after all, and living forever would not be as good of a thing as people think it would be."
"Well that's the part where our legends schism with each other. Some versions of the legend insist that you shall guide from above, others predict another person being picked and marked so, and other legends say that your people will have to guide themselves. It's a mixed bag as they say to what it actually is and we do not know what it shall be."
"A pity. That could have been used at a time like this."
They stood in silence on the hill, watching Humphrey, Nick, and Jack work with the warriors, whose ranks had swelled to over a hundred soldiers. The first of their kind.
"So have you seen her as of late?"
"Hmmmm?"
"The white woman Zach. Have you seen her?"
"No, not since I was guided to your people by her." The lie came easily and rolled off of his tounge simply. After all, he was not going to tell Qin about the hideous firestorm that he had seen wipe out countless people and commute their bodies to ash upon the cold winds.
Qin frowned. "The white woman is supposed to help as often as possible, whenever she possibly can, and give counsel and advice to the chosen person. How often have you talked to her?"
"Five cycles ago when the settlement was first founded, and three moons ago when we were guided to you Qin. Other than that, nothing."
"Hmmmmm. Odd."
"How so?"
"No reason. Anyways, I should go help the cooks down there prepare the feast. After all, we are guests in your place, now and forever."
"Not so Qin, here you are as related to us as family. But go ahead if need to."
Zach watched Qin stride down the rocky slope to the cookfires that belched smoke into the cloudy sky and the people who milled about like ants and huddled in groups, talking with one another or conferring with others about their tasks. "Life so precious, greed so destructive. Would you not agree Zach?"
He grunted as he sat down, a muscle twinging painfully. "Depends on what angle you look at it from. The greedy person's perspective or the creator's perspective. Besides that how long have you been listening in and not saying anything?
"Oh, several hours or so."
"Figures. Anything you want to tell me or warn me about now?"
"Well yes, but it's a lot more complex than that, don't you know Zach? Nothing is every simple and straightforward."
"Quit speaking in riddles and actually tell me what you are talking about. I do not enjoy wasting my time trying to figure out these things. Can't anything you say be easy enough to comprehend."
"Let me put it this way Zacharias, I am 'dumbing it down' for your sake. If I tried to tell you what exactly you needed to do, I'd be breaking the rules that I need to follow and at the same time you would not even begin to understand what you have been told. Sorry that it is complex to you, but you have to tough through it after all."
"Hmmm. So tell me why you chose to speak to me now instead of, oh I don't know, any other time? What's so important about this time to you?
"This is a juncture point, one that if I do not choose carefully the entire future in front of you will snap to a different path in a single instant. In essence, it is like running across a bridge a hands width wide and made out of reeds in picking the right decision that will keep your people out of the mire that may soon come."
"Sounds complex. Glad it's not my job."
"Very funny. But before you continue to poke fun at me, I would just like to infrom you that in a single instant I could turn your brain into so much mush, set alight with black flames, or make you lose your mind and send you plummeting to your death. Just thought I would let you in on that before I continued."
"How pleasent, but we both know you won't do it."
"Bright one aren't you?"
Silence filled his head for several moments as he picked up several blades of grass and began to twirl them into nots and loops, around and around. Clouds drifted by overhead, a cool wind blowing gently, the sound of water trickling in the gorge loud in his ears.
"So what is it that you wanted to talk about again?"
"Tonight at the feast, you will see a vision. To you it will last an eternity, but to everyone else, barely a moment, barely a heartbeat, barely a breath shall pass before you come back to your senses. Do not cry out, maintain good face. Afterwards, come to the very top of the summit, and wait for my commands."
"Fine. But if I may ask you a question?"
"Ask anything you wish.
Two questions really. What should I name this place that we have founded, and will this vision be better or worse than the other ones I have experienced before?
The name for this place shall come to you eventually, and the vision will depend on whether you thought the other visions you have seen were good or bad.
The feast was a regal affair, food adorning the tables and longbenches, everyone coming together in friendship and laughter that echoed in the air. Torches were lit and fires kindled, while drummers beat there leather covered items with a fast pitched beat that thrummed inside your chest and beat along with your heart. Women and men danced in a fervent fever around the fires, shadows falling away from them as children laughed and ran with each other. The moon rose like a crystal teardrop in the heavens, looking down upon the people, mortal lives soon to be turned to dust.
Qin ate quite a bit, but Zach could only toy with his food and nibble bits of it. Roast quail, gravy and turkeys, bits of the grain that Qin called rice, salted peanuts, leeks, tomatoes, watermelon, honeydew, and other fine dishes in a rainbow spectrum of colors in front of them, but all he could hear and think about was the drum beat, thmp thump thump thump thump thump thump, right along with his heart. As the people mingled on the ground, so did the clouds above, stars appearing and dissapearing suddenly and quickly, constellations splayed out across the sky. Color had smell, smells had sound, and sounds had color, all around them assualting their senses.
And then it began; the discords in the drum beats as missed notes and screeching ones filled the air and took form of hideous carrion birds, ones with dozens of eyes, ones rotting in flight, ones red and yellow and ones on fire or spread icy chips of water behind them in their wake. The drumbeat itself became less of a happy tune and more of a warlike beat, the sound of hundreds of blocks of wood smacking together in a crescendo of sound, the drummers themselves turning into statues with moving hands, blood pouring out of their mouths like rivers.
As Zach turned his head skyward, the moon turned into a grimancing, screaming face filled with pain and suffering cast upon it by some unknown force. The feasters at the table, people he had known since their births and his childhood morphed and changed. Olive skinned people with close cropped hair, people similar to Qin's own looking haughty and mighty, pale skinned ones with shaggy hair and mouths of yellow teeth, brown toned people with dark black shadows circling their eyes, ones with feathers in their hair while their horses nickered, unsmiling folk of blond hair and fiery eyes. Victor himself danced with his wife by the fire which stretched skyward to caress the moon as it cracked apart, blackness spilling across the sky, Victor's head that of a wolf's, his wife's a falcon. Qin was sitting at Zach's side, and when he looked over, a sharp fanged lion greeted him, black liquid running out of his eyes and his mouth in a torrential downfall.
The children were there one second, and the next they adorned the trees, hung by circlets of rope, their eyes empty sockets and their mouths filled with jutting spikes. Carrion birds that had been birthed by the notes went forth, roosting on the bodies of the children and picking the flesh away, revealing a writhing mass of insects beneath the skin. The guests at the table were worse off, cuts and gashes covering their skins as they ate and drank, sparks of fire flying out of their mouths, blood trickling from their wounds and eyes. Even the drinks they had, crystal clear water at first, changed into that of an oily black liquid, which screamed out like a great infernal beast was being cut and stabbed.
"Zach," the toothy lion spoke slowly, a thousand heartbeats as each part of the word was said. "You seem ill, is something the matter?"
Blinking once, Zach looked around at all of the people gathered for the feast. All of them were like they were; Victor and his wife dancing a merry tune with the drummers and other women and men near them, feasters drinking water and appearing perfectly fine. The children ran around screaming and jesting with one another, completely fine.
"Nothing Qin. If you will excuse me for a time..."
He didn't bother finishing the sentence as he got up and left, people staring at him as he walked away and was wrapped in a cloak of darkness. Qin began to get up, but sat back down after a few moments. Whatever Zach was doing, he wanted to be left alone right now. Shrugging, he went back to his food.
Unthinking, Zach stumbled along in the dark, up the slope of the hill, rocks digging into the heels of his sandals, stones dislodging themselves from the soil and tumbling down the incline, but he payed it no mind. What he had seen... that was not an omen, that was something from the bowels of a hellish mind, one that considered what he had seen a thing of beauty.
It wasn't real, it wasn't real, it wasn't real, it wasn't real, everything is fine, that was a... normal vision I guess, and she did warn me after all. Everything is perfectly fine, all of it is simply symboloby for something, I don't know what but maybe she will have the answeres, yes she will because she knows all the answers, does she not?.
"No Zach I do not have all the answers you seek."
Her voice stopped him as he looked up at the moon, still looking like it was smiling, a beautiful smile of hope and kindness at the world below it. It seemed to shift for a moment in the sky, but as soon as he blinked, it was normal once again.
"Are you alright Zach?"
The voice seemed distant, an irritable fly buzzing at his ear in the distance. He heard himself say "Now what do you think?" as he moved towards the precipice above the water. He looked over into the foaming river below, black as tar, and saw a shape rise out of it; the bloated body of Terry, the wound still adorning his neck, his skin blue and black with rot. He beckoned to Zach, speaking in a voice like bubbling water. "Join the waters Zach, it's not so bad once you get used to drowning. Come on Zach, it's not that bad, join the children of the water." The body of the man who had once threatened to take Zach's life arched his head back and roared with laughter, water pluming upward as the sound echoed off the hills.
And then that too was gone, Terry's body sunk beneath the waters yet again, Zach looking over the waters below him that writhed and swirled.
"Zach, you passed."
"What?"
"Most people would have gone insane from a vision like that, but you on the other hand did not. For a second there I thought you were going to fling yourself off of the cliff. I would not have been able to do anything about it, and you would have died again.
"So what I saw... not real at all?"
"Precisely."
"Thank the gods for that. Thank god it was only a test and another packet of omens knocking at the door."
"Oh that was omens, you just have to figure out what they are now."
...............
"Zach?"
"Wonderful. Just, wonderful. No, no, no, don't give me any hints about what they might be about, I'll figure it out eventually.
"Love the sarcasm Zach. They are omens, but every person will have ones like that."
"What do you mean next person?"
"After you die, someone new has to be marked. To continue leading your people as you give them counsel with me."
"Perfect. Just the thing I wanted. To see horrible visions of the future, and then have to figure it out for future generations to utilize. Isn't this great?"
"Return to the feast now Zach. Keep up a normal face and be polite. Tell no one about what you saw there."
"Sure, not that I would tell them in the first place."
"Sir, should we be doing that so soon? I mean really, the warriors have barely trained for anything at all, is it wise sending them back out there-"
"Just do it Nick. Get Humphrey and Jack to go with you. They need to go with you and help out any way at all."
"Still sir, I don't think that it is a wise idea to be sending the men out there so soon. They are so green they most likely piss grass, and the veteran warriors won't take them that seriously. There might be infighting and actual physical actions against one another."
"Do it anyway Nick. Do you not have faith in me?"
Nick bowed his head at that. "We will leave on the morrow sir."
"Good, good." Zach smiled at Nick and shook his head, but in his chest dread gripped his heart. Are those omens for now, or for later?, he wondered quietly to himself.
MoreEpicThanYou
The most Epic.
You never cease to amaze.
hoplitejoe
Top fun-poster
- Joined
- Mar 22, 2010
- Messages
- 5,470
Will we be jumping through history after that?
Tycho
AFK Forum Warrior
- Joined
- Jul 31, 2011
- Messages
- 3,240
A bit here and there. Maybe I will have some characters prepped when we meet other civilizations, but mostly it will be fluff updates until certain events happen that allow me to write another update.
Tycho
AFK Forum Warrior
- Joined
- Jul 31, 2011
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Zach the Founder: Epilogue
The crowd clustered together on the windswept hillside, rain pattering down onto the unfeeling, cruel stones with jagged edges. Qin was dressed in dark robes, Victor and his wife in muddy colored dressing, and the trio of warriors Humphrey, Nick, and Jack were wrapped in black bear furs. All of their eyes were downcast as they looked into the empty pit, a mound of mud off to the side growing steadily moister. On the arms of four men, two Chinese and two Amerikan, the coffin was brought forward.
In death, Zach was even more regal and striking than he had been in life. Battle scars from fights long gone criscrossed his face and chest, both of his eyes closed now, a token amulet of dragonglass tied around his neck, and his arms crossed over his chest. The furs of slain animals that he had taken down in life surrounded and insulated the coffin, and an inlay of runic symbols carved in under the directions of the nature priestesses filled the entire capsule.
Tears were on many people's faces as they watched one of the greatest leaders that they had ever had in memory lowered into the ground slowly and gently, like a babe into a bed. Victor patted the coffin before moving at the head of it and staring over the precipice where seven years before his father had fought Terry over control of the people, and the former had died for his crimes.
"My father," he began slowly, "was a geat man. His knoweledge guided us to this spot and told us to settle here and become a static people. No longer must we worry about moving from place to place suddenly. Now we are here today, as we all knew we would be, over his grave and laying him to rest where he belongs now."
He turned towards everyone gathered around the grave, their faces streaked with the trails of tears and the driving rain. "His guindance helped us, his knowledge sheltered us, his courage protected us. Now it is time for our generation to take up the fallen club, as it is meant to be, and rise up to a new dawn, a new age. One where we must all work together to insure that we all survive the perilous and tumultous times ahead, are we shall be swept away by the tides of darkness."
"May we walk in the Creator's shadow for all eternity, may we be guided by the Father and Mother, shielded by the Warrior, gifted by the Smith, watched over by the Lady, and be given counsel by the Stranger. For we are all equal in birth and death, and we shall live in the Halls of Eternity, now and forever." The final prayer had the heads of everyone at the ceremony bowed their heads and were together in harmony for the entire speech.
The first clump of dirt thudded onto the coffin lid, then the other, and then the other, until the coffin was obscured by dirt, the pit filling up, up, up, until it was filled with the wet soil. One by one people left; mothers with their children, warriors and the men, the elders, Qin, Victor, and finally Humphrey, Jack, and Nick. The very first being the last to leave, Humphrey pulled the dragonglass creation out of his furs and set it gently in a hole on top of the grave. He walked away, never looking back.
Autumn passed, winter rose, spring bloomed, and summer sprang forth into the world. Qin organized the farmers, both Amerikan and Chinese, Victor led the warriors to bring new people into the settlement.
The Vietemese people came gladly, folk similar to Qin's people yet not. The nomadic lifestyle of the Vietemese made many of them eager to get back on the move, even if it was not to settle but to explore. Humphrey himself offered to lead the new scouts, and so he did, leaving Nick and Jack in control of the warriors.
Sweeping eastward across plains, past fields of white opium poppies, Humphrey and his men scouted while Nick and Jack patrolled the lands surrounding the flourishing town of Washington. Grassy fields, barren plains, luscious forests, Humphrey and his mixed bag of scouts made up of Amerikans, Chinese, and Vietemese went far and wide to do what their leader had guided them to do; scout out the land and bring back any people as possible to Washington. Creatures that attacked the scouts on their quest to do their late leader's last will and command fell before the dragonglass tomahawks that they wielded.
Everything was going good. Wanderers of the waste would be found and sent back to Washington so that they could join the society, a simple cycle of finding people, telling them about the safety of a static Washington, and sending them back to the city. Like clockwork, Humphrey did his job so, and would have kept on doing it, if it had not been for Them.
The crowd clustered together on the windswept hillside, rain pattering down onto the unfeeling, cruel stones with jagged edges. Qin was dressed in dark robes, Victor and his wife in muddy colored dressing, and the trio of warriors Humphrey, Nick, and Jack were wrapped in black bear furs. All of their eyes were downcast as they looked into the empty pit, a mound of mud off to the side growing steadily moister. On the arms of four men, two Chinese and two Amerikan, the coffin was brought forward.
In death, Zach was even more regal and striking than he had been in life. Battle scars from fights long gone criscrossed his face and chest, both of his eyes closed now, a token amulet of dragonglass tied around his neck, and his arms crossed over his chest. The furs of slain animals that he had taken down in life surrounded and insulated the coffin, and an inlay of runic symbols carved in under the directions of the nature priestesses filled the entire capsule.
Tears were on many people's faces as they watched one of the greatest leaders that they had ever had in memory lowered into the ground slowly and gently, like a babe into a bed. Victor patted the coffin before moving at the head of it and staring over the precipice where seven years before his father had fought Terry over control of the people, and the former had died for his crimes.
"My father," he began slowly, "was a geat man. His knoweledge guided us to this spot and told us to settle here and become a static people. No longer must we worry about moving from place to place suddenly. Now we are here today, as we all knew we would be, over his grave and laying him to rest where he belongs now."
He turned towards everyone gathered around the grave, their faces streaked with the trails of tears and the driving rain. "His guindance helped us, his knowledge sheltered us, his courage protected us. Now it is time for our generation to take up the fallen club, as it is meant to be, and rise up to a new dawn, a new age. One where we must all work together to insure that we all survive the perilous and tumultous times ahead, are we shall be swept away by the tides of darkness."
"May we walk in the Creator's shadow for all eternity, may we be guided by the Father and Mother, shielded by the Warrior, gifted by the Smith, watched over by the Lady, and be given counsel by the Stranger. For we are all equal in birth and death, and we shall live in the Halls of Eternity, now and forever." The final prayer had the heads of everyone at the ceremony bowed their heads and were together in harmony for the entire speech.
The first clump of dirt thudded onto the coffin lid, then the other, and then the other, until the coffin was obscured by dirt, the pit filling up, up, up, until it was filled with the wet soil. One by one people left; mothers with their children, warriors and the men, the elders, Qin, Victor, and finally Humphrey, Jack, and Nick. The very first being the last to leave, Humphrey pulled the dragonglass creation out of his furs and set it gently in a hole on top of the grave. He walked away, never looking back.
Autumn passed, winter rose, spring bloomed, and summer sprang forth into the world. Qin organized the farmers, both Amerikan and Chinese, Victor led the warriors to bring new people into the settlement.
The Vietemese people came gladly, folk similar to Qin's people yet not. The nomadic lifestyle of the Vietemese made many of them eager to get back on the move, even if it was not to settle but to explore. Humphrey himself offered to lead the new scouts, and so he did, leaving Nick and Jack in control of the warriors.
Sweeping eastward across plains, past fields of white opium poppies, Humphrey and his men scouted while Nick and Jack patrolled the lands surrounding the flourishing town of Washington. Grassy fields, barren plains, luscious forests, Humphrey and his mixed bag of scouts made up of Amerikans, Chinese, and Vietemese went far and wide to do what their leader had guided them to do; scout out the land and bring back any people as possible to Washington. Creatures that attacked the scouts on their quest to do their late leader's last will and command fell before the dragonglass tomahawks that they wielded.
Everything was going good. Wanderers of the waste would be found and sent back to Washington so that they could join the society, a simple cycle of finding people, telling them about the safety of a static Washington, and sending them back to the city. Like clockwork, Humphrey did his job so, and would have kept on doing it, if it had not been for Them.
mayor
Heart & Mind
hide the women and children it's THEM!!!!
great way of building towards a climax
great way of building towards a climax
Tycho
AFK Forum Warrior
- Joined
- Jul 31, 2011
- Messages
- 3,240
hide the women and children it's THEM!!!!
great way of building towards a climax
Thanks mayor
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