A Second Chance

[Mosher]

Solomon mused quietly to himself, as he waited for the first streaks of light to pour into his prison. Throughout the night, he had heard the muffled mechanical roars of the outside world, seemingly trying to taunt him with their freedom. If he concentrated in the quiet darkness, even the occasional footstep could be heard, though they were rare. He had quickly given up trying to find a way out of the building; it was clearly a store, and someone would be by shortly to open it to the public, when he could make his escape. In the meantime, he turned inwards, clasping the emblem of his god in his hands as he meditated.

Inside of his own mind, it was quiet, as it always was. It was his father who taught him how to achieve a truly serene mind, a rare skill that had proved to be life-saving to Solomon time and time again. Time seemed to slow; his blows seemed to always strike at the weakest point. Some called it magic; Solomon called them fools. Though he was ignorant of the technique’s origin, it was only by his own will and immense skill that he had mastered it. Not sorcery.
There will be others in this new world, a voice murmured in his mind. His own, perhaps. There is no evidence, no footprint of the arcane here. A true paradise for a man of the blade, it whispered again. Solomon nodded to himself, his eyes closed. What wonders does this world hold? This time, the voice was clearly his own. The pains of old battle-scars and poorly healed wounds faded, washed away in the stream of his mind, at least for the time being.

A bell rang, waking Solomon with a start. He quietly rose to his feet, placing his hand on the hilt of his father’s blade. He had not lived as long as he had by not being cautious. Peering through the gaps in the clothes on the metal racks, he saw a figure moving; a human. Average height, thin - a crop of dark hair blocked his view of her face, but he saw no weapons. She must be the shopkeeper. Solomon felt fairly confident that the danger from her was negligent.
“You. Shopkeep,” Solomon called out. The woman turned, her eyes wide in fear, her hand going to her pocket. Solomon stepped out from behind the clothes rack, his hand still hovering over the hilt of his sword. He regarded her calmly. There was a weapon in her pocket, he assumed, but it was doubtful she could best him with something small enough to fit in her pocket. Solomon stared her down. Her hand fell away from the pocket.
“Where am I?” Solomon asked. He felt the ingot in his pocket briefly explode with heat; a simple blessing from his god. The words coming out of his mouth formed strange words and sounds that, though he did not recognize, he understood.
The woman stared at him silently for a moment before answering - “You’re in my father’s store…” her breath caught in her throat momentarily, before she pressed on. “Who the hell are you? And why do you have a sword?”

Solomon stepped away from her for a moment, to better gauge the girl in front of him. Short, dark hair, and a face adorned with warm green eyes. A baggy shirt, with cut off sleeves, disguised her wiry, muscular form.
She scowled at Solomon. “If you don’t tell me who the hell you are and get out of my father’s store, I’m calling the cops, creep,” she barked at Solomon.
“Calm, little one,” murmured Solomon. “My name is Solomon, son of Jin. This sword belonged to him; it is my inheritance. Where am I?” The tone in his voice, as ever, remained calm and quiet; a lifetime of discipline did not allow emotion to taint his words.
“I told you already, man - we’re in my father’s shop, in Boston.” Her voice seemed to be getting steadier as they stared at eachother in the twilight. Solomon sighed. He didn’t know what a “Byoh-stan” was, but he supposed he would have to find out sooner or later.
Turning away from the girl, towards the door, he started walking away without a word of farewell. He heard footsteps following behind him, from the girl, but he still did not turn around. There was a whole new world to explore, enlightenment to find.
“Stop.” Solomon stopped automatically, feeling the girl’s small palm planted flatly against his chest. “You need to tell me who you are, sir, and until you do you aren’t leaving this store.” She withdrew her hand, crossing her arms. He wouldn’t be able to get past her to the exit without hurting her. Do it, the voice whispered. Just leave. You owe her nothing. Solomon shook the thoughts out of his head, and then sat and crossed his legs. This would be a long talk.

 

[NinjaCow64]

Is this still happening? I've got some pretty cool RP I'm working on and I hope to post if so.

 

[thomas.berubeg]

Of course it is!

Consider everything delayed by however many days CFC was down.

 

[Exhera]

As the Eternal Herd recovered from the portal's strange magic, the matriarch became ever so enraged. Rows of vines stretched across the unicorn's eye capabilities. Houses of terracotta roofs stood near these fields, and a strange buzz came from the building. Soon, her sisters and brothers saw the same. It was of the utmost importance to find a grazing land that was enough to sustain the Herd throughout the seasons. The humans had already torn the peaceful meadows and converted them into farms. The humans polluted the world without a care to sustain their cities of stone. Every breeze had a scent of smog. An odor of human waste floated through the air. When Equella looked around, strange things were hidden among the fields. An empty glass bottle sat at bottom of a wooden post. It was in the tongue of the men, a language that few in the Eternal Herd could read, Equella included. A bag was blown by the wind across the fields. She noticed other weird objects, such as blurry but transparent six rings attached to each other. The humans had already scarred this world. Equella turned to her kin, and began to speak.

"Sisters and brothers of the horn, we have been tricked. Humans already inhabit these lands," the matriarch told her people.

Some of the younger(100 years old - 200 years old) unicorns had faces of anger. Some of the elders(around 1000 years old) neighed in despair.

"We shall head north, perhaps the humans have not extended their filthy hands into the lands there."

Most except the stubborn younger unicorns agreed. As the Herd filled up on some of the farmer's grapes for the journey, a noise erupted from the house. A woman stood at a window, her face one of great astonishment and despair. Soon, the door burst open and a man ran out. He started yelling at the Herd, and soon stopped in his tracks when the unicorns simply stood there, looking at the farmer.

"Why are you screaming at us like a baboon?" Equella asked.

The man's eyes grew wide, and stumbled backwards. His voice trembled. "W-w-why h-h-h-orse talkkk Enggglish?" he stuttered.

"I am not familiar with this English you speak of," Equella replied, shortly before spotting the woman, presumably the farmer's wife, step out of the house with a long metallic stick. She aimed at Equella before pulling her finger on the stick. A loud blast exploded from the stick. Equella, drawing energy from the Herd, froze the small pebble that came from the stick. Equella felt tired, and others of the Herd, those of the most energy, did too. The pebble dropped to the soil. The woman started to insert another pebble into the stick, but Equella soon stepped up to the man, and the woman froze in fright. Equella brought her head up to the sky, and threw her horn straight into the man's torso.

 

[Mosher]

How many years had it been? Solomon mused to himself. His timeless, rough features looked over the great expanse before him. A slight breeze ruffled his duster, revealing the tip of his father’s blade on his hip. His hands shielded his eyes from the brutal midday sun.

The Great Forest of his boyhood was gone, along with all its awesome and terrifying creatures. A vast metropolitan expanse instead replaced it, clearly humming with life. Solomon spotted many of his fellow men scurrying amidst the urban jungle, fully immersed in their own world. The Voice had pushed him back here, despite his unwillingness to return. But time had passed; wounds had healed; and scars had faded, as they do.

Descend, the Voice commanded. Solomon resisted, but only for a brief second. The Voice spoke as though it were a part of his mind, a tendril of subconsciousness breaking through the surface to the conscious world, but Solomon was not so sure. The voice of an ancient one, a Xa, perhaps. An angry spirit, or perhaps the boundaries between sanity and insanity in his brain had lapsed once and for all. Solomon shrugged. It mattered little, as he found his feet obeying the Voice’s command regardless of his own input. He wondered aloud at his purpose, but if the Voice was listening, it provided no answers.

The city was a bizarre place, with too much happening at once. Strange races wandered freely with his fellow men; a troll sipped tea gently at an outdoor cafe; a satry played his pipes to a gaggle of delighted schoolchildren. Solomon focused, pushing it all out of his mind. Worthless distractions from his goal - and now he knew where to go. Excitement started to flush his system, and he struggled to regain control. He would need a serene mind for the task the Voice had set out for him.

He passed through the gates of the Great Temple, slinking unseen past the guardsmen - not that they would pose a challenge to him, but he did not enjoy the act of killing, no matter how many times he did it. He walked up the steps, and entered the throne room. The deed would be over quickly. Ahead of him sat a man, perched on a fancy, gilded chair with an expensive-looking bauble askew on his head.

Solomon recited a short prayer, and plunged his father’s blade through the man’s heart, and then withdrew it from its still-warm sheath. They would call him Kingslayer, for a time, as they always did. And then his name would slip from their memories, as it always would. Solomon watched with strange fascination as his victim’s blood dripped from the tip of his blade, pooling on the floor at his feet, and he sighed. He would go back to wandering, for a spell, he supposed to himself. There was little need for a kingslayer in whatever they called the land of his childhood.

Solomon paused from his story to stare at the girl who was holding him hostage in her father's shop, gauging her reaction. He had many tales such as this, but she held his gaze steadily, blinking slowly at him. She would make a fine companion, he mused.

 

[NinjaCow64]

“My lord, we may have a problem.” A man at arms approached them. “The first scouts have just come in. This world is not as empty as we thought. There is a great road just beyond that bluff, and on it hundreds of magic metal chariots...”

Elon’s face grew white at the news. Aside from nothing being at the other end of the portal at all, this was amongst the worst things that could have happened. Their small group could easily be mistaken as an enemy army, or a group of marauders could take advantage of them or…

Elon put those thoughts out of his mind. He needed to lead his people and he needed to look strong, this was no time for pondering the future. This was a time for action.

“Young man,” Elon asked the scout “What is your name?”

“Matthius sir.” He responded.

“Matthius,” Elon said in a calm but authoritative voice “Please tell the scouts to return to the camp. And ask them not to talk about what they saw, it’s probably best if rumours don’t spread around the camp.” Matthius saluted and then ran off.

“Gwendolyn,” Elon said to Lady Gwendolyn, one of the few remaining Knights and his second in command, “Find Countess Isobel, I’ll need her to run the camp while I’m gone. Then get my magic advisers, we need to know what’s going on here.”

**************​

Merely ten minutes later Elon was looking through the strange scene through his Gnomish telescope. It had been given to him as a gift by a Gnomish ambassador who he had been close friends with. He kept it as a memento of his fallen friend whose name he could never quite pronounce, he usually just called him Graz. Before today he hadn’t really gotten much use out of it, he always felt that was a real shame. Gifts should be used when possible and not just thrown aside, especially gifts from people who you were good friends with. Now that he finally got a chance to use it, it felt like a small part of his friend survived the unmaking and made it into this strange new place.

“What in the name of the Lady is it?” Elon asked his magical companions. He was of course referring to the great road with the metal chariots. To his left were three of the foremost Erathan magical experts that survived the unmaking: Sir Larndan, one of the few remaining knight-wizards of; Father Garndan and Lady Adesse. They did not need a telescope like he did, they had temporarily enchanted their eyes to allow them to see the road as well as he could have. Gwendolyn stood guard as they

“I am unsure, my liege.” Lardan responded “I cannot sense any magic coming from down there that did not originate from the portal, but what else but magic could make such things?”

“I concur,” Father Garndan said “Our magic disrupted these metal chariots, some of them have not yet recovered. This leads me to believe that this is some sort of magic that is either disguised or we cannot pick up yet.” To his left, Adesse scoffed.

“You people have no imagination.” Adesse said in a condescending tone. “Look at the blue chariot that has stopped by the road.” Elon directed his telescope towards the area that Adesse was talking about. On the side of the great road was one of the chariots that was non-functional. A man dressed in strange clothes was walking around, looking frustrated. At the front of the chariot there was a compartment that was opened, inside it contained some strange metallic shapes.

“Is that some sort of alchemy set?” pondered Lardan.

“I doubt it,” said Adesse “I believe that it is some sort of advanced machinery that is used to move the chariot.” Now it was Lardan’s turn to scoff.

“You really think that those Gnomish parlour tricks could achieve something like this? You have an overactive imagination!” Lardan replied, mocking her earlier statements.

“Think about it,” Adesse replied “The Gnomes, on the whole, have very poor magical potential. Gnomish blood seems to contain all of the magic of the Underground or none of it. As the vast majority of the population could not rely on magic to develop their society they turned to clockwork to power their society. I believe a similar thing has happened here, only on a much larger-” Father Garndan interrupted Adesse’s theory.

“But in the Books of Aoz, they teach us that magic is fundamental…” Elon tuned out of the conversation. When his magic advisors started bickering like this, he knew that they had no real idea of what was going on. Elon wasn’t equipped for these kinds of situations. He felt that he was just a simple soldier, a general at best. He still does not understand why King Harradan decided that he was worthy of leading Harradan’s people in this strange new world. Elon’s thoughts went to his last conversation with his king.

“I give you the Sword of Erathmyr,” King Harradan had said “It was given to my ancestors by Aoz himself, it is forged out of his most pure light. Take this sword and lead my people to their new destiny.”

“But my lord!” Elon had protested “You are the King of your people! You are the only one who should, the only one who could lead them!”

“Nay,” King Harradan had said with a sad smile “These were once my people, but that hasn’t been true ever since…” Harradan paused and turned, looking out at his city.

“I swore an oath to protect this Kingdom.” Harradan continued, his back turned. “I will protect it from this unholy curse until the very end. But you Grand Master, you swore an oath to protect its’ people. Fulfil your oath, Elon.”

Elon was shook out of his sad memories by a large booming noise. He looked up to the sky and then aimed his telescope at the source of the noise, seeing a strange flying contraption that had a terrifying spinning blade on top.

“We must get back to the camp.” He said. He ignored his doubts and fears and projected an aura of confidence and strength, he had to if his people were to get through this. “Whatever that is, its coming straight for us.”


OOC: This was meant to be longer, but I was hit by really nasty writer's block. Hopefully next update I'll do more.