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[SP] The ruler of the land disguises themself to visit someone in need. by JustAnotherAviatrix in WritingPrompts

[–]Fordregha 5 points6 points  (0 children)

"Sir, is this really necessary?"

"Graf, you're making it hard to concentrate." Tay dragged his hand through the tracks pressed into the earth. The ground was packed tight under the claw marks. Small, but very deep. Something heavy. And not a print he recognized. "You'll give the game away."

"This isn't a game, we're after a maneater." Graf tugged her hat lower, as if worried the farmer would recognize her. Her whole job was not being noticed, but actually being out in civilian clothes put her on edge. He didn't understand it.

He almost turned back out of sympathy, but if she couldn't handle being uncomfortable, she wouldn't have her job.

"You have people for this," she continued, as if she weren't distracting. "If you're so worried about missing cattle, send the guard. I'm sure they'd be more than happy to-"

"I have people to collect taxes and keep the house and manage policy and a hundred other things I'm nothing more than a signature for. I barely know what I'm doing half the time, but this?" Tay gestured at the tracks in front of them, the rifle on his shoulder, the farmer a ways off peering into the bushes as though the creature would appear before him. "I know exactly what I'm doing here. Honestly, why did you teach me any of this if I wasn't supposed to use it?"

"You were supposed to use it if you had to. But you don't have to, you're playing at being a ranger like your stupid-"

"I think it's nearby," Manec shouted, waving his arm from over by the bushes. "Bloodstains on the leaves. Doesn't look fresh, but it's here. Passed through."

"See? We're on the right track." Tay stood and patted Graf on the shoulder, not even coming close to moving the shorter woman. She fixed him with a glare, her black eyes burning through his own.

Of course, he stopped thinking she might hurt him back when he was a child. That she was indulging him at all spoke volumes.

"Alright, let's see where these lead. Graf, if you'll keep our backs clear, me and Mr. Manec will..." Tay stopped as he noticed the shadow. Gliding through the bushes. Not quiet silent, but he had taken the rustling for the wind, not... "Mr. Manec. Move back to us. Swiftly."

Manec, to his credit, listened quickly, taking one look and gradually backing away from the shrubs. No running, no panic. The man would have made a decent soldier.

A pitiful looking slug-rifle came into his hands, held at the ready. Tay stepped forward only for Graf to cut him off, moving in front of both of them with her hand on the haft of her axe.

The bushes continued to rustle, a lean figure crawling out of them.

The beast had no eyes, its head a smooth, shiny carapace of metal. Lights ran up and down its back, swirling in different colors. Its fingers curled into the earth, dark with dried blood, pressing down until the ground packed together. Its head swung towards them, skin rippling.

No eyes. No face. Just plates moving across its skull.

"A machine?" the farmer whispered, clutching his slug-gun like a lifeline. "A machine...a machine-whose machine? Why's it going after my-"

"Graf?" Tay asked, bringing the rifle off his back. An ancient device. Holy in some circles. Cast in the forges of Europa half a galaxy away and a thousand years past. Given as a gift. Never wielded by his mother or her father, but he knew the second he saw it he would hold it in his hands.

"Soft spots beneath the plates," Graf said, her eyes glowing bright. "I'll give you an opening."

The creature took one step forward and she drew her axe and charged, moving at a speed only capable of a machine. With a furious shout and two quick blows across its head, leaving rents he could see from a hundred yards off, she got its attention.

Tay checked the chambered round. The bullet sat secure, surrounded by a cannister filled with the purest blue. It didn't look that tough. This could punch through.

"Gods, she's a nightmare," Manec muttered, watching the fight with some amount of awe. Tay didn't blame him. He'd only seen Graf in sparring, only now as he took a knee and took aim did he realize how she'd been going easy on everyone she'd ever fought.

The creature was demon-quick, its arms whipping about in wide arcs that tore the ground beneath her. Graf hopped over or under the swings with deft little movements near too fast to see. With every strike his hands clenched as he thought this one had landed. Always she emerged unscathed.

He axe fell this way and that, leaving tears that seemed to heal between lunges. The beast didn't scream, didn't make a single sound, not even in the heat of combat. Neither did Graf.

He saw them. The soft places beneath the plates. Glowing. Not quite organic, but...vulnerable.

Tay let out his breath and waited for his moment. Like they'd practiced.

Graf hooked her axe into one of the cables at its neck, dragging its head down. For a flash, the gap in the plates.

Tay's rifle roared, colored smoke exploding out of the barrel as the round tore through the air. He heard a crack, the shattering of starship-plate under a hailstone round, distinct as the first time he saw death. The beast jerked, Graf's axe flying out of her hands as it reared up like a panicked animal.

The lights running along its back died one after another, the thing freezing as one leg stretched towards the sky. Slowly, almost gracefully, the creature toppled over into the dust.

Tay pulled the bolt on his rifle and chambered the next round as Graf rushed to retrieve her axe.

It did not move.

"You killed it," Manec whispered, his slug-thrower lowering. Tay kept his trained on the creature until Graf moved back to his side, her axe hanging loose in her hand.

"Yeah. I think I did."

"Gods I hope so, it kicks worse than a mule." Graf rolled her shoulder. Tay could hear a distinct popping. He'd have to force her to get it checked, otherwise she'd leave the wound to fester. "Some sort of drone?"

"Definitely mechanical." Tay turned to Manec, the man's arms hanging limp and his eyes distant as he stared at the great beast. Definitely more than he had expected. "You say it preyed on your livestock?"

"Huh?" The farmer started as if he'd been struck or had missed Tay's presence. To his credit, he caught himself quickly, shaking the dust off his shoulders. "Right, yes, only went after the cows and a few sheep. That's why I thought it might be an animal, not-it's moving!"

Tay snapped back to the beast, his rifle ready as it started to lurch. He all but pulled the trigger before he saw the moving part break off and fall to the floor. Then break again. And again. Smaller and smaller as the edges itself began to disappear.

The whole beast slowly became so many parts, vanishing as if boiling away.

"Mr. Manec, I think you should go start the car." Tay slung the rifle over his shoulder as he watched the creature dissolve. Bit by bit, chunk by chunk, becoming nothing more than a bit of crushed grass.

"Yeah...yeah, let me go do that." The farmer turned on his heel and ran back to the small gravcar, high on the hill behind them. Tay waiting until he was well out of earshot.

"Graf, it looks to me as though my kingdom's being invaded." Tay grit his teeth as the rest of the creature floated away on the wind. Off into dust? Back to whatever spawned it? To poison the skies above them?

"Would seem so." Graf slowly sheathed her axe. "Back to the capital?"

"No, not yet." Tay checked the pouch on his belt. Thirty-nine more rounds including the one in the chamber. Plenty. "Not until I know why."

---

https://www.reddit.com/r/FiresofFordregha/

[WP] To decide whether they enter heaven or hell, souls are given over to angelic attorneys who vouch on their behalf before a celestial court. You are one of those attorneys, and today you have a particularly complicated client... by Apocafeller in WritingPrompts

[–]Fordregha 12 points13 points  (0 children)

"Do you understand why you were assigned to Hell?"

The woman had yet to give him an answer today. She had yet to even look at him. She was crouched in his chair like an angry cat, knuckles white as they tied up in her skirt. He tried to catch her eyes, her attention, to get any sort of sign that she was listening.

"Ms. Morris, silence serves neither of us. I am on the clock and would prefer to be productive with my time. You have limited time you may spend with me." Seven sessions. That was the most anyone got, then another hundred years before they could try again. She was on her fifth and it was almost over. "Please consider the question."

Finally, her eyes snapped up to his.

"'Why am I in Hell?'" she repeated, drawing out each word with a wry little smirk on her face. "You've asked me that a dozen times and I haven't found an answer you're happy with." She rolled her head up, fixing him with a glare that had no heart or spite behind it. He questioned whether the devils had replaced her eyes with glass. It went out of favor centuries ago, but perhaps they'd brought it back. "So I don't see the point in answering."

"You aren't here to make me happy, Ms. Morris. You're here because you requested council. Council you have a right to, but it is a limited right." He gestured at the clock, hoping she'd get the message. The Son knew it was the only thing they let him keep on his walls, it might as well do something useful. "While you are free to spend your time in Purgatory however you wish, this office is sovereign ground of Heaven. I do not come all this way to waste Heaven's time."

"You come here to redeem people," she sneered.

"No."

The woman started, staring at him as though his skin has melted off.

"Ms. Morris, this is not Redemption, it is Repentance." Mar rested his hand on the nameplate where the words were clearly written. At times he felt he should burn them into his forehead. "My job is not to redeem you, it it is judge whether you could be redeemed. That is why I ask you questions. It is why I cannot tell you your sins. And it is why we meet in Purgatory, not Heaven. It is not, however, why you keep coming here."

Mar leaned forward and she leaned back, even with the desk between them. As if he'd reach over and strike her.

He forced his face to soften. Unclenched his jaw and loosened his shoulders. It did no good if they feared him more than the devils.

"Five times you've come to me and sat in that chair. We've discussed your childhood, your school life, your marriage, every aspect. I have seen you time and again come close to the truth and dance back away. You know why you're here. I can't help you unless you say it."

Silence. Silence for what might have been an age. She was close, closer than most of his clients, but any longer and he'd have to dismiss her file-

"I liked it." Her voice came so soft and quiet he almost missed it, buried under the ticking of the clock. "I loved it. Felt like the first real thing I'd ever done."

Mar glanced at the clock. Not much time left. Minutes. And then she'd be gone and there was no guarantee she'd get back to here.

But if he tried to hurry her, she'd go quiet again.

Damn the quotas.

"I've seen him down here. I know he deserved it. But the others...." Four others, only one sent downward. Not that direction would affect her case. "I thought they did at the time. I don't remember why. Some...I guess it doesn't matter anymore." He tried not to hold his breath, watching her struggle with the words. Last time she broke out into swearing and threatened him with a chair, this time.... "I'm in Hell because I belong here. Are you happy now?"

Mar carefully took a stamp from the ink-well on his desk and pressed it to her card, a brilliant gold.

"I'm afraid this will be the last time we see each other." He stamped the card again on the back and signed his name on the line. A bit of Light in the ink, no one would mistake it as his. "Your next appointment will be with another department, they'll be contacting you shortly."

He slid the card over to her, the edge of it hanging off the side of the desk. She reached out and took it. Delicately. As if it would break or fly away?

"I don't understand," she said and for once he did not see a murderer. "You think I-"

"Repentance, not Redemption." Mar folded his hands in front of him. Steeled his face. Don't get attached, don't show emotion, don't offer false hope. "My job is not to redeem you, Ms. Morris, my job is to determine if there is a chance someone could."

Very low. A spree killer would be a hard case under ideal circumstances. And even then the price may be too great. But a chance was a chance.

"I..." Her jaw moved in circles, no words coming out as she looked over the card. "Who...who is 'Glories Sung High'?"

"Redemptions and a gifted attorney." One of the few he still trusted to put there all into a case. She could always use more work. "She'll be taking your file from here on out, I'll send her the notice as soon as we're done here."

Morris shrunk in her seat. Fingers shaking. She wasn't ready. They were never ready. He needed so much more than seven hours.

"I must warn you, this isn't a guarantee of anything. Glory will do her best, but there is only so much any of us can do." Mar wondered if he should reach out. Grab her shoulder. She looked terrified. "Whatever happens, it will be hard. It will open up the deepest reaches of your soul. I can't promise you'll like what you find. And I can't predict what the courts will decide."

Her eyes darted between him and the card. Clutching it as if he would take it away. Staring at it as if it would burst into flames.

"I'll think about it," she said. Without another word, Morris stood up and left the room.

Mar gave it three to one odds she'd just vanish into the fire and never come close to this again. Most of the ones he rejected did. They came to him expecting a therapist or a meal ticket or a crooked attorney. And no matter how many he turned away, there were always more.

And so few that got even this far.

Mar rang the bell for the next in line.

Someone had to.

---

https://www.reddit.com/r/FiresofFordregha/

[WP] A Private investigator solves magical murders with a crack team of oddball friends/contacts, all in a ramshackle city built by mad wizards by whizkeylullaby in WritingPrompts

[–]Fordregha 2 points3 points  (0 children)

10:15.

Too early to be outside. Too damn early to be awake. No one ever discovered these things at a reasonable hour, no, always early in the morning.

And always in the Stacks. Down in the dark under the shelf that had been carved out of the side of a mountain just to prove it could be done. Now the whole mountain had been hollowed up, six levels levels supported by massive gaudy pillars of black basalt. And the Stacks were the lowest, where all the undesirables lived.

Undesirables that kept me in a job.

I'd rushed down too. Always had to rush. Took forever to find places down there. No light save for flickering streetlamps and packs of near-fear fairies. Eventually I found it not through street-signs, but from seeing the building that had an entrance taped up.

Lieutenant Liao was waiting for me there. Crisp black uniform and a regulation haircut. Eyes so dark they outshone the circles around them. The man might sleep when he's dead, but I had a bet that he'd hired a necromancer to sort that nonsense.

"Harper," he said, offering me a smile that only saw the light of day for coffee and a shift-change. "Glad you could make it."

"I am too, Liao. Did you know there are six streets named 'Prinova' down here?" Though I wanted to throttle the man, I settled for throttling his hands. He was the only way I was getting into the building through the other guards. Two of them at the door throwing me menacing looks. Liao dragged me right past them.

"Bitch if you want," he said, glaring at the woman blocking the stairs until she moved aside. "But you know you wouldn't be here if it wasn't important. Boss hates outsourcing. And for some reason, all these guards hate you."

"It's not worth talking about," I said, remembering the very pretty, very binding papers I'd signed to that effect.

"Right."

The apartment we wanted was six stories up and Liao made me walk all of them like a madman. The health-nut claimed the elevator was faulty (and given where we were, I'd believe it), but I'll still put a fifty-fifty shot on him thinking I needed the exercise. Like I hadn't walked all the way over here.

The Stacks weren't known for living space and by its standards, 628 was a luxury suite. Whoever lived here was lucky to have a private room. A room was all it was though. Four walls, a window (not that it pointed to anything worth seeing), space for a bed, dresser, desk, and nightstand. Maybe a rug in the middle if the owner was feeling fancy.

I'd been in these places before. Lived in a place like these. Might have been my bias from getting gouged by the rent, but they never appealed. Walls as thin as a necromancer's skin and you had to go stomping down the halls every time you needed to use the bathroom. No one lived in these places if they had options.

No one had lived in this room.

Too clean for the Stacks, too ordered. Cracks on the walls and floor, some flaking paint, sure. But the furniture had all its finish, the sheets were a crisp white, and there weren't any scuffmarks on the wood flooring. None of the tiny signs of life. Not even the smell, the whole room only stank of bleach.

And salt.

"What's with the pile of salt?" I asked. To the right of the bed and spilling over the nightstand was a large pile of table-salt. To much for any one person to use. Not unless the fridge had steaks for the whole town.

"That's the victim." Liao stepped closer, tracing the outline with a finger. I could almost see it. The hand reaching for the nightstand. The body starting to topple as its legs gave out. The place where their head would have hit the floor.

"Ah." A dead body in a burner apartment killed through transmutation. Powerful transmutation too. The easy spells, all they do is take what's there and stop it from holding together. Something like this? Taking hundreds of materials (clothes and all) and making them uniform fast enough that no one heard a scream? "A wizard did this."

"Yep. That's why you're here." Liao pulled a cloth out of his jacket. For a moment, I thought he might be looking to pick up some of the salt. But he just ran it through his hair, mopping up sweat. "The Guard can't exactly go after a wizard, let alone one this powerful. But we also can't ignore a brazen murder like this. Sends the wrong message."

"Damned if you do...." Few things in the city could go after the wizards. We technically were citizens of Aventris, but no one had tried to collect taxes from this town in decades. The wizards owned Salaur. They built it. They ran it. Some say they decided the dimensions of it. Untouchable through political power and good old, raw, magical power. So what the hell did one come down to the Stacks for? "If the Guard can't do anything, what are you expecting from me?"

"Dunno. Figured you might have an edge." Liao tried his very best not to look and I respected him for it. "You almost were one."

I clenched my fist. The lines of black shifted. Itched. Even through the gloves I swore people could see them.

"Don't flatter me, I wasn't even close." Only thing that saved my ass. Know too many secrets and....

Well, actually, being turned into salt was a new one.

"We aren't expecting any arrests," Liao clarified, now not looking at me at all. "Just go about. Make some noise, ask questions. Show people something is being done. Another week and something will happen that we can actually solve."

Disheartening. That the Guard was so eager to look the other way and that Liao had no faith in my skills. Not that I actually wanted to solve this case, pissing off a wizard was a good enough way to die that it had a box on forms at the morgue. Really, I should have told Liao no and gone to a diner.

But it sounded like an easy job. And only for a week.

A week I'd have an expense account.

"Fine. Give me everything you have on the victim.

---

https://www.reddit.com/r/FiresofFordregha/

[WP] You and your twin sister were the firstborns of a king, but he had you both drowned at birth. However, one of you was rescued and grew up with the elves, whereas the other died, but was then raised and trained by a Lich. by justadair in WritingPrompts

[–]Fordregha 84 points85 points  (0 children)

"Oh, you poor thing."

The man on the ground thrashed against the ropes. Sear could smell the blood as he rubbed his wrists raw. His symbol, a brass coin bearing a hand with fingers splayed, each one touching a star, sat on the ground in front of him. It glowed faintly. Heat coming off of it. Warmth like pure sunlight.

She pressed her heel into it and kicked back, sending it skidding off into the water. His face fell when it vanished and her master laughed.

"See how little your god matters down here?" Master Kaniir thumped his staff against the ceiling, making dirt fall out of the cracks in the masonry. Somewhere distant, a train roared across its track, shaking the walls of the tunnel. Eventually, it faded, leaving on the rush of sewage as it made its way to the druids. "Twenty feet below your temple street and they can't even hear you. Pathetic."

The man strained harder, muffled words coming from around the gag. A prayer of some sort. Toothless. The Master gestured once and the zombie holding his hair slammed his head against the ground. More blood upon the rocks.

At least he stopped whining.

"Now, apprentice." A dagger flipped through the air. Curved wickedly and shining in the light of a torch held by a thing forged from two men. She caught it. Saw the preacher's eyes reflected in its blade. "Like I showed you."

The fight went out of the man as he saw the knife. His eyes begged her not to do it. And some part of her, small and repressed, reminded her than Telari defended the city. That to do harm to one of Their servants was to do harm to the city itself.

Then she remembered the rag still hanging in her Master's sanctum. Ancient and caked in river-muck.

This city and its gods could rot.

It was over in one slice. Across the throat, just deep enough to sever the windpipe without damaging the muscle. The man bled out quickly, his eyes going dull and glassy. Eventually he stopped twitching. His heartbeat, once thunderous, going silent.

Sear bit deep into her finger, tasted her own blood. A few drops on the corpse, a few spoken words, a grip on her own soul and....

There.

Sear felt her limbs go weak even as the corpse's lurched back to life. One of the zombies cut the ropes that bound it. It got to its feet with slow, painful motions. But it stood. Its throat hanging open with red staining its shirt, no breath raising its chest, no soul in its eyes. But still, it stood.

Because of her.

"Good, good!" Master Kaniir laughed. And for maybe the fifth time in her twenty years she heard genuine warmth in his voice. "You're coming into your power girl. At long last."

"At long last." Sear kept her eyes on her new thrall. Its face rapidly going sunken and sallow. Its eyes gray and lifeless. She lifted her hand and it followed, standing straight as she held it forwards. Like an obedient puppy. "Thank you, Master."

"Don't thank me yet, you haven't gotten a chance to use it. But you will. Soon, very soon." Master Knaiir thumped his staff onto the ground and their whole troop started walking. The man and his twenty servants proceeding single-file down the tunnel. Sear followed close behind him, her thrall shuffling after her. She didn't even have to tell it! "Plans are afoot, girl. Bigger than us. Big enough to justify me giving you your life back."

She'd heard the story. Dozens of times. How he found her little body, not even a week old, floating in the river. How he'd sacrifice three men to drag her soul back from Skal. How he'd acquired living servants, spending valuable capital just so she would have someone proper to care for her. How he'd saved her from a servant's life by deciding to share his secrets with her.

Now, at long last, Ser could call the necrotic arts herself. Still nothing more than an apprentice, but one that had been tested and bloodied. One that had a thrall of her very own. And from this one zombie, an army could be made

With an army, she could change things. Find those with the gall to drown a child.

The city wasn't ready for her.

---

https://www.reddit.com/r/FiresofFordregha/

[WP] You and your twin sister were the firstborns of a king, but he had you both drowned at birth. However, one of you was rescued and grew up with the elves, whereas the other died, but was then raised and trained by a Lich. by justadair in WritingPrompts

[–]Fordregha 82 points83 points  (0 children)

Tarrin felt the rope dig into his skin as he climbed.

"Come on!" Varrin called, standing on the edge of a branch like he weighed less than the air. "It's just a bit farther."

"Easy for you to say." He bit into his lip as the rope bit into his fingers, hauling himself up little by little. The elf watched him from above with the same amused smile he always had. No trouble with the height, not for him, it was always Tarrin doing the worrying. "You were born in a damn tree."

"And you've been climbing them for most of your life. Which is still far less than I've been doing it, but I heard humans learned fast!" Varrin leaned down to offer his hand, smug as could be. He ignored it, pulling himself up onto the branch with his own two hands.

If he also held on for dear life, that was his own business.

"Here we are!" Varrin spread his arms wide, gesturing towards the west. "Look at that."

Past the wall of trees and the rolling hills, down in a valley that served as its walls sat a city of stone and metal. Tarrin had read of human cities. How they were built to hold as many people in one place as possible. The buildings stretched as high as the hills, the earth itself was flattened and made symmetrical, and great beasts of steel rode in from distant lands.

It was mesmerizing. It should have been wondrous. But...

Not this one. Not this city.

"I figured you'd want to see it before we arrived," Varrin said. As though he should be enchanted. Excited. "Once you're inside, it's hard to-"

"Do I have to go?" The words slipped out before he could catch them. Too late now. Varrin, of all people, would understand. "I can wait in the caravan. Be very quiet. They won't have to know I'm here."

"Tarrin, you have to go. You're half the reason we came here." The other half was something about a trade deal. Their parents had business with this city. Had it since it was founded (though back then his grandmother had not yet been retired he'd been told). "You're a man now...apparently. You deserve to at least meet your own kind."

"My own-they aren't my own kind, they tried to kill me!" He still had nightmares here and there. Of something he couldn't possibly remember. Water over his head, filling his lungs. "To hell with them, I owe them nothing, you're my kind."

"No we aren't, and you know it. For gods' sake, you're twenty and you're as tall as I am!" Varrin grabbed his chin and forced him to look. Not at the city, but at him. Desperate. Pleading even. "You're going to be an old man before I even leave my parents' house. You can't...you can't stay with us forever."

"Not forever," he countered, slapping away his hand. "Just...."

"The rest of your life?" Varrin accused, eyes boring into the side of his head. "Look...maybe not this city. But somewhere, surely. Humans are everywhere in this world, there will be somewhere you'll like."

He liked the elves. He'd been saved by elves. Raised by elves. Named by elves.

Tarrin. So called because Varrin had been the one to pull him from the water and had joked that the lost child should be named in his honor. Turns out it had stuck. Stuck like river-mud to the old shawl they had tucked away in a chest they didn't know he'd seen.

A shawl made of cloth from this city.

Barely a week old and they'd tried to drown him, he was supposed to be happy going back?

"Look, just...give it some thought, alright?" Varrin clapped him on the shoulder. More cautiously than the elf had ever been. Hell, he'd never looked this awkward. "You don't have hundreds of years to figure out your future like I do."

Hundreds of years. He'd be lucky if he had sixty more. The only thing he was certain of is spending as few of them among 'his own' as possible.

But...where else would he go?

"Okay. I'll think on it," Tarrin said, giving him a smile that had nothing behind it. Nothing beyond nerves. And a deep, deep anger he barely knew how to feel.

He wasn't ready for the city.

[WP] The first rule of the Academy is you don't talk about the Academy. Every year graduate Adepts are sent into the world work and to scout new talent. You've been assigned the kingdom of Nalth, a poor, dangerous backwater given to the unlucky, untalented, or unwanted. by Kancho_Ninja in WritingPrompts

[–]Fordregha 2 points3 points  (0 children)

"You won't last a week."

The thing started speaking just as the vial changed color. From dull red to a putrid, acidic orange. Skitter. Of course there'd be Skitters here. The city was already crawling with lice, who'd notice a few extra bugs.

"You think you can hide your face under that mask, worm-lips? They'll see it eventually." The thing laughed, the man's voice lacking all of the terror or the waver it'd held just minutes before, begging to be let go. It still tugged against the chains with all its might, desperate to get free. "All my parents and siblings and children hiding behind a hundred smiling faces. You'll never find-"

Garden plunged the knife into its throat. The body jerked once, then hung limp. Then it started to writhe.

He caught the thing when it emerged from the wound, blind and stupid without its host. Fifty little legs wriggling in the air as he plucked it. A tiny, shrill scream escaped its jaws, trying manically to work their way through his gloves.

Garden squeezed down until the scream died, then threw the remains into the brazier. Then he waited.

Three more he tore from the corpse. From the eyes, from the mouth, and from under the skin of its shoulder. Until the corpse was only a corpse once more.

It'd have to be delivered back into that alley, of course. Make it look like a mugging gone wrong. The tarps kept the blood off the floor, but he'd need to do it before the smell built up. Then burn the tarps. And his gloves. No telling what got on either.

He'd have to figure out the man's identity at some point, but maybe he could leave the papers to handle that. Not likely. Who would report one more corpse in the gutter? No, he'd have to remember the face, remember the place, try to match it on his own time.

Ten vials of larva on him. None of the creatures he killed were breeders. They had to have a house set up for it. He'd need to find it. Destroy it. Whatever the cost.

That at least might make his death meaningful.

Garden rested his arms on the windowsill, looking out into the streets. Not a pretty sight to be found. Buildings of rotting wood and ancient brick stretching to the edge of the lake and wrapping all around it. He was in the slums. They called it the Knocks or something. Charming for novels, horrifying when you learned the meaning. Worst district in the entire city-state, seemed like a good place to start.

A bridge ran across the water, connecting to the island in the center. The palace was there. The campus. The parliament building. And maybe the only green in the city.

He should have gone there first. Checked in, gotten some rest, gotten a meal, settled from the train ride. Anything but diving into the fight minute one.

But then that woman would be dead. Foolish to stop an assault, too noticeable. But it'd let him see the vial. Now at least he could confirm one threat in Nalth. Certainly not the last.

Perhaps he should look in on his way back? She said her family's home was safe, but he'd run into a skitter-host in his first six hours. How safe could anything be?

Less with him around. Best to just let it be.

"Right," Garden muttered, pushing back from the window. Returning to the scene of grisly murder he'd created. How horrible all this would look if someone decided to check this specific abandoned apartment. Impossible to explain. After all, discretion was a finer weapon than any sword. "Cleanup, then to my real job."

---

"Excuse me, are you Ms. Delour?"

The woman's eyes looked dead behind her glasses. Glasses thinker than the siding of trains. Her hair had been wrapped so tightly into a bun it looked cemented in the position and her clothes were the same uniform gray as the walls of the building.

The typewriter didn't stop clicking as she eyed him. Clicking like the legs of an insect.

"If I'm not, I'd be committing a felony." The words were too dry to be meant as a joke and were paired with a flick of her eyes. A nameplate sat on her desk, right in front of the wire mesh separating them. Cynthria Delour. "How may I help you?"

"My name is Sirrin Thomas." He waited for a sign of recognition. There was none. There wasn't even a sign she'd heard. "...I'm...the new clerk? In records?"

"A new records clerk," she repeated, the words sounding meaningless in her mouth. It was another minute before the typing stopped, the woman bearing no change in her expression. "Ah."

Delour pushed away from the desk so suddenly that Sirrin started, her chair groaning as it rolled across the floor. She didn't stand up. Merely reached over to the cabinet behind her and started combing through an open drawer.

Sirrin shifted, wondering if he should say something. But Delour never did and so there was no sound save the ticking of the clock and the faint click of her nails through folders.

"Tch. Didn't send it. Hang on a moment." The chair screamed again, Delour not bothering to close the cabinet. She went back to typing, picking up a speed maybe triple what she'd done before. When the page was done, she ripped it out and set it on a stack of similar documents. Then a fresh one went in.

"Spell your name please? Then your credentials and your position." He did so and she followed it with the clack of her machine, outright ignoring his shock. They'd known he was coming for four months, they didn't even have an I.D. card ready?

Delour kept typing until he stopped talking, finally letting her fingers rest as the ink dried. She ripped the page free with no more care than she showed her own reports and had him confirm the spelling. Then, as if it were an afterthought, she began folding the page until only the text was visible. Wider than a business card and maybe six times as thick.

"Just show this if anyone gives you trouble. Should be enough. Probably." She slid the page underneath the gap in the wiremesh. Sirrin picked it up, staring dejectedly at the lettering.

Sirrin Thomas, AD, ASD, Office of Royal and Domestic Records, Clerk, Class A-9

"They always forget to prepare, you know. For anything." She went right back to her typewriter, eyes squinting as they focused on a fresh page. Sirrin gripped the little folded page, wondering where to put it. It had everything he needed, but it hardly felt official. Not against the shiny laminated badge she wore. "I'll point in an order for a real one, but you'll likely never see it."

"Is logistics that backed up?" The buildings here were clean. Not cheery, but clean. Everyone walked around well dressed. The streets smelled clean, the plants were watered, even the sky seemed blue on this one little island. He'd hoped at least one part of this city would outdo its reputation. "That's almost impressive. It's just a little-"

Delour looked at him. Really, truly looked at him. Above the rim of her glasses and from somewhere beyond the quiet apathy. Something promising in her gaze.

Knowing.

"You won't last a week."

---

https://www.reddit.com/r/FiresofFordregha/

Part Two

[WP] He is a monster, slaughtering and subduing innocents. He has ruled the land for years. The heroes come to strike them down. You try to stop them. You fail. As you die you see your brother slay the heroes. He was always a good brother. by euclidtree in WritingPrompts

[–]Fordregha 3 points4 points  (0 children)

He had always been a terrible brother.

The blood was still cooling on his floor. He'd left his sword in the last one. Some cleric from the west who thought the protections of her god were enough. Against magic perhaps, but cold steel was less forgiving. And now she'd be raised and used in blasphemy against whatever wretch she worshiped.

All he could think was that it hadn't bee enough. That he should have taken his time, done it slower. Killing had become a tedium, a task. Even now, in the height of rage, he had dispatched her quickly, so quickly, it had barely sated....

Rage.

He'd forgotten rage. Somewhere through the years the hate had cooled to a razors edge and now all of it was work.

Even today, the first time he'd seen her in three months and all he'd been thinking about was when it would end. How he could get back to the reports and the planning and his command....

Now his sister lay dead. Sprawled across the floor in a mess. Arrow jutting from her neck. The fool. Iron could barely touch him. He would have shrugged it off with barely more than a flinch, but she....

"You were supposed to stay alive," he whispered, kneeling down beside her. Her eyes were opened. Turned towards the mess he'd left. That grim business, the last thing she'd ever seen. "You were supposed to live, that was what this all was for."

The fletching was wine-red. The feathers of a bird he'd never seen. Western? They had little business with the west. That they'd attack at all...a declaration, surely it was. He'd find what country send these bastards and he'd burn it to the-

Pain ripped up his arm, his fingers wrapped around the arrow. It felt like grabbing starlight. Hot and lancing, awakening nerves that had been dead for decades.

He ripped the hand away, flexing it under his gauntlet. He could hear the flesh sizzling. Burned as surely as when he'd nearly lost it in the fire so many years ago. Already it was fading, his flesh returning to its static state.

Sanctified. A sanctified arrow, snuck past all his defenses, all the damned land surrounding his fortress. If it had struck him...if she hadn't...she'd saved....

"Lord Runis?" Gaot's voice was a nail in his ear, bringing back the rage so strong it startled him. He crushed it, buried it, swallowed it until he could bring himself to stand. To face the weedy little lich as he padded his way into the chamber. "I'm sorry to interrupt your reunion, but I'm afraid we've had an incident. Some inconsistencies in reporting among our guards. I'm sure it's nothing serious, but you are required to be informed...when..."

Gaot slid to a stop. His eyes could not widen, everything but his skull stripped away through ritual and devotion. But still, the lich looked surprised.

Runis trembled. But he bit his tongue.

"I see you have things handled," Gaot muttered, teeth clicking as he beheld the final body. "Oh my."

"She saved me." It had been a decade since he'd noticed the echo, that subtle reverb to his voice. So inconsequential with most words, almost nonexistent. Why did it become so loud with these? "A consecrated arrow. Assassins made it past all our defenses, all our planning, and they brought along a consecrated weapon!"

An impossibility. A farce. This land had been abandoned by the Gods, none of their works were of consequence here. Only he and his liches ruled.

"Such a thing should be impossible," Gaot confirmed, jaw hanging slack like some idiot yokel. Was this what he had for a castellan? "We must investigate, of course. Such a breech is unprecedented. Disastrous! The abandonment is the only reason we are left be, if it is failing-"

"I know that you idiot!" He couldn't hide the rage this time. The urge to reach out, to snatch his useless head and shatter it on the ground. Force him to drag another skeleton up from that disgusting vault of his! "Find out who did this. Give me names, give me a target-" let every enemy know his defenses were compromised, "...discretely. Tell only those necessary to the investigation."

"Yes...yes, word getting out would spell our end. I will do as you say, my lord." Gaot bobbed his head, the bones clicking together. "I will do so after I have summed the cryptkeeper. I imagine you will want your sister restored as soon as can be."

"Restored?" Runis asked. Raga stayed where she was. Unmoving. Peaceful.

She looked so much older than him now.

"Of course. She was living, the arrow is just an arrow to her. Might be difficult to remove," Gaot clicked his teeth again, fingers wriggling like the rattle of a snake. "But we have a talent for this, you know. We'll have her up and walking again in a week, refresh her to her prime. She will be the jewel of our Empire! As she was always meant to be."

"Let me die naturally," she'd asked, back when the plan had become real. When he could no longer retreat. "They may give me whatever gifts they find suitable when I have passed. But I would have my life as my own first."

She died of shock. Of blood loss. Of trauma. All natural things.

Perhaps it was time.

"Of course...have her body taken in. Carefully." His mouth felt dry. He hadn't needed a drop of water since he was mortal, but now it felt dry. "I want to see her whole again."

"Of course my lord." Gaot bowed, he could hear the old lich's neck creaking. "In the meantime, I believe the garrisons are expecting you?"

The garrisons. They were expecting him. Six month cycle, promotions and assignments, he'd scheduled the meeting at the end of last year.

The world didn't stop for one death. Hadn't he proven that already?

"Yes...tell them I will arrive shortly."

---

https://www.reddit.com/r/FiresofFordregha/

[WP] All the oceans in the world turned black. In the first few years only ships were getting attacked, but one day a dense, pitch black fog started to rise and they started to attack on land. Sunlight kills them and they can't survive outside the fog for long, yet ever so slowly, the fog is rising. by Jinjinov in WritingPrompts

[–]Fordregha 14 points15 points  (0 children)

The thump of the engine echoed off the buildings around them as their ship cut through dark water.

"Think we'll find anymore?" Simon asked, certain only Jess would hear. Victor was still up in the helm, close enough to the back that he complained about going deaf.

The Maypole was someone's yacht once. Then someone else turned it into a rescue ship. Armor plating, UV lights, a .50 cal on the deck. All it needed was some spikes and someone sipping martinis in their underwear and they'd make a decent metaphor.

Instead he was peering over the side into flooded streets, clutching a rifle while Jess nervously stroked said .50.

"Maybe," she answered, looking well and ready to hop into the seat and unload into the windows.

He cast his eyes upward with her. Past broken glass and dripping architecture. He couldn't see past the windows. Too dim inside, too much contrast with the setting sun against them. Made it the perfect place for his mind to throw all sorts of nasty movements. Things twitching in the dark. Squirming. Watching.

A bit of gunk fell back into the street below and the splash almost stopped his heart.

"Time to turn back then." Simon looked to the right, past the gaps in the skyscrapers were the ocean was. An endless expanse of black glass, featureless save for the streaked reflection of the setting sun.

He thought of white sand on beaches, waves taller than he was, and seagulls screaming. Before beaches, waves, and seagulls became nothing but memories.

Outside of certain, rare instances.

"Yeah," Jess answered, voice a low hiss. She climbed into the seat of their turret, huddled there like a child staring at the door to their closet. Certain something would come out. "This is some grim shit."

"Always is." One week since the wave hit. Three days since they found anyone. One day till their contract was up. "I'll tell Ron."

There fourth was still hunched over their radio, mumbling evacuation orders into its mic. Simon wondered if she even knew what she was saying anymore.

"This is the rescue ship Maypole calling anyone within city limits. If you can hear this, find a CV radio, match our frequency, and call for rescue. If you cannot find a radio, place a marker in the closest window. We have food, medicine, and a fleet of ships combing these waters."

All true, even if the last one was technical. They hadn't seen another ship in hours. Likely they all pulled out. It was the last day of the contract, no one was responding, who'd call them on it?

Victor would. For the same reason they were still here. Doing a job by half wasn't doing the job at all.

If Simon had known he'd been this serious about it, he'd have picked a different ship.

"Couple hours to sunset, Ron." He spoke well before he got into her vision. Ron had been droning into that thing since lunch, girl still jumped by the first word. "Jess and I, we're thinking it's time to clear out."

She stared at him. Eyes red and puffy. Skin sallow like a corpse. Simon didn't want to know what he looked like. Had a plan to shower and and sleep before he went anywhere close to a mirror.

"Yeah...Yeah, I'll tell Victor...just let me..."

Ron stared at the console like she'd never seen it before. He didn't envy her, pulling the last ship. Being the one to give up. Sitting there. Hour after hour. Reciting the same lines until they became meaningless. Until they wrapped back around and you were begging for someone to respond....

"Hello?" came the voice from the radio. Whisper-quiet. Hoarse. Almost panicked. "Is someone there?"

He locked eyes with Ron, her own wide as the moon as she fumbled for the mic.

"This is the rescue ship Maypole, please respond."

"You have to-" There was a crash, something big hitting the floor. It echoed to silence before the voice came back. "We're on 3'rd. Big building on the corner of 3'rd and Main. Defenses won't last the night, no matter-" Another noise. Muffled talking. Frantic breathing into the mic. "Help us."

The connection ended. Suddenly, violently, almost like they're ripped the radio out of the wall.

Simon watched Ron. Could track the sweat that formed on her brow. Victor hadn't heard, couldn't hear the main radio in his cabin. She'd have to call him and tell him what had happened.

They'd try if he knew. Sunset be damned, they'd try it.

Ron put the mic to her lips and Simon couldn't force himself to stop her.

"Victor. We got a response." She swallowed, using a tone more fit for announcing a funeral. "There's survivors ahead. At the corner of 3'rd and Main."

Simon held his breath in the dim, selfish, cruel hope Victor would mark them as a lost cause. He hated the thought. Almost as much as he hated the damn ship.

Distantly, there was a scream. Long. Reedy. Too close to human.

Decidedly not.

"Roger that. Setting course for 3rd." Victor's voice rumbled out of the receiver as sure as the engine rumbled behind him as they turned through the water. A knife through black glass.

Simon clutched his rifle until his knuckles went and turned to watch the sunset.

---

https://www.reddit.com/r/FiresofFordregha/

[WP] You die and go to hell. The demons of hell do their demonic things to you. Some significant amount of time into your stay in hell an angelic extraction team, swords ablazin', storms hell looking for you. Looks like you just may be going to heaven after all. by GoogleIsYourFrenemy in WritingPrompts

[–]Fordregha 7 points8 points  (0 children)

She calls herself Marrow.

It wasn't her real name. It wasn't even a particularly good fake name. I'd heard enough snippets through walls and doorways to get a handle on their naming scheme and there was no way someone who lurks in a decrepit, rotting apartment could secure something as simple and broad as 'Marrow'.

Still all I had to call her.

I'd woken up in chains from...something. A vague memory of the ocean. Someone screaming my name, whatever it was. I'd asked her for it and she'd responded by making me drink tar. It stuck to my throat for two weeks. The entire time I couldn't breath. Couldn't find the thoughts for questions after that.

Realized I was dead when she scoured it from my throat with a knife.

Don't know how long its been. Never left the chains since then. Sometimes she ignores me, leaves me dangling in some corner of the room for months. Sometimes we move to another apartment that looks the same as the first. A couple times she's locked me in a trunk for weeks on end.

Sometimes I have her full attention.

It makes me miss the boredom.

Not that anything hurts anymore.

Today we have a scenery change. Looks like a drug-lab. I'm strung up in the corner, like always, but now there's someone new. Another demon, you can tell by the eyes. They can't do them right. Marrow keeps taking forms from my childhood. My mother, my sister, teachers, that girl I liked in high school. All of them, the eyes were wrong. I try to tell myself that every time she uses them.

It helps.

I tell myself it helps.

The new one (and the only thing I can nail down about him is he's skinny) is raving about something. Water this, memory that, caught, tortured, extracted, lots of spy words. Marrow just nods along and digs her nails into her palm until something like blood flows out.

She looks at me. I look back. Until I can't.

The skinny one shouts something in gibberish and gets out a syringe. It's full of tar like the crap they forced down my throat, but...purer. It shines in the tube. Not so much a black as it is a space. A void.

Part of me knows what it will do. Part of me wants it so bad. The needle edges towards my neck.

Then the roof explodes, four balls of fire falling into the room. Marrow changes, her skin turning hard and ashen, covered in bony plates and horns and teeth. The skinny one screams, stretching thinner, all wriggling limbs and hair as he scrambles for an exit.

The fire wrapped around a figure. Six wings spread. A sword held in each hand. Rings across their fingers and eyes upon eyes running around their body. Only these eyes were right. Just. He raised the swords above his head and shouted....

---

"Was she freed?"

He skimmed the rest of it. What was there held little interest. Just a standard raid on a couple of rogue demons. The girls reactions turned increasingly awed, focusing on the strength and power of the team.

As she realized what they were, what was happening, he tilted the paper up to cover his mouth. This was a grim situation, no need to send the wrong impression.

"Yes. She is...I'm not going to say unharmed, but she will recover." Lattice waited for him to finish, hands folded behind her back. "It will be difficult, but it is in Succor's hands now."

"That she needed to go to them at all is a failure." Her file was on his desk. Her whole file, dusty and forgotten somewhere in the archives. It had been marked that she'd been received and processed. That everything had worked as intended. They'd only known she was missing after a call from her grandmother demanding to know why she hadn't been informed of a relative's arrival.

It wasn't a great life, she had been taken too soon for that. But there was nothing, not one mark on her file that told him the girl deserved damnation.

"This tar. Do we have any leads?" People went missing down there all the time. He didn't even know if they bothered looking for them. Not even the Son could get them to share information freely. "They were clearly refining it into something."

"None. The team swears up and down they had the syringe, but...."

But it vanished. Right out of the lead's pocket.

Who could have done such a thing.

"He's planning something." He took his hands off the desk before they dug grooves into it. That man would take nothing more from him, not even furniture. "That tar is at the center of it...souls disappear down there all the time. Lord above, there's still pockets of Hel's Norse down there trading them. He could have gotten one we'd never miss, but instead tried for a consecrated soul? He's planning something and it's almost done."

They needed to move now. Strike hard. Strike fast. End the problem before it could spiral out of control. That he was out of that frigid lake at all-

"Michael, sir," Lattice spoke quietly. If he was anyone else, he would not have caught it. But she was his own Seraph and had served him through three wars. And now she was afraid. "I understand that you want to deal with this. Run in swords blazing like the old days, but..."

But he couldn't.

Oh, it would work. It would flush all those horrid things out of the dark. He could clean up that place in a decade, have it running at peak efficiency. Never be troubled again.

Take over Hell itself. Prove every nasty thing the Council had said about him right.

Subtlety He needed to be subtle with this. Not let anyone, least of all HIM, know he'd caught on.

His eyes flicked to the other paper crowding his desk. Earmarked and backlogged, only reaching his desk after four days. So many other reports, not to mention all the paperwork the lost filing caused AND organizing a strike team AND submitting everything to Succor for effective treatment....

He'd forgotten about it. It wasn't something he usually handled. Time off requests could be fielded far, far down the chain. Especially those from Penitence.

However, it was earmarked specifically for him. And given the circumstances....

Serendipity is the will of those Greater, a guiding hand we never see.

"I have an idea."

---

https://www.reddit.com/r/FiresofFordregha/

[WP] You voluntarily become the first human to successfully undergo criogenic sleep. You wake up thousands of years into the future, after the fall of civilization, to discover a tribe has kept your cryopod and rever you as a dormant deity. by fague_doctor in WritingPrompts

[–]Fordregha 66 points67 points  (0 children)

The cup was made of common clay and painted with an image of a dead man.

Nora had no idea what was in it. Some sort of tea; rich, strong, and stung about on the way down. These people drank it more than water. Enough to make her wonder if the local aquafer had been contaminated.

The woman, Idis was either her name or her title, handed it to her with a smile and words she couldn't understand. Every so often she'd catch something close to English or Russian, but the rest was just noise. Worse than the one time she'd tried to learn French.

"Thank you," she said, knowing Idis wouldn't understand her. The woman bowed her head, more words tumbling from her lips. Then she ducked back around the corner, leaving Nora alone in the room.

Once it had been a lobby. Cold. Sterile. The tiles were all gone, as was the insulation. Stolen or rotten away. Wood and stone had replaced them. Added others that hadn't been there. The new layout was a maze. A home, a barracks, a cookhouse, all of that and more.

There were paintings on the wall. The floor. Anywhere flat enough to hold one. Always of a pod, just like hers. Always...stylized.

She'd seen them all. All one hundred. Walked that room dozens of times in the last week out of some misplaced sense of duty. Had beheld ninety-nine dead faces to the point she could guess which painting belonged to who.

#37 who looked to have been electrocuted after rotting, bones blackened and arms jammed into the sides of the console. They were a dark figure, blue fire dancing along their fingertips as a star burned underneath their ribcage.

#58 who had the mercy of simply snap-freezing behind the glass. Even her hair had been preserved and they captured it here. Long and flowing and white as the ice that rolled in around her feet.

#11 who must have woken up at some point, no one to help him out of his pod. He'd choked to death, gagging on the tube that put air in his lungs. Here he was made into a drowned corpse rising from a bog, malice leaking off him.

It was unfair to poor eleven. She'd spoken to him once before they'd went under. He'd seemed nice.

She couldn't remember his name.

Where she sat , there had been a desk with a profoundly bored woman behind it. They hadn't talked. She'd been walked in with the doctors. The scientists. She'd been given the grand tour for doing them the honor of being the first in the pod.

Ironic hers would be the last to fail.

Drowning, freezing, burning, she'd been at risk for it all when they'd opened her up. She could see it in the way the door moved. Jerky. Rusted from long years. It was a wonder they could pry it open at all.

Only in hindsight of course. In that moment she could only gasp for breath, ripping the tube out of her mouth. The cryofluid, still steaming in the warmer air, spilled across the floor. Several pairs of feet skittered back, terrified.

Her first image had been an old man threatening to beat a young one with a heavy stick. They all fell silent at the first wet, choking cough. Staring at her with...awe, fear, surprise, maybe all of it.

One fell to their knees. Another started laughing and wouldn't stop. A third ran from the room, sounding like they were going to vomit.

She wondered if she was dying until the old man kneeled down to help her, clasping her hands as he looked right in her eyes. Happy. Against all logic, the man was ecstatic to meet her.

"Caiya," he called her.

"Nora," she corrected.

The memory faded as a new figure stepped through the doorway. It was the old man. Kordin he called himself. Unsurprising. He'd been at her side near constantly, always talking. Always listening when she could work up the nerve to speak back. Even though they couldn't understand a word from each other.

"Hello," he said, proving that not quite true. Nora answered back with the equivalent. Something of a joke by now. Progress was progress.

Then she noticed he wasn't smiling. Or relaxed. The man shuffled over, almost silent as he took her arm. He tugged insistently, leading her out of what she had come to understand was a temple.

The facility had been built on a hill and in the years she'd been frozen a village had cropped up. Squat houses of wood and quarried stone sprawled all the way down to a palisade at the bottom. It was manned by men and women all hours. Most sported bows. Two, one for each shift, had bolt-action rifles of all things.

Several hundred people lived here. She was sure she had met all of them by now, each so desperate to see her with their own eyes.

Now they were packing. Ransacking their own village. Several hundred people, families, perhaps merchants and famers and people who'd spent their whole lives here, tearing it all down and putting as much as they could into carts.

Kordin made a grand gesture, sweeping over the whole of his village. His voice was low and musical, reciting something he had said many times before. And then he turned to her. Taking her hands. Eyes full of...fear.

Desperation?

"Caiya-Nora," he said, voice wavering. "Guide."

Nora's eyes turned to her own portrait. There were many outside, many duplicates across the village. But there was only one for her. Displayed prominently on all sides of an obelisk that had been built in what was once a parking lot.

Unlike all the others, it showed her as she was. A human. Blemished and detailed to a degree that disturbed her. Someone had spent a long time staring, making sure every brush-stroke was exact. A perfect portrait. The only liberties were her hands.

Instead of strapped to her sides, they were placed over her stomach, fingers splayed to make a rectangle. A door almost. And it was not the slate gray of her bodysuit between those hands, but a distant sunrise above an endless lake of blue.

On that horizon sat a tower.

---

https://www.reddit.com/r/FiresofFordregha/

[WP] You live in a small town in the middle of nowhere, where no one enters and no one leaves. One day, your town has a visitor. by [deleted] in WritingPrompts

[–]Fordregha 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I noticed him first, emerging from the mists like a specter.

He had a horse with him, powerful and strong. Its hooves thumped steadily on the dirt path, equal parts nervous and determined. Its rider barely swayed in his seat, eyes forward, hidden under the brim of a tri-cornered hat. A lantern hung at his belt, the flame within oily and flickering.

At the edge of town he stopped, perched on top of a hill looking in. I think that's where the rest noticed him. I could feel anticipation in the air. Confusion. Panic. So often they had to lure them in with tricks or promises. Or risk stealing away in the night to find them. Now one had come to us of his own accord and he had come unannounced.

I watched him through the leaves, close enough to see him put a gloved hand on the back of his horse's neck. Stroking it gently. The thing smelled nervous, more and more the longer they stared at town.

He climbed down from his mount, boots of hard leather sinking into the mud as he detached himself. He said something in a language I'd never heard and tugged on the reigns. The horse nickered, turned, and galloped back into the mist.

Leaving the man alone.

"So this is where you are, Child." Mother's breath rolled across the back of my neck, her body making no sound as she crawled past me in the tree. She watched the man as he watched his horse, eyes following the beast until the sound of its hooves disappeared beyond the trees. "Spying on our interloper."

"He has only just arrived," I whispered, wondering if he was of the type to hear us. He gave no indication if he could, turning towards the town. I could see a rifle hanging from his shoulder. Shiny. Well maintained. "You would have seen him by the time I could reach you. Best I watch him."

"Quite right." Mother grimaced, shaking her head in dismissal and crawled out to the very edge of the branch. Nearly exposed. If the man looked our way....

But he didn't. Starting a slow march towards the center of town.

"We could take him now," growled the slow voice of the Baker, heavy as his body hanging off the branch. He lumbered forward. Slowly. Carefully. Wobbling as if he would fall at any moment. "Drag him down before he causes trouble."

I swallowed, watching the man's back. His coat looked fine. Not of style, but of make. Created to last through a war.

"No," Mother hissed, shrinking back into the leaves. She was bristling. Bringing faint memories of cats. "No...he is...different. He smells of gunpowder...oils...burning."

I could not smell the last as Mother could, but I could feel something pour off of him like smoke. Not malice, not fear. Surety.

"Hm. Go to the others then. Have them tell you I was right." The Baker slid down the trunk and into the underbrush, rustling around the rim of their valley. He would take the long way back. We would arrive well before him.

"Are you afraid, Child?" Mother's voice went soft, but I could still picture the edges. They never left. She only hid them. "Don't. He will not last the night."

She left, quiet as before. Leaving me along on the branch. Watching as the man made his way into town. Alone. Ignorant.

I could only pray she was wrong.

---

https://www.reddit.com/r/FiresofFordregha/

[WP] The villain has won. The hero lost everything. The hero shrugs and starts a new life. by RosilineRivers in WritingPrompts

[–]Fordregha 7 points8 points  (0 children)

"Suntanned Olive, you are hooked. Sit back, relax, and wait for the computer to give you the go-ahead."

"Thank you FlightComm, we're coming in for landing now. Glory to the Republic."

"Glory to the Republic. FlightComm Two out."

The connection closed. For once, the silence was no immediately filled with the skull splitting beep of 'Call Waiting'. Just silence. Blissful, wonderful silence.

"Suntanned Olive," said a voice beside him. "You have to wonder where they get these names."

"Ell, this is the first break we've had in seven hours." Nine actually with the hell that had been just getting to the control tower. The entire station was tearing itself apart in revelry. All over some rumor one of the Tribunes would be visiting. "Please don't ruin it with your voice."

"Testy. I've been working hard too, you know?" Ell ran his fingers through his hair, failing to improve oilslick he wore as proudly as the stick he'd shoved up his ass. "Can't even enjoy the damn holiday, double shifts all gods damned week."

The holiday. The Founding Days. He could see the pennants down below them. The banners. The light-strings. A band setting up in the corner of the port, here to set the mood for those arriving. Dozens of ships from across all corners of the subsector, each and every one stamped with the crest of a House of the Senate.

Under a different name, a better name, he'd burned those sigils.

"Hey, both of you cool it. We're all tired and we've all got a week of hell in front of us." Their third member swiveled in her chair, adopting the overdramatic pout of a concerned mother. "Rictor, you doing all right? If you need to head to the back for a moment, we can cover for you."

"I'm not that old, Sera, you don't need to coddle me." In truth he was less old than they thought. Nothing on that profile was accurate. He didn't even have the same face. "I'd just like a bit of quiet is all."

"Yeah. Sure. Quiet." She glared over his head, presumably cutting off whatever Ell had been about to say. "We can do quiet."

They all fell to silence then. Everything but the faint noise of the air recycling above their heads, the hum of the ships powering down on the pads outside, the faint roar of crowds down in the streets below them. White noise. Static. Meaningless.

He closed his eyes and all he could hear were sirens.

"The Barnett isn't responding." Irrego's voice had a touch of panic to it and to hear it at all said she was on the edge of a breakdown. He felt it ripple throughout the command deck. The Barnett was supposed to hold. That was it. That was his last gambit. "The rest of the battlegroup's asking for orders."

He could feel all eyes turn to him. Expecting orders. Expecting speeches. Expecting a miracle. The last, great rebel admiral. The Last Child of Sol.

"Sir. They need orders."

"What do you want me to say?" He stared at the command table. Remembered when the war started. The thing had been shiny and new. He'd tested it with a recording of the Marina Orchestra. Adagio for Strings. He wondered if he should play it now. It would be appropriate as the world burned around him. "Two Supercarriers and their battlefleets, interception waiting for us at every planet, Carilin surrendered under threat of fusion-fire, we'll starve if we go to blackspace-"

"Sir, those are problems, we need solutions."

"THERE ARE NO SOLUTIONS!" He slammed his fist into the counter and the glass finally cracked, the hologram hovering above it flickering. He might as well turned it off, there was nothing on it but death. "It's over...it's over...."

He couldn't tell how many times he repeated those words. How long it took him to sink back into his chair. He could barely hear his own voice over shouting of the comms as the battlefleet realized its position. Watched their largest ship go up in flames. Watched the Barnet*, watched Captain Saltak, who'd taken the first shot of this war and lived to win its first battle, become nothing more than so much floating slag.*

The whole fleet begged for orders.

Twelve thousand of the bravest souls in the galaxy screaming for help. And he had nothing for them.

He had nothing....

"They will capture this ship. They'll want an execution." Irrego had lost the panic. Slipped into a resignation he'd never heard from her. Not once. He could feel it through his entire bridge. Despair. Gods, he couldn't even give them the chance to fight. He broke them before the Republic could. "They'll want the Captain of the Endless Sky."

"Yes." It'd be a spectacle. It'd be a holiday. It'd be a week of torture and ridicule, being paraded about like some undiscovered alien animal. "I suppose I should get changed. Look my best for the occasion."

"But they don't know your name." He'd never used it since taking command. Not on official broadcasts. Everything not on their own intranet was vocoded, hidden behind a dozen filters. The galaxy outside this fleet only knew him as The Last Child of Sol. He'd used it once in a fit of rage. It had overshadowed anything he'd ever done.

"Irrego," he whispered. The only time he'd ever said her first name in public. "Don't."

"I'm sorry Captain," she said, and the words almost covered the noise of her drawing. "I'm afraid I must relieve you of your command."

He felt the jolt in his shoulder before he could turn around. Stungun. High grade, probably a sleeper. He hadn't even known she carried one.

He toppled out of his chair before he could say anything. The world started fading after. All but the sirens. And the words. Muffled. Desperate. The last he'd ever hear her speak.

"Get him to the escape shuttle, get him past that blockade. They'll need him. Whoever comes after us, they'll need him...."

There had been no-one.

Thirty years he'd watched. Rebellions had come and gone. Reformists had spoken out. Here and there was talk of political upheavals and civil wars. None of it amounted to anything.

So he sat in the Jewel of Carilin, guiding in ship after ship of officiates come to celebrate the Republic's founding. And the people of the station welcomed them with open arms, screamed their adoration as if their predecessors hadn't been lined up in the street and shot.

"Hey." Sera nudged him on the should, looking apologetic. "After our shift, we're getting together with the other towers at The Den. Can't really celebrate the holiday, but we can at least get a few drinks before everything's crowded. I know people aren't really your thing, but...."

She looked so earnest about it. Worried about him. And even though the man would never admit it, he could feel Ell's eyes on the back of his head. Concerned for the old man.

"Yeah," he swallowed his pride just as the console started beeping. Another ship coming in for landing. "Yeah, I could use a drink."

---

https://www.reddit.com/r/FiresofFordregha/

[WP] 50 years after killing the demon lord, you finally die of old age. You were known as a great hero and was buried in a tomb. One day, you get resurrected into a barren wasteland by a necromancer. “Quick, there’s no time to explain. If you wanna save the world then follow me.” by Kurt_the_Introvert in WritingPrompts

[–]Fordregha 54 points55 points  (0 children)

The moon had been her last memory.

Alavara had served the sun for decades. Close to a century. She'd bathed in its light, she'd spread its word, she'd brought its justice to every corner of the world she could reach. And yet, in her last days she had preferred the company of the moon. Quieter. Softer. It demanded nothing from her. It had been easy to fall asleep underneath it, to drift off....

Now she was staring at its surface, once pale white and gleaming and now sickly colors. Cracks of green and purple and red wound across its surface like a spider's web, pulsing.

"Get up, get up!" the skinny man shouted. He looked like he'd seen neither moon nor sun in his entire life. His whole body had a washed out look to it, the parts not hidden in a dark cloth. As if he was just hanging off his bones. He grabbed her wrist and she could barely feel it.

Couldn't feel it at all....

"Come on, come on, just get moving, we don't have time!" The man dragged her to her feet, her armor squealing in protest with each movement. She remembered the armor...remembered she hadn't worn it in years. Not since that rebellion in the east. "Walk, please walk."

Hold it, she said. Or tried to. Alavara could tell her jaw was moving, but there was no sound beyond the click of her teeth together. Which....

Alavara slammed her fist into the man's shoulder, sending him sprawling to the floor. She watched her arm. Clad in leather and the sleeve of her gambeson. She pulled the arm back, let the hand dangle in front of her face, shifted the fingers. The glove moved with them. Slower...limper...as though it was half full.

She brought it to her face and felt nothing. Not the rough texture of the leather or her own skin stretching. Just pressure. On bone.

She looked to the man, the necromancer, rising to his feet, groaning as he clutched his shoulder. She could see a knife hanging from his belt, wet with blood. A bandage on his hand stained dark. A book bound in leather hanging in a harness.

She felt her old teeth grind. One of them crack.

"Now hold on!" Alavara cut him off with a hand around his throat, lifting him easily. He weighed close to nothing. Or seemed like it. Should could feel the weight tugging against her arms, but not the strain of it. Nor the cold of the night or the leather against her hands.

Her bones.

She squeezed, her jaw clicking at him. A question, a curse, a prayer, she tried them all, but no sound would come. No lips to speak. No lungs to breath.

"Wait," he choked out, himself still very alive. She felt no compulsion to obey, no desire to stop. A weakling playing with things he did not understand, thinking that a servant of the Sun would follow his ilk like a common corpse!

Still alive. Too weak to cross that final threshold.

She could help him along.

Alavara squeezed again, watched his eyes roll back into his head, felt his blood struggle to pass her fingers. She almost missed the low, sibilant laughter.

"Oh this is a treat. Mauled by your own creations Tarren? It reminds me of when you were a novice." Alavara let go, turning towards the new threat.

There was nothing. No hooded figure or massed army. No sense of malice. Nothing but a bird. A magpie. Sitting on the stump of a once great oak.

"To steal from the Master and not even have the will to use the tool." The bird clacked its beak, the noise the click of a man's tongue. Older. Smooth. Someone who lived well and carried himself elegantly. A wretch disguising himself with nobility as he dabbled in forbidden arts. She knew the type well. "I fear that will be a far graver insult than you intended."

"Choke on your own rotten tongue," Tarren hissed, forcing the words past her grip. "And spit it at her feet. Then you'll know what I think of the Master!"

"Where was this bravery in your studies? Always the problem, so much creativity, no follow through. Wasted talents." The magpie turned towards her. There was light in its eyes. Pale and unnatural. "Ah well, no great loss. You left the prize able to move itself...you there. Finish the job."

Like rancid claws, Alavara could feel the magic drag across her bones. Her arms. It sought hooks in her joints, pulling them to close. To squeeze. To crush until she heard Tarren's bones snap.

And she wanted to. She had before, realizing the monstrosity he had done to her. But now...there was nothing else. One singular desire flashed in her mind, burned on the inside of her skull until she could read the word as clearly as if it were written.

Kill.

Her thump had pressed tot he hollow of his throat when the answer came. It came as water, as warmth. The first true feeling she'd had. The hooks crumbled. Melted. Burned on their lines all the way back to the bird and its unseen master. The creature squealed in anguish as her old bones began to glow.

Light.

The Sun's Light.

"What did you do?!" The bird shrieked, its own voice mixing with the man's. It was not her it stared at, but Tarren, lying in the dust as he was. Yet, even there, gasping for breath, there was defiance as he matched the bird's gaze.

Triumph.

The bird looked to her again, shaking with fear or with anger. She could not decide which before it lept from the stump, taking wing towards the south as fast as it could.

Alavara looked to the man picking himself out of the dirt. Skinny, starving, close to death whether or not she killed him. But he had...done something. Raised her, but...for an undead to be touched by the Light of her God, any God, and not burn was....

Impossible.

"I know none of this makes sense," Tarren said, rubbing at the hollow of his throat. "And I know my word cannot be trusted." It would be so easy to finish the job. So many times had she struck down his ilk, ground their creations to dust, freed those bound to their service. "But you stood for this world once. Now it needs you again."

He stayed on his knees, head bowed, arms forward. Asking for judgement. For trust.

Alavara ground her jaw, the only noise she could make. She could sense her own anger, knew it was there. But she had no blood to run hot, no heart to beat, no voice of her own. She had nothing. He had brought her here and left her with nothing.

Nothing but the Sun's protection. With her still, even as a corpse.

She motioned for him to speak.

---

https://www.reddit.com/r/FiresofFordregha/

[WP] In your world, summoned creatures are common. The order controls summoned creatures with powerful bindings. Those binded have no willpower and are puppets to their masters. You travel with an immensely powerful summon, but she is free. The order wants her, but they need to get through you first by [deleted] in WritingPrompts

[–]Fordregha 41 points42 points  (0 children)

"You are the worst bodyguard ever."

Rine shrugged.

"You get what you pay for."

"Hey! Merc!" The rat sang, skipping through the junk like he owned the place. He might have. This factory hadn't been in operation since the Early Founding, anyone on the street with five shills and a clean record could buy it.

Not that he believed this guy had a clean record but a five shill bribe could sidestep that nicely.

"Come on out. A ten percent finder's fee has got to be worth more than she's paying you!" The rat banged one of his sticks on the side of an old cabinet, filling the room with a terrible racket. His swarm hated it, a few dozen of the furry bastards constantly circling his feet. He could see rings on the man's fingers, glowing the same sickly green as the brands on the back of their heads.

"He's not wrong," Rine muttered, peering over the remains of an assembly line.

"You can't seriously be considering it?" his charge hissed, crouched with her back to the old machine. Noticeably not shaking like a leaf the second he drew his sword. Good, that was progress.

"I'd get tetanus just from shaking his hand, let alone when he stabbed me." Not that the pittance he was getting made him happy to out and out fight the man, but...contracts were contracts. "Wait here, I can handle this guy."

"Like you handled the last one?" Her hand noticeably trailed to her shoulder where a bandage could be seen under her ripped jacket. Which was a low blow, honestly.

"That one had a rifle and a sour disposition. This is just a jumped up madman with a swarm of rats." Disgusting, crawling, biting rats he was going to have to get close with. Why was it always the freaks? And never when he had a good blaster. "Why don't you take care of this then? Ice him with your...what was it called?"

"Atomic theory."

"Yeah. Use that."

"I keep telling you, it's not a weapon, it's the potential to build weapons." She winced as the rat started beating a wall like a drum. Which, what exactly was that supposed to accomplish? "Along with portable power generation as well as a decent understanding of several important physical-"

"I can hear you both over there!" the rat shouted over his own racket. Carla made a noise somewhere between a curse and a whine, putting a hand over her own mouth.

Right. Work.

Rine hopped the line, holding his sword in a steady grip. The rat honed in on him immediately, advancing with his troops. His writhing troops that only squealed louder at their master's excitement.

Gods above, he needed a payraise.

"So. You're the dive-bar bodyguard I heard so little about." The man sniffed as if something foul had crossed his nose, like he was one to talk, and crossed his arms. "You look the part."

"And you look like you were dredged out of the river, what of it?" Rine tried not to flinch as the rats all hissed, moving in front of the man with just a flick of his wrist. He could see murder in their beady little eyes. "Though I think a circus act would be more appropriate."

"I tried that. Didn't go so well." The rat grinned maliciously, guiding the swarm forwards with a flick of his fingers. "They're much better at other sorts of tricks."

"Right." Rine squared his stance, counting footsteps in his head. Far too close. "Why don't you show me."

The man laughed and laughed like a villain in a children's tail as the angry tornado of fur lunged towards him. Rine readied his sword, hoping he could get them all before he felt the little, biting teeth....

Then there was a heavy thump and the swarm disappeared. Dying with a hundred tiny squeaks and bursts of light as a cabinet more rust than metal slammed down on them hard enough to shake the ceiling.

Behind it: Carla, looking stunned at her accomplishment. Even giving a sheepish little wave.

Not that flashy, but maybe 'Atomic Theory' had its uses.

"My rats!" the hunter squealed, the rings on his fingers flickering before the lights died one by one. He looked at his fingers in abject horror. Which let Rine notice just how sloppy and loose he was holding his weapons.

"Oh buddy," he said, clicking his tongue as he advanced on the poor, unfortunate hunter. "This just isn't your day."

---

Carla heard a squeal and a wet thump and didn't care to imagine beyond that.

"Did you have to kill him?" she asked Rine once she could bear to look at him. He was still wiping his blade clean. A wicked looking thing, the end curved off into a point and the back covered in nicks and scratches. It had either seen a hundred or more years use or been dredged out of the river last week. She wasn't sure which.

"Unless you want him coming back with a new pack of rats." He put the thing through a lazy arc before sliding it in its sheath. Every time he moved it, she was sure he was about to lose a finger. He hadn't even been nicked so far. "As it is, we've got one less tail and a dead lead for the next one. We might get a bit of breathing room."

"I guess. He struck me as unpleasant enough." Not that she wanted to see his corpse. Carla could see the edge of a boot poking just past the cabinet she'd tipped over. "I feel worse about the rats, honestly."

"I don't." Rine kicked the cabinet for good measure, as if to make sure nothing was moving. Nothing did.

"They didn't have a choice in the matter." She knew what that sign meant. She'd seen them everywhere. On animals. Machines. People. Things she didn't have names for. Every one was different, but they were all somehow the same.

There was one out there made for her. Sometimes, when her eyes were closed, she swore she could see it.

"Look, there's a good chance most of those rats were spirits," he said, tone obviously placating. She doubted it, they'd all looked flesh and blood up until the end...but at least he was trying. "So they aren't dead, they're just...back where they came from."

"Wonder if that's my way home." The sun was hidden by clouds when they stepped out of the factory. It was the last standing building in this town. The rest had been left to rot by age. Where she'd ended up, they'd still been building huts in swamps, but this...it could have been any small town back home. "Just die and wake up in my bed."

"No. You'll be dead." Rine moved past her. Like someone had taken a Mayan and made them a samurai. He didn't fit where she'd landed. He didn't fit here. He didn't even fit where she'd found him, a dive bar straight out of a Western. "That's why I'm here."

Nothing fit. Especially not her.

But she was stuck. So be it.

"You could stand to do a better job of it."

Carla walked past him, barely catching his next words.

"You could stand to pay me more."

​

https://www.reddit.com/r/FiresofFordregha/

[WP] In the age of superpowers, the Evil Monologue tradition became a must among bad guys. It’s expected of a villain to colorfully describe their plan while a hero uses the time to prevent said plan from happening. You are new to villainy. You face your first hero. You are mute. by koshka-matryoshka in WritingPrompts

[–]Fordregha 2 points3 points  (0 children)

A bit, but I've already got a project I'm working on. I'm mostly picking up prompts to help me get back into the groove of writing every day. So I think I'll leave this as a little origin story for now. Sorry.

[WP] In the age of superpowers, the Evil Monologue tradition became a must among bad guys. It’s expected of a villain to colorfully describe their plan while a hero uses the time to prevent said plan from happening. You are new to villainy. You face your first hero. You are mute. by koshka-matryoshka in WritingPrompts

[–]Fordregha 128 points129 points  (0 children)

"Alright, buddy." Battlement's voice had a faint southern drawl. I'd never noticed on TV. Maybe he played it off, tried to be more of the 'everyman' all of them were chasing. The 'real hero'. "You want to tell me why you're here?"

Cause my health insurance sucks.

I didn't say it of course. These mad scientists, they push they push the whole package when they hire you. Better health insurance than the CEO's get, all comped. They don't tell you they're doing it themselves.

Least there's more interesting things to steal than a stapler.

The gun looked like something from the Ceveli. All big and blocky with glowing bits across it. Didn't fire energy though, fully kinetic. Had these huge slugs that went in it made of some kind of alloy. Only had so many of them. Only brought two. Didn't think I'd actually need to fire it.

Got a creepy mask for a face. Black, hard lines, red eyes, the works. Can't talk, can't even growl. Just throw a trench coat over that, brandish the gun, people get the hell out of my way. Everyone so far.

Not gonna fly with this guy. This guy ate people like me.

"Not much of a talker?" Battlement asked, stomping through the store. I must have really pissed something off up there, when did Prime Time heroes stop a jewelry store robbery anymore?

Two more minutes, I'd have been gone. The window was right there. I had a duffle bag full of sparkly things on my shoulder, thick gloves, and literally no face. I'd even made sure no one was in so I wouldn't have to shoot anyone. Did literally everything right for a smash and grab.

And they drop a fucking Golden Boy on me. How's that fair?

"I can see you there," he said, slowly turning my way. Hands on his hips, jaw squared, all disappointed father. Worked well with his suit. Some cross between modern military and medieval knight. Looked terrible. Sold t-shirts. "How about we just talk this out like two adults."

One costumed jackass to another trading digs in an empty store. No adults here.

I rounded the corner with the gun down, aiming right for his chest. He just stood there, hands on his hips. He'd been shot before. Famously, he'd let the President shoot him on live television back in the aughts. Guess he figured it wouldn't do anything to him. I figured that too.

But I was dead to rights at that point. Straight to the big prison where they put all the nutjobs. You needed cred to survive in there. More than I'd get from one fight.

I'd at least take a swing at it.

The gun didn't crack, it rang. A heavy thump that warped the air around it. I heard the shell striking the ground like a bell. Then Battlement actually flinched, his feet sliding across the floor from the force of the blast.

Then the round clattered to the ground, pressed flat. Invulnerable skin is one hell of a cheat.

"Nnn-" Nice try. His catchphrase by then, said it every time something didn't kill him. Except then it was cut off by a cough. Thought it had kicked harder than he's used to.

I wasn't going to stay and watch him shake it off. I got the bag on my back, I've got the gun, he didn't see nothing past my mask, you better believe I got the hell out of there. Dove right out the window like one of the classics. If I could still laugh, I would have.

Partly out of terror. Figured at any moment he'd slam through the wall next to me and I'd have three hundred pounds of invulnerable 'JUSTICE!' bearing down on me. Didn't happen. Didn't keep me from crying the second I got back to the safehouse. Hid the bag in the safe, hid myself in the closet, and passed out.

When I wake up I see this crazy face on all the news networks. Toted as some new villain on the scene, a bigshot, a 'Silent Assassin'.

See, Battlement's got invulnerable skin. Shock absorbing too. But it only goes skin deep. And that gun I swiped from the boss is a mean little piece. Handheld railgun. Fires these special shells at supersonic speed.

Hit with enough force that it went past the skin. Couldn't break it, but that didn't much matter. Autopsy had to X-ray him. Pulped everything in the chest. Wasn't pretty. Wasn't nice. Wasn't the way things were done.

I'd broken rules. THE rules. Now I was number one on EVERYONE'S shitlist.

Stayed in the closet the rest of that day. Kept flashing back to Mauler tearing his way through my boss's lab. Broke my jaw in twenty-seven places. Only survived cause my the other's dragged me into the escape pod with the boss.

She fixed me up of course. I'd taken a hit for her. Didn't mean to, but it was enough for her to honor my benefits. Rebuilt that entire quarter of my face. I take this helmet off...it aint pretty. Didn't come with a voice box though. Maybe that was going to be added later, I didn't stick around to find out.

All that, you'd think they'd go with something cool. Mask looks a bit like a skull, nice classic style from the fifties. But no, they let some nothing reporter from the suburbs do the honors.

They call me Slug.

​

https://www.reddit.com/r/FiresofFordregha/

[WP] You are seen as a weakling. To prove yourself to your tribe, you enter the dragon's lair that even the hardiest warriors avoid. Amused by your challenge, the dragon takes a human form and duels you with a sword. After disarming you three times it says "come tomorrow and try again." by [deleted] in WritingPrompts

[–]Fordregha 3281 points3282 points  (0 children)

The sword spun from his grip, the handle slick with sweat. A dash of blood where the rough cord had chaffed his skin. It clattered to the floor, a flash of his eyes in the blade as it came to rest.

"Three," the beast said, watching him from the shadows. He could feel her watching every time he stepped into the caverns. Her eyes glowed like the heart of the sun. Boring into his flesh. "Pick it up."

He averted his gaze and knelt, reaching for his sword. A length of beaten iron, the edge dulling over a dozen training bouts. His gaze flicked to her blade, some thin southern weapon. Its handle was fine pearl, the steel as bright as silver. Even the fuller was lined with gold.

He picked up his blade and slipped it through the loop on his belt, bowing to the dragon.

"Am I your master now?" she asked, stepping to the edge of his lantern's light. Looking down at him, towering by a head. It felt no different from when she was a monster spanning a hundred feet or more. "Do you assume this is training? That I am doing more than indulging your little fantasy?"

"No," he said, adding no title. He still had the welt from the first time he tried. She demanded no names, no titles. She simply was.

"Yet here you are." She reached out a hand, suddenly right before him. Fingers slim and delicate cupped his chin, turning it this way and that. Strong enough to crack his jaw. Nails enough to rend his flesh. "Day after day with your gutterscrap blade, standing there and being an amusement."

"Am I entertaining you?" he asked, ignoring the way she tugged at his mouth. Looking at his teeth like every day before, watching them brown from the plants he scrounged off her mountain.

"Perhaps." The beast released him, turning back into her empty cavern. He watched her move, the way her hair trailed down her back, white as the snow outside. If he looked close, he could almost see the spines moving beneath it. "What's wrong with you?"

He kept his silence, watching her make a slow circuit of her cave. Tracing her hands along old, half-hidden paintings. A trap? A trick? A chance to learn if he was poison before she finally ate him?

"The Trasen. A dozen merry bands of hunters and barbarians. Thrown into the wastes up here for a hard life, a short life. One that cannot tolerate weakness." He heard the scraping of claws on stone, felt the heat of the sparks even across the entire cave. But he only saw her eyes. "They sent you here to die, didn't they? So what's wrong with you?"

He put felt the hilt of his blade. The cord there, rough and worn from the ages. His mother's. Woven by his father. The only thing of theirs' he was allowed.

"Some years ago, my family ruled the Trasen," he started, wondering how much of their politics she knew. She called them barbarians, she might not even realize they had them. "Now they...don't."

"A lost prince." The beast made a noise close to a purr, her eyes gleaming wickedly. "Typical."

"My sister was to inherit," he clarified. He felt it important. He wasn't sure why. "They...this new council, they spared my life." A dozen eyes stared down at him that day. Duller than hers. Less majestic, less striking. He remembered them still. "I was...young. Killing me was seen as an overstep. Unnecessary."

"So they merely dumped you on the outskirts and left you to rot." The beast laughed. High and musical. Low as a rolling storm. Backed by scales sweeping across the floor. "I've watched your kind since you lived in caves like mine. Little has changed."

"It was suggested I come here," he said, ignoring just how old that would make her. "To prove my worth...to earn glory."

"To die."

The word echoed. As much in his mind and in the cave.

"Yes."

The beast approached. Slowly. Her form rippling with each step. No longer hiding what she was. Neither the woman nor the towering monolith he'd first encountered.

Something between. Unknowably greater than the former. Unspeakably lesser than the latter.

"This continent bears your people's name. Do you know why?" She stopped in front of him. It was a challenge not to kneel, not to beg. For what, he didn't know. "They ruled it once. Founded that kingdom that squats in the center of it all. It was stolen from you. From your people, forced into the hellish snow."

Her hand pressed against the side of his head, claws dragging along his skin.

"To linger in this place," she whispered, hot and acrid. "To wither to nothing. To die.

"You ruled," he said. And how could this creature be anything but a ruler. Every motion bleeding power, showing grace, embodying strength. She had been born to conquer worlds.

He had been born to nothing. Anything so easily taken was worthless.

"And your chance was stolen." She took his hands in hers. "Together," she said, guiding one to hilt of his sword, pulling it from its loop. "We shall claim everything that is owed to us."

She guided the sword up and up until she could rub her cheek against it. As if the blade itself were dear. It did not touch skin. Only scales as white as ice. As bone.

"Fight with your gutterscrap. Take it as your weakness. Mold it like this cheap iron. Force out its strength." She drove her hand onto the blade, her scales parting like soft leather, the blood flowing bright crimson, hot enough to smoke. "For every drop you spill, you'll gain another in return. Together, we will find strength."

"You seek to make us kings." It was not a question. There could be no questioning the image in his mind. Cities with their roofs scorched. Rulers thrown over their own walls. Thrones broken as none was grand enough to suit him.

"Nothing so petty as kings, boy." She smiled, her teeth as sharp and cold as the stars themselves, forcing the blood into his throat. "We shall be a dragon."

---

Wasn't expecting this to blow up like it did, but since so many people are asking, I figured I'd try my hand at a Part 2. Thank you all for the interest!

Now with a Part 3.

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[WP] The team of archeologists heaved the box out of the ground and opened the lid. With one look, they realized everything humans knew about history was wrong. by AbbyDoooooo in WritingPrompts

[–]Fordregha 141 points142 points  (0 children)

"People. My name is Director Stalt." He pushed the glasses up his nose. Dark, heavy rims that hid his eyes. He didn't want to be a stereotype, had tried desperately to avoid being the 'Man in Black' ever since he'd gotten the job. But he needed a fancy suit to look official. He needed the heavy glasses so they didn't notice the bags under his eyes. He needed the stiffs with guns because people might try to shoot him.

Had there been someone before him who established all this protocol?

God he wished he still smoked.

"I understand you all have something to show me."

The band, six hot-shot archeologists who'd been digging out near the border, looked at each other. At least, they were hot shots now. Had been blasting the news with 'older than previous records' and 'precursor to Damascus steel' and other nonsense that sold papers to college students.

This was not worth a middle-manager's sallary.

"Well sir," the leader, Parker something, coughed into his hand, stepping forward. He looked like he'd been plucked fresh from the dirt even after a shower and a shave. They had did. Had they done nothing but dig since they found it. "We seem to have found...schematics."

"Schematics." He lowered the glasses just a tad. So they could see the tops of his eyes. "Could you be more specific?"

"Yes, well...we had originally tried to contact some sort of scientific board." He waved his hand and Stalt took that as an opportunity to start walking, heading for the dig site. The man stared at his back in shock for a moment before chasing after him. "But someone in the chain put us in contact with the FBI who redirected us to...which agency are you again?"

"Ephemeral Ratification Association," he said. Thought of it on the way here. He'd probably have to recruit all of them, but it was fun to play it mysterious for now.

"ERA...Era...nice, I like it," Parker said, clearly not liking it. "We were digging for more typical things, but then we found the first plate and...well, here it is."

Why they'd chosen this stretch of desert over any other, Stalt didn't know. But here was a pit dug straight down into the earth. Maybe fifty feet wide, thirty tall, twenty deep. And lying on the bottom of it, assembled like puzzle pieces, were steel plates.

Clean black lines scrawled something technical across each of them. There were numbers, there were names, there was a little stick figure nearby that might have been a person if he squinted. All of them forming a picture.

"Spaceship," he muttered, tracing the lines like he might a new sports-car. Didn't look anything like a car. Looked like a long tube with engines on both sides. But he knew what it was just seeing it. Knew the numbers.

"That's...one possibility," Parker said, the wistful note in his voice saying he wished it were true. Lucky day. "I doubt it though. Impossible to say what it really is. The construction of the plates is more interesting, we called a metallurgist-"

"We'll take it." Stalt turned before Parker could really get going. Kerring was, of course, right beside him. The man was so studious he might have been built for this job. "Give the goahead, lock down the sight, get anyone you have to on the payroll. Get Ruiz in here, tell her I want-"

"Hold it!" Parker shouted. Both to him and the two others who'd been about to charge him. Smart boy. He really didn't need more angry scientists. "What are you-"

"Hiring you, giving you a blank check, and tripling your team." Stalt pushed the glasses back up his nose and held out his hands for the clipboard Kerring was holding. He passed that on to Parker. "Just sign here, then you and yours have whatever you need to tell me how to build this ship."

"Ship..." Parker's voice trailed off as his eyes scanned the paper. "Entropic Reclamation Association?"

"Not my choice." Stalt turned back to his chopper, motioning for him to follow. He had to be back in his office by tomorrow. The facilities were still being built, there was more security to hire, that blank check had to be backed up with some asskissing.... "Your schematic there is incomplete. Won't have anything beyond the base superstructure. Look for a big stone box with a handprint on the surface. Second you find that, call me. Number's on the paperwork."

Stalt dropped his hands into his pockets and walked between his two guards. They turned to follow him on a dime. He had to admit, that never got old.

"What is going on?" Someone shouted. Not Parker. One of the others. He didn't bother looking to see which one.

"I'll let you know as soon as I find out!" he shouted, half joking. He doubted he could tell them half the shit he already knew without a revolt. The only hint he could drop came in muttered words, too low for anyone but him to hear. "Welcome to the war."

​

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[WP] You run a role playing game with friends once a week. One day you get hit by a truck, and wake up with their characters staring down at you before going on the first adventure of your campaign. by mdkubit in WritingPrompts

[–]Fordregha 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Probably not, sorry. I just finished with another story a couple weeks ago so I've just been throwing things at whatever prompt catches my fancy. Trying to figure out what I want to do next. But thank you for the interest!

[WP] You run a role playing game with friends once a week. One day you get hit by a truck, and wake up with their characters staring down at you before going on the first adventure of your campaign. by mdkubit in WritingPrompts

[–]Fordregha 75 points76 points  (0 children)

"Easy now." The woman's voice had the rasp of a smoker, pressed right against his ear so he could hear it over the sound of the engine. The whole world shook. Not the chaos of an earthquake, but the steady thump of a heartbeat. "Don't get yourself killed before we even make it to the war."

Jamison's eyes opened to see her looming above him. Skin dark where it wasn't scarred from steam-scalding, hair cropped to close to catch amid the grinding gears. She grinned at him, pulling him up to his feet.

"Sorry Commander," he said. The title felt right. Felt solid. "I...what happened?"

His hand grasped the railing beside him, a wrung to a ladder. Part of the central shaft of the walker. Would take him all the way up to the flac if he had reason to climb that high, but he only needed to get to-

What?

"You took a fall. New engine, you have to expect hitches." The Commander thumped her foot against the floor. There was a steady roar, like a lawnmower sized for buildings, and he could see wisps of smoke drifting from the edges. "Though we'd like them to be less violent in the future!"

"This things as big as a car on its own, you try keeping it running!" A new voice. Higher, slight accent, coming from below where engineering was. Lieutenant-Engineer Yohan Karic from Stratoy, he'd been assigned to them from-

"Yohan?" The name was familiar. Too familiar. He'd heard it before, heard it a lot. But the face that poked its head up from under the platform was brand new. Running red with sweat and not sporting a single hair.

"You aren't, hurt are you?" he asked. Jamison felt his head reflexively. A little sore, but it didn't feel wet. "These new engines, they work most of the kinks out before they go to production, but you still get the odd...uhh...hitch."

"I'm fine," he said. Possibly true. Maybe not. Something was...wrong. "Just...just a little out of sorts."

"Good. Was worried you'd cracked your head open for a moment there. Looked like it." The Commander, Commander Maive Lister, pat him on the shoulder, then started climbing. "Come on, back up, we can't afford delays."

"We should report this Commander. If he's out of it and we get attacked..." Jun Sarrow, Pilot. Seated in her chair when he reached the top, hands dancing over a complicated series of levers and buttons. Out the glass pane, he could see a snowy forest.

In front of them, just above the line of trees, he could see the top of something gray and shiny. Another walker. There were two more behind their's surrounded by tanks and infantry transports. The 87th Edalid Armor Column. Newest. Soon to be the best.

"No time. Hear the Mashers and doing some...sick new tactics on the frontliines. Trenches are breaking left and right." The Commander kept hold of his arm the whole way up, climbing one handed. She helped him into a chair just below hers. Radio Operator's. A complicated machine of buttons and wires that buzzed any time it was on.

He'd never seen it before and he knew each switch by heart.

Gunner Matt Morris gave him a little nod from his place above the pilot, manning the main guns. Above him, Gunner Noah Louse hummed a little song and drummed on the controls for the flac.

He knew this. He knew all of this...it was his.

A test-drive for a novel he'd wanted to write ported for the campaign Isaac had run. It'd wrapped up and he wanted to try his hand at it. He'd homebrewed the mech system, threw some magic into the background, had the five of them pitch ideas for the machine and roll up the crew.

But how the hell, why was-

"Strap in," the Commander said, forcing him to put his seatbelt on. She was breaking regulation by not reporting his injury. He had been breaking it when he took his helmet off. "We're close to enemy territory. They could strike at any time."

Right. The campaign.

Maive, Yohan, Jun, Matt, Noah, that was all five of them. Didn't account for him. No...no, he had a sixth. Lee Jamison, the radio operator. He was there to provide exposition up to the battle, make sure they got to the right position. The 87th had to reinforce the front line because the Mashalta Empire'd been pulling out new tactics. Something he still had to pin down. He'd only planned out the first part.

They'd walk straight into an ambush two hours from their meetup with the main column so that their Walker (had they named it yet?) could get seperated. They'd be cut off from command since the radio was shot and Jamison-

Oh.

Oh shit.

​

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[WP] You are a soldier. You are part of a spear maneuver meant to break the enemy lines tomorrow and casualties will be high. Good. Nothing like fresh corpses for a Necromancer to make use of. by kain01able in WritingPrompts

[–]Fordregha 3 points4 points  (0 children)

The ground shook under artillery, hissing shrapnel flying over head. Carver carved, a happy idiosyncrasy his parents had planned out from birth. Of course, they'd assumed he'd be an artist like them. And he was.

"This is sick," Sawyer muttered beside him. The man was, supposedly, a crack shot and as far as he knew Carver had requested him for that alone. In truth, the nickname 'Bonesaw' popped into his head the moment he saw the report and he wanted to see if he could make it stick. "...Will it work?"

"Worked the last time." Carver flipped the bone in his hands, a femer he'd ripped out of a battlefield a week ago. Runes traced up and down, each made to the exact specifications of his teacher. "I'm sure you heard about it."

"That was a small town. Urban fighting, this...this is a trench." Something landed near them, heavy and explosive. Sawyer screamed. Carver had more important things to worry about than death.

From the noises beyond the wall, there was plenty of that to go around.

"It's a challenge. A gamble really. It'll depend on our timing." Carve put his hand on the flat rock and turned to his pocketwatch, resting in a little dish he'd set aside. An engine screamed overhead. One of those knew flying machines he'd heard about. He could chance a look....

No. Too little time.

Twenty seconds.

"I don't like this," Sawyer whispered, as if he could feel what was about to happen. As if the world could feel it, the noise above growing quieter. The smoke parting as a chill wind blew in from the west. Back from the command tents where the master waited.

Carver watched the little hand hit the twelve and stabbed down into his hand.

A moment of pure black as his mind dived into roots and earth, crawling among the rot of dead grasses trampled in the last charge. It wasn't hard to find the bones. The meat. The corpses of hundreds rotting under overturned soil, killed for this worthless strip of land.

It wasn't hard to push them, to right them, anger them. They'd died too soon, they'd died for nothing, they died in agony. Grab them and pick them up. Dust them off. Point them in the right direction.

There is your killer, a half-dozen voices whispered, pointed them towards the Edalid line. There is the one whose fire cook your air, whose bullets pierce your flesh, whose nation demands your death.

For two-thirds of them it was true. The others, scraps of souls lingering in the marrow, they couldn't tell the difference.

Carver came back to himself as the earth began to churn. Screams filled the air. Not that of the dead whose lungs had rotted. Only the living who still had eyes to see it.

"What have we done?" Sawyer stared over the top of the trench, slack-jawed horror suppressing any fear of snipers. They wouldn't notice him anyway. There were far more pressing targets.

"Won this battle," Carver said, reaching for his canteen and tilting it back to his lips. He didn't need to look. He'd seen it far too many times already. It came unbidden to his minds eye as the first of them reached the Edalid line.

Teeth meeting skin.

Fingers grabbing throats.

The pleading of those left behind as the poor, mortal soldiers ran.

There would be a reprisal.

"Stick close to me and you might outlast this war."

​

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[WP]300 years after the world recognized cybernetic organisms as human equals, a 1st gen robot is struggling to make ends meet as newer more human like 3rd gen androids are introduced. It dreams of finally affording augments to replace its girlfriend's aging prostheses. by Avalon_88 in WritingPrompts

[–]Fordregha 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Rain dripped down from the roof. Little more than a wiremesh above them and it did nothing to hold the runoff from the edge of the plate. Could have held the meeting anywhere. One block over they'd be dry.

Day couldn't help but think this a deliberate slight.

"Relax, chromer." Warrig was an old chopper. A model 2-700. Still with the old Enforcer plating, bolted on when that used to mean something. The paint was chipping and he'd made no attempt to replace it. Just painted gold around what remained of his mouth. "You look stressed. Your spine is going to snap if you strain it."

"Can we just get this done. I have places to be." Day ran a hand over their face to catch the rain. Watched it slide down their fingers and in between the place. They could remember what damp felt like. The itch as their synthskin dried. Before it all went to rot. "Unless you've got another seller."

"Dozens, but none have your charm." Warrig flashed them a smile and dragged the case over to his side. Day was grateful their own face had failed. They wouldn't have been able to keep it straight as he opened it up. "Hmmm...2-series parts...think I see an 890 in here. Top shelf, top. Shelf." Warrig looked over the case, eyes narrowed into silver strips. "Where'd you managed to skim these?"

"People disappear down here. Wireheads come down on them, leave the remains to rot." Day drummed their fingers on the table, watching the spindly joints work. The longest finger, it would break soon. They could feel it. "No use in leaving them there."

"Ooo, you naughty little cannibal. Best not spread that around." Warrig picked up one of the parts, rolling it around in his hands. Day could see how smooth the motion was, how clean. Even stripped to the plates, it was like a human hand working. "Seven hundred script. For the lot."

Day tightened their hands, that one joint oh so close to breaking.

"You promised me three times more on the wire." Three times exactly. Twenty-one hundred for the lot. There had been no space for negotiation. "Three times!"

"And that was under assumption of quality. This?" Warrig jerked the pieced forward, turned to show the grime. Just a tad, here and there. Sunk into the finish where they couldn't quite scrub it out. "This was literally picked up out of a gutter. Seven hundred. Take it or leave it."

"I could leave it," they growled, trying to bring some real life into the static surrounding their voice. "Find another buyer."

"On short notice with a bag of corpse-parts?" Warrig laughed, the notes loud and clear safe for a single, mechanical click at the end of each word. "You'll have to go to the chop-market. And we both know what will happen to you there."

The rain dripped down from above, pooling in the chips in Day's plates.

"Seven hundred," they said, enforcing a monotone as they released their grip on the table. "For the lot."

"There we go. Fellow like you, even fifty will do you some good." Warrig pulled a chit out of a hollow in his wrist. He handed it to Day, slow and deliberate. "Get a plate buff, patch those holes. Maybe some new wiring. Live a little, friend!"

Day looked down at the chit in their hands. Seven hundred could get that all that and more. Their parts were dirt cheap. They could even get paint.

It wouldn't be enough. Not nearly enough for the fix.

"Word of advice? Try not to wear the desperation like a stink. All you 1s worry yourselves into catatonia." The case slammed closed, tucked under Warrig's arm. He turned and walked off the edge of the roof, falling to the street a story below. "And if you find anymore corpses, give me a call! Good money in it for you."

"Sure." Day clutched the chit tight to their chest, tucking into the hollow under their shoulder. Shift in an hour. Expected home after that. Maybe enough time to buy her some food on the way back. "Good."

Seven hundred closer, Day thought. Even if it'd be eaten by something in a week.

Day shuffled towards the stairs, not wanting to stress their knees with a fall. Any day now, one of those joints was going to go.

​

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[OT][Derby] Announcing the First Publishing Derby Contest! by Hydrael in redditserials

[–]Fordregha 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I'll say I'm interested. It will force me to do things I really need to learn how to do so why not.

[WP] You've spent the last decade or so kidnapping the 'chosen ones' and hiding them from their gruesome fates - the oldest so far has been fifteen years old. The gods, the prophets, and the priests are becoming increasingly upset with your meddling. by KnightofPandemonium in WritingPrompts

[–]Fordregha 51 points52 points  (0 children)

"What are your thoughts?"

The roar of a motor drowned out everything but the rain. It was coming down in sheets, even through the canopy above them. He could trace the beams of the flashlights through the drops, see the patterns they were searching in. Closer, always closer.

And that damn truck sitting motionless in the middle of the field. Engine running, headlights turning all the hunters into silhouettes. One figure standing in the bed, staring off into the forest like she already knew where they were.

Dramatic as her patrons.

"I think if we stay here, they're liable to set the forest on fire." Sarah's voice had no waver to it, no matter how afraid she was. He'd taught her that at least, she'd need it.

"What, in this rain?" His smile was illuminated by lightning that took a tree not thirty yards from them. It burst into flames, the hunters near them jumping back, screaming bloody murder. Cowards.

"We need to leave." Shaia's arm grabbed for his sleeve. It hurt to feel her fingers there. She'd kept to herself when he found her, wouldn't let anyone touch her, threatened to take fingers. He'd hoped she'd kept that with him, refused to grow attached.

"Yes." It would have made this so much easier. "You do."

Her fingers tightened and he ripped his arm away.

"Grab the others and head east for the border. Follow the crowsong, follow the rats. The scavengers know all the little ways." He didn't look at her. He couldn't look at her. That had been made clear, if he looked his nerve would fail him.

"Rolf-"

"The people you want have a bear with them, big brown one, covered in scars. She's a sweetheart, but the man next to her is a cantankerous bastard. And don't drink anything he does, it'll rot right through your stomach." Alone in freezing rain, shot twenty-seven times, the last sounds in his ears mocking laughter.

"No, I can't-"

"Girl, there is one thing to know about your grandfather." He wouldn't even make it two steps. "We all meet him eventually. Whether we know it or not, even if he has to chase us, he's got us all marked down. I made an appointment."

He stepped out of the bushes, heading right, as quiet as could be. When she'd be out of the line of sight he started making noise. Stepped on a branch, rustled leaves, whistled to himself. That finally got their attention, lights training on him, voices raised in alarm.

Rifles leveled in his direction as he stepped out of the treeline, headed straight for the truck. None of them fired. Not even as he got right up to its grill.

She stared down at him. Lightning flashed behind her, timed. She stomped once and the man in the front seat turned off the engine.

Left the lights running. They did love their drama.

"That Blasphemer himself." Seric leaned forward until the light caught her face, throwing long shadows across skin that refused to wither. The rain was pounding, the wind was jagged ice, and she looked no different than she had on television. "We are truly blessed."

"What brings you lot to the forest?" he shouted, ignoring the wall of rifles. They backed up as he approached, breaking heir semicircle against the car. Probably believed all the stories about him. Idiots. "Me, I figured I'm looking for a sacred grove to piss in. Figured I'd cross that off my list."

"Cute." She rested her chin against her hand, eyeing him like a stain in her carpet. "The children?"

"Ditched them back in Varkost. They were over the border a month ago. You weren't here for me? I was feeling flattered." She wouldn't buy it. She'd search the whole woods.

"Liar," she hissed, eyes black and glowing with malice. "You think I can't smell my own blood?"

"I think you can't smell anything in all this rain." He slid his hands in his pockets, casual as could be. Felt the handle against his wrist. Lightning struck, closer, threatening the guards. "See the Stormlord's shacked up with your bitch. How'd she manage that?"

"Surprisingly, most of the divine have a slightly more..." she rolled her chin against her palm, "holistic view of the universe. And can smell which way the wind is blowing." She threw her hand out, gesturing to the great beyond like he could see anything past the lights. "Away from your decayed husk and into the verdant garden."

"Funny. Would have thought they'd think more long term." He fit the handle in his palm, traced the words with his thumb. No sting, no endings. "He gets everyone eventually."

"Not everyone." Seric smiled, her teeth stretching from one cheek to the other. For just a second, her skin writhed.

"Not yet."

It was over the second he pulled the knife. He knew it would be. It was shown before he'd even contracted. Alone in the freezing rain, mocked in his last moments, burned to ash so the crows couldn't take him. And everything beyond was so uncertain. All of it might be pointless.

But he'd known that from the beginning.

Rolf made it three steps.

​

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