Maharg67's Den (shorter works, short stories, poetry, etc.)

[Maharg67]

Continued on from Post #109

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The Curse of Quamaire
One 14.1[14]{14}

 

At that moment a group of warriors came into the NetworkTowers and they brought with them the dead, desiccated bodies of the Tooze that they had been chasing. Something had fed on liquefied flesh, blood and life energies. The Tooze had been destroyed by something powerful and undead.

EllessTane frowned hard. “I can not truly define what did this except to say that it is Mer related but to what kind of Mer, that I do not know.”

CaembraZiv looked puzzled. “The Curse of Quamaire! Was it not that one day a great army of undead, led by undead lesser gods, would rise up out of the very depths of the ground of the Quamaire Islands?”

“Part of the curse, yes!” EllessTane was deep in thought for a while before she spoke again. “We must send a warning to the Palace, to the High Elders Council and to the High Wizards Council.”

Krestyle spoke then with some urgency. “There is a way to the surface through an ancient vertical tunnel as built by the MerLink. It has an elevator though that might not be working now. It also has a great spiral rampway. Perhaps we all need to go that way for our scouts report that something else dark, and monstrous, comes this way. You could take us part of the way. There may be big caverns up there that our people can settle in.”

“Such as the ones you already know about.” EllessTane sighed. “We will take you there. You did not need to trick us into doing so.”

“I wish it was a trick!” Krestyle responded. “Something is coming that is beyond our knowledge. We do not think that it is of the undead but neither alive either. We fear it is one of the ancient tentaculars that has survived to grow into a truly gigantic version of its kind.”

EllessTane responded. “I have a feeling that we need to meet this great, ancient tentacular and communicate with it. There must be a reason that it is coming here. Perhaps it knows something that we need to know.”

The locals agreed, though they were not too pleased with the idea. Nombies, skelets, nemphires and googlegangers all raced around and then hid inside the big, strong towers except a minority who stood with an odd collection of armour, weapons and magical devices. The last was a token effort to show they were ready for trouble for the super tentaculars were truly awesome in their power.

They need not have worried for it was the super tentacular who was in trouble, who needed their help. Along with a great swarm of lesser tentaculars, and thousands of other creatures, the great wounded creature came slowly into the great chamber and curled up, preparing to die.

Not long after EllessTane, and hundreds of healers of many peoples, were busy healing the great neutral friendly super tentacular, that was a great glob of a globe with three great tentacles and, growing off those, many smaller but still huge tentacles and, off those, even more tentacles. The super tentacular could not, would not, communicate for a day or so and that was the best for as it rested, it was healing itself and was easier to help heal.

Edited June 29, 2015 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

 

Continued on from Post #111

 

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The Curse of Quamaire

One 15.1[15]{15}

 

The super tentacular had been driven, with great surprise and malice, from its home cavernland by something undead, amazingly savage, huge and mighty. Yet the big, slow thinking super tentacular had no idea of what it was and neither did the lesser tentaculars, many of them being very old and powerful in their own right, were floating tripocs, strange hybrid trinoids of humanoids, wingulars of winged bunches of tentacles and a whole lot of naturally mutated things called thinglars. All of them served the super tentacular as they might a living god and, in a real fashion, it was one.

 

They were all upset, fearful and very angry in their own fashion.

 

The warlord, and wizardess, walked along a great tentacle along with warriors as bodyguards and some aids. As they approached the great hub of a partly flattened globe, EllessTane kept making healing spells at small areas of wounding.

 

It turned out that the big battle had not gone one way only. The super tentacular had taken the monstrous attacker by surprise and had done it a great deal of damage for its over confidence. The undead thing had been hurled back but it was going to return and with it, it would bring a great army of lesser undead. The super tentacular had gotten to be ancient by being stupid and had soon been calling up all of its people to take them to safety with it. It refused to leave until every one of them, even the weakest of the thinglars, was not going to be left behind. The followers of the super tentacular had good reason to love their living god, in their own way.

 

Large processions of its followers were taking the SazaTentacular along with soothing semiliquids of crushed plants of different kinds and lots of water. Others sang in exotic tones to further soothe their great mentor.

 

SazaTentacular asked to have some friendly undead to eat but was firmly, gently, refused by EllessTane and CaembraZiv. SazaTentacular knew better than to push the issue. Also the great female knew that it needed the assistance of the friendly undead in any coming conflict for sooner, or later, the great undead would come.

 

SazaTentacular's home was not too distant away for its one great weakness was it was slow to move and could not move very far before needing to rest for a while. The enemy was only about fifty, or so, kilometres away but in a diagonal manner downwards as well as outwards.

 

EllessTane communicated with SazaTentacular in an exotic telepathic fashion that was difficult and gave her a minor migraine when she was done. Tentaculars, and related creatures, did not communicate with audio-verbal languages or known sign languages.

 

It was the much trusted LalaneTama, a warrior leader of the Aratoro with many victory emblems, who led a group to take communications up the 'vertical tunnel' to the surface and from there to communicate with the home city of ZenrenQua. With the party went some friendly undead who would guide them so far but who would not go as far as the surface for they were burned by sunlight and feared 'the Great Big Open'. Who could blame them given that they had dwelt down in the depths of the underground for at least hundreds of thousands of years. When LalaneTama was gone, with her people, it became time to review everything and to make new plans. Yet more surprises were to arrive, one of them being quite soon.

Edited June 29, 2015 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

Continued on from Post #112

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Conan of Tamriel #7
Conan's Growing Concerns

The instability in the ancient, most powerful daedric artifact was first 'detected' by Sarsha. Daring to inspect the device in a closer fashion, but being most careful, the strong wise woman was soon sunk into her new task.

As for Conan, the big strong 'barbarian' was aware of growing danger, was 'sensing' it from many decades of fighting terrible threats, including daedric ones. Yet there was nothing much more that he could do that he had not already done. Or was that true?

He spoke of his realisation. "We are being sought for by daedric magical means. One way to make ourselves safer is to find a long abandoned daedric structure and hide there. There are many such in the Deadlands."

Sarsha pulled away from the artifact with a scowl. "This is not the 'Sphere of Dagon' but some other artifact altered to appear as it. This is now a powerful magical bomb designed to detonate if it comes very close to MehruneDagon himself. It would destroy the Daedric Prince and also much of the Deadlands, would cause great distabilisation through out the Realms of Oblivion."

Conan felt a surge of anger but then he let it go. Later he would take out his anger on the lying Arazaran mage, Nordalf, but for now he had to figure out what to do. Conan would need to call upon the brilliant cunning that had saved himself, and his people, so many times in the past. Yet he needed more information.

Soon they started to move again, this time seeking not only safety but more information.

Continued on in Post #?

Edited January 14, 2014 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

Continued on from Post #113

 

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The Curse of Quamaire
One 16.1[16]{16}

 

They did not wait passively for the invasion of undead, to come, and the return of the the group led by LalaneTama. They made preparations for defence, with the tentaculars becoming part of the flexible defence formation that could change to suit different enemy tactics.

The number of stolen artifacts was clarified to being eighteen of which three were KeyCrystals. Another five were undead summoners, five were undead controllers and the last five were undead regenerators. It was no accident that exactly five of each, of the less powerful artifacts, had been stolen. The big questions were where had they gone to and why?

They explored more of the great cavern with its exotic, often dreadful, features. It had once been important to a secondary region of the Necromer and had served many purposes as a hub; that is religious, commercial, industrial and much else. The Nocomer had explored the chamber many times, with its many ruins buried under more ruins and hidden places, destroying much of what they had found because it was too dangerous even to justify keeping for study reasons.

Yet the Nocomer, as they freely admitted, had far from searched all that was there. There was the complexity, the strange transformations to the environment, ancient security threats, monstrous entities and the sheer complexity of the ruins. Two well prepared expeditions had gone out but had failed to return, one departing only about two months ago.

EllessTane was only too happy to go exploring, which she did with a large and well prepared group including warriors and smaller tentaculars as protection. Soon she was making discoveries that surprised even the Nocomer, who had dwelt there for many centuries, but she had a habit of doing such things.

She found special uses for many kinds of flora, and other kinds of lifeforms, growing in the cavern. She discovered two large storerooms filled with useful equipment and supplies, including devices, that the Nocomer would find useful. Only a few items needed to be destroyed, some were carefully put aside for study and others went into fixing up the NetworkTowers.

The Warlord focused on building up defences and organizing some kind of effective defence force.

Edited June 29, 2015 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

Continued on from Post #114

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The Curse of Quamaire
One 17.1[17]{17}

Aratoron warriors fought zombies, and skeletors, coming up out of a half buried temple that was also heavy concealed by rampantly growing moss-trees. With them were nombies fighting with armour and weapons of their own, being slower than the human fighters but stronger. The nombies focused on dealing with the, just a slow, zombies while the Aratorons took on the faster, more agile, skeletors who had armour and weapons.

It had started out as a skirmish but was fast becoming a battle. Warrior-mages, along with mages, came to assist the defenders along with other kinds of friendly undead. The defenders could slaughter the attackers because the zombies, and skeletors, were coming out of just one doorway. The door had seemingly come open by itself before the structure could be safely checked on the outside but it had been no coincidence; a dark magical trap had been triggered.

CaembraZiv, himself, took charge of the conflict while making sure that not too many forces were committed to the fight. He had no desire to leave the NetworkTowers exposed to other threats, along with the people there. When a 'small' tentacular joined the fight, only too happy to devour a few zombies and skeletors, it seemed that the battle was won.

CaembraZiv did not become a great military commander by making foolish assumptions, at least not after learning some hard lessons in his early career. One of those was that the more powerful of the evil undead had no hesitation in using up lesser such entities in their strategies.

When part of the stone roof of the temple building exploded up and open, out came a high pitch screaming LichQueen. Blackened red robes flying out from its skeletal puss coloured body. It had once been a woman but that was long ago, with some pitiful signs left of that being true, and now it was antinatural and greedy for blood, liquefied flesh and life energies.

With the LichQueen came two powerful vampires, in thrall to it of course for the LichQueen would not trust their service otherwise. They wore necromantic plate armour and carried undeathly greatswords, two handed weapons of horror.

CaembraZiv had been waiting for such a trick to happen. He rushed upon the LichQueen and stabbed it with his own magical sword. The thing screamed terribly, inhumanly, in agony and rage. Then it burned away with amazing speed.

A Vampire Knight struck at CaembraZiv, proving to be formerly of the Tamriellan Empire by its weapons and armour now cursed, his greatsword narrowly missing the warlord. Then Aratoron arrows struck the undead knight, from another land, and it burned away. The other Vampire Knight attacked CaembraZiv, probably realizing it was doomed and wanting to take the Aratoron with him. CaembraZiv's word met its undead guts and soon it was gone.

They went into the temple, led by the warlord himself, and killed the last of the undead there. What else they found was to take even CaembraZiv, and EllessTane, by surprise along with others in that place including the Nocomer and friendly undead.

Edited June 29, 2015 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

ITS JUST TOO EASY TO SIT AND DO NOTHING

 

But I will try not to stay in the comfortable armchair

to slumber away my existence

and instead will seek to do something bigger

or

if failing that

at least something smaller

to break the hold on me of

something that is hard to define!

Edited January 14, 2014 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

Continued on from Post #115

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The Curse of Quamaire
One 18.1[18]{18}

 

The temple was much bigger inside than had been suggested by its outward appearance. A massive temple chamber reached out before them, dotted with garishly decorated metallic wooden coffins, now both open and empty, along with ugly statues of the same material.

There were much larger statues of glistening stone including a type that was a sitting fat man that should have been smiling happily except that its mouth gaped with great fangs. Others were of skeletal undead gods and goddesses, great big coiled serpent creatures and much else of the kind.

Amongst them were standing five great magic-mechanical metallic humanoids, clearly with much Dwemer design influencing them, but they looked more demonic in appearance with spikes and fangs, with great metallic whips on the left arms and great claw-hands on the right arms. Each was equipped with huge, exotic, weapons and tools for the right hand to use including a bizarre looking oversized pistol. Each was embraced by a massive metallic archway, with a disk shaped floor beneath both creatures and arches, that was quite Dwemer in style.

Then there was the archway with the metallic door that appeared to be openable into open air. It was at least partly Dwemer in nature but had bizarre, disturbing statues half melded into the outer archway on both sides. On top squatted a demonic gargoyle like creature that was not a gargoyle at all.

Neither CaembraZiv or EllessTane liked what they saw in the chamber and for good reason.

Krestyle spoke with obvious worry. "It is some kind of gate to one of the demonic dimensional realms, perhaps to one of the Realms of Oblivion of the DaedraGods that the Tamriellans know as the Sixteen Daedric Princes though some are female and in truth there are more than sixteen DaedraGods."

Yet EllessTane shook her head just a little. "Perhaps it is not so simple, Krestyle. I could be part of a network of such gates and they could be here, on the world of Nirn, just as much as they could be anywhere else. Did you notice the small control console with the Dwemer style controls?"

The Nocomer nodded, after a moment. "I see it now, for sure. It could be a way of choosing destinations, amongst other options. We will have to be greatly careful for those monstrous humanoids may be here to guard the gate."

There were two big, and two smaller, metallic doors inset into chamber walls. All were closed. One of the smaller, but not small, doors slid open and out stumbled a lich like creature in rotting, raggedy metallic silken robes. It emanated no 'feel' of threat and when it saw the newcomers it cried out. "I am Rellemeo of the Nocomer and I bring you a warning of a terrible danger. I have been away from the Nocomer for many centuries and I want to die amongst my own kind."

Edited June 29, 2015 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

Continued on from Post #117

 

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The Curse of Quamaire
One 19.1[19]{19}

 

The stumbling Nocomer fell to his undead knees and, there being no 'feel' of evil or threat about him, the others approached him carefully.

EllessTane spoke with compassionate caring showing in her voice. "You are Nocomer? What happened to you?"

The other spoke weakly. "I am Kerrissa Overishada and I was in one of the first Nocomer expedition seeking into the secrets of Necromer and others. I can only guess if there were others."

Krestyle responded with obvious mixed emotions of much strength. "I am Krestyle Overishada, your descendent, and there have been other expeditions of which another vanished only months ago."

"I hope they did not find what we discovered." Kerrissa would have sighed but he was undead and had no air to do so with. "We became lost in a bizarre labyrinth until we came to a great chamber full of machinery built by many peoples. The mixed influences of design made for unique achievements of grand stature but all was dark and fallen in nature. We thought we were alone in that vast space, at least at first, and let our guard down. Then the undead came being Mer zombies of great strength, and speed, who were harder to destroy than 'normal' zombies. They overwhelmed us. We were turned into unusual lich like undead entities and became slave workers, joining many others in a dreadful project trying to revive the failed project of long ago that caused so much death and destruction."

Then he paused before speaking again. "I would be pleased to say I escaped but I was freed by a mysterious stranger. I did not know even if he, or she, was a Mer or not. She, or he, asked me to come and warn you of what is happening and also about some entity called the UndeathlyGod. She also send that the 13 Pathways of Light would guide you to new resources to fight necromancy, the undead and related dangers. I know nothing of such matters."

Kerrissa spoke of other things known such as details of the project but he knew surprisingly little for the slaves only did more basic work at the edges of the vast project chamber. As he sat speaking quietly with living Nocomer, he grew steadily weaker until he lay down, with his head in Krestyle's lap and others holding his hands, and died peacefully.

Krestyle wept, as did a few other Nocomer.

Edited June 29, 2015 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

DC Torchwood

One 1.1[1] Juno Base Mysteries

One Post at a Time #1

A filthy figure merged out of the broken ground, stinking and in rags, to look warily upon the hellish Wastelands all around. Clouds scuttered through the skies and in the luke warm semidarkness strange energies glowed in the distance. The man, though it was hard to tell he was such, wiped something unmentionable from his face and spat old blood onto a piece of rubble. He was searching for familiar landmarks, even for familiar landscape, but could find none of it.

A falling stall fell from the sky, perhaps a satellite falling out of orbit, and ended its existence with a distant explosion. Something howled savagely as if in challenge to the exploding, war damaged space machine's destruction. The man listened to the sound of the howling with enhanced hearing. All of his physical, and mental, abilities were enhanced and he could not die, could not be trapped in death ever returning.

Was that how he had come to be in that terrible place? Had he died somewhere else, been trapped there if he returned to life there, and had instead returned to life in that hell hole? Then he remembered that yes, he had died, but so had most of the world and most of its people when Doomsday had come with the use of super-weapons, including experimental super-weapons.

A name flickered through his mind. Captain Jack Harkness. It was followed by a word, 'Torchwood'.

Then he saw it, in the distance, the Washington Monument and it came to him that he had been in Washington DC on Doomsday. The monument was fairly close, was heavily damaged, but still standing. Crashed heavily into the ground, half sticking out, near the Washington Monument was a zetan saucerboat. The aggressive ETs had been raiding parts of the Earth in the months leading up to Doomsday and had even created three bridgehead colonies by force.

Torchwood, secret organisation, based in both London and Cardiff of the United Kingdom. He was in command of Torchwood operations in Cardiff. His unorthodox approach to doing his job had often led to tension with Torchwood HQ in London. Yet it had been he who they had sent to Washington to assist with dealing with the zetans in the USA.

Missing memories! Some pain! A need to get some clean healthy water to drink, something to eat and even a nice hot shower. It was enough incentive to get him moving. Jack picked up a long heavy bit of metal as a crude weapon or for what ever else it might come in handy for.

Soon he was heading towards the Washington Monument simply because it was the only thing that looked familiar to him. The grubby human moved with surprising speed, grace and quietness for his large size.

Edited January 25, 2014 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

Continued on from Post #118

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The Curse of Quamaire
One 20.1[20]{20}

 

The Nocomer buried Kerrissa Overishada in the way of their people after making sure he was truly dead and would not arise again as a form of the undead.

The, now dead, Nocomer had come through one of the 'smaller' metal doors in the chamber walls. The open door exposed a great long, high tunnel where rows of demonic goddess statues lined both walls, being nakedly nubile but also overly voluptuous in some ways. As was normal for such artifacts, there was something profoundly disturbing about them that went beyond the rows of fangs, the twin horns on the heads, the bat like wings and the long tails ending in pointed tips. They may have been succubi.

Going along that tunnel led into a maze of chambers, hallway tunnels, rampway tunnels, ladder shafts, canal tunnels flowing slowing with murky water and many other features. The other three doors, in the big chamber, led into the same maze which was a great temple complex.

Necromer had built the complex many centuries ago and when the local Necromer had become Nocomer, they had sealed off the evil temple with its fallen history. The Nocomer had largely forgotten about the temple but had remembered enough not to want to go near it. They had forgotten about the bizarre gate that could easily lead to some kind of demonic realm.

The Nocomer found some valuable resources such as steel, gold, copper and silver that they would melt down, spiritually cleanse and then turn into weapons, tools and other useful items. They found the ruined remains of lesser undead who had simply perished when they ceased to be supported by undeathly magics and-or any source of life energies. They found necromantic books, scrolls, instruments and other items; some were destroyed and some were kept to be studied.

EllessTane said nothing about either the UndeathlyGod or the 13 Pathways of Light though she seemed to be deep in thought. CaembraZiv knew better to press her too hard for answers but was soon getting impatient for some kind of answers to what the poor undead Kerrissa had spoken of.

Edited June 29, 2015 by Maharg67