09-17-2017, 10:41 PM
Her name is Mothra, and I was warned that this was going to happen.
Just before I arrived in Harnburg castle-town, while approaching a small stone bridge, I was stopped by a pair of mysterious feminine voices, their owners having wisely hidden themselves. They prophesied my doom if I didn't leave Camelot, and revealed to me a vision of an insectoid titan. I responded with utter contempt. The idea of King Ghidorah being cast down in defeat by a mere overgrown bug is so ridiculous that just the act of putting it into words fills me with incredulous disgust.
I wasn't wrong, naturally - but what's happened instead, while not an unthinkable outrage against the very order of creation, is still tremendously irritating:
She's following me.
I first noticed it about a week after my successful resolution of the Duke's elf problem. I was stalking through the valley along a wagon-worn dirt road, golden and - if not quit perfect in my diminished, diminutive form - at the very least glorious, shining in the afternoon sun. It was on my way to one of the smaller villages subject to Harnburg Castle that I spotted her atop a nearby hillock, watching me.
At first I thought she was just yet another pathetic human being, albeit a very strangely dressed one possessing a deeply tan complexion, and after a quick survey of the surrounding fields to be sure there were no witnesses I strode confidently off the path intending to interrogate and incinerate her; I only noticed her wispy white antennae, and the rainbow prisms occupying her eye-sockets in the instant before she spoke.
Mothra's voice echoed in my brain, like those of her messengers before her, only far more powerful. For just an instant I could see her face in my minds eye, her real face, not the hybrid, diminished human form she affected for our meeting, and I immediately knew this was the creature about whom I'd been warned. "Leave Camelot, Ghidorah," she said. "I don't want to fight you, but I will if that's what it takes to make you leave this 'verse alone. Go directly to the Nexus gate, and that can be the end of it. Otherwise, the next time you leave this valley, I'll be forced to stop you."
I stopped, feeling a grin creeping across the flat, apish face of my own humanoid disguise. She looked so graceful, so delicate, standing there amid the sheep-shortened grasses, her black hair piled in a gleaming bun, robes and antennae fluttering in the breeze; the urge to feel her her bones crumble in my hands was overwhelming.
"Denied," I hissed, and took a step forward, intent on rushing to the attack.
She struck instantly. It came in the form of a highly focused prismatic ray: two narrow beams, glowing in the same constantly-shifting spectrum as her eyes, traced a line between Mothra's face and my body. The impact was tremendous, detonating in a kaleidoscopic flash against the rippling contours of my powerful chest, scoring and blackening my effulgent natural armor. I was so surprised by the sudden blow- so strong I felt genuine pain, that tiny flecks of golden blood leaked from between my scales - that it knocked me off my feet!
I was only down for a moment, but by the time I rose, flexing my clawed fists as an ascendant tide of astral charge cracked in my throat and surged within my limbs, she had vanished. I could still feel her presence though, a voice within my head, lyrical and somehow disappointed.
I don't remember what she said - I was too enraged, my fury brought to a boil by the sheer presumption! This insect - this literal insect - would dare to strike me!? To judge my actions?! TO THREATEN ME?! The eyes of the two dormant heads that adorn my humanoid form's shoulders like puldrons snapped open as my powers surged. I howled my rage across the fields, unleashing a storm of golden cosmic lightning, blacking the road and carving trenches in the green. I kicked through a low stone wall, smashed a plow where it lay in its furrows, and was well on my way towards beginning the final harrowing of Harnburg valley when - just for a moment - I could have sworn I spotted the Lady Isolda. She stood at ease, watching me from atop the thatched roof of a nearby farmer's cottage, all dressed in green silks and with flowers in her auburn hair.
When I looked again she was gone, but the sight was so unexpected, so utterly out-of-place, that it completely derailed the escalation of my rampage. I scoured that field for hours, but found no trace of either the princess nor the meddling moth. Eventually the farmer returned from the market, and, after shuttering the cottage's windows against the glow of active Omnilium I unmade him in his own home, but I was so put off by the entire experience that his demise proved palatable at best.
Since that day, I have yet to spot Isolda outside of the castle, but Mothra has dogged my every step. Any time I leave the keep I see her, watching me from a distance, perched among trees or chimneys, atop walls or distant hills. I hear her voice in my mind, telling me to leave Camelot and promising retribution for my crimes , and its all I can do not to run riot in response.
I've not destroyed anything more nuanced than furniture, servants, and traveling strangers in weeks, and I'm at the end of my restraint. This can't go on for much longer, so it's a good thing that I don't think it will have to. If what I've heard among the taverns and travelers is to be believed, another caravan should be on the road to Shatterdun soon - which means that Chatterly's next weekly check-in should include something far interesting than the increasingly tedious game in which he tries to parse my motives, explain how difficult having to hide my crimes is making his job, and reign-in my destructive urges while I run down the ever-less-convincing list of reasons not to murder him; This time, he should have a mission that requires my talents.
I expect that when I leave the valley on the Duke's next errand, Mothra will attempt to make good on her threats. When that happens, I will crush her utterly.
After that, the mysteries posed by Isolda van Harnburg will be the only thing that stands between me and the completion of this grand work.
Just before I arrived in Harnburg castle-town, while approaching a small stone bridge, I was stopped by a pair of mysterious feminine voices, their owners having wisely hidden themselves. They prophesied my doom if I didn't leave Camelot, and revealed to me a vision of an insectoid titan. I responded with utter contempt. The idea of King Ghidorah being cast down in defeat by a mere overgrown bug is so ridiculous that just the act of putting it into words fills me with incredulous disgust.
I wasn't wrong, naturally - but what's happened instead, while not an unthinkable outrage against the very order of creation, is still tremendously irritating:
She's following me.
I first noticed it about a week after my successful resolution of the Duke's elf problem. I was stalking through the valley along a wagon-worn dirt road, golden and - if not quit perfect in my diminished, diminutive form - at the very least glorious, shining in the afternoon sun. It was on my way to one of the smaller villages subject to Harnburg Castle that I spotted her atop a nearby hillock, watching me.
At first I thought she was just yet another pathetic human being, albeit a very strangely dressed one possessing a deeply tan complexion, and after a quick survey of the surrounding fields to be sure there were no witnesses I strode confidently off the path intending to interrogate and incinerate her; I only noticed her wispy white antennae, and the rainbow prisms occupying her eye-sockets in the instant before she spoke.
Mothra's voice echoed in my brain, like those of her messengers before her, only far more powerful. For just an instant I could see her face in my minds eye, her real face, not the hybrid, diminished human form she affected for our meeting, and I immediately knew this was the creature about whom I'd been warned. "Leave Camelot, Ghidorah," she said. "I don't want to fight you, but I will if that's what it takes to make you leave this 'verse alone. Go directly to the Nexus gate, and that can be the end of it. Otherwise, the next time you leave this valley, I'll be forced to stop you."
I stopped, feeling a grin creeping across the flat, apish face of my own humanoid disguise. She looked so graceful, so delicate, standing there amid the sheep-shortened grasses, her black hair piled in a gleaming bun, robes and antennae fluttering in the breeze; the urge to feel her her bones crumble in my hands was overwhelming.
"Denied," I hissed, and took a step forward, intent on rushing to the attack.
She struck instantly. It came in the form of a highly focused prismatic ray: two narrow beams, glowing in the same constantly-shifting spectrum as her eyes, traced a line between Mothra's face and my body. The impact was tremendous, detonating in a kaleidoscopic flash against the rippling contours of my powerful chest, scoring and blackening my effulgent natural armor. I was so surprised by the sudden blow- so strong I felt genuine pain, that tiny flecks of golden blood leaked from between my scales - that it knocked me off my feet!
I was only down for a moment, but by the time I rose, flexing my clawed fists as an ascendant tide of astral charge cracked in my throat and surged within my limbs, she had vanished. I could still feel her presence though, a voice within my head, lyrical and somehow disappointed.
I don't remember what she said - I was too enraged, my fury brought to a boil by the sheer presumption! This insect - this literal insect - would dare to strike me!? To judge my actions?! TO THREATEN ME?! The eyes of the two dormant heads that adorn my humanoid form's shoulders like puldrons snapped open as my powers surged. I howled my rage across the fields, unleashing a storm of golden cosmic lightning, blacking the road and carving trenches in the green. I kicked through a low stone wall, smashed a plow where it lay in its furrows, and was well on my way towards beginning the final harrowing of Harnburg valley when - just for a moment - I could have sworn I spotted the Lady Isolda. She stood at ease, watching me from atop the thatched roof of a nearby farmer's cottage, all dressed in green silks and with flowers in her auburn hair.
When I looked again she was gone, but the sight was so unexpected, so utterly out-of-place, that it completely derailed the escalation of my rampage. I scoured that field for hours, but found no trace of either the princess nor the meddling moth. Eventually the farmer returned from the market, and, after shuttering the cottage's windows against the glow of active Omnilium I unmade him in his own home, but I was so put off by the entire experience that his demise proved palatable at best.
Since that day, I have yet to spot Isolda outside of the castle, but Mothra has dogged my every step. Any time I leave the keep I see her, watching me from a distance, perched among trees or chimneys, atop walls or distant hills. I hear her voice in my mind, telling me to leave Camelot and promising retribution for my crimes , and its all I can do not to run riot in response.
I've not destroyed anything more nuanced than furniture, servants, and traveling strangers in weeks, and I'm at the end of my restraint. This can't go on for much longer, so it's a good thing that I don't think it will have to. If what I've heard among the taverns and travelers is to be believed, another caravan should be on the road to Shatterdun soon - which means that Chatterly's next weekly check-in should include something far interesting than the increasingly tedious game in which he tries to parse my motives, explain how difficult having to hide my crimes is making his job, and reign-in my destructive urges while I run down the ever-less-convincing list of reasons not to murder him; This time, he should have a mission that requires my talents.
I expect that when I leave the valley on the Duke's next errand, Mothra will attempt to make good on her threats. When that happens, I will crush her utterly.
After that, the mysteries posed by Isolda van Harnburg will be the only thing that stands between me and the completion of this grand work.