12-26-2016, 08:56 PM
(This post was last modified: 12-26-2016, 09:54 PM by Okor.
Edit Reason: Youtube link broken
)
The Moors were silent. Carrion birds slept, nestled in the warped and twisted branches of squat trees whose branches stretched to block out the dark grey sky, and the constant drizzle of rain that sustained this swampland. A corpse shambled through the mire, its broken jaw hanging open, festering remnants of brain matter lodged between its teeth as it roamed the fens, searching for its next meal, ravens perched upon its shoulders, prying rotting flesh from their host’s body. It was some kind of comforting serenity, the cycle of life, death, and undeath a natural feature of this ‘Verse. All was as it should be: The struggles of mankind against the muck, the triumph of humanity over alien masters that sought to drag them down into the cold embrace of the grave, only to rip them away and send them forth to share their gift of eternal existence.
Yes, this was the way the Moors were meant to be. Quiet. Sliding ever-closer to destruction. Hopeless.
Enter the wildcard.
A black blur burst from the gate, the shining sheet of Omnillium parting as the Deliverator’s Carriage arrived, its grille set aflame with an illusionary inferno. Said grille impacted with the wandering corpse’s head as it flew over the pathway below, its wheels spinning in the air as the screaming skull embedded itself in the digital blaze.
The vehicle impacted with the packed earth, tires hugging the winding path as it took off, ripping the remains of the remnant beneath them into bloody slurry, rotting vital fluids feeding the eternal thirst of the damned ‘verse.
As the sable sliver of steel raced off into the night, Hiro turned to Okor, his Asian-African features illumined by the orange glow of the consoles set into the dashboard, shouting over the sound of the music flooding the cabin. “The hell did we just hit?”
Pestilential pauldrons shrugged in shotgun, a twisted horn scraping the roof of their vehicle. ”A walking corpse, in all… likelihood.”
“In all likelihood?” Hiro’s dreadlocks whipped around his head as he shook his skull. “Man, what if we hit a person?”
”Then we pry out whatever remains from the front of the vehicle when we stop, and.... Remake them.” The ancient warrior chuckled to himself, this moment of revelry interrupted by a hacking cough brought on by the infinite infections lurking within his body. ”There are few laws, and fewer consequences within Omni’s realm. The only justice is that which we create.”
A low whistle escaped the hacker’s mouth as he pondered the possibility of vehicular homicide. “Look Okor, I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, but… Just how much experience do you have with hordes of undead? You obviously have a lot, but I really gotta ask what side of the walls you were on.”
A gurgling laugh was the first response, mirth forcing its way past the phlegm and rot infesting the plague marine’s throat. ”It does not serve you to hold your tongue, Protagonist. You are here because you are clever and… quick-witted. The Gods granted you these gifts, and it would be a shame to squander them. You asked a question, and it shall be answered.”
“On Barbarus, I marched against the dead, and prosecuted them with blade and flame. After that, my relationship with Undeath became…” The gangrenous giant paused for a moment, the maggots within him writhing, swarming through his body as a macabre parody of bodily functions. ”Complicated. I have seen the Plague of Unbelief propagated throughout worlds, and through this benediction, I have gleaned an understanding.” Thin wisps of smoke rose on the horizon, the telltale sign of tamed flame. Their previously human ornament groaned as they made another sharp turn, dodging around a sunken stump, churning the mud beneath them as they continued their journey, nearing their final destination.
“Well then Okor, in all of your years of heading a zombie Horde, why don’t you share your insight on this situation?”
”Of course. But first, a question, of a… Rhetorical nature: What is the most dangerous weapon in the dead’s arsenal?”
The hacker paused for a moment, cruising beneath a twisted pair of trees, their blackened branches stretching after the streak as it moved past, eager to adds its inhabitants to the bones clustered around their trunks.
“The human mind. Walking corpses aren’t that scary, but we make them terrifying, ‘cause we still think of them like a person.”
Ebon fangs bared themselves in a grin. ”Precisely. Fear and Despair will kill more than any dead man’s hands. To add to the hordes of the walking dead, you must take away their reason to live. Find the… familiar and the loved, and desecrate them. Add their numbers to the horde, and send them against the defenders. Once life has been stripped, the death-dealing begins. Isolate the weakest, and fall upon them with overwhelming force. The horde grows, and they will only fall into ruin.”
“Shit man, that’s a little grim. How do you deal with that? If you’re gonna say ‘Kneel down before them and embrace eternal life’, I’ll have to stop you there.”
The stone walls of Darkshire drew near, their mossy and cracked flanks watched over by soaked men in rusted garb, clutching halberds in shaking hands, the only source of warmth on this damp night being the pipes held between chattering teeth and the cast-iron braziers dotting the bulwarks.
”Ha. Ha. Ha,” laughed the Heretic of Horus, each syllable too mechanical, too measured to be real, a mere attempt at humanity rather than a true show of emotion. ”No. The key is to deny them. The only resource they crave is flesh, and flesh is erased by flame. If you take up a… defensible position and sequester the civilians inside, then it takes but a single dead one to crawl in through a sewer to rot the fortification from within. No more than eighty percent of the defenders should man the walls, lest internal strife fell them.” He ran a hand over his helmet, cursing his lack of loquaciousness. ”It is a… Complicated science. Siegecraft is not my specialization.”
“Don’t sweat it, man. If I wanted somebody to sit in a trench for 5 months while we tried to wait these dead bastards out, I would have Omni’d up a robot. The Gods granted you the gift of kicking ass, and it would be a shame to squander it.” Hiro spoke, his voice adopting the seismic slowness of Okor’s tone. Their vehicle turned, drifting towards the oaken gate, ripping furrows into the mud as it skidded to a halt. “Well, let’s go kick some rotting ass.”
The pair opened their doors, the fetid atmosphere permeating their nostrils, the air rank with death and decay. ”Ah, the stench of ho-” any reminisces on Okor’s part was cut short by a cry from the walls.
“THE DEAD RISE!”
This call was answered by the discharge of siege weaponry, a wooden shaft as thick as an arm flying forth from an arrow loop, the ballista bolt punching through the dessicated daemon’s stomach, pinning him to the Deliverator’s chariot, the flame-lit skull embedded in its grille laughing at his misfortune. He looked down, claws grasping at the oversized arrow impaling him, trying to free it from his ever-hungering guts, which even now attempted to pull the organic matter deeper into his unnatural gullet.
He sighed deeply, watchmen approaching him, glaives pointing at his rusted gorget, cautious of the newcomer.
”Unfortunately, this is not the most hostile welcome I’ve received.”
Yes, this was the way the Moors were meant to be. Quiet. Sliding ever-closer to destruction. Hopeless.
Enter the wildcard.
A black blur burst from the gate, the shining sheet of Omnillium parting as the Deliverator’s Carriage arrived, its grille set aflame with an illusionary inferno. Said grille impacted with the wandering corpse’s head as it flew over the pathway below, its wheels spinning in the air as the screaming skull embedded itself in the digital blaze.
The vehicle impacted with the packed earth, tires hugging the winding path as it took off, ripping the remains of the remnant beneath them into bloody slurry, rotting vital fluids feeding the eternal thirst of the damned ‘verse.
As the sable sliver of steel raced off into the night, Hiro turned to Okor, his Asian-African features illumined by the orange glow of the consoles set into the dashboard, shouting over the sound of the music flooding the cabin. “The hell did we just hit?”
Pestilential pauldrons shrugged in shotgun, a twisted horn scraping the roof of their vehicle. ”A walking corpse, in all… likelihood.”
“In all likelihood?” Hiro’s dreadlocks whipped around his head as he shook his skull. “Man, what if we hit a person?”
”Then we pry out whatever remains from the front of the vehicle when we stop, and.... Remake them.” The ancient warrior chuckled to himself, this moment of revelry interrupted by a hacking cough brought on by the infinite infections lurking within his body. ”There are few laws, and fewer consequences within Omni’s realm. The only justice is that which we create.”
A low whistle escaped the hacker’s mouth as he pondered the possibility of vehicular homicide. “Look Okor, I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, but… Just how much experience do you have with hordes of undead? You obviously have a lot, but I really gotta ask what side of the walls you were on.”
A gurgling laugh was the first response, mirth forcing its way past the phlegm and rot infesting the plague marine’s throat. ”It does not serve you to hold your tongue, Protagonist. You are here because you are clever and… quick-witted. The Gods granted you these gifts, and it would be a shame to squander them. You asked a question, and it shall be answered.”
“On Barbarus, I marched against the dead, and prosecuted them with blade and flame. After that, my relationship with Undeath became…” The gangrenous giant paused for a moment, the maggots within him writhing, swarming through his body as a macabre parody of bodily functions. ”Complicated. I have seen the Plague of Unbelief propagated throughout worlds, and through this benediction, I have gleaned an understanding.” Thin wisps of smoke rose on the horizon, the telltale sign of tamed flame. Their previously human ornament groaned as they made another sharp turn, dodging around a sunken stump, churning the mud beneath them as they continued their journey, nearing their final destination.
“Well then Okor, in all of your years of heading a zombie Horde, why don’t you share your insight on this situation?”
”Of course. But first, a question, of a… Rhetorical nature: What is the most dangerous weapon in the dead’s arsenal?”
The hacker paused for a moment, cruising beneath a twisted pair of trees, their blackened branches stretching after the streak as it moved past, eager to adds its inhabitants to the bones clustered around their trunks.
“The human mind. Walking corpses aren’t that scary, but we make them terrifying, ‘cause we still think of them like a person.”
Ebon fangs bared themselves in a grin. ”Precisely. Fear and Despair will kill more than any dead man’s hands. To add to the hordes of the walking dead, you must take away their reason to live. Find the… familiar and the loved, and desecrate them. Add their numbers to the horde, and send them against the defenders. Once life has been stripped, the death-dealing begins. Isolate the weakest, and fall upon them with overwhelming force. The horde grows, and they will only fall into ruin.”
“Shit man, that’s a little grim. How do you deal with that? If you’re gonna say ‘Kneel down before them and embrace eternal life’, I’ll have to stop you there.”
The stone walls of Darkshire drew near, their mossy and cracked flanks watched over by soaked men in rusted garb, clutching halberds in shaking hands, the only source of warmth on this damp night being the pipes held between chattering teeth and the cast-iron braziers dotting the bulwarks.
”Ha. Ha. Ha,” laughed the Heretic of Horus, each syllable too mechanical, too measured to be real, a mere attempt at humanity rather than a true show of emotion. ”No. The key is to deny them. The only resource they crave is flesh, and flesh is erased by flame. If you take up a… defensible position and sequester the civilians inside, then it takes but a single dead one to crawl in through a sewer to rot the fortification from within. No more than eighty percent of the defenders should man the walls, lest internal strife fell them.” He ran a hand over his helmet, cursing his lack of loquaciousness. ”It is a… Complicated science. Siegecraft is not my specialization.”
“Don’t sweat it, man. If I wanted somebody to sit in a trench for 5 months while we tried to wait these dead bastards out, I would have Omni’d up a robot. The Gods granted you the gift of kicking ass, and it would be a shame to squander it.” Hiro spoke, his voice adopting the seismic slowness of Okor’s tone. Their vehicle turned, drifting towards the oaken gate, ripping furrows into the mud as it skidded to a halt. “Well, let’s go kick some rotting ass.”
The pair opened their doors, the fetid atmosphere permeating their nostrils, the air rank with death and decay. ”Ah, the stench of ho-” any reminisces on Okor’s part was cut short by a cry from the walls.
“THE DEAD RISE!”
This call was answered by the discharge of siege weaponry, a wooden shaft as thick as an arm flying forth from an arrow loop, the ballista bolt punching through the dessicated daemon’s stomach, pinning him to the Deliverator’s chariot, the flame-lit skull embedded in its grille laughing at his misfortune. He looked down, claws grasping at the oversized arrow impaling him, trying to free it from his ever-hungering guts, which even now attempted to pull the organic matter deeper into his unnatural gullet.
He sighed deeply, watchmen approaching him, glaives pointing at his rusted gorget, cautious of the newcomer.
”Unfortunately, this is not the most hostile welcome I’ve received.”
![[Image: DarkshireDefenseBadge.png]](http://www.cytokineindustries.com/chevereto/images/2017/07/13/DarkshireDefenseBadge.png)
![[Image: HerosGraveyardBadge.png]](http://www.cytokineindustries.com/chevereto/images/2017/07/13/HerosGraveyardBadge.png)
![[Image: DA15Badge.png]](http://www.cytokineindustries.com/chevereto/images/2017/07/13/DA15Badge.png)