Thunder Road – Marto Copperkettle – 4.05.2022
May 10, 2022 1:19:28 GMT
Celina Zabinski, Velania Kalugina, and 4 more like this
Post by Marto Copperkettle on May 10, 2022 1:19:28 GMT
“So, Marto…” Sorrel gives him a funny look.
“What is it, Sorrel?” he asks. The halfling can instinctively tell what she was dying to know by the way she was looking down at him.
“You know in that dream space we all came to…” the ranger hesitates again.
The gnome on top of the wall slowly stops doing their crossword puzzle.
“Yeah.” The knight wasn’t going to help her spit it out.
“Wh-… Why were you n-...”
Seemed like he would have to help her after all.
“Why were-”
“Why was I naked? Because I had mind bending sex with a devil. Adhyël, in case you missed that.” He didn’t have to say what ‘that’ was.
The stunned silence from all was really quite satisfying. The hollow part of him reverberates with it.
“Hiya! Sorry I’m late,” comes the beautiful voice of Zola from behind Marto. The silent reverberations become clanging echoes.
Turns out the news of his romp with a devil was not to be the most shocking thing being shared that morning.
“You did what?” Marto asks the drow bladedancer in disbelief.
“I reached out to Ophanim with the help of my mothers to try to talk to him, to convince him that this whole thing is foolish and, well, I got the second mark too.”
Marto had to turn away, his panic was rising too fast for him to hide it properly. It took what little control he had not to take her by the arms and shake her furiously for the recklessness of her actions.
“I also found what four of the five words are: Chain, whip, pyre and betrayer. The last one I didn’t quite catch,” she finishes lamely.
The halfling feels her glance at him but Marto is keeping his gaze firmly away.
“Why don’t you hop back onto the link and ask Ophanim?” comes the hard voice of the Jackal. For a man wearing full plate armour, none of them heard or saw him arrive.
“Oh, um, I- I don’t think I should…”
The rosy flush on Zola’s cheeks is like a slap from a brick of ice in the dead of winter to Marto.
Velania, Sorrel and Zola confirmed that, before their dreams with the fiends, they were somewhere else, trying to do different things. For Velania she was in a temple of Selûne trying to light candles that would refuse to be lit; For Sorrel she was running through the Feythorn being chased, unable to stop; For Zola, she was a mangled corpse, unable to do anything but look at wrecked and broken body, and watch her life drain away. That made Marto physically flinch. There was no way he was going to let that happen. He was going to protect her, protect all of them. He might not have the same faith as Velania or Sorrel, and he might not have the same magical prowess as Zola, but he was strong and his skills in magic were sturdy. Marto wasn’t going to let that dream become a reality.
Not while he still had breath in his lungs.
On the first night of their three day trek to the Sunset Spine, Marto and Zola were on a watch together with Kháos, who had thankfully wandered away allowing the two a moment alone. Neither of them had really spoken to each other, such was the pace the Jackal was pushing them at. A few of them – mostly Velania – struggled with the pace. When they came to the base of the mountains and the forest that had the Turning Fields most of them were ready to just crash. However they all knew to not set a watch would be foolish.
And that was how Marto found himself sitting at the low embers of a fire with the fey woman he cared deeply about and not knowing how to speak to her.
“Why did you do it?” Marto eventually asks, his voice low and quiet. The trees they are camped under are silent as they seem to lean, just as eager to hear her answer as he is dreading the truth.
“When the comprehend languages spell didn’t yield any answers it was the only thing I could think of. When Ophanim and I spoke last time, he bragged about being a fashion designer. The first mark was his design, so the second one had to be too.”
It made logical sense, though it was stupidly risky. But then who was he to judge her on doing risky things to get answers that could help them all in this unending struggle? Marto had done that exact thing when he sought out Adhyël that second time.
But then why did Zola’s eyes look distant and wistful when she said the devil’s name? Is that how he looks when he speaks about Adhyël?
No. He doesn’t love his devil.
Does Zola love Ophanim?
“A fashion designer,” Marto eventually mutters in halfling, shaking his head. He needs to think and sitting by the fire has never been the place he’s done his best thinking.
He gets up, stretching a little to ease the stiffness from his muscles as he could feel them wanting to cramp. Just as he bends down to pick up his shield with its metal and wood embedded symbol of Yondalla, Zola speaks.
“Ophanim kissed me… and I liked it.”
With his lips pressed into a hard, thin line Marto nods, understanding all too well. Then he walks off into the woods to think.
On the second day it felt like they were being watched. Every little critter they saw, every gust of chilling wind that blew caused them to flinch but nothing untoward happened. That night there were no conversations during Marto’s watch.
On the third day the Jackal finally told them why they were hard marching their way up the mountains.
They were trying to find an offshoot of the Selûnites and Sharites known as The Unending Ones. They believed the conflict between the goddesses is meant to go on forever and their role is to watch, to observe.
“They also might have one of the last remaining artefacts,” the Jackal added.
“Will these folks do something to ensure this keeps going? Why would they help us?” Marto asks.
The gruff, stoic man shakes his head. “It would go against their higher calling.”
“Will the others be there?” Zola asks. Marto’s pulse quickens.
“Maybe. Hopefully not,” is Kháos’ reply.
“The place we’re going to is meant to be neutral ground,” the Jackal adds, like it means anything to those present if something were to happen.
“Well done! The fuck do you lot want then?”
The voice comes from the other side of the crevasse. Marto tries to wipe the fiend’s blood and guts from his eyes but all he does is spread it around. He gives up and quickly looks down below. Zola is oblivious to what is being discussed, too wrapped up in trying to get something from the corpse of the half man, half scorpion fiend she must’ve slain.
“The other guys were here, and they were pretty shitty,” the woman grumbles. “You presumably are the moon people. They were dicks. You gonna be dicks?”
“We are not dicks,” the Jackal states.
Marto cannot help but roll his eyes.
They were brought to the Unending Ones’ camp where a stunning, purple skinned tiefling by the name of Themis greeted them. Zola had prestidigitated the gore from Marto and Velania by the time they got there but that didn’t stop the stares, some of them not very kind, they got from the people who lived there.
“My name is Themis. I am regarded with disdain by both camps,” the tiefling begins. “I am one of the Unending. Our purpose is to observe the battle between Selûne and Shar as it is a rift that cannot be mended.”
Zola spoke up then, asking how they could stand doing what they did, how they, the Unending Ones, could condone all the bloodletting and innocents dying. Marto knew it was pointless. People like Themis, like the Jackal and Kháos, even those like Adhyël and the Heralds, they are how they are. It’s as simple as that. No amount of talking will make them change.
“You are crooked, girl,” Themis comments, silencing Zola’s protesting questions. She looks really uncomfortable and the tiefling smiles. “Good things always come in pairs.”
Then Themis pulls out a long wooden box, unlocks it, and lifts the lid. The inside is rich velvet lining meant to cushion two long swords but one is surreptitiously missing. The blade remaining is beautiful — a silver blade curved like a scimitar but with the length of a longsword, and it seemed to glow with starlight.
“This is Castor, one of The Twins,” Themis explained in her ethereal, detached voice. “We gave its pair to the others when they came. Now we give you this one.”
Marto watches her wondering amber gaze focus back on the tiefling. “Who took the other one?” she asks.
But the halfling knight already knows the answer.
Themis smiles knowingly. “Does it matter?”
“Yes,” Zola insists.
“I believe you call him ‘the Vain’.”
Zola goes stiff as a board, like she is frozen in a memory or a thought.
Marto steps forward. “What did you tell the others?” he asks with reserved respect. “Will you tell us?”
She looks at him for a long moment. “I gave them a prophecy. I also have one for you.”
“Is there a price?” he asks.
“No price,” Themis says, standing up. She brushes past them but suddenly stops and looks at the Jackal. “On second thought…” She glides over the warrior. “There is a price that you can pay.”
They are thrown up into the heavens and land amongst the splendour of the stars and the blackness of the void. They soar over the land heading east towards the horizon until they get to a city on a hill. Then they descend down, faster than gravity can pull at them.
Suddenly, they stop, landing perfectly in the Temple of Selûne of Daring Heights. The serene pool reflects the image of two figures, the Wise Guy, Rholor, and the acolyte Melissa. Marto cannot quite hear what they are saying but he knows they are arguing about something. A piece of holy text perhaps?
Noises from outside catch his attention at the same time it does the High Diviner and as one they rush out. The scene is violent horror and bloody gruesome. The stars above illuminate the carnage the citizens of Daring are wrecking on each other as if it was full daylight. They bite, grab, tackle, stab, bludgeon, and tear at each other, gripped by a madness that sees the people wantonly killing their friends, their neighbours, their loved ones. So horrible is the slaughter at the foot of the Temple’s steps that Marto is stunned into inaction.
Is this how it’s meant to be? Is nothing they do able to save the ones they love? Are they truly unable to protect the ones they care about?
The High Diviner began chanting a spell, calling upon the Moonmaiden to help save the people in the thralls of what could only be fiendish manipulation.
He suddenly gasps as a knife is plunged into his spine, his green eyes widening in shock and pain. Behind him is Melissa, her eyes glowing red as a triumphant grin spreads across her face. Then her skin begins to bubble and blister as from within she seems to burst into flames. When they recede, Marto sees it is not Melissa but Rahmiël. Then the Herald wraps one deadly clawed hand around the High Diviner’s neck before the two disappear in a gout of flames.
As the massacre in the streets begins to rapidly die down, and before the screams of rage turn to wails of pain and loss, the young knight sees Melissa, the true Melissa, stumble out of the Temple of Selûne, dazed and confused.
The moment they returned Marto thanked Themis, turned around, and started walking. Sorrel sought answers from the Jackal but all he had proven to have was half baked plans and a hell of a lot of judgement, neither of which would stop what had already happened. Because the vision was not of something to come. They were too late. The Heralds were one step ahead of them, again. He knew this, had known it since that second dream with Adhyël and yet Marto dared allow himself to hope.
There could be no more room for hope. Not when Marto knew what would have to be done. What he might have to sacrifice in order to save her… to help save them all.
It took them only two days to return to Daring Heights and they were doubly exhausted by the time they did. Marto vaguely remembers hearing the Jackal instruct them to meet him on the third day in Portal Plaza and prepare for a trip to Phlegethos, but nothing more. He needed sleep. He needed to dream. He needed to see Adhyël one more time before the end…
Continued in ‘Running Up That Hill’ ❤️🔥
Lyrics from ‘Illusion and Dream’ by Poets of the Fall
Prophecy artwork done by Lykksie 💜
“What is it, Sorrel?” he asks. The halfling can instinctively tell what she was dying to know by the way she was looking down at him.
“You know in that dream space we all came to…” the ranger hesitates again.
The gnome on top of the wall slowly stops doing their crossword puzzle.
“Yeah.” The knight wasn’t going to help her spit it out.
“Wh-… Why were you n-...”
Seemed like he would have to help her after all.
“Why were-”
“Why was I naked? Because I had mind bending sex with a devil. Adhyël, in case you missed that.” He didn’t have to say what ‘that’ was.
The stunned silence from all was really quite satisfying. The hollow part of him reverberates with it.
“Hiya! Sorry I’m late,” comes the beautiful voice of Zola from behind Marto. The silent reverberations become clanging echoes.
Turns out the news of his romp with a devil was not to be the most shocking thing being shared that morning.
“You did what?” Marto asks the drow bladedancer in disbelief.
“I reached out to Ophanim with the help of my mothers to try to talk to him, to convince him that this whole thing is foolish and, well, I got the second mark too.”
Marto had to turn away, his panic was rising too fast for him to hide it properly. It took what little control he had not to take her by the arms and shake her furiously for the recklessness of her actions.
“I also found what four of the five words are: Chain, whip, pyre and betrayer. The last one I didn’t quite catch,” she finishes lamely.
The halfling feels her glance at him but Marto is keeping his gaze firmly away.
“Why don’t you hop back onto the link and ask Ophanim?” comes the hard voice of the Jackal. For a man wearing full plate armour, none of them heard or saw him arrive.
“Oh, um, I- I don’t think I should…”
The rosy flush on Zola’s cheeks is like a slap from a brick of ice in the dead of winter to Marto.
Velania, Sorrel and Zola confirmed that, before their dreams with the fiends, they were somewhere else, trying to do different things. For Velania she was in a temple of Selûne trying to light candles that would refuse to be lit; For Sorrel she was running through the Feythorn being chased, unable to stop; For Zola, she was a mangled corpse, unable to do anything but look at wrecked and broken body, and watch her life drain away. That made Marto physically flinch. There was no way he was going to let that happen. He was going to protect her, protect all of them. He might not have the same faith as Velania or Sorrel, and he might not have the same magical prowess as Zola, but he was strong and his skills in magic were sturdy. Marto wasn’t going to let that dream become a reality.
Not while he still had breath in his lungs.
I’ve got no hand in matters worldly
I hardly care at all
What’s going on fails to concern me,
Cause I’m locked behind my wall
But you know what drives me out
Out of my mind
On the first night of their three day trek to the Sunset Spine, Marto and Zola were on a watch together with Kháos, who had thankfully wandered away allowing the two a moment alone. Neither of them had really spoken to each other, such was the pace the Jackal was pushing them at. A few of them – mostly Velania – struggled with the pace. When they came to the base of the mountains and the forest that had the Turning Fields most of them were ready to just crash. However they all knew to not set a watch would be foolish.
And that was how Marto found himself sitting at the low embers of a fire with the fey woman he cared deeply about and not knowing how to speak to her.
“Why did you do it?” Marto eventually asks, his voice low and quiet. The trees they are camped under are silent as they seem to lean, just as eager to hear her answer as he is dreading the truth.
“When the comprehend languages spell didn’t yield any answers it was the only thing I could think of. When Ophanim and I spoke last time, he bragged about being a fashion designer. The first mark was his design, so the second one had to be too.”
It made logical sense, though it was stupidly risky. But then who was he to judge her on doing risky things to get answers that could help them all in this unending struggle? Marto had done that exact thing when he sought out Adhyël that second time.
But then why did Zola’s eyes look distant and wistful when she said the devil’s name? Is that how he looks when he speaks about Adhyël?
No. He doesn’t love his devil.
Does Zola love Ophanim?
“A fashion designer,” Marto eventually mutters in halfling, shaking his head. He needs to think and sitting by the fire has never been the place he’s done his best thinking.
He gets up, stretching a little to ease the stiffness from his muscles as he could feel them wanting to cramp. Just as he bends down to pick up his shield with its metal and wood embedded symbol of Yondalla, Zola speaks.
“Ophanim kissed me… and I liked it.”
With his lips pressed into a hard, thin line Marto nods, understanding all too well. Then he walks off into the woods to think.
So can you name your demon?
Understand its scheming
I raise my glass and say “Here’s to you”
On the second day it felt like they were being watched. Every little critter they saw, every gust of chilling wind that blew caused them to flinch but nothing untoward happened. That night there were no conversations during Marto’s watch.
On the third day the Jackal finally told them why they were hard marching their way up the mountains.
They were trying to find an offshoot of the Selûnites and Sharites known as The Unending Ones. They believed the conflict between the goddesses is meant to go on forever and their role is to watch, to observe.
“They also might have one of the last remaining artefacts,” the Jackal added.
“Will these folks do something to ensure this keeps going? Why would they help us?” Marto asks.
The gruff, stoic man shakes his head. “It would go against their higher calling.”
“Will the others be there?” Zola asks. Marto’s pulse quickens.
“Maybe. Hopefully not,” is Kháos’ reply.
“The place we’re going to is meant to be neutral ground,” the Jackal adds, like it means anything to those present if something were to happen.
Can you chase your demon?
Or will it take your freedom?
I raise my glass and say “Here’s to you”
“Well done! The fuck do you lot want then?”
The voice comes from the other side of the crevasse. Marto tries to wipe the fiend’s blood and guts from his eyes but all he does is spread it around. He gives up and quickly looks down below. Zola is oblivious to what is being discussed, too wrapped up in trying to get something from the corpse of the half man, half scorpion fiend she must’ve slain.
“The other guys were here, and they were pretty shitty,” the woman grumbles. “You presumably are the moon people. They were dicks. You gonna be dicks?”
“We are not dicks,” the Jackal states.
Marto cannot help but roll his eyes.
They were brought to the Unending Ones’ camp where a stunning, purple skinned tiefling by the name of Themis greeted them. Zola had prestidigitated the gore from Marto and Velania by the time they got there but that didn’t stop the stares, some of them not very kind, they got from the people who lived there.
“My name is Themis. I am regarded with disdain by both camps,” the tiefling begins. “I am one of the Unending. Our purpose is to observe the battle between Selûne and Shar as it is a rift that cannot be mended.”
Zola spoke up then, asking how they could stand doing what they did, how they, the Unending Ones, could condone all the bloodletting and innocents dying. Marto knew it was pointless. People like Themis, like the Jackal and Kháos, even those like Adhyël and the Heralds, they are how they are. It’s as simple as that. No amount of talking will make them change.
“You are crooked, girl,” Themis comments, silencing Zola’s protesting questions. She looks really uncomfortable and the tiefling smiles. “Good things always come in pairs.”
Then Themis pulls out a long wooden box, unlocks it, and lifts the lid. The inside is rich velvet lining meant to cushion two long swords but one is surreptitiously missing. The blade remaining is beautiful — a silver blade curved like a scimitar but with the length of a longsword, and it seemed to glow with starlight.
“This is Castor, one of The Twins,” Themis explained in her ethereal, detached voice. “We gave its pair to the others when they came. Now we give you this one.”
Marto watches her wondering amber gaze focus back on the tiefling. “Who took the other one?” she asks.
But the halfling knight already knows the answer.
Themis smiles knowingly. “Does it matter?”
“Yes,” Zola insists.
“I believe you call him ‘the Vain’.”
Zola goes stiff as a board, like she is frozen in a memory or a thought.
Marto steps forward. “What did you tell the others?” he asks with reserved respect. “Will you tell us?”
She looks at him for a long moment. “I gave them a prophecy. I also have one for you.”
“Is there a price?” he asks.
“No price,” Themis says, standing up. She brushes past them but suddenly stops and looks at the Jackal. “On second thought…” She glides over the warrior. “There is a price that you can pay.”
They are thrown up into the heavens and land amongst the splendour of the stars and the blackness of the void. They soar over the land heading east towards the horizon until they get to a city on a hill. Then they descend down, faster than gravity can pull at them.
Suddenly, they stop, landing perfectly in the Temple of Selûne of Daring Heights. The serene pool reflects the image of two figures, the Wise Guy, Rholor, and the acolyte Melissa. Marto cannot quite hear what they are saying but he knows they are arguing about something. A piece of holy text perhaps?
Noises from outside catch his attention at the same time it does the High Diviner and as one they rush out. The scene is violent horror and bloody gruesome. The stars above illuminate the carnage the citizens of Daring are wrecking on each other as if it was full daylight. They bite, grab, tackle, stab, bludgeon, and tear at each other, gripped by a madness that sees the people wantonly killing their friends, their neighbours, their loved ones. So horrible is the slaughter at the foot of the Temple’s steps that Marto is stunned into inaction.
Is this how it’s meant to be? Is nothing they do able to save the ones they love? Are they truly unable to protect the ones they care about?
The High Diviner began chanting a spell, calling upon the Moonmaiden to help save the people in the thralls of what could only be fiendish manipulation.
He suddenly gasps as a knife is plunged into his spine, his green eyes widening in shock and pain. Behind him is Melissa, her eyes glowing red as a triumphant grin spreads across her face. Then her skin begins to bubble and blister as from within she seems to burst into flames. When they recede, Marto sees it is not Melissa but Rahmiël. Then the Herald wraps one deadly clawed hand around the High Diviner’s neck before the two disappear in a gout of flames.
As the massacre in the streets begins to rapidly die down, and before the screams of rage turn to wails of pain and loss, the young knight sees Melissa, the true Melissa, stumble out of the Temple of Selûne, dazed and confused.
It’s whatever makes you see
Makes you believe
And forget about the premonition you need to conceive
The images they sell are illusion & dream
In other words dishonesty
The moment they returned Marto thanked Themis, turned around, and started walking. Sorrel sought answers from the Jackal but all he had proven to have was half baked plans and a hell of a lot of judgement, neither of which would stop what had already happened. Because the vision was not of something to come. They were too late. The Heralds were one step ahead of them, again. He knew this, had known it since that second dream with Adhyël and yet Marto dared allow himself to hope.
There could be no more room for hope. Not when Marto knew what would have to be done. What he might have to sacrifice in order to save her… to help save them all.
It took them only two days to return to Daring Heights and they were doubly exhausted by the time they did. Marto vaguely remembers hearing the Jackal instruct them to meet him on the third day in Portal Plaza and prepare for a trip to Phlegethos, but nothing more. He needed sleep. He needed to dream. He needed to see Adhyël one more time before the end…
Continued in ‘Running Up That Hill’ ❤️🔥
Lyrics from ‘Illusion and Dream’ by Poets of the Fall
Prophecy artwork done by Lykksie 💜
