ankhari - Tumblr blog

ankhari · 7 years

Text

A Lunatic’s Escape

Can you call it a nightmare if you can no longer distinguish it from the waking world? The girl once called Fera (for they'd long since taken her name from her) dreamed again of the Labyrinth. The unending corridors of stone and echoing screams. Running. She was always running in her dreams, the looming spectre of madness ever inches behind her. She could feel the beast in her mind with her, gnawing and primal. Her only refuge in this place was giving herself over to it. In a mind too primitive to truly grasp the nightmares of this place, she found some tiny solace from the horrors. Eventually it too would succumb though. She'd had to put down more than enough animals she once called friends after each one finally devolved into a rabid monstrosity, it's mind rendered an uninhabitable wasteland. She mourned them at first, but she long since lost track of how many creatures she's worn now. So here she was. Running again. Cloaked in the mind of a wolf near the breaking point. It became hard for her to focus. The beasts mad ravings clawing at her own mind. Hunt. Feed. Kill.

"HEY! MADCAT! WAKE UP. IT'S DINNERTIME."

She jolted awake as something metal clanged against the bars of her cell. No, not a cell. A kennel. The Mad King thought it was hillarious. If she wants to be a beast, let her be our beast. Those were the words he said when he put the collar on her throat. The black leather one with "I BITE" etched in bright orange letters across the band. A cautionary reminder of the last courtier who crossed her. The feral girl snarled, bearing her fangs. This show only made the Lunatic Courtier on the other side of the bars chuckle in amusement.

"So ferocious. And here I was all ready to bring you some juicy meat. Mad King says to keep you fed, after all." He shook his head as he waved the rusted metal tray of old meat in her direction. " Can't believe I'm stuck here with you, while the gates to Lion's Arch are wide open. Do you have any idea how much fun I'm missing?"

He grinned as he plucked a bit of near rancid meat from the metal bowl in his hand. That stupid, smug grin. The all wore it here. Like somehow giving in to the lunacy made them better than her. She wanted to tell him off, but all she managed was another feral growl. He laughed again as he dangled the meat just out of her reach on the other side of the cold bars. She didn't want to play his game, but she had no say in it. The beast was hungry. She pressed her muzzle to the bars, snapping helplessly. He inched the morsel closer, before jerking it away just as it grazed her lip. Another useless bite of air. Another smug laugh from the courtier. Finally he moved the piece of meat between the bars. She snatched it hungrily from his fingers.

"There you go. Good girl" He cooed mockingly "Good kitty".

Another piece of meat presented through the cage, another snap of hungry jaws. A third piece, a little larger. He had to wriggle a little to get this one through the bars, pushing his hand just a little bit through the cage as the meat finally popped through the slot, grazing her muzzle. Too late did he realize he'd briefly forgotten the warning emblazoned across the strap over her throat. *I BITE*. The beast reacted before the charr mind even realized what happened. It was hungry, and sick of old half-rotten meat. Her neck twisted, around the foul meat to find it's real target. Teeth sank into the flesh of the poor man's hand and pulled hard, pinning his shoulder to the edge of the cage as he crashed to the ground, head slamming hard into the rusted steel bar. The taste of fresh blood permeated her mouth as a blood curdling scream filled the air. Almost immediately, another courtier came running. The Madcat could hear her swear loudly and fumble with a keyring around her belt. The male thrashed and screamed as the wild thing ripped and tore at the warm gooey flesh of his arm. After what felt like hours for the man quickly losing the meat of his limb, the other courtier unlocked the cage door and drew a bone dagger from her hip. She hesitates for only a second. The wild-thing did not. As soon as the door opened, She dropped the tattered remains of the man's arm, torn flesh still haning from her teeth, and lunged at a better meal. She barely felt the dagger sink into her hide as her fangs closed around the girl's throat with a sickening wet crunch of snapping bone. The she-beast devoured them both, then and there. A banquet of blood and viscera. Once the feast was over, it took every ounce of willpower for the charr to push one singular thought into the beastmind. RUN. Escape from here. The courtier had said the gates to Lion's Arch were open. That means the King would be gone, and he'd take the majority of his court with him. There weren't nearly enough Courtiers left behind to thwart her escape. She ran. Tearing through the endless halls of the labyrinth, past scores of thrillseekers, to whom this place was all a sick game. She killed three in her path. Two asura and a human who thought she was another showpiece stuffed with candy corn. The beast didn't hesitate as it disemboweled each of them in turn, only reveling in their gore for a moment before resuming her escape. Bloodied and crazed, with a dagger still deep in her hide, the mad cat tore through the portal on all fours, finally free of the the nightmare, returning at last to a world she could barely remember.

0 notes

ankhari · 7 years

Text

Katja’s mission

The snow-furred charr shivered and pulled her heavy cloak tighter around her shoulders. Two weeks. She had promised Kitt she'd be gone absolutely no later than two weeks. Today was the deadline. A week of empty searches empty stomachs and freezing, lonely nights. She couldn't go home empty handed too. She couldn't fail at the one thing she set out to do on her own.

Katja took a deep breath. The frigid air burning her lungs as she pushed herself onward through the snow, fingers numb, and her stomach rumbling. Another step. Her eyes squint to block out the wind and snow as her eyes try to survey as far as she can see. A wasteland of grey rock and white snow. Nothing. Another step. A sharp pain stabs up her leg as her foot collides with something solid. She curses into the emptiness and looks down to find a thick, angular rock just barely protruding from the foot-deep snowbank. Too angular. Katja kneels down in the snow, shoveling it aside in frigid handfulls. There's something here. Her digging begins to pick up pace. It's a slab. A large stone slab. This is it! This has to be it! There were runes carved deep into the stonework. Norn runes. Katja silently cursed herself for never paying more attention to them when she was in fahrar. A few she recognized. The ones the hunters always liked to inscirbe into their armor. "Strength", "Warrior", "Legend", but many more that she did not. Her eyes grew wide as she brushed away more of the snow. Another rune she knew. One she knew well. One the the old Shaman had made sure to teach her.... "Charr". This was it. She'd found it. Her excitement drove away all her aches as she mustered all the strength she could to push the heavy slab aside. About halfway was all she could muster, but it was just enough for her to wriggle through into the pitch darkness of the old tomb.

Kat breathed a sigh of relief as she set her pack onto the cold stone floor before she went fumbling in one of the outer pouches for matches. She found herself grateful that Kitt had urged her to bring them, her magic close to spent after a long restless week, as she started a little natural orange flame onto her torch. As light slowly filled the chamber, Katja was finally able to survey her prize. It was a large circular stone room with a narrow, dark corridor leading off deeper beneath the mountain. Ornate carvings lined the walls, stories etched in stone in a language she couldn't decipher. Probably ancient norn, if she had to guess. Kat made a note to make etchings of them all. Maybe someone in the priory could read it. Out of the corner of her eye, something glimmered in the darkness, catching just the faintest edges of the orange light from the torch and refracting it across the wall behind it. Katja turned to examine it more closely.

There, resting on a stone pedistal, sat the most stunning blade she'd ever seen in her short life. If steel could be made of ice, she imagined , this must be what it would look like. The long, narrow raipier seemed to shimmer and gleam in the flickering torchlight, glistening like the day it was forged, seemingly unaware that it had been buried for centuries. She began to reach for the weapon, but reluctantly pulled her paw away. "No" she thought to herself. "This isn't a graverobbing mission. This belonged to a great hero. It's not mine to take."

Hesitantly, she pulled away from the blade to focus more on the writing in the wall nearby. She quickly returned to her pack and fished for the small primer on norn runes that she'd picked up before coming. Holding the torch close, she began to look over the stone-etched text, searching the book for some of the symbols, just hoping for a tiny bit of information about this great legendary hero of the northern charr. Some of the runes seemed about what one might expect. Runes to tell of a great champion. A ferocious warrior with no equal. To her dismay, it seemed like many of the runes were illegible, ruined by deep gouges carved at random, sporaically all across the walls of the room, rendering much of the story lost to history. Between the runes, and the old norn writings, maybe, just maybe there was still enough of the writing preserved. Enough to tell the world of his tale. THERE! On the wall! Two words carved in old Ascalonian. "Magnus Glacialwrath". Her hero had a name.

Kat began scrawling frantically in her notebook, her paws shaking as the bitter cold and meager nourishment finally began to catch up with her, but her excitement would not be quelled so easily. She continuned flipping back and forth through pages of the runebook, each rune another piece of the great legend. "Champion". "Loyal" "Proud" "Fierce". Each rune painted a little more of the picture for her. There was a symbol for a small town. Kat knew the place these days as a svanir stronghold. But maybe in his time that town was where he called home. Maybe he was like her father. Maybe he died driving the svanir back. She continued eagerly. Here! A whole passage, untouched by the strange grooves. It says, as far as she could tell, His warband... They turned on him. Every one of them. Traitors. Katja scowled as she wrote. They betrayed him. Tried to kill him in the night but he stopped them all...somehow. She frowned. Just as the story started to get good, there are several odd runes that aren't anywhere in the book. There's something about a great beast, or a great spirit maybe. that came to his aid or... Or he called? Invoked? This rune didn't make sense here. One of the norn spirits maybe? Could a charr call on the norn totems? Certainly a charr who could beseech the spirits would be as worthy of a tomb as any great norn legend.

Katja continued her work dilligently. Three more heavy gouges in paralell lines dug across the ruined text of the next section she had hoped to decipher. One rune stood out among the destroyed lines though. One Kat had seen more than enough times to recognize, even through the marred stone. "Dragon". She perked up. Was he a great dragonhunter? Did he stand brave against Jormag's claw? Maybe he slew another great dragon lieutenant. Kat's head danced with images of a mighty charr champion, standing alone, with the might of the great spirits at his back, staring down Jormag himself. She knew that was silly, but the image made her smile nonetheless. In her head, he even looked a little like her father.

Without warning, a sudden rumble came up from the narrow passageway, cracking the silence and causing the young soldier to let out a startled yelp, her tome and torch clattering noisily to the ground. Black shadows swam around the corners of the room as the flame flickered and guttered before finally plunging the room back into darkness. Katja swore out loud, her words echoing through the dark cooridor as she fumbled in the dark to try and find the matches again. As the echoed sounds began to fade, a new sound emerged. A horrible sound. A slow, purposeful scraping of something heavy dragging against the ancient stone. Loud, slow, and implacable, the sound drew closer, as Katja's efforts to find her matches grew frantic. She tried to slow her breathing, but her heart pounded in her chest. An icy chill began to fill the room. An unnatural cold, horrible, and biting. Finally, quickly numbing fingers struck the match to the torch, bringing faint orange light to the room once more. As her eyes readjust to the lilght, The first thing her eyes fall upon causes her heart to sink. A black rune that she'd missed before, carved above the archway, deep in shadow. A rune she knew all too well, and one that filled her with absolute dread. "Svanir."

Before she could even react, a deafening monstrous howl filled the little room, and the thing was on her. Pain roared across her shoulder as the massive thing slammed into her, moving far faster than something that big has any right to move. She hit the stone wall hard and her combat training took over. She dropped to the ground, just in time as a massive frozen claw ripped through the stone wall like paper, leaving three deep gouges behind, ruining forever another block of ancient text. Katja kicked away and scrambled to her feet. Pain burned in her shoulder as she scrambled for her sword. The steel hilt of the weapon was already near frozen and ice clung to the blade. Her lips trembled violently as she brandished the weapon and finally turned to face her assailant. Her heart lept into her throat as the dim torchlight revealed the horror before her. She knew immediately that the thing was icebrood, but it was unlike any she'd ever beheld before. Easily over twenty feet tall, glittering spines of corrupted ice ripping through barely visible flesh and nearly scraping the ceiling of the tomb. A nightmare monster of claws and fangs and horns. The way it carried itself was unlike any she'd ever seen. It moved like a- No. No. NO. It couldn't be. It can't be.... but it was. If she'd had the time, she would have cried. It was a charr. An ancient, legendary hero icebrood charr.

The nightmare didn't give Katja the courtesy of chastizing herself for long. It's horrible bellow filled the little chamber as it lunged again. She was ready this time. She brought her blade up in a high arc, prepared to carve through the creature's arm as it swung. In that moment, it seemed like the world slowed down. The massive, razor sharp claw raked toward her. Her own blade came up. With every inch the blade drew nearer, more and more ice crystals permeated across the surface of the steel as the temperature dropped far below any natural climate. By the time the blade reached the monster, the result was inevitable. A brittle, frozen piece of steel shattered against the beasts frozen spines. Deathly cold ripped through the young charr as daggerlike fingers bit deep into the steel of her breastplate, as the impact sent her hurling across the room. With a tiny cry she crashed into the stone pillar on the far side of the room, landing with a sickening crunch. Pain roared as her left leg clearly twisted in an unnatural angle, a piece of bone protruding from the flesh beneath her chainmail. Katja watched helpless as glacial death inexorably marched toward her, helpless and defenseless. Her thoughts turned to her mate. She wished she could have seen her one more time. No. She wouldn't give up yet. What would Kitt do? Kat looked around frantically. THERE! Laying on the ice-slick floor nearby, the Ice-steel blade, still gleaming in the dimly flickering torchlight. She slumped, falling back, trying her best to feign death, as she stretched out toward the blade. She'd only get one chance. Her fingers slipped around the handle of the weapon and magical warmth filled her, even as ice began to form around the steel of her boots as the behemoth drew near. The monstrosity roared as it bared a maw full of jagged ice-shard fangs. The thing drew in close, eager to rip into it's new meal. With as ferocious a roar as the young soldier could muster, she bolted upright, screaming as she drove the shining blade through it's gaping maw, clean throughthe thing's neck, severing it's spine with a twist. The Icebrood charr barely let out a little surprised grunt before it fell motionless, silent besides the muffled gurgles of death. The demon slumped, falling over, carrying Katja and her blade crashing to the ground with it. She panted hard, bleeding and broken, but laying atop the felled beast, alive, and victorious.

Hours pass. Merficully, the blade has enough latent magical power to allow Katja to mend the worst of her wounds. It kills her a little as she uses two long, shattered steel pieces from her once beloved sword as a makeshift splint for her leg. She's managed to at least get a small fire started to fend off the biting cold, and slowly heat a little water to treat her frostbitten fingeres and toes. A storm rages outside the stone walls of the tomb. There's no way she'll make it back to camp in this condition. And making it down the mountain will be even harder. It's possible, but it's risky. An unnessecary risk. It'll be two weeks soon. Kitt will come looking for her. She's got enough rations to last a few days if she stretches them. She clutches the blade to her chest for warmth. The best thing to do is wait. And so...she waits.

3 notes · View notes

ankhari · 7 years

Text

Another quiet mission

Her heart pounds as she approaches the gate. It always does at times like this, though she'd never admit it to anyone. "Good morning, Commander." The guards at the little outpost snap to attention and salute as she strides by. Confidence. That's always the key. Never look like you don't belong. She takes a breath as she locks the heavy door closed behind her. Alone at last, Guard-commander Derrik fades into shimmering ashes, leaving only the Grimphoenix where he stood. She shivers and stretches. Acting human for that long always hurts her spine. Kriss wastes no time heading straight for the desk. Quick and quiet she searches the drawers. At last she grins a broad, toothy smile as her eyes fall on her target. Removing the little wooden box from the drawer she slides open the lid to reveal a small metal sphere, little gears clicking and ticking away. Unmistakably aetherblade. Shit, intel was right. Whatever, it's ours now, R&D can reverse engineer it later. She clicks the lid shut and focuses on the other end of the gate. The portal slides open easily. She passes the box through the shimmering portal. Brig's voice greets her as warmly as always. "Hurry the fuck up." The larger female grabs the box, tucking it into her pack. "I got it. No problems. They won't even have a clue we-" Her voice falls dead silent at voices outside. It always gave Kriss a twisted satisfaction when she gets to hear the exact moment someone realizes they've been duped. "Good morning, Comman- FUCK. INTRUDER!" Something heavy slams into the locked door. The wooden frame buckles and cracks. "KRISS. LETS GO." Kriss grins, her big shit-eating grin. "They know we're here. Orders said eliminate threats at our discretion." She steps away from the portal and draws the massive greatsword that's still probably too big for the small-framed charr, though she doesn't seem to mind. "Meet you at the rendezvous point." Brig growls. "Like Hell." The larger girl dives through the portal as it snaps closed, pistol already drawn. She just gives Kriss a look sharper than either of her daggers. "You did this on purpose." Kriss shrugs as she takes her position by the buckling door. "Maybe. but you don't really want to let these Seperatist shitholes walk do you?" "Just shut up and get to work." The door splinters. The first poor bastard falls instantly to a burst of gunfire. The second meets a grizzly end as the heavy blade crashes down on his skull. A third slumps in the doorway to another spray of bullets. "We need to get outside." Somehow Brig could always manage to keep a level, even head in the middle of a fight. Kriss always admired that, though she'd be damned before she admit it. Kriss nods, "On three. One. Two. THREE" With a flash of light, and a flicker of shadows the pair blink out of existence and reappear, back to back, just behind the throng of guards amassing at the door. Brig doesn't even hesitate to bury her knife deep into the spine of the closest guard before he can even turn around. Kriss falls back, wrapping herself in a shimmer of stealth as she spends her time weaving her illusions. By the time the rest of the guards turn, they're greeted by a half-dozen angry charr soldiers, armed to the teeth. Grimphoenix revels in the fear in their eyes. She might love the fear more than the actual kill. The phantasms charge into the soldiers ranks, and like good little mice, the soldiers crowd in to handle the threat. Too late they realize their mistake as the illusions shatter, sending a spray of phantasmal glass through their ranks, while the thief dances her ballet of blades through their back line. Kriss prepares her next spell as she watches her bandmate work; truly a thing of beauty. A dagger to the spine. The soldier spins, swinging his sword too slowly through nothing but a could of ash where the charr once stood. Another dagger from behind, this one clean through the back of his throat, more than enough to drop him. Brig doesn't even savor the kill. She's already shadowstepped to her next victim, repeating the deadly tango. Kriss stays cloaked as she weaves her discord. A human soldier roars and shoves his blade through a comrade's stomach. The poor human doesn't even take the time to register that the blow wasn't real. He swings his blade in a panic at the illusion, which shatters to reveal the backside of one of his comrades. The look of betrayal as the sword lands into the mans neck is priceless. Grimphoenix laughs delightedly as another half-dozen humans turn on their allies before they shatter into nothingness. The terrified soldiers swing blades wildly, no longer sure who's fighting for whom as the thief continues picking off bewildered soldiers one by one. Satisfied with her handiwork, Kriss unsheated the greatblade again and strides into the chaos, cleaving through several of the humans still standing, lost in the revel of the bloodshed. She didn't even hear the mortar coming, or Brig's shouted warning. Reflexively she brings both paws up, shattering the illusions that had served her so loyally to draw enough magic to shield her from the worst of the blast. Still enough of the explosion slams her hard into the ground. She shakes her head, her vision blurred as she tries to refocus. A flicker of the shadows and Brig is already at her side, dragging her to her feet. Kriss can just barely hear her voice through the ringing in her ears. "-ve to go NOW!" She can feel the bigger charr dragging her to her feet as she tries to regain herself. The scream of another shell comes overhead. The mesmer snaps her wrist, sending up a wall of magic, sending the shell careening off in another direction, exploding somewhere over the treeline as the two fall back. Kriss suddenly stops dead. "SHIT. My sword." "Leave it!" "I can't!" She tears her arm out of Brig's grip and starts to sprint back toward the cratered ruin of the seperatist camp. Another shell screams toward her, but she's ready for this one. She blurs from existence without even breaking her stride, just as the shell explodes, sending shrapnel harmlessly through her. Her eyes dart around frantically before she spies the blade, half buried in the sand. A brief exertion of willpower blinks her to the sword as she rips it from the ground. She hurriedly hefts it onto her back and takes off, running on all fours back toward the safety of the treeline. Another screaming bomb comes tearing through the camp. Almost too slowly, she wills a phantasmal barrier into existence. The shockwave still knocks her off her feet and she slams hard into the dirt. Before she can even climb to her feet, her bandmate is already at her side weaving her shadow magic. The mortars fall silent as the pair of charr dissapear from view.

Kriss limps toward the treeline, her arm draped over her bandmate's shoulder. Brig shakes her head dissaprovingly, which, Kriss is fairly certain, is the only face Brig can make. "You're an idiot." "Maybe. But the job's done." "Let's go home."

2 notes · View notes