#he looks human but hes not human! he's an eldritch horror compressed into the shape of a person!

[xehanortsreport]

woe...world of chaos spam be upon ye...

[thegooddoctorsthoughts]

Tales Of The Clocktower: A War In Heaven

From all corners of this map, my clockwork soldiers clawed their way from beneath the earth and began marching in lockstep towards the Tower, cutting down any trace of the Cancer they happened across. Quickly a perimeter was formed around the Tower by the automatons, their functions simple on their own but the more of them in proximity to each other the more coordinated they become. A makeshift phalanx formed around the base of the Tower facing out into the forest, a firing line of bayonet tipped rifles in the place of spears resting on a groove cut into the corner of the tower shields some of the automatons were equipped with. Behind it, sapper variations bent the earth to their will and quickly cut trenches into the soil and constructed fortifications of various shapes and sizes.

I leaned against the edge of the war table, a cigarette between my lips and clockwork racing through my mind. Much of me had fallen away and left only Tyrant standing, a balanced engine of war, a fragment of a man but a perfected one. Taller and Slimmer than I was in reality, my eyes two glass spheres of liquid twilight, a maelstrom of reds, blues and purples shifting warping like droplets of oil set into water. The suit and dress shoes less of a shade of black and more a weave of a starless night, a void with only the faintest hint of light coming from unseen solar titans. Around my neck, shining on against the void a tie comprised of starlight, a dull distant glow, occasionally particles would drift from its surface tiny pinpricks of dull starlight, fizzling out and vanishing. Tyrant was a thing built not of this earth but of the heavens, his core forged within the fires of the local star, the metals mined from the shattered remains of the moon, his clothes knitted together by nebulae and flesh weaved by the fundamental forces of this place.

He was a tiny part of me which I had perfected long ago, built with no intention of ever using, a last resort of sorts, a thing which existed only for the destruction of parts of my self and the protection of this place. I stood in his place and yet also slept upon my throne, a part of me given free rein to protect me by whatever means necessary. Grey towered behind me burning like a star bent into the form of a human, her hands ran through my hair, down along my cheeks and rested on my shoulders; my hands rested on the edge of the table as I drank in the heat burning into me. There were no people around this table anymore, only twisted shades of the human beings which once walked through the halls of mind, twisted aberrations, caricatures of themselves. A Dragon, a walking oil painting, a Spider, a Blackened Angel, and countless others sat upon their thrones and awaited some kind of instruction.

“Find it, kill it, destroy whatever stands in your path” I paused for a moment and felt the weight of the smoke fill my lungs, her warmth washing over me with each beat of The Heart, taking just a moment to enjoy how calm I felt while like this. “Including each other, if necessary” The room erupted into a flurry of commotion as each Shade bent some part of this world to their will and went about finding wherever this Cancer had taken root and cutting it out. I turned on my heel, confident the Tower would be purged of whatever Cancer happened to have infiltrated it already and its perimeter would remain secure for as long as was necessary. A set eldritch eyes peered back at me from a Promethean solar skull “I don’t care how much of this place you have to tear apart find that thing, kill it”. She nodded at me, placing a single hand to my cheek she leaned in and pressed her forehead to mine. She raised her sword above her head and her voice rang out through the room like thunder rolling through the pews of a cathedral.

LEAVE NOTHING IN YOUR WAKE

With a single beat of her mothlike wings, she disappeared through the shattered clock face and sent herself hurtling to the shoreline below. It would only be a matter of minutes before The Cancer clashed with the outer defenses of the Tower, the intricacies of the battle itself would be left to the Shades, while I set about disassembling this place. I returned to the Control Panel and stepped out onto the walkway of idle gears, walking right up to the edge and plummeted from my perch. The distant groan of the Clockwork God strained against the anchored walls of my mind, the fabric of reality unraveling around me, space and time straining against each other and then suddenly snapping beneath the pressure, becoming unwound. My body shattered against the rocks below and yet did not.

I awoke drowned beneath uncountable fathoms of pressure, my lungs filled with water, my body floating beneath unseen waves staring down a god. Mechanical tendrils reached out from the inky blackness, drawing me closer to its gaze. My body was little more than a puppet, awaiting for my strings to breathe life into me. I stared down the monument to my sins with little in the way of fear or any real emotion to speak of. The pressure straining to crush my body beneath it, my mind similarly refusing to give out under the vacuum which the Clockwork God imposed. My body refusing to break and shatter under the pressure, willing me to compress into little more than a single point. My mind being pulled in every direction, the vacuum desperately attempting to strip away whatever it could, to rip me apart, leaving nothing but a drifting nebula of fundamental particles. I refused to give in to its demands, I would fix this myself and I would continue to move forward with myself, I would bend it to my will and free myself of the shackles I placed upon myself.

I came to a rest at the edge of its form, my feet resting on the metal gracefully and then suddenly animation returning to my form on contact. I stared up into its eyes, straining against every urge to look away, like a surgical drill burrowing its way through my skull. I felt it speak, no words or anything of the sort, a will, thoughts manifesting themselves across +my mind like a pen writing them into my Greymatter.

THIS CANNOT BE ALLOWED TO CONTINUE

There sat a silence between us for a moment and I knew it would put a stop to all of this itself if I couldn’t. This, however, was the last resort, it would obliterate everything without reason or cause, it would shatter the Tower and rend the earth itself asunder. Self-preservation was paramount and it would not allow another god, another monster to manifest as they had in the past, to threaten its dominion of this place. I stared it down with an unblinking stare, I looked up at it and yet also down at my minuscule form, torn between my own perception and its. A single faultline would have damned me, a single imperfection. However, this state, this mind, this fraction of myself had been perfected with this expressed purpose. I took a single step forward and the vacuum my mind had rested within lifted and a cool breeze washed over me. I knelt down and placed my palm against its exoskeleton, a moment later I felt the water all around me rush away as the Clockwork God began its slow ascent to the surface. Bones broke and tendons snapped, my body ripped asunder beneath the waves as the millions of liters of water rushed over me.

I struggled to my feet, willing myself to stand against the raging current, taking one slow and deliberate step forward. My right foot raised and collided with the ground with enough force to snap it in two. Everything was stripped from me, cloth, then flesh, muscle and sinew. I was laid bare against the world, washed away by rushing tides. A skeletal figure rose to Their feet, rags of cloth still clinging to them, humanoid yes, but there was something alien and otherworldly about Their structure. Longer and more slender, a cracked halo of bleached bone hovering above Their head, long pointed fingers; everything bolted together with sinews of metal. Their spine and base of Their skull either encased or built of that same twilight metal. Here was something new, someone new. I slowly collected myself, knitting myself around Their spine in a kind of embrace I couldn’t quite define. Something discordant and broken, shattered while apart, but once united were made whole, perfected, refined and balanced.

Monolith stood, I stood, alone and made whole, three beings intertwined in an impossible way, balanced and unified in all Their glory and all Their horror. The heart shattered and let run free, Gods walking this earth once again, the shackles I had placed upon myself long ago render down to little more than slag. I was free, we were free, whole and with purpose, a single purpose in mind, United and made whole; Jack Magnus Whyte walked, one of The Mayeflye, The Last Monolith.

A mortal casts aside all that shackled them to Their past,

They were no longer a child afraid of Their own shadows,

Change was afoot, Poetry and Power sang through the air,

This world heard The Immortal speak for the first time,

This world heard the first decree of the only true god left in this place,

This world heard as Monolith spoke,

“You will bring down the heavens wrath”

There was no rage or grandeur in Their voice, a clear and simple statement was made.

The earth was split asunder and The Cancer made its presence known, it knew it could not hide any longer, there was no more time to bide. Bursting from beneath the charred husk of a house I once called home, a place once at the centre of my little world, now confined to the edge of my thoughts, distant and removed, yet still ever present. A history I cannot answer to scattered to the winds, pieces of it landing in all corners of my mind, forced to the surface.

They stood atop a mantled god, They could feel the fear of The Cancer, the respect of The Clockwork God. I had vanished into the ocean of Their soul, scattered and dispersed within, the three of us all together again properly, whole and without barriers, unable to tell where we began and the other ended. We became ourselves again, even if only for a little while, we remembered who we are, who we were and who we will be. We faced our doubt as one, as the person we could never hope to be, Monolith stood in our place, built by us, yet not any of us. Human and monstrosity, great and terrible, there was nothing like this left, nobody like Monolith and nor should there ever be again. I vanished, Jack and Magnus vanished, all of us dissolved into those quite and calm tides

They were sad, They were lonely, They were without compromise and it hurt them. They had fled to this place, from everyone and everything, They did not want to face any of this, They fled and left us in Their place. Now here we stood, with the will to face thing again, just brave enough to look in the mirror again and accept how things are. We were tired, so very tired, we had done our job and now we could rest, if only for a little while. It would take time, but one day They would wake up and would never vanish again, one day, we would sleep, deep beneath the tides of time and rest easy knowing our job was done.

A deep sigh left Their lips, it had been a long time since They had opened Their weary eyes, it had been a long time since this world had seen Their soul against the backdrop of this place. They lifted an arm began to rub the sleep from Their eyes. Grey landed behind them with a cacoughanous clang, bloodied but not injured. She went to speak but was quickly silenced with a wave of Their hand. The warmth radiating from her grew colder, the fire dimmer. Ice grew from where They stood, snow falling from unseen clouds, an odd cold surrounded them. It was not unwelcoming, like the dry cold of winter snow setting in. They didn’t look at her, they simply spoke.

I can’t remember what They said, truth be told I cannot remember what Their voice sounds like anymore. She left, disappearing into the sky above, without a word but with a single crystalline tear wept by our unseen solar titan. With a snap of Their fingers the twilight sky burned as a human supernova lost her composure. They would burn away Their guilt, Their anger, everything, burn away this Cancer. She burned her memories into the fabric of this place, as space and time buckled above Them. She burned away, so much of her, all of the lies and all of the anger, she was free, if only for a little while. She fell, a star burned high above Them, a titanic thing of unimaginable rage and ferocity, burning silver against the twilight sky. It burned unlike anything They had ever seen before, she fell from it like a droplet falling from a glass. They did not move to catch her or even face her, They look out across waves towards the Cancer writhing against the oncoming assault.

She collided with a metal plate which formed part of the exoskeleton of The Clockwork God. The remnants of her body vanished as the fire was snuffed out from within her armor. Her armor charred black, cracked, bent and broken by the gravity of her long distant star. They finally turned to face what remained of her, a human form lay in the remnants of her armor. They stood over her broken and hollow form, staring down at someone new, someone old, someone They had been forgotten.

“Hello Lily”

Lily said nothing, she looked up at her long forgotten friend, and smiled at them.

“It’s been a long time old friend”

They offered her a hand, her peculiar form not too dissimilar to Theirs.

The two of them stood side by side, watching as slowly the Cancer began to burn up.

Two old friends stood side by side for one last time, casting each other side, freeing each other from their shared past.

Some time later,

Two figures were seen dancing barefoot in the sand,

Singing a song that was heard at all corners of reality,

Two old friends laughed and cried and sang by starlight,

And I can’t forget it,

As we stood tall together,

As we all stood side by side,

All my friends,

Who helped me let go,

Who made everything okay,

Who helped me put Them back together again,

Who sang by the shoreline with me,

End of Chapter 4

Chapter 5: By The Shoreline

[thetickingmonolith]

Tales Of The Clocktower: A War In Heaven

From all corners of this map, my clockwork soldiers clawed their way from beneath the earth and began marching in lockstep towards the Tower, cutting down any trace of the Cancer they happened across. Quickly a perimeter was formed around the Tower by the automatons, their functions simple on their own but the more of them in proximity to each other the more coordinated they become. A makeshift phalanx formed around the base of the Tower facing out into the forest, a firing line of bayonet tipped rifles in the place of spears resting on a groove cut into the corner of the tower shields some of the automatons were equipped with. Behind it, sapper variations bent the earth to their will and quickly cut trenches into the soil and constructed fortifications of various shapes and sizes.

I leaned against the edge of the war table, a cigarette between my lips and clockwork racing through my mind. Much of me had fallen away and left only Tyrant standing, a balanced engine of war, a fragment of a man but a perfected one. Taller and Slimmer than I was in reality, my eyes two glass spheres of liquid twilight, a maelstrom of reds, blues and purples shifting warping like droplets of oil set into water. The suit and dress shoes less of a shade of black and more a weave of a starless night, a void with only the faintest hint of light coming from unseen solar titans. Around my neck, shining on against the void a tie comprised of starlight, a dull distant glow, occasionally particles would drift from its surface tiny pinpricks of dull starlight, fizzling out and vanishing. Tyrant was a thing built not of this earth but of the heavens, his core forged within the fires of the local star, the metals mined from the shattered remains of the moon, his clothes knitted together by nebulae and flesh weaved by the fundamental forces of this place.

He was a tiny part of me which I had perfected long ago, built with no intention of ever using, a last resort of sorts, a thing which existed only for the destruction of parts of my self and the protection of this place. I stood in his place and yet also slept upon my throne, a part of me given free rein to protect me by whatever means necessary. Grey towered behind me burning like a star bent into the form of a human, her hands ran through my hair, down along my cheeks and rested on my shoulders; my hands rested on the edge of the table as I drank in the heat burning into me. There were no people around this table anymore, only twisted shades of the human beings which once walked through the halls of mind, twisted aberrations, caricatures of themselves. A Dragon, a walking oil painting, a Spider, a Blackened Angel, and countless others sat upon their thrones and awaited some kind of instruction.

“Find it, kill it, destroy whatever stands in your path” I paused for a moment and felt the weight of the smoke fill my lungs, her warmth washing over me with each beat of The Heart, taking just a moment to enjoy how calm I felt while like this. “Including each other, if necessary” The room erupted into a flurry of commotion as each Shade bent some part of this world to their will and went about finding wherever this Cancer had taken root and cutting it out. I turned on my heel, confident the Tower would be purged of whatever Cancer happened to have infiltrated it already and its perimeter would remain secure for as long as was necessary. A set eldritch eyes peered back at me from a Promethean solar skull “I don’t care how much of this place you have to tear apart find that thing, kill it”. She nodded at me, placing a single hand to my cheek she leaned in and pressed her forehead to mine. She raised her sword above her head and her voice rang out through the room like thunder rolling through the pews of a cathedral.

LEAVE NOTHING IN YOUR WAKE

With a single beat of her mothlike wings, she disappeared through the shattered clock face and sent herself hurtling to the shoreline below. It would only be a matter of minutes before The Cancer clashed with the outer defenses of the Tower, the intricacies of the battle itself would be left to the Shades, while I set about disassembling this place. I returned to the Control Panel and stepped out onto the walkway of idle gears, walking right up to the edge and plummeted from my perch. The distant groan of the Clockwork God strained against the anchored walls of my mind, the fabric of reality unraveling around me, space and time straining against each other and then suddenly snapping beneath the pressure, becoming unwound. My body shattered against the rocks below and yet did not.

I awoke drowned beneath uncountable fathoms of pressure, my lungs filled with water, my body floating beneath unseen waves staring down a god. Mechanical tendrils reached out from the inky blackness, drawing me closer to its gaze. My body was little more than a puppet, awaiting for my strings to breathe life into me. I stared down the monument to my sins with little in the way of fear or any real emotion to speak of. The pressure straining to crush my body beneath it, my mind similarly refusing to give out under the vacuum which the Clockwork God imposed. My body refusing to break and shatter under the pressure, willing me to compress into little more than a single point. My mind being pulled in every direction, the vacuum desperately attempting to strip away whatever it could, to rip me apart, leaving nothing but a drifting nebula of fundamental particles. I refused to give in to its demands, I would fix this myself and I would continue to move forward with myself, I would bend it to my will and free myself of the shackles I placed upon myself.

I came to a rest at the edge of its form, my feet resting on the metal gracefully and then suddenly animation returning to my form on contact. I stared up into its eyes, straining against every urge to look away, like a surgical drill burrowing its way through my skull. I felt it speak, no words or anything of the sort, a will, thoughts manifesting themselves across +my mind like a pen writing them into my Greymatter.

THIS CANNOT BE ALLOWED TO CONTINUE

There sat a silence between us for a moment and I knew it would put a stop to all of this itself if I couldn’t. This, however, was the last resort, it would obliterate everything without reason or cause, it would shatter the Tower and rend the earth itself asunder. Self-preservation was paramount and it would not allow another god, another monster to manifest as they had in the past, to threaten its dominion of this place. I stared it down with an unblinking stare, I looked up at it and yet also down at my minuscule form, torn between my own perception and its. A single faultline would have damned me, a single imperfection. However, this state, this mind, this fraction of myself had been perfected with this expressed purpose. I took a single step forward and the vacuum my mind had rested within lifted and a cool breeze washed over me. I knelt down and placed my palm against its exoskeleton, a moment later I felt the water all around me rush away as the Clockwork God began its slow ascent to the surface. Bones broke and tendons snapped, my body ripped asunder beneath the waves as the millions of liters of water rushed over me.

I struggled to my feet, willing myself to stand against the raging current, taking one slow and deliberate step forward. My right foot raised and collided with the ground with enough force to snap it in two. Everything was stripped from me, cloth, then flesh, muscle and sinew. I was laid bare against the world, washed away by rushing tides. A skeletal figure rose to Their feet, rags of cloth still clinging to them, humanoid yes, but there was something alien and otherworldly about Their structure. Longer and more slender, a cracked halo of bleached bone hovering above Their head, long pointed fingers; everything bolted together with sinews of metal. Their spine and base of Their skull either encased or built of that same twilight metal. Here was something new, someone new. I slowly collected myself, knitting myself around Their spine in a kind of embrace I couldn’t quite define. Something discordant and broken, shattered while apart, but once united were made whole, perfected, refined and balanced.

Monolith stood, I stood, alone and made whole, three beings intertwined in an impossible way, balanced and unified in all Their glory and all Their horror. The heart shattered and let run free, Gods walking this earth once again, the shackles I had placed upon myself long ago render down to little more than slag. I was free, we were free, whole and with purpose, a single purpose in mind, United and made whole; Jack Magnus Whyte walked, one of The Mayeflye, The Last Monolith.

A mortal casts aside all that shackled them to Their past,

They were no longer a child afraid of Their own shadows,

Change was afoot, Poetry and Power sang through the air,

This world heard The Immortal speak for the first time,

This world heard the first decree of the only true god left in this place,

This world heard as Monolith spoke,

“You will bring down the heavens wrath”

There was no rage or grandeur in Their voice, a clear and simple statement was made.

The earth was split asunder and The Cancer made its presence known, it knew it could not hide any longer, there was no more time to bide. Bursting from beneath the charred husk of a house I once called home, a place once at the centre of my little world, now confined to the edge of my thoughts, distant and removed, yet still ever present. A history I cannot answer to scattered to the winds, pieces of it landing in all corners of my mind, forced to the surface.

They stood atop a mantled god, They could feel the fear of The Cancer, the respect of The Clockwork God. I had vanished into the ocean of Their soul, scattered and dispersed within, the three of us all together again properly, whole and without barriers, unable to tell where we began and the other ended. We became ourselves again, even if only for a little while, we remembered who we are, who we were and who we will be. We faced our doubt as one, as the person we could never hope to be, Monolith stood in our place, built by us, yet not any of us. Human and monstrosity, great and terrible, there was nothing like this left, nobody like Monolith and nor should there ever be again. I vanished, Jack and Magnus vanished, all of us dissolved into those quite and calm tides

They were sad, They were lonely, They were without compromise and it hurt them. They had fled to this place, from everyone and everything, They did not want to face any of this, They fled and left us in Their place. Now here we stood, with the will to face thing again, just brave enough to look in the mirror again and accept how things are. We were tired, so very tired, we had done our job and now we could rest, if only for a little while. It would take time, but one day They would wake up and would never vanish again, one day, we would sleep, deep beneath the tides of time and rest easy knowing our job was done.

A deep sigh left Their lips, it had been a long time since They had opened Their weary eyes, it had been a long time since this world had seen Their soul against the backdrop of this place. They lifted an arm began to rub the sleep from Their eyes. Grey landed behind them with a cacoughanous clang, bloodied but not injured. She went to speak but was quickly silenced with a wave of Their hand. The warmth radiating from her grew colder, the fire dimmer. Ice grew from where They stood, snow falling from unseen clouds, an odd cold surrounded them. It was not unwelcoming, like the dry cold of winter snow setting in. They didn’t look at her, they simply spoke.

I can’t remember what They said, truth be told I cannot remember what Their voice sounds like anymore. She left, disappearing into the sky above, without a word but with a single crystalline tear wept by our unseen solar titan. With a snap of Their fingers the twilight sky burned as a human supernova lost her composure. They would burn away Their guilt, Their anger, everything, burn away this Cancer. She burned her memories into the fabric of this place, as space and time buckled above Them. She burned away, so much of her, all of the lies and all of the anger, she was free, if only for a little while. She fell, a star burned high above Them, a titanic thing of unimaginable rage and ferocity, burning silver against the twilight sky. It burned unlike anything They had ever seen before, she fell from it like a droplet falling from a glass. They did not move to catch her or even face her, They look out across waves towards the Cancer writhing against the oncoming assault.

She collided with a metal plate which formed part of the exoskeleton of The Clockwork God. The remnants of her body vanished as the fire was snuffed out from within her armor. Her armor charred black, cracked, bent and broken by the gravity of her long distant star. They finally turned to face what remained of her, a human form lay in the remnants of her armor. They stood over her broken and hollow form, staring down at someone new, someone old, someone They had been forgotten.

“Hello Lily”

Lily said nothing, she looked up at her long forgotten friend, and smiled at them.

“It’s been a long time old friend”

They offered her a hand, her peculiar form not too dissimilar to Theirs.

The two of them stood side by side, watching as slowly the Cancer began to burn up.

Two old friends stood side by side for one last time, casting each other side, freeing each other from their shared past.

Some time later,

Two figures were seen dancing barefoot in the sand,

Singing a song that was heard at all corners of reality,

Two old friends laughed and cried and sang by starlight,

And I can’t forget it,

As we stood tall together,

As we all stood side by side,

All my friends,

Who helped me let go,

Who made everything okay,

Who helped me put Them back together again,

Who sang by the shoreline with me,

End of Chapter 4

Chapter 5: By The Shoreline