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180 - Darkness Falls [Sturmblitz]
🕑 Added 2023-02-15 19:16:18 +0000 UTCIngvald’s near-instant arrival sowed the seed of rumor; that the Forgehand had contrived some arcane means by which to awake the titan solely to obtain the Fallen Star it had been guarding. With his pre-existing reputation as kindling, the rumor spread like a wildfire. He arrived on a sled. Not one pulled by bears, but by wooly, tusked titans, each the size of a small house. Mammoths. The sled, too, was similarly titanic in size, full-metal and built to carry the carcasses of giant monsters or entire Fallen Stars. This one was a train, however, to account for the preternatural size of this particular Fallen Star.
When Teutobochus gingerly set the meteorite down, Ingvald took a hammer and chisels to it right away. Each hammerblow was like the ring of a bell, and within minutes he had it split down the middle. Its interior glistened like silver, but at its center was a plume of metal that reflected shades not entirely of this world. Ingvald, among a few other pairs of old eyes, knew that sheen; the self-same sheen as the Revenant King’s own armour.
A manic laughter erupted from the old smith, and he chiseled the Fallen Star’s gleaming heart right out, loading it first before he took to butchering the rest of the meteorite.
While the rumour spread quickly, not all trusted in it. The absence of Zelsys Newman, despite the return of Zefaris Newman, ignited suspicion in the minds of those aligned to the conspirator clans.
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Kristina Ramdall was well aware of Zelsys Newman’s repeated fraternization with Forgehand, of her access and frequent use of the Bjorn Clan’s Primary Spring baths. She also knew of the fact she and her lover had departed alongside their protegé to, supposedly, survey a Fallen Star’s impact site.
A flame of madness burned within her, and she made her way just outside the city’s barriers, holding in hand a scrying mirror. She ignored the haggard visage that greeted her, using the residual reflection to adjust her own hair as she spoke.
“Is it ready? Good. We must go ahead with the final stage a touch early. Circumstances have forced my hand. Yes, the foreigners. Take care that there is enough collateral damage to mask our true target, will you? No, I don’t care that half your worthless clan is dead, you agreed to the criteria of my blood-bond, you don’t get a choice in the matter.”
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The crowds that had gathered to get a look at Teutobochus didn’t take too long to disperse for the moment, as the people of Oasis City had better things to do than to loiter around and stare at a living mountain. A fair few people stayed behind - some to watch, some to make artistic renderings of the truly imposing figure, and so on. None dared approach it, however, as the druids made it abundantly clear that they would be doing so at their own peril and that no blood price would be rendered for their deaths. This was only partly contradictory to the warning they had given to Zefaris; it had pertained to accountability, but not to the extent or specifics of such accountability. An idiot assaulting someone and getting killed was no grounds to pay out a blood price, and neither were the deaths of belligerents in a blood-feud.
Hadvor Stag felt unrest impending, unrest only tangentially related to the Titan’s sudden waking. Such an event was one for the sagas, it was true, but… He couldn’t shake the feeling that something truly terrible was about to happen. Or something glorious. In the three centuries of his life, he had never figured out how to differentiate. There oft wasn’t a difference besides that of perspective.
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“Do you mean to stay in there? Don’t tell me you’re stuck.”
A message from Zefaris.
Victor sent one back: “Not stuck. Making armor out of the Titan’s material. I should be done before nightfall. If it comes down to it I can just sleep in here.”
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Long had the sun set, and darkness had fallen. Victor remained within Teutobochus’ confines, perfectly willing to trade his time for a more perfect suit of armor. The output of the titan’s reactors more than sufficed to create gems of pure, solid Ignis out of whole cloth, already blended with Ossum. He had created seventeen of them.
Ingvald feverishly worked away in his smithy, preparing the Fallen Star’s heart for re-smelting and using its outer material to form the apparatus with which he would channel the magic of Huén into the Butcher’s supporting enchantments.
Unease gripped the city; Teutobochus loomed large, an overt display of power to those few who knew it was no mere reawakened automaton. Victor’s absence had not gone unnoticed, after all, and a handful of people knew how to put two and two together. Kyriak Bjorn, Gjermund Aase, Asgeir Ramdall; they all knew enough to discern that the most plausible source of Teutobochus’ sudden awakening was the red-haired casanova that Zelsys Newman called her protegé. Asgeir, of course, had no will to act, still gripped by druidic charm, but he nonetheless knew.
Many a Borean prowled the night, and many of them did so for reasons other than drink and revelry, waiting for their sign.
There, within the Crescent Jungle, a great battle already unfolded. Northlight-colored rays of death screamed into the heavens through the canopy, and soon thereafter a great beast of ebony coat emerged from the forest’s confines. Its eyes were cloudy, and burned with a berserk rage beyond all reason. Eisengeist, mightiest of sapdragons, ran rampage towards the city’s edge and smashed headfirst into the barrier. It screamed and howled, and struggled against the barrier, whilst a red-coloured dot darted back and forth around it and brought rays of northlight down upon its black hide.
Eisengeist’s Third Eye alighted with a baleful flame, and his many bladed tendrils whipped forward all at once. Again, and again, and again, he hammered upon Oasis City’s barrier, pouring a deluge of flaming sap from his maw, also scratching and biting at the barrier.
All hell broke loose thereafter, and many men donned masks and took bearded axes in hand, converging on a singular place: The longhouse of a clan disgraced, the Hulsons.
Comments
Joshy14-06
I'm pretty sure Fryg already knows, what they are planing, given that she is named after the nordic goddess of marriage, prophecy, clairvoyance and motherhood. p.s.: @Akaso Industries, is this chapter not supposed to have any tags?
Marble
Sounds like the Hulsons are about to be slaughtered. I imagine our cast will do their best to prevent that, but either way it looks like the Ramdall clan will not be the only clan purged and erased from history.
