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Scrapbeak
Super-Earth
- Joined
- Jun 18, 2024
Hello! I’ve been told time and time again that I should probably put a little more effort into my recruitment thread, in order to better reflect the caliber and scope of the writing I’m capable of. I’ll add an about me and all the usual odds and ends below, but in short: I’m looking for a few new stories! I've condensed each section into more manageable 'spoilers' so as not to offer up a giant text block. Peruse at your leisure--I'll include a format for reaching out to me at the very end. I appreciate your curiosity!
Stories:
I write genres including modern slice-of-life to medieval fantasy, and everything in between! Time travel, sci-fi, post-apocalypse or dystopia–settings are like Pokemon as far as I’m concerned, I’m keen to catch ‘em all. I dabble in dark themes and light themes, in romance and horror, in hilarity and in solemnity… I’m generally someone who mixes and matches and makes a mess, because I thrive on creativity and savor the process of weaving together a concept or idea with a writing partner! I’m down for complex plots and I’m down for simplicity–mostly I just want to get hooked by a story to the point where I can’t stop coming back for more. I’m happy to hear your ideas–or you can peruse my sample starters to see if anything jumps out at you! These long-dead stories may as well be considered vacancies, as well as displays of my writing style adapted across varying characters and situations.
I’ll add and remove these starters as suits me! If you like the character and are curious about more–or you’d like to adapt the starter–please let me know who tickled your fancy and why. I’m totally open to writing them into entirely different stories. I’ll be adding more as I go, I just wanted to finally get this thread up and running!
All of these stories are medieval fantasy, but I'll add a modern section later on. Feel free to enquire about what modern themes I enjoy, or suggest your own! When contacting me, please include your age, a kink list (or a hard no list), and a loose idea of what you think we might enjoy collaborating on together! A writing sample is mandatory. Thanks for your time, and I hope to find some excellent stories via this thread!
35, male, three possums in a trenchcoat
Near daily if not daily posts
Eager to please! Customizable characters across the board
500+ word replies. Juicy details, introspective characters, character growth and development
An emphasis on character autonomy and an understanding that writing dominance is a privilege
Friendly OoC chatter, life-comes-first attitude. Writing is supposed to be fun!
Near daily if not daily posts
Eager to please! Customizable characters across the board
500+ word replies. Juicy details, introspective characters, character growth and development
An emphasis on character autonomy and an understanding that writing dominance is a privilege
Friendly OoC chatter, life-comes-first attitude. Writing is supposed to be fun!
18 +
Posts at least once a week
Writing Samples required
Sound knowledge of grammar/spelling/spellcheck
I’m a sucker for detailed writers who know how to short-post dialogue/action scenes!
Friendly in OoC, eager to write female or femme-presenting (femboys accepted) characters
Paragraphs please. You don’t have to mirror, but keep me wanting more!
Posts at least once a week
Writing Samples required
Sound knowledge of grammar/spelling/spellcheck
I’m a sucker for detailed writers who know how to short-post dialogue/action scenes!
Friendly in OoC, eager to write female or femme-presenting (femboys accepted) characters
Paragraphs please. You don’t have to mirror, but keep me wanting more!
My kink list can be found here (NSFW)
The only mandatory kink is anal of some kind. I typically play dominant characters, but am open to writing switches–and even, rarely, submissives. While I tend toward dub-con storylines, I’m not opposed to either con or noncon–limits will always be discussed and respected prior to engaging in a story, and I typically chat in OoC prior to any particularly heavy scenes. Please present me with your own kink list, and/or a list of hard nos, as well as some form of acknowledgement about anal being required in some capacity!
Those willing to include the following kinks move immediately to the front of the line, but these aren’t requirements:
Smaller dom/larger sub
Younger male/older female
Dub con themes
‘Harem’ style stories
Interracial stories
Interspecies stories (Fantasy races, sentient beings only)
The only mandatory kink is anal of some kind. I typically play dominant characters, but am open to writing switches–and even, rarely, submissives. While I tend toward dub-con storylines, I’m not opposed to either con or noncon–limits will always be discussed and respected prior to engaging in a story, and I typically chat in OoC prior to any particularly heavy scenes. Please present me with your own kink list, and/or a list of hard nos, as well as some form of acknowledgement about anal being required in some capacity!
Those willing to include the following kinks move immediately to the front of the line, but these aren’t requirements:
Smaller dom/larger sub
Younger male/older female
Dub con themes
‘Harem’ style stories
Interracial stories
Interspecies stories (Fantasy races, sentient beings only)
Stories:
I write genres including modern slice-of-life to medieval fantasy, and everything in between! Time travel, sci-fi, post-apocalypse or dystopia–settings are like Pokemon as far as I’m concerned, I’m keen to catch ‘em all. I dabble in dark themes and light themes, in romance and horror, in hilarity and in solemnity… I’m generally someone who mixes and matches and makes a mess, because I thrive on creativity and savor the process of weaving together a concept or idea with a writing partner! I’m down for complex plots and I’m down for simplicity–mostly I just want to get hooked by a story to the point where I can’t stop coming back for more. I’m happy to hear your ideas–or you can peruse my sample starters to see if anything jumps out at you! These long-dead stories may as well be considered vacancies, as well as displays of my writing style adapted across varying characters and situations.
I’ll add and remove these starters as suits me! If you like the character and are curious about more–or you’d like to adapt the starter–please let me know who tickled your fancy and why. I’m totally open to writing them into entirely different stories. I’ll be adding more as I go, I just wanted to finally get this thread up and running!
First they’d come for the Half-Moons–a half a world away, and what seemed like a lifetime ago. They’d come in the night, and their surprise had been complete–the few survivors of the nearly exterminated tribe had spoken of abject slaughter and ruination. War-crazed, furious hunters and scouts had bayed for revenge against a foe that they could not name–for as quickly as Death had come to the Half-Moons, Death had left them.
Straight cuts. Precise strikes. Unparalleled brutality.
Of course, the Green Lands were vast, and The Thirteen were sprawled out along the foothills of them all–and in the innumerable and unrememberable histories of the greenskins that made up the thirteen tribes, the destruction of an entire group was not uncommon. War with each other, war with their human neighbors, war with the dwarves beneath the mountains–the Half-Moons had been a weak tribe, forced to the fringes of the hills where the forage and fodder was more scarce. The remnants of the Half-Moons who had been foolish enough to try and urge revenge had been easily dealt with by the stronger, more powerful warriors of the other tribes–because that was simply the way that the world worked. But then Death had come for the Red Tips…
—
…but that had been what felt like a lifetime ago, half a world away–and Onog was a different orc. Given the years and the distance they’d traveled–he knew he was not the only one. The story that had brought the tribes here was as winding and as heavy as the path they had taken–and in that time, Onog had risen and fell all at once. Wayforger, they called him. Tuskbreaker, they whispered. The first warchief to ever unite all of the thirteen–or what was left of them, anyway, by the time that each and every tribe was brought under a single banner. Still, by the time they’d finished The Slog–there’d been a whole different kind of warband at the end of their trip.
They’d come over the mountains like a green plague, and the Tribe of the Screaming Skulls had carved a new home on the ashes they’d left behind. Even the smallest of their war-ragers towered over the typical man–but it was the rare and brutish bulls like their Great Chief that struck terror in the hearts of their new foes. Their numbers seemed almost limitless–their females fought just as ferociously as their males–they did not succumb to fear or cowardice. The Tribes had become a single relentless entity–and it had raised its tusk-toothed, green-skulled banners all across the northern borders of whatever kingdom of Men their newly chosen foothills butted up against.
Their first forays into the lands of men had been mostly skirmishes, beyond ejecting any who’d tried to live in the foothills of the ‘Tusktooths’ before the Screaming Skulls had come along–and those skirmishes had been so lopsided that it had emboldened the tribal host. Soon enough, the young ones among them–restless from the Slog, eager to make names for themselves–were raiding into human lands…
…and now that it seemed the Wayforger had found his folk a new home–Onog, the Great Warchief, had grown indifferent. The great bull-wagons had halted; the warg scouts had no roads to search, the goats and the oxen were pastured…
The greenskins were restless, and they’d been getting bolder–despite their lack of purpose and their lack of banners, tensions between the kingdom of men and the orcs had only grown higher and higher. Soon enough, an emissary had come calling–and then, the scheduled promise of a gift.
A gift of magic.
That, alone, had been enough to stir Onog back into action–or action enough, at least, to cause the growing raids of the greenskinned youths to cease. In fact, the Tuskbreaker himself had come down from the foothills with a hand-picked number of his prized warriors–because the Screaming Skulls had not known magic since before they had left their first home, all those many leagues and years ago.
–
The great wagon and pitched tents that had awaited the fae at the end of her voyage in bondage were likely like nothing she–or the men who had taken her there–had ever seen before. Coarse, partially-tanned hides and leathers stitched together in mottled shades of black and brown, all stretched taut over frames composed mostly of bleached-white bone–the shapes and purposes were familiar, but their materials were foreign and strange–and far too large, right down to the three pairs of oxen that had pulled the wagon there–but the huge sizes made so much sense when the oversized accommodations were compared to the dozen brutes that had brought them down from the foothills.
A half circle of six tents, a stone ring surrounding a roaring fire–slabs of spitted meat that jutted up on wooden stakes high above it. Of course, two of the twelve had seen the group of men coming and had alerted the rest–by the time the pink-skinned band of puny little whelps had made it to their encampment, thirteen of the most veteran orcish warriors the world had ever known were arrayed out before their approach. Despite their similarities, they could not have been more distinct.
Six females, six males–each one taller and stronger than the one beside them until the concave line reached the center where the great chieftain himself stood. All of them were dressed in war paint that designated them to their various tribal lines… to the chieftain’s left was the one-eyed bull Gujjab, long spear clenched in meaty hands–tusks bared, the tips of his pointed green ears dyed red–to his right was the female, Umulg, a fierce-faced and brutal killer that hefted a stone battlehammer larger than most men’s heads.
The smallest of his honor guard was still larger than a man–and if his left hand and his right hand dwarfed men, then Onog towered over even the pair of them.
A brass ring dangled beneath the deep-green hue of his nose–a series of studded gold ran right up to the tip of his pointed left ear from where it joined his face. Strong jawed, the bull’s tusks jutted up at least two inches from either side of his near-black lips–a shade that matched the thick curls of his facial hair, curls that ran raggedly down toward his neck and up toward the sides of his ears.
Matching dark hair was tugged up into a high topknot near his scalp–one side of which was shorn down to his dark green skin. The brute at their center had to be easily eight feet in height, with shoulders twice as wide as the orcs on the far ends of the formation–his arms were bare, his chest was bare… in fact, much like his companions, the warchief was not wearing much of anything at all.
Barrel-chested pectorals flexed almost idly, as the brute hefted his steel-headed battleaxe over a shoulder and stepped forward toward the fore; a brass nipple-ring glinted in the sunlight from where it was nestled down beneath burls of coarse black hair. His broad torso narrowed powerfully down toward a muscle-studded abdomen that was disrupted by a wicked cluster of knotted near-white scar tissue on the left side–then there was a massive leather belt, from around which dangled thick strips of leather. The light armor of his pteruges seemed like the only thing he was wearing–and judging by the way his movement forward flashed the occasional peek at strips of dark-green skin beneath, the chieftain might not have even bothered with a thing beneath that.
A dark black skull with menacing tusks on a deep green banner found places at either end of the line, as well as on the central tent beyond them all–a tent that was larger still than even the others. The Great Chieftain Onog lumbered his massive form straight up to the wagon–and the huge brute actually had to crouch downward. The thick green fingers of his free hand curled around the junction of the bars to the roof of the wagon his present was conveyed to him in–and from out of an intense and masculine face, two dark brown eyes stared briefly at the creature trapped inside.
And then Onog’s nostrils flared–and he snorted.
The whole of the wagon groaned and sunk lower into the ground when Onog leaned against it–rocking the thing forward a little in the process–while the chieftain turned his attention to the puny pink-skin presenting him with this…
“...magic.”
The word rumbled from somewhere deep down in the orc’s bass vocal tones; an eyebrow curved upward, and Onog’s upper lip curled upward in a sneer of mild annoyance. He saw no magic here–but he did decide to lean back downward and peer back inside at the trapped being, while his weight was used to rock the wagon a little more.
“You. In there. Do magic.”
Straight cuts. Precise strikes. Unparalleled brutality.
Of course, the Green Lands were vast, and The Thirteen were sprawled out along the foothills of them all–and in the innumerable and unrememberable histories of the greenskins that made up the thirteen tribes, the destruction of an entire group was not uncommon. War with each other, war with their human neighbors, war with the dwarves beneath the mountains–the Half-Moons had been a weak tribe, forced to the fringes of the hills where the forage and fodder was more scarce. The remnants of the Half-Moons who had been foolish enough to try and urge revenge had been easily dealt with by the stronger, more powerful warriors of the other tribes–because that was simply the way that the world worked. But then Death had come for the Red Tips…
—
…but that had been what felt like a lifetime ago, half a world away–and Onog was a different orc. Given the years and the distance they’d traveled–he knew he was not the only one. The story that had brought the tribes here was as winding and as heavy as the path they had taken–and in that time, Onog had risen and fell all at once. Wayforger, they called him. Tuskbreaker, they whispered. The first warchief to ever unite all of the thirteen–or what was left of them, anyway, by the time that each and every tribe was brought under a single banner. Still, by the time they’d finished The Slog–there’d been a whole different kind of warband at the end of their trip.
They’d come over the mountains like a green plague, and the Tribe of the Screaming Skulls had carved a new home on the ashes they’d left behind. Even the smallest of their war-ragers towered over the typical man–but it was the rare and brutish bulls like their Great Chief that struck terror in the hearts of their new foes. Their numbers seemed almost limitless–their females fought just as ferociously as their males–they did not succumb to fear or cowardice. The Tribes had become a single relentless entity–and it had raised its tusk-toothed, green-skulled banners all across the northern borders of whatever kingdom of Men their newly chosen foothills butted up against.
Their first forays into the lands of men had been mostly skirmishes, beyond ejecting any who’d tried to live in the foothills of the ‘Tusktooths’ before the Screaming Skulls had come along–and those skirmishes had been so lopsided that it had emboldened the tribal host. Soon enough, the young ones among them–restless from the Slog, eager to make names for themselves–were raiding into human lands…
…and now that it seemed the Wayforger had found his folk a new home–Onog, the Great Warchief, had grown indifferent. The great bull-wagons had halted; the warg scouts had no roads to search, the goats and the oxen were pastured…
The greenskins were restless, and they’d been getting bolder–despite their lack of purpose and their lack of banners, tensions between the kingdom of men and the orcs had only grown higher and higher. Soon enough, an emissary had come calling–and then, the scheduled promise of a gift.
A gift of magic.
That, alone, had been enough to stir Onog back into action–or action enough, at least, to cause the growing raids of the greenskinned youths to cease. In fact, the Tuskbreaker himself had come down from the foothills with a hand-picked number of his prized warriors–because the Screaming Skulls had not known magic since before they had left their first home, all those many leagues and years ago.
–
The great wagon and pitched tents that had awaited the fae at the end of her voyage in bondage were likely like nothing she–or the men who had taken her there–had ever seen before. Coarse, partially-tanned hides and leathers stitched together in mottled shades of black and brown, all stretched taut over frames composed mostly of bleached-white bone–the shapes and purposes were familiar, but their materials were foreign and strange–and far too large, right down to the three pairs of oxen that had pulled the wagon there–but the huge sizes made so much sense when the oversized accommodations were compared to the dozen brutes that had brought them down from the foothills.
A half circle of six tents, a stone ring surrounding a roaring fire–slabs of spitted meat that jutted up on wooden stakes high above it. Of course, two of the twelve had seen the group of men coming and had alerted the rest–by the time the pink-skinned band of puny little whelps had made it to their encampment, thirteen of the most veteran orcish warriors the world had ever known were arrayed out before their approach. Despite their similarities, they could not have been more distinct.
Six females, six males–each one taller and stronger than the one beside them until the concave line reached the center where the great chieftain himself stood. All of them were dressed in war paint that designated them to their various tribal lines… to the chieftain’s left was the one-eyed bull Gujjab, long spear clenched in meaty hands–tusks bared, the tips of his pointed green ears dyed red–to his right was the female, Umulg, a fierce-faced and brutal killer that hefted a stone battlehammer larger than most men’s heads.
The smallest of his honor guard was still larger than a man–and if his left hand and his right hand dwarfed men, then Onog towered over even the pair of them.
A brass ring dangled beneath the deep-green hue of his nose–a series of studded gold ran right up to the tip of his pointed left ear from where it joined his face. Strong jawed, the bull’s tusks jutted up at least two inches from either side of his near-black lips–a shade that matched the thick curls of his facial hair, curls that ran raggedly down toward his neck and up toward the sides of his ears.
Matching dark hair was tugged up into a high topknot near his scalp–one side of which was shorn down to his dark green skin. The brute at their center had to be easily eight feet in height, with shoulders twice as wide as the orcs on the far ends of the formation–his arms were bare, his chest was bare… in fact, much like his companions, the warchief was not wearing much of anything at all.
Barrel-chested pectorals flexed almost idly, as the brute hefted his steel-headed battleaxe over a shoulder and stepped forward toward the fore; a brass nipple-ring glinted in the sunlight from where it was nestled down beneath burls of coarse black hair. His broad torso narrowed powerfully down toward a muscle-studded abdomen that was disrupted by a wicked cluster of knotted near-white scar tissue on the left side–then there was a massive leather belt, from around which dangled thick strips of leather. The light armor of his pteruges seemed like the only thing he was wearing–and judging by the way his movement forward flashed the occasional peek at strips of dark-green skin beneath, the chieftain might not have even bothered with a thing beneath that.
A dark black skull with menacing tusks on a deep green banner found places at either end of the line, as well as on the central tent beyond them all–a tent that was larger still than even the others. The Great Chieftain Onog lumbered his massive form straight up to the wagon–and the huge brute actually had to crouch downward. The thick green fingers of his free hand curled around the junction of the bars to the roof of the wagon his present was conveyed to him in–and from out of an intense and masculine face, two dark brown eyes stared briefly at the creature trapped inside.
And then Onog’s nostrils flared–and he snorted.
The whole of the wagon groaned and sunk lower into the ground when Onog leaned against it–rocking the thing forward a little in the process–while the chieftain turned his attention to the puny pink-skin presenting him with this…
“...magic.”
The word rumbled from somewhere deep down in the orc’s bass vocal tones; an eyebrow curved upward, and Onog’s upper lip curled upward in a sneer of mild annoyance. He saw no magic here–but he did decide to lean back downward and peer back inside at the trapped being, while his weight was used to rock the wagon a little more.
“You. In there. Do magic.”
Caer Luin was bored.
Certainly, three hundred years ago when the dark obelisk was incarnated, it had shared its creator’s desires exactly–because the soul shard and personality that had been engrained upon its very existence had been pulled from the magus himself. Three centuries of life had proven to be more than enough to allow for some deviation–and there were times when the fortress that touched the roots of its world had thought itself so distinctly separate from its master’s mission that they had very nearly become two distinct entities, even if they knew each other inside and out.
The dark mage Orion might have made Caer Luin in his own image and even rendered unto his creation a piece of his very essence–but the passage of time had allowed the fortress to drift away from simply mirroring every aspect of its creator. Certainly, the pair had much in common–but there were aspects that it could never understand, and there were experiences prior to its creation that only seemed like its own memories due to being so infused with the mage’s magic. It had taken three centuries of existence–but the fortress had finally determined that something different had to be done. Perhaps Orion was truly comfortable in his delusions, toiling away at an impossible task, bent upon his own destruction–
–but Caer Luin wanted to experience life. The magus had a childhood that had been interrupted; the magus had a prior romance, however fleeting and jarring it had been–but these were Orion’s memories, and not the fortress’s own. Year after year, conquest after conquest, Caer Luin sifted through the memories and consumed magic of some of the darkest minds that the Spheres and Planes had to offer–detangling the webs of memory and magic, discerning the use of spells from the mundane to the obscene, deconstructing the effects of dark magic on countless corrupted beings–
–and yet, it had little to no experiences of its own, no revelries of its own–and little to no use for the vast library of the spells, hexes, curses, and cantrips that it had gleaned from such obscene and often taboo research. Perhaps that was why, of all the strands of darkness that coiled across the spaces between existences, Caer Luin had seized onto Hers.
Shifting and traveling between planes of existence was an exposed and dangerous process, even for those beings that had the most experience with it. It was often taken for granted by such beings–Orion himself had thought the same, when he had learned to do such actions–that it was a private affair; hubris and exclusion were rife among the echelons of magicians who were capable of such powerful and transformative feats. Those that could slip between worlds did not often think themselves capable of being made vulnerable at all–why would they ever imagine that they could be seen on these voyages, much less entirely diverted from their original course without their consent, or even their knowledge, before the summons were completed?
After over a hundred years of pulling life from the ether of the in-between, Orion seldom questioned his home’s chosen targets–and what is more, the reclusive mage rarely chose to travel the planes himself. After their own discoveries on the various vulnerabilities of such types of travel–as well as the plethora of dark beings that used them–the dark mage had thought it better to keep to his own studies; should he have a need to, he could have always combed through Caer Luin’s innermost thoughts–something that he would undoubtedly do immediately after this summons was completed. The targets that were brought to Orion’s own world–into the sacred halls of his own home–were targets that should have been met with immediate and summary execution for their corruption; this time, though, what Caer Luin had brought to their rune-laden, sigil-circled, well-protected ritual room was a being like which the magus had never dealt with before–and whether he would admit to that fact or not, Orion recognized that immediately.
–
Transference wasn’t supposed to be cold.
It was the first and only sign that something was wrong–an inflection of the environs that the demon would find herself in, emerging from her transportation spell into the wrong world and in the wrong place. The place in which she emerged wasn’t just exquisitely and exceptionally crafted–it was also painstakingly and minutely perfected in a manner designed to hold beings just like herself. Ancient runes of power lined in smoldering blue faefire etched into the circular walls and floor of the obsidian chamber. Sigils and signs, wards and circles, protection spells from dozens of different schools of the arcane–and even some combinations, fusions of spells designed to mute magic, to dispel power, to break the capacity to even remember casting in the first place–Caer Luin’s ritual scrying chamber was as fantastic as it was terrible; vicious and cruel in its design in a manner that was both elegant and well thought out and primal and uncaring about whatever it snared in its trap. How many beings had been held in the lowest elevation of the step-tiered rune circle just as she was, to await their judgement from the spectre of death on the raised dias before her?
The center of the frigid chamber was ten full feet lower than its highest point, with three large three and a third foot raises of elevation to its highest level; each three foot wide platform-like step was inscribed with heavy and potent magics. The ceiling was an inverse creation; high above the demon’s head, the circular indentation she found herself in was mirrored in dragonglass and fae fire, lined with even more runes as the ceiling stepped downward, giving the whole of the obsidian chamber the disjointed effect of a six-tiered biconeal shape–spacious and claustrophobic all at once. Of course, that was by design–along with the overwhelming pressure of the warding runes and the abyssal and sudden existence of an impossibly powerful and ordered darkness strong enough to knit the whole of the place together. There was a rhythm to the chamber–there was a pulsing, living darkness–a heartbeat–
And then there was him.
The six-and-a-few inches tall figure was garbed and accented in a manner that Orion found most efficient for these sorts of exchanges–primarily formed by attire that he rarely deviated from. A hood and cloak and robes of jet black darkness, stitched together from the same pure magic that pulsed in the obsidian walls of the blue-lit chamber; the dark hood tugged up and over a humanoid shaped head casting the place where a face should be in almost pure shadow, marred only by two unblinking silver irises that shined with an uncanny and uncomfortable intensity from out of the darkness. Wide shouldered, narrow hipped, most of his figure obscured by his flowing wardrobe–and the billowing furls of black-purple smoke that curled and coiled around his physique, lending even more ethereal and mysterious energies to his personification of Death. Crackling energy pooled darkly in that coiling, roping, dissipating-and-reforming smoke–blurring the edges of him, blurring the lines of his too-dark clothing, eating away at the lines of blue light that came from the faefire runes inscribed on the chamber wall behind him. The only sign that the being before her was actually alive were the measured puffs of frosted breath that he expelled from the low bottom of the hood; the chamber was frigid enough that the humidity of his lungs could be seen, as rhythmic and ordered as the magic that flowed through the whole of the place.
For the mage’s part, he hid his surprise quite well. Usually, the chamber magnified the sins and injustices of those that were brought into it; usually, the drive to consume their magic and rend them into nonexistence, a drive that was imprinted on Orion’s very psyche, was almost irresistible.
This time, something was different.
“...You are not what I expected,” the magus intoned rather dryly–his tenor voice carrying strains of imperiously regal impatience, like the being he had summoned into his presence had done something wrong by defying his expectations.
The beings that Caer Luin summoned him were typically heavily corrupted by dark magic. Oftentimes, that meant that they were mutated–grotesque, bloated, decaying, diseased–the magus had seen it all, and was familiar with guarding himself against the shock of how vile dark magic could warp and twist a being and unnaturally keep it alive when it should have no business still drawing breath.
Certainly, three hundred years ago when the dark obelisk was incarnated, it had shared its creator’s desires exactly–because the soul shard and personality that had been engrained upon its very existence had been pulled from the magus himself. Three centuries of life had proven to be more than enough to allow for some deviation–and there were times when the fortress that touched the roots of its world had thought itself so distinctly separate from its master’s mission that they had very nearly become two distinct entities, even if they knew each other inside and out.
The dark mage Orion might have made Caer Luin in his own image and even rendered unto his creation a piece of his very essence–but the passage of time had allowed the fortress to drift away from simply mirroring every aspect of its creator. Certainly, the pair had much in common–but there were aspects that it could never understand, and there were experiences prior to its creation that only seemed like its own memories due to being so infused with the mage’s magic. It had taken three centuries of existence–but the fortress had finally determined that something different had to be done. Perhaps Orion was truly comfortable in his delusions, toiling away at an impossible task, bent upon his own destruction–
–but Caer Luin wanted to experience life. The magus had a childhood that had been interrupted; the magus had a prior romance, however fleeting and jarring it had been–but these were Orion’s memories, and not the fortress’s own. Year after year, conquest after conquest, Caer Luin sifted through the memories and consumed magic of some of the darkest minds that the Spheres and Planes had to offer–detangling the webs of memory and magic, discerning the use of spells from the mundane to the obscene, deconstructing the effects of dark magic on countless corrupted beings–
–and yet, it had little to no experiences of its own, no revelries of its own–and little to no use for the vast library of the spells, hexes, curses, and cantrips that it had gleaned from such obscene and often taboo research. Perhaps that was why, of all the strands of darkness that coiled across the spaces between existences, Caer Luin had seized onto Hers.
Shifting and traveling between planes of existence was an exposed and dangerous process, even for those beings that had the most experience with it. It was often taken for granted by such beings–Orion himself had thought the same, when he had learned to do such actions–that it was a private affair; hubris and exclusion were rife among the echelons of magicians who were capable of such powerful and transformative feats. Those that could slip between worlds did not often think themselves capable of being made vulnerable at all–why would they ever imagine that they could be seen on these voyages, much less entirely diverted from their original course without their consent, or even their knowledge, before the summons were completed?
After over a hundred years of pulling life from the ether of the in-between, Orion seldom questioned his home’s chosen targets–and what is more, the reclusive mage rarely chose to travel the planes himself. After their own discoveries on the various vulnerabilities of such types of travel–as well as the plethora of dark beings that used them–the dark mage had thought it better to keep to his own studies; should he have a need to, he could have always combed through Caer Luin’s innermost thoughts–something that he would undoubtedly do immediately after this summons was completed. The targets that were brought to Orion’s own world–into the sacred halls of his own home–were targets that should have been met with immediate and summary execution for their corruption; this time, though, what Caer Luin had brought to their rune-laden, sigil-circled, well-protected ritual room was a being like which the magus had never dealt with before–and whether he would admit to that fact or not, Orion recognized that immediately.
–
Transference wasn’t supposed to be cold.
It was the first and only sign that something was wrong–an inflection of the environs that the demon would find herself in, emerging from her transportation spell into the wrong world and in the wrong place. The place in which she emerged wasn’t just exquisitely and exceptionally crafted–it was also painstakingly and minutely perfected in a manner designed to hold beings just like herself. Ancient runes of power lined in smoldering blue faefire etched into the circular walls and floor of the obsidian chamber. Sigils and signs, wards and circles, protection spells from dozens of different schools of the arcane–and even some combinations, fusions of spells designed to mute magic, to dispel power, to break the capacity to even remember casting in the first place–Caer Luin’s ritual scrying chamber was as fantastic as it was terrible; vicious and cruel in its design in a manner that was both elegant and well thought out and primal and uncaring about whatever it snared in its trap. How many beings had been held in the lowest elevation of the step-tiered rune circle just as she was, to await their judgement from the spectre of death on the raised dias before her?
The center of the frigid chamber was ten full feet lower than its highest point, with three large three and a third foot raises of elevation to its highest level; each three foot wide platform-like step was inscribed with heavy and potent magics. The ceiling was an inverse creation; high above the demon’s head, the circular indentation she found herself in was mirrored in dragonglass and fae fire, lined with even more runes as the ceiling stepped downward, giving the whole of the obsidian chamber the disjointed effect of a six-tiered biconeal shape–spacious and claustrophobic all at once. Of course, that was by design–along with the overwhelming pressure of the warding runes and the abyssal and sudden existence of an impossibly powerful and ordered darkness strong enough to knit the whole of the place together. There was a rhythm to the chamber–there was a pulsing, living darkness–a heartbeat–
And then there was him.
The six-and-a-few inches tall figure was garbed and accented in a manner that Orion found most efficient for these sorts of exchanges–primarily formed by attire that he rarely deviated from. A hood and cloak and robes of jet black darkness, stitched together from the same pure magic that pulsed in the obsidian walls of the blue-lit chamber; the dark hood tugged up and over a humanoid shaped head casting the place where a face should be in almost pure shadow, marred only by two unblinking silver irises that shined with an uncanny and uncomfortable intensity from out of the darkness. Wide shouldered, narrow hipped, most of his figure obscured by his flowing wardrobe–and the billowing furls of black-purple smoke that curled and coiled around his physique, lending even more ethereal and mysterious energies to his personification of Death. Crackling energy pooled darkly in that coiling, roping, dissipating-and-reforming smoke–blurring the edges of him, blurring the lines of his too-dark clothing, eating away at the lines of blue light that came from the faefire runes inscribed on the chamber wall behind him. The only sign that the being before her was actually alive were the measured puffs of frosted breath that he expelled from the low bottom of the hood; the chamber was frigid enough that the humidity of his lungs could be seen, as rhythmic and ordered as the magic that flowed through the whole of the place.
For the mage’s part, he hid his surprise quite well. Usually, the chamber magnified the sins and injustices of those that were brought into it; usually, the drive to consume their magic and rend them into nonexistence, a drive that was imprinted on Orion’s very psyche, was almost irresistible.
This time, something was different.
“...You are not what I expected,” the magus intoned rather dryly–his tenor voice carrying strains of imperiously regal impatience, like the being he had summoned into his presence had done something wrong by defying his expectations.
The beings that Caer Luin summoned him were typically heavily corrupted by dark magic. Oftentimes, that meant that they were mutated–grotesque, bloated, decaying, diseased–the magus had seen it all, and was familiar with guarding himself against the shock of how vile dark magic could warp and twist a being and unnaturally keep it alive when it should have no business still drawing breath.
“Veraino! Veraino Vertelli Veriscemo! You come out here this instant, young man!”
The serenity of the balmy sea-side air of the cay island the youth called home was shattered loudly enough for even the seagulls to quiet down–that’s when he knew he was in trouble. The aforementioned Veraino winced hard as his pale finger jabbed even more rapidly at the white sand–carving erratic lines in the beach with the impetus speed only a mischievous young man who’d just been caught could manage.
Mother was angry--he’d never heard her yell like that before. He’d just been trying to help! How many times had he heard her say she’d wanted a window in their home?
The squat little stone-and-thatch hut he’d grown up in had felt smaller and smaller every passing year–and this time, as he swept the week’s rushes off of the compacted earth floor, he’d gotten a sudden inspiration to finally put in that window Mother had always lamented over the lack of. Stone was, after all, just another figment of earth–and it was his second-best element. He hadn’t even consulted the singular old tome of magic he kept hidden under his straw mattress–no, when the urge seized him, Veraino considered himself a man of action. He’d squared his lithe shoulders, pointed both palms at the nearest wall–and the surge of wild magic that erupted from his fingers blasted a significant (irregular) hole, launching stone shrapnel clear across the half-a-league distance toward the sea with force enough to send some of it skipping across the low-tide salt water. If he had noticed that part, he might’ve been impressed–but he was too busy staring at the side effect his untrained use of magic had produced.
The thatch roof’s supporting beams groaned, and twisted, and then cracked–bundles of thatch and the accompanying dust rained freely down on his fresh-swept floor–because the wall that had been supporting it had launched itself upward. Upward, outward, inward–the once-manageable stones, none larger than a melon, were swelling and expanding like they were living things–soon enough the window he’d made was above his head–the rocks only stopped growing once the wall had sprouted up to three times its previous size, once the smallest piece of the thing looked like it was a boulder laid down by giants.
He’d scrambled away from there–luckily, the door had been on the wall opposite his new creation–and Veraino was trying his best to forget the un-masculine yelping noise he’d offered when his magic went awry–when he realized that Mother would never forgive him–and she was due home any moment. It was only then he’d scrambled back into action.
His haversack was already stuffed with the things he thought he needed–empty vials, a rope, a small knife, an iron skillet, a change of clothing–he grabbed a wheel of cheese and then bolted out the door, slinging the brown leather pack over his fancy silk tunic. By the time he’d sprinted his tall, angular form to the beach, he heard Mother shouting–
–and then *he* was shouting, book upraised in both his palms. ‘Harpell’s Spells for Beginners’ was a book that he’d gotten from Mother a long time ago–its pages were swollen, its binding cracked, and he’d written in nearly all the margins. As he chanted, the sea breeze picked up around him–ruffling through his brilliantly red hair, spinning sand up toward his eyes–Veraino could feel the magic tugging at his green-and-black-checkered long sleeves, snapping and crackling around his long fingertips. He didn’t even remember the words–he didn’t feel like he was in control–all he remembered was the buzzing sensation, the way all of the hairs on his body stood up, the brilliant blindingness of the lightning that crashed down on him… The effects of his poorly-thought out spell were so strange that the heavy tingling turned into an ocean spray, like the young redhead had been standing on the dockside in the middle of a storm.
…–and the heavy, sea-salt scented breeze that he seemed to pop out of, a great gust strong enough that he couldn’t find his feet in time.
The Winds of Fate were supposed to bring him to wherever he was needed most in the world, at that very moment–and they were also supposed to help him find **love**. The poor youth’s fair, pale face flushed a deep and dark red, a crimson that masked his freckles and crept up into his ears beneath his mussed-up, slightly-too-long red hair–he’d fantasized countless times about this, and teleporting into existence potentially in sight of his future soulmate and then immediately being shoved over by the wind he’d come in on wasn’t nearly as heroic as he’d wished.
Six feet tall, his slender frame sprawled out on whatever surface he’d landed with enough force to take the wind out of him–and to cause his haversack to spill open. Bizarrely, a wheel of yellow cheese rolled out of the bag–followed by an ill-weighted skillet, which only made it as far as sliding down the back of the pale youth’s neck and settling against the base of his skull, tucked right up to his shaggy hair. His fancy silk tunic and his fancier black trousers, his expensive-looking leather shoes–everything he wore had still been still speckled with thatch dust, and the soaked nature of his clothing was turning it quickly into a grimy film. Worst of all, though–Veraino felt the way that his cleverly-sewn buttons had torn free from the violence of his teleportation–from his defined and fair-skinned collarbone all the way to the trio of looped-in buttons that guarded the modesty of the front of his trousers.
Thank goodness, he thought dazedly, that he had landed flat on his face.
The serenity of the balmy sea-side air of the cay island the youth called home was shattered loudly enough for even the seagulls to quiet down–that’s when he knew he was in trouble. The aforementioned Veraino winced hard as his pale finger jabbed even more rapidly at the white sand–carving erratic lines in the beach with the impetus speed only a mischievous young man who’d just been caught could manage.
Mother was angry--he’d never heard her yell like that before. He’d just been trying to help! How many times had he heard her say she’d wanted a window in their home?
The squat little stone-and-thatch hut he’d grown up in had felt smaller and smaller every passing year–and this time, as he swept the week’s rushes off of the compacted earth floor, he’d gotten a sudden inspiration to finally put in that window Mother had always lamented over the lack of. Stone was, after all, just another figment of earth–and it was his second-best element. He hadn’t even consulted the singular old tome of magic he kept hidden under his straw mattress–no, when the urge seized him, Veraino considered himself a man of action. He’d squared his lithe shoulders, pointed both palms at the nearest wall–and the surge of wild magic that erupted from his fingers blasted a significant (irregular) hole, launching stone shrapnel clear across the half-a-league distance toward the sea with force enough to send some of it skipping across the low-tide salt water. If he had noticed that part, he might’ve been impressed–but he was too busy staring at the side effect his untrained use of magic had produced.
The thatch roof’s supporting beams groaned, and twisted, and then cracked–bundles of thatch and the accompanying dust rained freely down on his fresh-swept floor–because the wall that had been supporting it had launched itself upward. Upward, outward, inward–the once-manageable stones, none larger than a melon, were swelling and expanding like they were living things–soon enough the window he’d made was above his head–the rocks only stopped growing once the wall had sprouted up to three times its previous size, once the smallest piece of the thing looked like it was a boulder laid down by giants.
He’d scrambled away from there–luckily, the door had been on the wall opposite his new creation–and Veraino was trying his best to forget the un-masculine yelping noise he’d offered when his magic went awry–when he realized that Mother would never forgive him–and she was due home any moment. It was only then he’d scrambled back into action.
His haversack was already stuffed with the things he thought he needed–empty vials, a rope, a small knife, an iron skillet, a change of clothing–he grabbed a wheel of cheese and then bolted out the door, slinging the brown leather pack over his fancy silk tunic. By the time he’d sprinted his tall, angular form to the beach, he heard Mother shouting–
–and then *he* was shouting, book upraised in both his palms. ‘Harpell’s Spells for Beginners’ was a book that he’d gotten from Mother a long time ago–its pages were swollen, its binding cracked, and he’d written in nearly all the margins. As he chanted, the sea breeze picked up around him–ruffling through his brilliantly red hair, spinning sand up toward his eyes–Veraino could feel the magic tugging at his green-and-black-checkered long sleeves, snapping and crackling around his long fingertips. He didn’t even remember the words–he didn’t feel like he was in control–all he remembered was the buzzing sensation, the way all of the hairs on his body stood up, the brilliant blindingness of the lightning that crashed down on him… The effects of his poorly-thought out spell were so strange that the heavy tingling turned into an ocean spray, like the young redhead had been standing on the dockside in the middle of a storm.
…–and the heavy, sea-salt scented breeze that he seemed to pop out of, a great gust strong enough that he couldn’t find his feet in time.
The Winds of Fate were supposed to bring him to wherever he was needed most in the world, at that very moment–and they were also supposed to help him find **love**. The poor youth’s fair, pale face flushed a deep and dark red, a crimson that masked his freckles and crept up into his ears beneath his mussed-up, slightly-too-long red hair–he’d fantasized countless times about this, and teleporting into existence potentially in sight of his future soulmate and then immediately being shoved over by the wind he’d come in on wasn’t nearly as heroic as he’d wished.
Six feet tall, his slender frame sprawled out on whatever surface he’d landed with enough force to take the wind out of him–and to cause his haversack to spill open. Bizarrely, a wheel of yellow cheese rolled out of the bag–followed by an ill-weighted skillet, which only made it as far as sliding down the back of the pale youth’s neck and settling against the base of his skull, tucked right up to his shaggy hair. His fancy silk tunic and his fancier black trousers, his expensive-looking leather shoes–everything he wore had still been still speckled with thatch dust, and the soaked nature of his clothing was turning it quickly into a grimy film. Worst of all, though–Veraino felt the way that his cleverly-sewn buttons had torn free from the violence of his teleportation–from his defined and fair-skinned collarbone all the way to the trio of looped-in buttons that guarded the modesty of the front of his trousers.
Thank goodness, he thought dazedly, that he had landed flat on his face.
The Sellsword’s Circumstances
Aetho Fallows was not the sort of man who grew accustomed to being on his own easily. Even now, with two years of solitude under his belt, the sellsword still missed the comforts of a larger encampment–because for thirty three years, it had been all he had known. A bubbling stew pot hoisted up over a communal fire; the steadily shifting noises of men living their lives just a few paces from each other, amidst the carefully ordered rows of multi-colored tents, each placed with near ceremonial efficiency. No matter the land around them–desert, field, forest, or valley–no matter the tongue of the locals, their customs, their culture, or their coin–the Golden Spear Company’s camp had always been the same.
And Aetho had worked his way through the camp from the slum-side to near the center, in the time he’d spent committed to the cause of the mercenary band… but that had been two years ago. Now, the captain was his own commander–with just his horse for company.
—
It wasn’t often that Aetho allowed himself a late start, but he was in between employers–a full coin purse and an even more full belly had lent him some languishing comforts. He’d awoken in the pre-dawn mist, still unused to the near-unnatural humidity of these parts–but Aetho was well traveled enough to take the stuff in stride. What he couldn’t handle was the steady, dull ache behind his temples and thrumming like a drum at the back of his eyes–the last town he’d passed through, Davensborough, had sold spirits at a cheaper fare than ale. At the time, he’d thought that to be quite a bargain–but wakening after his evening’s libation had proven itself to be a tedious process, one that he’d taken to performing slowly. The grizzled veteran hadn’t even bothered with a tent–just a low-raked campfire, embers still glowing, banked close to the side of a tree that was opposite the road he’d been taking. As was his custom, he camped light and quiet–unrolling his bedroll as he pleased, keeping a healthy half a league between himself and the dirt path he’d been traveling on. Supposedly, it led to a place called ‘Greensfield’--a larger place, a place where a man with his skills might find some work.
The truth was, Aetho just liked to keep his feet busy.
Striking camp was a process he knew by heart at this point, even when hungover. The chill in the air was helpful; by the time the sun was cresting the treeline across the dirt path, the burly, salt-of-the-earth spearman was rolling up his bedroll and stomping out his embers. Breakfast would be cold–jerked venison, hard-baked bread, and water–
–but it came on the road, after he’d secured all his supplies, most of which were already nearby. Aetho’s saddle was also his pillow, after all, and his pack was too valuable to not keep close at hand–suspended up in the boughs of the tree he’d camped near, to keep it safe from animals and thieves alike. The clever knotwork he’d done to secure it was quickly undone–the man’s huge, callused fingers proving more nimble than most expected, though it wasn’t often Aetho was underestimated. A man his size and strength was almost always considered to be formidable, after all, even if he’d been untrained–but Aetho’s whole demeanor and dress screamed of militarism. The few men who’d underestimated his dexterity due to his size, though, were long-dead fools–bones left to bleach on some battlefield or another, hundreds of leagues away.
Six and a half feet tall and sturdier than two men side-by-side, Aetho had thrived as a mercenary–until, abruptly, he hadn’t. His broad shoulders were made to carry armor and pack alike, equally as important; his tireless legs could devour league after league and then commit to the brace-and-shove of the shielded phalanx–and his long, brawny arms and brute-like, powerful core musculature reach and strength enough to cause many lives to end on the tip of his spear thrust. Aetho might have left the Golden Spears behind, but his time with the company would never leave him; one of the first things he did in the morning was unbury his bronze-plated aspis https://peterperlegasart.com/cdn/shop/products/COBRASHIELD_3965x.jpg?v=1631392800 from the brush he’d hidden it’s twin-serpent design beneath and check to see that his seven and a half foot spear was still tucked up against the tree where he’d left it, the broad-leafed spearhead nestled high among the branches.
A spear and a shield was uncommonly used by a single individual in combat–but that, in Aetho’s more recent experiences, had only ever served to give him an edge. The shield’s bronze plating was pock-marked, dented, and slitted open in places to the sturdy timber beneath–but he’d not found a smith he thought capable of refitting it, and the truth was that Aetho was loathe to remove the plating that designated his unit’s sigil. He’d been a captain, once, after all; his blood and sweat had earned him his own crest, and the twenty four men beneath him besides… even if those two years seemed like a lifetime ago.
Of course, his pteruges were another story entirely. He’d had to have the thing worked over several times already–the bronze-painted metal replaced with patches of plain silver in several places where it had saved his skin–or slowed a blow–and the leather straps dangling down his thighs, once all uniform, varying in length and width and make. Despite its piecemeal appearance, Aetho had taken great care to keep his weapons and armor oiled and in good repair; he felt naked without the constricting partially-plate, mostly-scale armor on top of his massive frame, and once the region was secure, putting it on himself was the first task of the morning. The simple cloth tunic that went beneath didn’t offer any real protection at all–and the carefully wrapped loincloth about his narrow, powerful hips was laughable, and a custom that was not used at all in the part of the world he was in–as he’d discovered many times. Aetho did have pants and other casual clothing in his pack–but when on the road, he dressed as he was used to. He liked his legs bare; on hot days, he was known to strip out of the loin cloth altogether, with just the straps of the pteruges covering him, so he could enjoy the breeze.
Simple sandals were enough for him, their lashings wrapped high up to his knees to ensure they stayed secure; Aetho’s confidence in his spear and shield were complete, and he did not feel the need to encase himself entirely in metal like less confident men. His thick, meaty legs–dusted with dark brown curls–were tanned and strong–and pocked with occasional scarring; his bare arms were much the same, though that’s where the black ink began. Several tattoos marked him as a sellsword and told his story; his dominant arm, the right, was entirely sleeved with ink, a myriad of designs that seemed to blend together at a distance.
Soon enough–after checking that his dark brown hair was braided back over the nape of his neck and down toward his shoulders–the hulking form of the thirty-five year old sellsword set his green eyes toward the next task.
Finding his fucking horse.
Aetho Fallows was not the sort of man who grew accustomed to being on his own easily. Even now, with two years of solitude under his belt, the sellsword still missed the comforts of a larger encampment–because for thirty three years, it had been all he had known. A bubbling stew pot hoisted up over a communal fire; the steadily shifting noises of men living their lives just a few paces from each other, amidst the carefully ordered rows of multi-colored tents, each placed with near ceremonial efficiency. No matter the land around them–desert, field, forest, or valley–no matter the tongue of the locals, their customs, their culture, or their coin–the Golden Spear Company’s camp had always been the same.
And Aetho had worked his way through the camp from the slum-side to near the center, in the time he’d spent committed to the cause of the mercenary band… but that had been two years ago. Now, the captain was his own commander–with just his horse for company.
—
It wasn’t often that Aetho allowed himself a late start, but he was in between employers–a full coin purse and an even more full belly had lent him some languishing comforts. He’d awoken in the pre-dawn mist, still unused to the near-unnatural humidity of these parts–but Aetho was well traveled enough to take the stuff in stride. What he couldn’t handle was the steady, dull ache behind his temples and thrumming like a drum at the back of his eyes–the last town he’d passed through, Davensborough, had sold spirits at a cheaper fare than ale. At the time, he’d thought that to be quite a bargain–but wakening after his evening’s libation had proven itself to be a tedious process, one that he’d taken to performing slowly. The grizzled veteran hadn’t even bothered with a tent–just a low-raked campfire, embers still glowing, banked close to the side of a tree that was opposite the road he’d been taking. As was his custom, he camped light and quiet–unrolling his bedroll as he pleased, keeping a healthy half a league between himself and the dirt path he’d been traveling on. Supposedly, it led to a place called ‘Greensfield’--a larger place, a place where a man with his skills might find some work.
The truth was, Aetho just liked to keep his feet busy.
Striking camp was a process he knew by heart at this point, even when hungover. The chill in the air was helpful; by the time the sun was cresting the treeline across the dirt path, the burly, salt-of-the-earth spearman was rolling up his bedroll and stomping out his embers. Breakfast would be cold–jerked venison, hard-baked bread, and water–
–but it came on the road, after he’d secured all his supplies, most of which were already nearby. Aetho’s saddle was also his pillow, after all, and his pack was too valuable to not keep close at hand–suspended up in the boughs of the tree he’d camped near, to keep it safe from animals and thieves alike. The clever knotwork he’d done to secure it was quickly undone–the man’s huge, callused fingers proving more nimble than most expected, though it wasn’t often Aetho was underestimated. A man his size and strength was almost always considered to be formidable, after all, even if he’d been untrained–but Aetho’s whole demeanor and dress screamed of militarism. The few men who’d underestimated his dexterity due to his size, though, were long-dead fools–bones left to bleach on some battlefield or another, hundreds of leagues away.
Six and a half feet tall and sturdier than two men side-by-side, Aetho had thrived as a mercenary–until, abruptly, he hadn’t. His broad shoulders were made to carry armor and pack alike, equally as important; his tireless legs could devour league after league and then commit to the brace-and-shove of the shielded phalanx–and his long, brawny arms and brute-like, powerful core musculature reach and strength enough to cause many lives to end on the tip of his spear thrust. Aetho might have left the Golden Spears behind, but his time with the company would never leave him; one of the first things he did in the morning was unbury his bronze-plated aspis https://peterperlegasart.com/cdn/shop/products/COBRASHIELD_3965x.jpg?v=1631392800 from the brush he’d hidden it’s twin-serpent design beneath and check to see that his seven and a half foot spear was still tucked up against the tree where he’d left it, the broad-leafed spearhead nestled high among the branches.
A spear and a shield was uncommonly used by a single individual in combat–but that, in Aetho’s more recent experiences, had only ever served to give him an edge. The shield’s bronze plating was pock-marked, dented, and slitted open in places to the sturdy timber beneath–but he’d not found a smith he thought capable of refitting it, and the truth was that Aetho was loathe to remove the plating that designated his unit’s sigil. He’d been a captain, once, after all; his blood and sweat had earned him his own crest, and the twenty four men beneath him besides… even if those two years seemed like a lifetime ago.
Of course, his pteruges were another story entirely. He’d had to have the thing worked over several times already–the bronze-painted metal replaced with patches of plain silver in several places where it had saved his skin–or slowed a blow–and the leather straps dangling down his thighs, once all uniform, varying in length and width and make. Despite its piecemeal appearance, Aetho had taken great care to keep his weapons and armor oiled and in good repair; he felt naked without the constricting partially-plate, mostly-scale armor on top of his massive frame, and once the region was secure, putting it on himself was the first task of the morning. The simple cloth tunic that went beneath didn’t offer any real protection at all–and the carefully wrapped loincloth about his narrow, powerful hips was laughable, and a custom that was not used at all in the part of the world he was in–as he’d discovered many times. Aetho did have pants and other casual clothing in his pack–but when on the road, he dressed as he was used to. He liked his legs bare; on hot days, he was known to strip out of the loin cloth altogether, with just the straps of the pteruges covering him, so he could enjoy the breeze.
Simple sandals were enough for him, their lashings wrapped high up to his knees to ensure they stayed secure; Aetho’s confidence in his spear and shield were complete, and he did not feel the need to encase himself entirely in metal like less confident men. His thick, meaty legs–dusted with dark brown curls–were tanned and strong–and pocked with occasional scarring; his bare arms were much the same, though that’s where the black ink began. Several tattoos marked him as a sellsword and told his story; his dominant arm, the right, was entirely sleeved with ink, a myriad of designs that seemed to blend together at a distance.
Soon enough–after checking that his dark brown hair was braided back over the nape of his neck and down toward his shoulders–the hulking form of the thirty-five year old sellsword set his green eyes toward the next task.
Finding his fucking horse.
The WarChief’s Captive
The invaders had come down from the North.
The foreboding peaks that ridged the northern lands were often considered by two different peoples to be the very edge of the world; when it came to one culture, going beyond was fruitless–a treacherous passage into a barren, frigid wasteland, a place that was told to be inhabited by monsters and even more monstrous folk by the few stories that trickled down through time.
To the other–the journey south was just a waste of time.
The People had enough rivalries to make their names and cut their teeth–survival and skill were honed against hardness and only dulled themselves in prosperity. Beyond the occasional roving band of raiders, that was just the way of things–until a few years of escalation should have told those soft folk to the south that it wasn’t the way of things any longer. First, the raiding bands escalated; clusters of disorganized half-giant foreigners with their stone weapons and furs, trekking more and more boldly south, seizing what they could. Grains, timber, iron, steel–these youthful groups grew larger and more frequent, delving deeper into the unknown underbelly of a kingdom of horn-having, tailed beings often a full head and shoulders shorter than their attackers. Over several years, the number and frequency of these foreign incursions increased more and more–
–and then, abruptly, they stopped. A single year passed by without hide or hair of any of the rampaging barbarians crossing the mountains–until, of course, the winter came. With the first snows, almost like it had been planned, the yurts of The Warband seemed to spring into existence all along the foothills of the northlands. Where the raiders had been fresh-faced, ill-equipped, untrained youths–this band of foes were the opposite. Experienced, organized, tasked together even when sent out into small parties–tattooed, war painted, hefting far more steel in their ranks, with towering statures and ferocious countenances. The invaders swept down from the foothills and decimated the frontier towns–but instead of burning a few holdfasts and turning back–this time? They pushed deeper.
The battle reports and survivor accounts nearly all spoke of some sort of near-giant brute at their head–far too tall, far too powerful, far too imposing to be anything short of some sort of beast given a vaguely human form. Dual headed axes that were larger on one side than a person’s head; muscles like a bull or an ox that had spent a lifetime beneath a heavy yolk, a countenance that inspired terror before the first blow even fell. This Warchief led from the front in battle, and his folk around him fought in a frenzy the likes of which had never been seen before–unpredictable, in a rage, heedless of danger, quick to recover from wounding.
It didn’t take long for the full might of both realms to clash on the battlefield–an armed and organized resistance that outnumbered the invaders, the sort of force that should have been able to turn the attackers back.
They had not.
—
Antimalldo’s War Camp was like nothing the lands south of the mountains had ever seen. Great, circular, tent-like yurts–composed primarily of bone supports and layers of stretched hide–pinwheeled around the center of it in a spiral pattern that blocked any semblance of ease of travel. The captives were woven through the curved encampment, headed by the brutish guards and their experienced feet. As the spiral shrank in on itself, the yurts grew larger and more impressive; by the time the train of prisoners had reached its center, the constructions were vast things indeed, each a pavilion to its own right.
The Bone Hall at the core of the War Camp was a savage sort of wonder.
Pillars of bone–arching ribs, stacked spinal cords, tusks–sometimes lashed together, often standing alone at two or three times a normal being’s height–supported a lavishly fur-walled structure that almost gave a castle hall a justifiable comparison in size. A half dozen campfires burned in an elongated courtyard, fenced on two sides with fur walls; dozens of fur-clad savages, brutish and jovial and angry all at once, celebrated and fought and divided spoils. A well-worn path in the earth led the captured toward the two wide banks of furs that comprised the far wall of the chamber; the top of the great yurt was at least seven feet higher than the rest of the camp, a testament to its owner’s authority and command.
The War Chief was on his throne.
The throne itself was nearly as gristly and ominous as the beast who sat atop it. Humanoid skull bone, curved and white, peeked out in places from beneath a simple fur-lined seat; the thing was wide and tall and the brute upon it filled it entirely. Seven and a half feet of towering, broad shouldered, nearly-naked masculinity; Antimalldo’s bulk was easily at least two of the smaller folk’s largest lined side by side. Seven and a half feet tall–even seated, the size and strength of him was an imposition; a double-headed axe with a four-foot haft of black oak framed either side of the throne, one rune-carved blade biting deep into the earth, hafts angled away from his presence–symbolically blocking the entry to his yurt.
When he stood, all chatter and infighting ceased.
Antimalldo’s thick, voluminous red locks were tugged back and corded into a braided warband that reached halfway down his broad, tan-skinned back; another braid, smaller, ranged down from square jaw and well-formed chin to about the center of his neck. The warchief’s green-eyed gaze was as flinty and hard as the rest of him; crow’s feet wrinkled either exterior of his squinted eyes, the practiced expression of a man used to staring out across leagues of snow. Broad, flat pectoral muscles, each likely at least two hands-widths of space, expanded out regally beneath straight-backed, squared up shoulders; two full lips tucked under carefully trimmed facial hair parted enough to make a little noise, a grunt of half-amusement, half-irritation.
A powerful, muscle ripped core–a studded abdomen, two cleft lines above his hips that vanished underneath his wide leather belt–a many-layered pteruges skirt of leather and fur straps down to about the mid thigh flexed open in various places, showcasing lines of tanned, muscular skin in a way that cared little for its owner’s modesty.
The savage seemed amused; his fur-lined boots took him a single stride forward, as the foreigner at the head of the prisoner column inclined his head upward toward his war chief.
“Pulled from the thick of it, War Chief. We took the one, and then the rest submitted; by right of capture, they are yours.”
The invaders had come down from the North.
The foreboding peaks that ridged the northern lands were often considered by two different peoples to be the very edge of the world; when it came to one culture, going beyond was fruitless–a treacherous passage into a barren, frigid wasteland, a place that was told to be inhabited by monsters and even more monstrous folk by the few stories that trickled down through time.
To the other–the journey south was just a waste of time.
The People had enough rivalries to make their names and cut their teeth–survival and skill were honed against hardness and only dulled themselves in prosperity. Beyond the occasional roving band of raiders, that was just the way of things–until a few years of escalation should have told those soft folk to the south that it wasn’t the way of things any longer. First, the raiding bands escalated; clusters of disorganized half-giant foreigners with their stone weapons and furs, trekking more and more boldly south, seizing what they could. Grains, timber, iron, steel–these youthful groups grew larger and more frequent, delving deeper into the unknown underbelly of a kingdom of horn-having, tailed beings often a full head and shoulders shorter than their attackers. Over several years, the number and frequency of these foreign incursions increased more and more–
–and then, abruptly, they stopped. A single year passed by without hide or hair of any of the rampaging barbarians crossing the mountains–until, of course, the winter came. With the first snows, almost like it had been planned, the yurts of The Warband seemed to spring into existence all along the foothills of the northlands. Where the raiders had been fresh-faced, ill-equipped, untrained youths–this band of foes were the opposite. Experienced, organized, tasked together even when sent out into small parties–tattooed, war painted, hefting far more steel in their ranks, with towering statures and ferocious countenances. The invaders swept down from the foothills and decimated the frontier towns–but instead of burning a few holdfasts and turning back–this time? They pushed deeper.
The battle reports and survivor accounts nearly all spoke of some sort of near-giant brute at their head–far too tall, far too powerful, far too imposing to be anything short of some sort of beast given a vaguely human form. Dual headed axes that were larger on one side than a person’s head; muscles like a bull or an ox that had spent a lifetime beneath a heavy yolk, a countenance that inspired terror before the first blow even fell. This Warchief led from the front in battle, and his folk around him fought in a frenzy the likes of which had never been seen before–unpredictable, in a rage, heedless of danger, quick to recover from wounding.
It didn’t take long for the full might of both realms to clash on the battlefield–an armed and organized resistance that outnumbered the invaders, the sort of force that should have been able to turn the attackers back.
They had not.
—
Antimalldo’s War Camp was like nothing the lands south of the mountains had ever seen. Great, circular, tent-like yurts–composed primarily of bone supports and layers of stretched hide–pinwheeled around the center of it in a spiral pattern that blocked any semblance of ease of travel. The captives were woven through the curved encampment, headed by the brutish guards and their experienced feet. As the spiral shrank in on itself, the yurts grew larger and more impressive; by the time the train of prisoners had reached its center, the constructions were vast things indeed, each a pavilion to its own right.
The Bone Hall at the core of the War Camp was a savage sort of wonder.
Pillars of bone–arching ribs, stacked spinal cords, tusks–sometimes lashed together, often standing alone at two or three times a normal being’s height–supported a lavishly fur-walled structure that almost gave a castle hall a justifiable comparison in size. A half dozen campfires burned in an elongated courtyard, fenced on two sides with fur walls; dozens of fur-clad savages, brutish and jovial and angry all at once, celebrated and fought and divided spoils. A well-worn path in the earth led the captured toward the two wide banks of furs that comprised the far wall of the chamber; the top of the great yurt was at least seven feet higher than the rest of the camp, a testament to its owner’s authority and command.
The War Chief was on his throne.
The throne itself was nearly as gristly and ominous as the beast who sat atop it. Humanoid skull bone, curved and white, peeked out in places from beneath a simple fur-lined seat; the thing was wide and tall and the brute upon it filled it entirely. Seven and a half feet of towering, broad shouldered, nearly-naked masculinity; Antimalldo’s bulk was easily at least two of the smaller folk’s largest lined side by side. Seven and a half feet tall–even seated, the size and strength of him was an imposition; a double-headed axe with a four-foot haft of black oak framed either side of the throne, one rune-carved blade biting deep into the earth, hafts angled away from his presence–symbolically blocking the entry to his yurt.
When he stood, all chatter and infighting ceased.
Antimalldo’s thick, voluminous red locks were tugged back and corded into a braided warband that reached halfway down his broad, tan-skinned back; another braid, smaller, ranged down from square jaw and well-formed chin to about the center of his neck. The warchief’s green-eyed gaze was as flinty and hard as the rest of him; crow’s feet wrinkled either exterior of his squinted eyes, the practiced expression of a man used to staring out across leagues of snow. Broad, flat pectoral muscles, each likely at least two hands-widths of space, expanded out regally beneath straight-backed, squared up shoulders; two full lips tucked under carefully trimmed facial hair parted enough to make a little noise, a grunt of half-amusement, half-irritation.
A powerful, muscle ripped core–a studded abdomen, two cleft lines above his hips that vanished underneath his wide leather belt–a many-layered pteruges skirt of leather and fur straps down to about the mid thigh flexed open in various places, showcasing lines of tanned, muscular skin in a way that cared little for its owner’s modesty.
The savage seemed amused; his fur-lined boots took him a single stride forward, as the foreigner at the head of the prisoner column inclined his head upward toward his war chief.
“Pulled from the thick of it, War Chief. We took the one, and then the rest submitted; by right of capture, they are yours.”
All of these stories are medieval fantasy, but I'll add a modern section later on. Feel free to enquire about what modern themes I enjoy, or suggest your own! When contacting me, please include your age, a kink list (or a hard no list), and a loose idea of what you think we might enjoy collaborating on together! A writing sample is mandatory. Thanks for your time, and I hope to find some excellent stories via this thread!