Discussion GAME OF SCALES(part 1)

Wait don't go do you want to discuss story? I'm on atm

 

Euston we have made contact! Btw bowser you got any Q.s on what might happen??

 

Do you mean Houston?

I'm loving the story but I tend to prefer waiting to see what happens next rather than discussion (as you well know!). I'll just say that you have tapped my exact mental image of this forum and you are perfectly poking all my insecurities, so keep it up!

 

Hope the next piece is up on time... I'm on the train at about 6:30am European summer time!
And why discuss if reading is so much fun?! Really good stuff that!

 

I like it! Sorry am at work, check up when I catch a break, but can't add to the discussion much. If I had to make a guess the next to die will be probably be for lunch, like some ungor steaks, or ground gor in a nice lasagna. Or a bit of beastmen bratwurst. But, as the king and hero of the turtles and the shitake mushrooms I think the throne will be mine. Barring of course colourful plumbers. Or if I get distracted with racing, tennis, golf, brawling, or parties. Other than all of that, and the occasional princess, that throne is mine.

 

*Makes note to get some Tilean plumbers to look at the Council's clogged toilet...curry night went well...*

 

Didn't know the UK had a Monopoly on Euston Road.

 

Tally ho! Old bean, I do say, I am from the jolly country of Norway, a smidgen chilly old chap.

 

You are never truly alone, Pendrake, not when the Stalker-azzi is looking for inspiration.

 

Ka-ching!

 

Mature audiences only.

 

I'm offensive and I find this British.

 

“How did an orc and goblin army sneak so close without us knowing," Che'khov demanded.

"Greenskin."

“Whatever. Who was meant to be watching the approaches?"

Lord Tlac’natai raised his hand. "That would be me. Observing. Like I do."

“Then how did you miss a horde of orcs and goblins-”

“Greenskins.”

“- greenskins right on Lustria's border.”

“Miss them? You do me a disservice. I've been observing them for months. You see, the Dark Elves in the mountains north of my city, Poneextlan, started pressing south and displaced a sizeable population of coyote headed beast men. Apisi, they are called. The Apisi spilled over into Poneextlan territory. There were a number of unfortunate skirmishes. Some clay pots were broken.

What has that got to do with these infernal orcs and -”

“Greenskins.”

“- goblins?”

“Well, I observed that the Apisi were not all that bad, they were just victims of circumstance. So I sent a message to them with a skink named Jao. Or Niyol, or Ezhno or something. I really can’t remember his name. I expect no one can. Anyway, the message: I just asked the Apisi if they would like to play through.”

“And?”

“And they passed through peacefully.”

“And?”

“And then the Apisi uprooted this humungous orc and goblin-"

“Greenskin."

"- tribe and they’ve been smashing their way down through the Isthmus of Pahuax ever since."

Lord Chek'hov waved his magic sword around, such was his agitation. The steel was glowing with an intense, cold blue light. "You fool, even a few minutes warning of the greenskin threat would have given us time to mount a credible defence. Who amongst us can face them unprepared?"

"I'll go first. Raaaaagrh!" En’aten was out of the doors like a green flash.

Chief Hyperborean leaned out the door and watching him streaking into action. "He's heading east – no, he bounced off a tree. He's heading south. He’s gone.”

“Someone else will need to kill the greenskins. And he spelt 'raaaaargh' wrong," said Bo'b.

"I'm pretty sure it's 'spelled "raaaaarh,"'" said Tzlanputin, “and why don’t you go kill them yourself?”

“I would like to, but I am not really qualified,” replied Bo’b. “You see, I have never killed anyone.”

“Really? Never?”

“Yup. Not a single kill in over one hundred and fifty thousand words of meandering fiction.”

“Oh. How dreadfully embarrassing. Hyperborean, how about you?”

“What me? No, I’ve never killed anyone either. The Education Board kind of frown on that sort of thing.”

“Y’ttar, you are a killer, aren’t you?”

“Lies! Lies!”

“Sorry, brother. Anyone else?”

“Don't look at me. I’ve been way too busy observing.”

“I’ll ask again. Has anyone here ever, in all of their personal fictional exploits ever killed anything.”

Discomute dribbled noisily.

“Sorry, old chap.” Tzlanputin said. “Brain cells don’t count.”

“Well I just tore through a huge skaven invasion over all of Lustria unaided and unarmed and with my bare claws.”

“But documented kills, Kcibrihp-Esurc. The graphic violence was merely implied. This is dreadfully awkward. Between us all, it seems no one has racked up a single fatality. Is there truly not one with a reputation for needless slaughter?”

Tzlanputin looked at Bo’b. Bo’b looked at Scalenex.

So did everyone else.

Scalenex snarled. “I don’t think this is a discussion we need to have right now. If we stop the orcs and goblins-”

“Greenskins.”

“- from crossing the … I can’t say it.”

“Go on, please.”

“Panaa-manaa Canal, we may not need to fight them.”

Chief Pendra'iq’s eyes gleamed. “We must assemble monumental defences!”

Lord Warden’s face shone with equal vehemence. “No, we must assemble a monumental fleet!”

“Why not do both-both?” asked Y’ttar innocently.

“Good idea, Y’ttar.” Scalenex shooed the three innovators towards the gaping doorway. “Don’t hurry back.”

The fourteen who remained in council remained still for about 3 seconds.

“I’ve got to observe this,” said Tlac’natai. He scooted out to the balcony on his palanquin.

---------------

“Back so soon, Tlac’natai? Was the orc and goblin-”

“Greenskin.”

“- tide turned back successfully?”

“Er no. I’m sure either Lord Warden or Chief Pendra'iq could have done it independently - they are both genius war engineers. It’s just that Y’ttar’s suggestion to combine plans went a bit awry. Warden supplied a huge hardened snakewood barge, and Pendra’iq’s sappers quickly built a stone temple on top of it with cast stucco armor and decorated with vicious lizard heads and mouths. Huge crews of skittering skinks and kroxigors pushed the vessel from the shore and it was easily able to carry a small reptillian army up or downstream to attack the enemies of Lustria.”

“That sounds like an enjoyable piece of work,” said Scalenex, “but there are two things. First, reptilian is spelled with one "l" not two.”

“Don’t blame me, I just observed Warden getting it wrong from the geomantic web.”

“Okay, and second, I can accept an immortal toad man moving continents with a thought and directing an army of dinosaurs, but transporting as giant stone temple on a wooden boat barely wider than the Temple and with a tiny height and then sending that floating stone anchor into battle challenges my ability to suspend my disbelief. It's infeasible enough that the thing can float but to willingly direct said boat into naval warfare is mahrlect nuts. Now if you say "magic" I call fowlsies. Why stop at making a big stone temple float when it only a tiny amount more can make the temple fly. Why not use the mobility mojo on a conventional boat to make it superfast? Why not make a fortress that floats instead of a temple? Why not use metal in lieu of stone. Sorry. That's just how I roll.”

“That’s how you roll?”

“Yes.”

“The vessel rolled, too. Lustria got its first temple ship and first temple submarine on the same day. It went down with all claws. Our brothers are gone, and I have observed that the greenskins-”

“Orcs and goblins.”

“Wait, what?”

“It’s good to vary things up occasionally. You could have also used a pronoun, or an epithet like ‘fungus spawned scum’.”

“Well, our enemies are crossing the Panaa-manaa on rafts. We are alone, unprepared and there are only fourteen of us left.”

A high pitched voice came from the gaping doorway. “Fourteen? That is a bad-rotten luck number, for builder-skink and boat-frog. My luck number will come soon, yes.”

“Y’ttar! You survived,” said Old Blood Qupakoco, “and you look like a half drowned rat.”

“Lies! Lies!” Y’ttar scuttled towards the doorway again.

“Is there something we can dry you off with, brother?”

Lord Che’khov rummaged around his throne. “I have a ruby ring that can shoot fireballs. Too much? You could dry yourself on the curtains, I suppose.”

Y’ttar decided he would be safer if he remained in the council chamber. “The orc-meat and goblin-meat are too many for us to fight-kill,” he wailed.

“Greenskin-meat. No wait… that doesn’t make any sense. Carry on.”

“I think it is time we discovered more about our guest,” declared Scalenex. He looked Xholanka the Lost One right in the blobby bits. "Do you have any offensive capabilities?”

“I don’t want to boast,” the ethereal stranger began, “but I once swore, was racist AND sexist all in the same sentence.”

< crickets >

“And I posted it in a story comp.”

There were loud gasps.

“I like that,” stated Bow’xa. “And you are obviously much cooler than we are. You should be our champion. Go and beat the skyte out of them.”

Xholanka cracked his knuckles with a report that rang a warning across six dimensions. “As you wish,” he said ominously and he glided towards the enemy. He paused at the door for a moment. “What exactly is skyte?”

“It’s PG13. Now please hurry.”

 

now for the battle

 

Xholankha surveyed the scene around him, one one side a lush verdant forest lively with various creatures dashing through the forest and killing each other in a tranquil way, on the other side a mile or two away was a beach; its sands pale and fragile caressed by the gentle, pallid, blue waters of lustria. A mile offshore there was a large fleet of ramshackle ships hewn from bits of wood and stone and metal, each carrying a cargo of snarling greenskins or a large nondescript creature.


with a calm intake of breath, he began to weave his hands and make beautiful ornate staff of pure star-metal (a very rare and higly sought metal used in staffs to boost the power of the enchantements and spells laid down by it.) at the top was a ball of changing colours;Crimson, violet and turquoise swirled inside with an occasional flash of green.


with a flick of his hand he sent A bolt of crackling power towards the nearest ship, it hit the left side, leaving a burning scorch mark across it, erecting screams of brutish agony as flaming goblins jumped out, their skin and muscle sloughing of their bones in steamy lumps; hissing as they hit the tropical waters of lustria.


With a shout Xholankha let loose raking syllable that seemingly did nothing.


"ԀѦѦҬӉҠГѦ......."


after a few moments the few goblins that had not died of the deathly heat were soon screaming in terror as a large creature erupted from the surface and bore down on the survivors with bestial hunger, soon there was a little red trail in the water where entrails and one foot floated, followed by more body parts as the creature moved away and out of site.



"WAAAAGGGGHHHHH!"


turning round to his left, he saw a large attempt-at-a-galleon land on the beach and disgorge a load of very large and muscly orks.


with a look of concentration(hard to spot on an ethereal), Xholankha drew his arms up and then thrust his arms forward, this caused a hail of amber shards to rain from his hands spearing the Orcs like a vegetarian kebab, one made it through unscathed and charged at him with a crude sword held in a two handed grip. With a snap of his fingers, the ork exploded in a shower of gristle and bone, decorating the sands with a red and black mist; casually he caught a flying eye mid-air and tossed it into the ocean, which was recieved by a red striped silver snatcher, a fish famed for its ability to strip a man to the bone in 5 seconds.



what followed next was terrifying.


the three largest ships of the fleet landed and what came out, was something never seen in lustria before, it was a humungous red blob with a mouth and two small red stubby legs, and six small greedy eyes. Behind it was an amssing army of huge orcs; the elites of the thuggish society: Black orcs, their armour was thick and heavy set and they each wielded a forged and wickedly sharp battle axe, inscribed with crude rudimentary glyph's.


"GET 'IM GNASHA" hooted a small trio of grinning goblins'


with a resounding roar, the creature bounded over to Xholankha, dripping gallons of slobber everywhere, it lunged; its maw of sword-like teeth covered in a weird yellow film opened wide.


"DOWN IN WUN' "

"DOWN IN WUN' "

"DOWN IN WUN' " chanted the tribe


CRUNCHHH!!


the titan of a squig stood stock still.


"Oi', wots' goin' on 'ere lads" complained a goblin handler.


his question was answered as the squig imploded and sprayed the horde in bits of rubbery flesh and greenish filth. Standing on the other side was a huge figure;7-8ft in height and completely made of clay, it looked like a fen-beast only taller and instead of two malicious slit's-for-eyes, this thing had two round golden eyes glowing faintly, its fist was covered in the little brain matter that the creature had.


"glad you joined me Dorfl, it is pretty boring waiting outside, i must admit" commented Xholankha.


this was returned with a curt nod, as it retracted its hand dislodging small wet lumps of grey stuff spatteres with black blood.


There was a moment of complete silence; the calming before the storm.


"GET 'EM LADSH, CRUSH DIS WALKING POT AND STOMP 'DISH GLOW-STICK TA NUFIN', DEY' KILLED MOI PET." bellowed an ork kitted out in what looked like light blue armour with two overlapping bright yellow stripes.


behind them were two giants, each wielding two huge mammoth bones with large nails hastily hammered into them.


"Ok, dorfl ill take care of the giants and larger ones, i want you to eradicate the little ones,alright?" requested Xholankha


this was received with a judging look.


"All by yourself?, well that is a little hard, i'll get some assisstance." replied Xholankha.


and with that he made a circle with his hands and a shimmering portal opened wide. with a quick gesture into the portal, a large regiment of saurus poured out of it, all garbed in full star-metal armour, formed a large phalanx with dorfl at the front.


with a delicate movement, Xholankha created small ball of light in his hands and waited until it had formed a small golden circle with a milky ball in the center of it.


"м๏яקђ๏ קяเмэяµร" he wispered.


*click*


nothing moved, nothing at all, everything had frozen inplace, everything except for Xholankha.


"damn, gotta love Tzunki, he makes some great stuff; the morphus, so useful it stops time but not you, sooo where should i go, here, ooo no, here maybe?......hmmm no, Ahh! here we go, such a pity i cant touch anything, if he had figured out how to make us be able to move things without getting atomically split, it would be perfect, another flaw i must complain about with another device of his. Oh well here we go!" said Xholankha. gently pressing the orb in the middle.


Time resumed


the first thing that happened was one of the giants let out a roar of pain as its achilles tendon was slashed open, spoputing blood and shards of bone.


"BERK SMASH!" howled the giant, trying to crush the glowy thing holding a pristine, decorated spear.


making a quick leap, he anchored himself to the giant's belt. Digging in his spear; Xholankha danced around on the belt pulling the spear round like a knife cutting its way through a loin of meat, with a grating halt, he yanked it out and hovered to just behind the giant; narrowly missing an ambitious swipe from the other that hit the back of 'Berk'.


This caused the giant's stomach to open up like a red ravine and spill the innards like a long waterfall of entrails and internal liquids onto the sandy floor.


With an angry roar, the other giant went to charge the floating murderer of its brother, but failed heroically by getting lassoed by his deceased brothers guts. With a colossal boom the giant fell flat on its back and lay there groaning.


with a word ushered from Xholankha's mouth, roots burst through the sand and wrapped themselves around the limbs of the fallen giant.


"where is your leader" he said coldly


"ZOG OFF, IM GONNA' EAT YOU, GET IN MA BELLY" bawled the giant.


"fine" shrugged Xholankha


he hovered away from the giants head and twisted the spear, slowly but surely the head of the spear grew three points, not dissimilar too a drill.


"WAIT, WAIT I TALK" with a hint of terror.


ignoring the pleas, he let go of the spear and let it drift up and aimed it over the giants exposed forehead.


"WAIT, 'DEY PROMISED BOOZE AND GOLD, I GOT TA FEED MYSELF" wailed the giant.


with a look of icy calm, the old one began to rotate his hands clock wise, and so did the spear, until it was a spinning drill of death. With a calm motion he lowered his hands, and so the spear lowered.


The dpear hit the head of the giant slowly, chewing away the muscle and flesh that protected the skull, soon after the giant was screaming in agony so loud it caused all the goblins, in the surrounding area to explode into a sticky red mess that covered their now empty robes.


The spear progressed deeper, beginning to blow bits of brain through the hole in the skull.


The spear stopped….


Walking onto the neck of the giant, Xholankha extracted the spear with a rictus ethereal grin.


There was not much left now, the orks were being decimated everywhere, the rest of the fleet had been devoured by the sea monster and what was left was a large group of orks with the leader at the center.


An ork ran towards the old one, there was a wet crunch as it fell in half from jaw to groin. Two more followed it getting skewered or stabbed through the upper abdomen, soon enough the boss was the last one standing surrounded by a wall of star metal with a bit of clay in it.


“OO’s GONNA FIGHT, BORKBORK DA BUTCHER, DA GREATEST BOSS IN DA WORL-“ began the ork warboss.


He was cut short by the lack of a neck or head for that matter, the upper part of his neck was now in the hands of the old one.


With a gesture he re-opened the portal and signalled for the desert-coloured saurus to go through. With a small ‘shhhp’ it closed leaving the old one and the clay demi-god there.


“Come Dorfl, we must inform the council of the battle” exclaimed Xholankha.


With a swift turn, they set off towards the temple complex, leaving bloodied footprints as they walked.

 

Welp, I can only imagine poor Y'ttar sitting in his personal sailing dingy watching in disbelief as the mighty TOOTS (The Old One's Temple Ship) Lustria emerged from the port, her stone work sparking in the warm morning light as she gently turned to windward and with a soft sigh she turned over and serenely slipped into the sea. Some say that Y'ttar's battle wounds from the sinking of the TOOTS Lustria were caused by his excessive face-claw at the waste of a good boat, others by the large waves caused by her sinking causing Y'ttar's prized dingy to also capsize near to a hungry squig-shark.

 

That was all too hectic... Let me step outside on the balcony and have a little sticky...
And can I get my squig barbecue now? Or maybe one could better make a nice lasagne out of it...
Wow... Took me some time to read this... @Xholankha the lost one: didn't you turn off your time stopping device?!