Fiction SoB-The Legions of Los'tmabo'tl-FINISHED AT LAST (1st draft)

Re: Spawning of Bob - The Legions of Los'tmabo'tl - Ch14.2 v

Yep, medicine taken! Now to figure out what the blazes that Dwarf was going on about. You'd link a race so keen on commerce would know how to count correctly.

 

Re: Spawning of Bob - The Legions of Los'tmabo'tl - Ch14.2 v

Would potatoes with grubs in them be a special treat?

Don't blame me for the runed spork. Ironjaw and n810 came up with that together.

 

Re: Spawning of Bob - The Legions of Los'tmabo'tl - Ch14.3 v

Yes 14.3 is here!

Question: Can you can spot where I had a guest author help me out.

Clue: His name rhymes with K.R.R Bolkien.


Question: does anyone else remember Yul Brynner?


Promise: Only one more section and we are out of the cursed World's Edge Mountains and into the much happier and nicer Dark Lands!

Enjoy your breakfast!

 

Re: Spawning of Bob - The Legions of Los'tmabo'tl - Ch14.3 v

LOL

The new LotR bits where great.

 

Re: Spawning of Bob - The Legions of Los'tmabo'tl - Ch14.3 v

Bob, I have yet another quote for my signature, though not the one you hinted at in this piece.

 

Re: Spawning of Bob - The Legions of Los'tmabo'tl - Ch14.3 v

Love it! Keep up the great work Bob!

 

Re: Spawning of Bob - The Legions of Los'tmabo'tl - Ch14 Don

And Chapter 14 is what happens when you don't really have a story in mind for a section.

Thank you for all your suggestions (especially YOU Mr Tolkien) which gave me enough to ideas to mismash together, I hope for a pleasing, if unnecessarily long, effect.

Thanks in advance for those who gave travel advice for the Dark Lands. It sounds lovely. I'm sure every thing will be fine.

Does anyone on the forum sell travel insurance?

SoB

 

Re: Spawning of Bob - The Legions of Los'tmabo'tl - Ch14 Don

Chapter 15 - The Dark Lands

The Rune Hammer 'o Anti Magic removed the binding on the solar engine with a ginger tap from Mahtis. The apparatus flared back to life. From the Eastern Flanks of the World's Edge Mountains, the Dark Lands revealed themselves to be a featureless grey tundra beneath a featureless gray sky. The two blended together making it impossible to discern a horizon. As Bessie stepped out of the last of the foothills, Rychek put the weak sun at her back and the heroes started to follow her long shadow. After a short time, the sun abandoned them to their fate beneath the thickening haze.

The Lizardmen spoke with hushed voices, when they chose to speak at all. The air seemed hostile toward any sound which would disturb the brooding silence. The grey downs were not as featureless as they had appeared from afar. The ground was creased and folded like a rumpled blanket, which made following a true course difficult. Rychek would peer at the sky periodically to work out the position of the sun, then curse at the shroud of lowering stratus. It was difficult even to judge time, because there was little to distinguish day and night under the murk.

Bessie alone, seemed sure of herself as she picked her way forwards. She had some instinct or gift for holding a more or less straight course as they crossed from desolate ridge to thorn choked gully and back again.

On one occasion they approached what appeared to be a copse of bare trees. As they drew closer it revealed itself to be the titanic ribcage of a long dead beast. Rychek and Mahtis paused to examine the skeleton. The only creatures of such size that they knew of were the Thunder Lizards of Lustria. Later they crossed a broad, shallow depression which had the stubs of mighty trees jutting up like broken black teeth. As Bessie shouldered past one, it crumbled into rubble.

"I think..." Rychek startled everyone with the sound of his voice. "I think there was a jungle here once. A long time ago."

The others pondered this in silence.

On a few occasions they saw ragged bands of greenskins. These took one look at Bessie's size and splendour before fading away to pursue easier prey. Rychek felt it was safer to have some of the party scouting ahead, rather than risk an ambush if the greenskins were part of a larger warband.

(Image)

Bob and Joe were taking point, some one hundred yards ahead of the plodding bastiladon.

"Joe! Careful! Stop!"

Joe paused mid stride with his clawed foot hovering above a large brown mass. Bob peered at it. "I think it might be rhinox dung."

Joe carefully retrieved his foot. "It could be Rhinox dung, but it could be something else." He scooped up a large blob of the sticky substance with a clawed finger and stuck it in his mouth. He considered briefly. "Yes, definitely Rhinox droppings. It was lucky that you saw it, Bob!"

"Why is that?"

"Otherwise I might have stepped in it!"

Bessie had caught up to them now, and sniffed at the pile. She wrinkled her nose and sneezed. Rychek and Mahtis tumbled down from the howdah, and the four investigated the area.

A churned trail twenty yards wide ran roughly perpendicular to their course. Here and there were piles of dung and other detritus, and the occasional gnawed bone. There were the marks of large cartwheels and many huge footprints. Some were rhinox, some were the hobnailed boots of ogres, and some were the jaguar like pads of sabretusks. Occasionally there were a scattering of tiny boot prints, which surely came from scurrying gnoblars.

One perfectly preserved footprint excited much discussion. It was not large. Its three toe prints were punctuated with the marks of small talons. Rychek pressed his own foot into the dust beside it and lifted it again. The indentations were almost perfectly matched.

"It's a skink footprint?" asked Mahtis.

"It must be, but how did he get here? Why would he be travelling with ogres?"

Rychek wrinkled his brow in concentration. "The ogres who kidnapped Taisteslaikch'ken could have come this way. If they sailed past the Dragon Isles, then the fastest land route to the North would be through the Dark Lands. They could have captured a skink from Los'tmabo'tl, too. Maybe one of Taistelaikch'ken's attendants."
"We didn't see any sign of skink prints when we followed their trail in Lustria, and besides, it can't be the same group. They sailed off months ago, and this...." he scooped up another glob of rhinox dung and tasted it, "...is still quite fresh."

"Maybe they got delayed somehow..." Bob suggested.

"What, worse than we did? They had a huge warship and a small army. They could have made the journey in weeks."

"It doesn't matter if it was the same ogres," Rychek concluded, "We can follow their trail at least to the Ogre Kingdoms, and then we can try to find our slann. It's a better idea than wandering aimlessly in this place of the dead."

The last word seemed to hang ominously in the air. None of the others had the will to speak further, and so they continued their journey, now heading north on the trail of an ogre band and one skink.

After a period of relative light and a period of relative dark, the ogre trail took a sudden turn to the east. Bob nodded to the dark clouds that glowered from the north. "They didn't want to go that way, for some reason."

That evening they became aware of figures shambling parallel to them on the right. At that distance and in the gloom it was impossible to tell what race they were. Rychek called Bob and Joe back from point duty, and the four clutched their weapons anxiously until the weak daybreak. Their shadowy escort disappeared.

The following night, the shadows grew bolder. At times they would mass into a tight knot, as if ready to charge, always from the right. When they did surge forward threateningly, they would pull back as soon as Bessie shied away.

The first time they closed into the range of the solar engine's glow the heroes had their first clear view.

Zombies. The corpses of the unrestful dead. Their gruesome ranks were filled by the fallen of many races, from goblin size up to giant. Some wore tattered clothes over their tattered flesh. Most carried a rusty weapon of some kind, or a club formed from the femur of an unfortunate meal.

Rychek guided Bessie back to the ogre path after each zombie feint. After being diverted for the fourth time, their purpose dawned on him.

"They are herding us. They want us to turn north."

"I don't want to go that way." Mahtis rumbled as he eyed the thicker darkness in that direction.

The next time the zombies surged, Rychek held Bessie steady. She actually crunched over the top of a few, leaving the rest of the cordon milling about in confusion in her wake.

"Why don't they attack?" Joe covered them with his flint spear.

"Mahrlecht!" Rychek pulled Bessie to a sudden halt. Their path forward was blocked by a large force, at least four ranks deep.

"Rychek, do you remember how you used the solar thing to warm us up? Back at the outpost?" enquired Bob.

"Yes. So?" Rychek responded distractedly.

"How did you make it go?"

"You put your claw in the print at the back."

"Thank-you!"

"Why do you ask? What the....." Rychek shrank down on his perch on Bessie's shoulder as a very hot beam of sunlight scorched through the space recently occupied by his crested head. The effect on the zombie horde ahead of them was dramatic. The pure light stripped rotten flesh from bone, and ignited dry bone like tinder. The hitherto silent zombies shrieked as their unlives were cut short. Again.

"Can we go on now?" Bob called as he removed his hand from the handprint.

Rychek whispered to Bessie again, and she surged forwards through the smoldering remnants of the zombie ranks.

Again and again the zombies barred their path, and twice Chotec's light lanced through them. On the following occasion the solar engine failed. It had not received a full charge from the sun's rays since they had entered the dwarven realm. The undead surged again, and this time they did not pull away.

The party on the howdah flailed with their weapons and Bessie stomped and swept with her mighty tail. The zombies were dying, again, like flies, but more clambered over the frames of their fallen comrades to swarm the lizardmen. The lizards bellowed and cursed at the silent throng.

"Eat flint, Ugly!" cried Joe as he jabbed at the misshapen face of a dead chaos dwarf.

"Bite me!" yelled Bob as he ran another through with the Sword of Barrenness.

Without warning the zombies broke off their assault and drew back into the shadows. Bessie picked her way out of the mound of body parts and halted a short distance away.

"Thank the Old Ones! We've scared them off!" panted Joe.

"I didn't think they could be scared off," Mahtis grunted. "They're not afraid of dying. Again." The kroxigor wiped a gobbet of gore of the Rune Hammer 'o Anti Magic. The big weapon had proved very suitable for dealing with the magically animated dead. Every two handed hammer blow had flashed with golden sparks and another zombie had been reduced to its component parts. Admittedly, he would have got the same result if he had used his regular great weapon, or a tree trunk, but the sparks were a nice effect.

Rychek shifted his grip on Gork-on-a-Stick. The sceptre had also served well as an improvised club, although without the gimmicks. "Some of them had weapons, but they didn't use them, not even to parry."

"Is everyone okay," asked Joe.

"One of them bit me! That was uncalled for." He pulled his hands away from a wound on his neck.

The zombies did not return, but over the next few hours Bob weakened. The wound should have been trivial. The saurus warrior's constitution would normally easily deal with such a wound, and he would be left with another scar and an amusing story of a lucky escape. But not this time. Despite the care given by his cold blooded kin, he faded away and died at daybreak.

Under normal circumstances, the honoured dead of the Lizardmen were interred in the waters of the pool that spawned them, for their essences to mingle with the generations to come. It was their final act of service to the Old Ones.

The trio could not do this for their brother. Instead they scratched a grave for him in the barren soil and erected a stone to mark his resting place.

Rychek mumbled a few words, and turned back to Bessie, his crest lowered almost to touch his spine. Joe stumbled away wordlessly. Mahtis paused over the grave for a moment longer.

"Goodbye Bob. I guess your luck ran out."

(image)

Not long after Bessie had trudged away to continue the quest, something approached from the north. Two large and very obviously dead horses drew a cart with an open basket-like frame on the back. A number of zombies clambered down and started to load zombie body parts from the scene of the battle. Another set of feet alighted onto the gravel and crunched over to pause in front of the tomb stone.

With a foul incantation, the owner of the feet extended the ferrule of his staff to hover above the disturbed soil. Heavy purple flames wreathed the staff and dripped liquidly onto the ground where they quickly soaked in. The earth rumbled and shook in protest: the earth does not willingly relinquish that which it has swallowed.

A twisted, blue, scaly claw burst from the grave.




The rest of that "day" dragged horribly. Perhaps it was the fact that the invigorating glow of the solar engine was spent, but it was also possible that the remaining lizardmen were weighed down by the loss of their comrade and brother.

Joe managed to give voice to his regret. "There was so much I could have said to Bob, but I never did. We just spent our time bickering about unimportant things. I....I wish that I had just said to him, "You're wrong, Bob. About everything."

Mahtis gave Joe's shoulder a comforting squeeze. "It's okay, Joe. I'm sure he knew that was how you felt."

Rychek scanned the horizon with a dangerous look in his eyes. "The next zombie I see, I will take apart. With my teeth if I have to!"

As the weak light faded at dusk, he spied his desired victim. A solitary zombie stood, blocking their path east, with a single arm lifted, palm outwards. Rychek leapt to the ground brandishing Gork-on-a-Stick and charged the zombie with a wordless shout. The shout quickly changed to a cry of confusion, and then anguish.

As he came close enough to strike he saw that the walking corpse before him was of reptilian form, with blue scales on its slack hide. A rotting wound on the creature's neck buzzed with flies, and on its head it wore an eggshell. Its milky eyes gazed unseeingly at him from beneath a gleaming white egg shell. It was Bob.

Joe and Mahtis rushed to Rychek's side. "Bob, thank the Old Ones!" Joe blurted, "You're alive!"

"No he isn't. I don't know how he is standing here, but he is not breathing. He is Dead."

"No, he came back so I could tell him..." Joe turned back to his spawnkin, "Bob, I need you to know.... that you are wrong!"

There was no response.

"About everything!"

Still no response.

"Okay smarty-scales. He's dead."

"Not exactly dead," a harsh (Germanic) voice called from the darkness. The Night-Mare drawn cart clopped into view. From the running board stepped a figure. "He is... undead. I have made him so."

The speaker was an elderly, and not very impressive human. He wore a long white coat. His eyes were covered with disks of glass held by a wire frame which was hooked to his ears and balanced on the bridge of his long, pointed nose. His dome-like scalp was devoid of hair, and combined with the dark circles of glass gave him the appearance of a leering skull. There was something cold and clinical about his precise appearance and movements, which was contradicted by the ornate appearance of the black filigreed staff he bore.

"Why have you done this?" Joe attempted to step forward to confront the figure but was restrained by the claw of the zombie saurus between them.

"Zis one, at least has held your attention before being burnt. Or hacked. Or crushed. It is tiresome to me when I have to reanimate so many of my friends whenever zey extend an invitation to guests, such as yourselves."

"Zombies are no one's friends," Rychek snorted. "They are mindless slaves."

The glassy disks regarded him for a long moment. "Indeed. Und zat is why you have been invited as guests. I think you would prefer zis to... the alternative. But, I am being a poor host. My name is Victor. Please to follow. What is it you call zis one? Bob? Come Bob."

Victor and the undead Bob climbed onto the corpse cart, and it turned towards the gathering dark to the north. Rychek briefly considered fleeing to the east, but changed his mind when he saw that a zombie army had formed a semicircle around them. North was definitely the way to go.

The trio of lizards dutifully followed on Bessie and whispered about this turn of events, all the while shadowed by the ring of undead.

"Rychek, why has he done that to Bob? Why are we following him?"

"We have no choice. We are outnumbered one hundred to one, and he can raise troops as quickly as we can cut them down. He is clearly a powerful necromancer."

In the silence of the Dark Lands, attempting to have a quiet conversation is futile. The sharp eared old man drew his cart back level with Bessie and engaged them in companiable conversation as they travelled deeper into the darkness.`

"Ya, I am, or was, a necromancer. I was one of ze best. But now I am a humble scientist." He bowed his pointy head.

Mahtis raised his eye-crests at the unfamiliar word.

Victor explained, "I observe ze world around me and I deduce how it works. I conduct experiments and I apply ze knowledge I have gained."

"Isn't necromancy easier?"

The scientist laughed. A short savage bark. "It is easy enough for zose dumm-kopfs in Sylvania. Zey are blinded by their desire to live forever. But I desire more zan an army of "mindless slaves" as your spawn kin has put it."

The cart and the bastiladon rumbled onwards in silence for a time.

"I have spent centuries in study, but when I presented my findings to ze Sylvanian Geographic Society zey banished me from ze land. No matter. I will show ze fools. Very soon, I will show zem. We have arrived!"

The bastiladon, cart and zombie army passed under a shadow which dwarfed them. An enormous arch pierced an equally impressive wall which extended in both directions to be swallowed by the gloom. The travellers followed broad avenues through a city which had long been abandoned. The buildings seemed eerily familiar.

"This is a Temple City!" gasped Rychek.

"Indeed. Ze city was established by your "Old Ones" millennia ago. The pool at its heart ceased to produced spawnings, and ze city died. But what is dead, need not remain so."

The layout was familiar to the adventurers. Every temple city was a construction of the Old Ones. For all that kroxigor labourers might maintain it, and skink artisans embellish it, a temple city has at its core the durable architecture of the Old Ones. The basic structure would endure until the end of the earth.

By the time the odd travelling companions reached the central plaza there was an unnatural storm beginning to brew further to the north. Flashes of purple and green lightning were followed several seconds later by ominous rumbles.

The great temple the centre of the city should have been surmounted by the star chamber of an attendant Slann Mage Priest, but in this forgotten city a crude bird's nest of metal rods perched at the zenith. Thick braided metal cables snaked down the Eternity Stair to disappear underground through a low arch.

Rychek boggled at the desecration of the most sacred of sites.

"That thing..." he pointed at the spiky mess on the temple. "....connects to the Spawning Chamber...?"

"Ya! You are observant. Ze first attribute of ze scientist. Come with me....Rychek. We shall test your logic!"

Victor beckoned Rychek and the pair disappeared into the spawning chamber with a sizeable escort of zombies. Joe and Mahtis fretted outside. Bessie ate a tumble weed.


(image)

The spawning chamber was the almost the twin of the one in Los'tmabo'tl. The murky water which comprised half of the vault had a vague glow which lit the chamber from beneath. On the far wall, water dripped into the pool from the grooves of an ornate frieze which depicted the inscrutable Old Ones. These aspects were as they should be. However, two glaring differences were apparent. The dry portion of the chamber was cluttered with a tangle of wire and gleaming metal apparatus. Multihued liquids bubbled in retorts and noxious vapours clouded the air. The other difference was an empty square niche in the centre of the dripping frieze. Rychek wracked his brain to recall what exactly was missing.

Victor paused to inspect some of the shabby citizens of his empire. They were from all corners of the globe. There was an impressive greenskin warboss, a random selection of elves, a clump of dwarves and men of the Empire, Bretonnia and beyond. There was even a lone lizardmen skink whose body was ravaged by burns and large wounds.

"Zese animated corpses will obey, but without life they have no volition. Zey cannot choose and zey cannot feel. They retain only the barest rudiments of their pre-mortem personality.

"I don't want to raise ze dead anymore. I wish to create life. I want my creations to serve me, but not as zese do. I want zem to serve me of zere own free will, and out of gratitude and love."

Rychek snorted, "Creating life! How is that going for you?"

Victor remained pensive. "I have travelled and observed as a scientist should. I even went with the doomed Count Renliss expedition to your homeland, Lustria. I observed carnivorous plants which move of their own volition. This inspired my first attempt to create autonomous life. Rick!" He beckoned a malformed creature.

It was vaguely man shaped, but its head was replaced with some form of large root vegetable. As he did not have a face, his features were simulated with crude caricatures which were pinned in place.



"Zis is Rick O'Mortis. He was a potato farmer from Eireland, but was killed in a tragic mishap involving three quarts of butter, a large marrow, and an angry sheep. I was too late to prevent ze... accident, but I was able to combine his essence, so to speak, with zat of a living plant. Is he not appealing?"

Rick shuddered in horror at the terrible pun, and one of his ears popped off.

"So your experiment was successful?"

"No. Unfortunately, he is a vegetable."

Rick O'Mortis shuddered once more and scuttled away.

"It does not matter. He is obsolete. An early prototype. Now observe. Arnold!" A muscular part human warrior strode forward. Where his flesh had rotted, or been stripped away, a gleaming metal skeleton was exposed. One half of his face was missing and a red light glowed in the metal socket. "Arnold. Bring the gurney."

Arnold surveyed the scientist and the space which the gurney was meant to occupy. "I'll be back." He said slowly (Germanic Accent).

"My work with Arnold was inspired by my dealings with the biomechanical monstrosities of Skaven Clan Moulder. I took his dead flesh and merged it with a machine.

Rychrk studied the muscle bound human's back as he disappeared into a side chamber. "He was a mighty warrior. What killed him?"

"Quietly now. He is sensitive about the manner of his death. He was originally from Oesterreich. By strength of arms he rose to become State Governor. He could not be defeated in battle, but yet he succumbed to a cancer of the brain."



Victor had not noticed that the giant had quietly returned and stood now stood behind him.

"Of course not," said Victor soothingly. "Put the gurney there."

Arnold complied and stepped back muttering. "It's not tumour. At all...."

"Rick and Arnold are closer to true life than the zombies. They have greater self will and autonomy. Rick moves towards light of his own volition, and Arnold steals people's clothes, boots and sunglasses. No-one knows why." He shrugged. "Zey obey me, but it is out of obligation not love. Only ze living can love."

Victor stepped behind the trolley which Arnold had delivered. It had a sheet covering what appeared to be a large dead body.

"Zis will be my final experiment. I will create life! I will be as a god! Behold my beautiful creation!" Victor flung back the cover to reveal a hideous creature. It was too large to be a man, yet not big enough to be an ogre. The body appeared to be assembled from the parts of several different creatures stitched together. On either side of its neck protruded two large silver bolts.



"You have made a monster!" cried Rychek in shock. "....although the tail is a nice aesthetic touch."

"He is beautiful!" sniffed Victor defensively. "I used reptile parts where I could. Ze cold blooded physiology is more suitable for reanimation."

"Surely it is not RE-animation, this...thing was never alive."

Victor ignored the criticism. "Scalenex! We must prepare. The storm is almost upon us."

Rychek realized that rumbles of thunder had been building in volume and frequency since they had entered the spawning chamber.

The undead skink pattered to his master's side. "Scalenex, do not neglect to attach the electrodes to the silver bolts zis time. We all remember what happened on ze previous occasion."

The dead skink paused as if recalling an unpleasant experience. He attached the wires carefully and scurried out of the chamber.



"What is my part in all of this?" Rychek demanded.

The scientist was bustling around his equipment, checking connections and adjusting dials. "Ah yes," he gestured towards the empty niche above the spawning pool. "A cube fell from its place millennia ago. It remains at ze bottom of the spawning pool. You will retrieve it."

"I have seen a similar cube above the spawning pool of Los'tmabo'tl. What does it do?"

"Your Old Ones were not gods. Zey were scientists such as myself. Zeir planet forming and universe bending power came from one invention. Cubes of some unknown material. Within each, the essence of one or more forms of energy could be captured and used. Even otherwise incompatible energies, such as light and dark can be combined in ze cubes to perform otherwise impossible works. No practitioners of ze mystic arts now alive, not even ze greatest of the Slann Mage Priests, can combine such antipathetic energies without triggering cataclysmic consequences. You have an example of one of zese cubes on the back of your pet."

Rychek remembered the cube at the heart of the solar engine. "Why haven't you tried to use that one?"

"Bah! I cannot use it. Who here has any use for concentrated sunlight?"

Rick O'Mortis raised his hand hopefully, but was ignored.

"The cube in ze pool combines earth and life power. Zis pairing is normally incompatible. The earth digests and decays. Life grows and flourishes. Ze two energies combined in ze cube empower ze nutrient rich crucible of ze pool produce living beings, by some means I do not fully understand. I will use ze power of a lightning bolt channeled through the cube to give life and vigour to zis flesh." He thumped the torso of the collage of inert meat that lay on the metal trolley in front of him. "My creation will live!"

Rychek folded his arms sullenly. "Get the cube yourself."

"I don't swim."

"Make one of your zombies get it."

"I have tried many times. Ze zombies drown."

"What? They don't need to breathe."

"Zey revive in ze water. Zen zey drown."

Rychek scoffed. "We inter our dead in those waters. They don't magically come back to life. Their bodies mingle with the waters to nourish the next spawning."

"You are correct. Dead are not restored to life by ze waters. But ze undead.... Perhaps it is easier if I demonstrate." He beckoned a rotting dwarf. "Retrieve ze cube."

The dwarf plunged beneath the surface. Seconds later he surfaced with a gasp, "Ai'm...alive!" He grinned. His arms and legs began to flail impotently. "And Ai cannae swim!" he spluttered as he submerged again. When he finally floated to the surface, he was in a face down position.

Victor dragged the dwarf's body over to the edge with a long hooked stick, which he seemed to have available for just this eventuality. "It is always ze same. Now I will need to reanimate him again. It is tiresome."

"You have a zombie skink. He is aquatic. Send him after the cube. He won't drown."

The scientist paused in his futile rescue mission. The glass disks covering his eyes glinted. "Zat has proven to be....unsatisfactory. He revives, remembers his last living urge, and zen tries to kill me. Zen I have to kill him, and zen reanimate him and so on and so on."

"I need one living, aquatic being to willingly retrieve the cube. I leave you to decide whether you will assist me, or choose to condemn your other companions to...unpleasantness. I must attend to my zombies outside. I can feel zat zey are strangely unsettled.

(image)

High up on Bessie's back, Joe and Mahtis were witnesses to a horrifying spectacle. The throng of zombies had organized themselves into two roughly equal factions. Those with hand weapons squared off against those with spears. What had started with some hissing and the occasional shove quickly escalated into a pitched battle.

"Halt!" Victor appeared at the mouth of the spawning chamber with his necromantic staff held aloft. The undead adversaries immediately froze and turned their milky eyes towards him.

"Who are the instigators of zis... disharmony?"

The mass of zombies disengaged and shambled backwards leaving two of their number locked in a kind of embrace. One was an undead skink. In one hand he held the butt end of a spear. The pointy end was standing proud of a zombie saurus warrior's back. The saurus, in his turn had demonstrated the efficiency of the humble hand weapon by hacking off the skinks other arm at the shoulder with a rusty sword.

"Come here!" Victor barked in annoyance. The pair approached their master.

"All of you!"

The skink went back and retrieved his arm from the ground.

(image)

Rychek could hear Victor's voice as he returned to the spawning chamber. "....been very disruptive! Stay here where I can supervise you. And give me zat."

Victor took Scalenex's arm and relocated it into the shoulder socket with a wet sounding pop.

"I don't understand. Ze zombies have never had conflict between zemselves before."

Rychek looked at the impassive zombie Bob and grunted. "Only the barest rudiments of their pre-mortem personality my a$$!" he mused inwardly.

A flash of green and purple lightning outside, followed scant few seconds later by a tremendous peel of thunder. This brought Victor's attention back to his experiment.

"What have you decided, Rychek of Lustria? Will you do zis small thing in the name of science?"

"No. Not in the name of science." Rychek held up a large dripping cube, formed of some opaque material. It had been only a minute's work to find the glowing cube beneath the turbid waters. One face emitted a soft red glow that pulsed rhythmically, like a beating heart. The opposite facet had a hard cracked surface like a crust of yellowy brown clay. As Victor lunged to snatch it away, Rychek pulled it back and held it above the waters of the spawning pool. "I do this in the name of the Old Ones, and in the name of my kin: the Legions of Lustria, wherever they may be found." He drew his arm back to throw the cube back into the water.

"Just kidding. Here you go.” Rychek tossed the mystic cube carelessly towards Victor who scrambled to catch it safely.

"You idiot. The forces are like the opposite poles of a lodestone. If ze material breaks, ze release of energy would be... catastrophic!"

As Victor spoke the last word there was another flash of lightning with an instantaneous clap of thunder. Rychek nearly jumped out of his skin.

Copper cable than ran from the temple heights to a large wooden-handled switch. Victor placed the cube with one inert side in contact with the switch wire, and another dead facet touching a cable which snaked away to a clamp on the creature's gurney. This clamp held the wire in contact with one silver bolt on the monster's neck. The other neck bolt was earthed into the spawning pool itself by length of copper braid held by a matching clamp.

Atop the temple metal lightning rods began to capture the wild galvanic energy from the magical storm. Lightning bolt after lightning bolt struck the sparking metal, as if the gods had made it their mission to destroy the unholy apparatus. The raging power was collected in a bank of massive capacitors. Suddenly the wind lulled and the thunder ceased. It was as if Olympus had just realized it had kicked an own goal.

Victor's glass lenses glittered as he watched a needle slowly creep into the red sector of a large dial. With an inhuman voice he shrieked, "I give you LIFE!" and closed the switch.

Blue, purple and green sparks arced across and through the mystic cube. It flared into a searing beacon of light. Silence followed. When Rychek's eyes readjusted to the dim cavern, he saw Victor standing expectantly over his creation.

The monster eventually twitched a huge clawed hand. Its unnatural eyes snapped open and a powerful moan issued from its throat. It swung its ungainly legs over the side of the gurney and wobbled on its feet, facing the scientist.

"I, Victor Franken-Necrostein, have given you life! .... I have made you!" Victor snatched up a silvered mirror and held it up for the creature to see itself.

The creature studied its face. It reached up with a clumsy hand and traced a row of crude stitches with one fingertip. "You... you have made me...." he turned his gaze away from the mirror and towards Victor. "You have made me....a freak. Come on! Kill me! I'm here, Do it now!"

Arnold piped up from the background, "That's my line! I am calling my agent!"

"What?" Victor was baffled. "I...I created you! You should love me!"

The creature advanced menacingly. "Scalenex! Bob!" Victor called the two nearest zombies. "Restrain him!"

The pair of undead lizards grabbed the thing by its arms. With an anguished bellow it shrugged them off, then bodily hurled them across the chamber to crunch against the far wall, above the spawning pool. The creature sank to its knees and sobbed, looking at its deformed hands.

Victor shook his pointy head in frustration. "Another failure. I have created yet another monster."

Arnold tapped Rick O'Mortis on the shoulder. The potato headed farmer turned an eye towards him. "What does he mean, another monster?"

"You. You did this." The creature pointed an accusing finger at Victor. "You are the monster!"

The scientist shrank back in sudden fear, only to find that his only possible path of retreat was blocked by the gurney. "Zombies!" he yelped, "Protect me! Destroy zem all!"

His silent guardians lumbered forward with gaping mouths and grasping hands. The largest of their number was a decomposing orc warboss with an enormous flint axe. He quickly closed the distance to the creature's back and raised his cleaver, ready to deal a killing blow.

Arnold crashed into the orc from one side. The axe clattered to the ground as the Gubernator twisted the orc's neck to a bone popping angle. The warboss was dead. Again. "You are terminated."

Rick applauded the extraordinary quote but the two were swarmed by the other zombies. Arnold managed to thrust his head out from under the heap of moldering assassins. "Get to the Choppa!" he pointed at the fallen orcish weapon before being dragged back under the seething mass.

Rychek was shocked out of his aghast paralysis. He seized the flint axe and began swinging wildly. Every blow lopped off an arm or a head, but still the zombies pressed inexorably forward.

"Hey! Hey! Silverbolt!"

The monster dragged himself to his feet and looked mournfully at Rychek.

"Brother! Help!"

"Brother." The creature mouthed the word and looked at the diminutive lizard who was about to be overwhelmed. With a look of anguish, he snatched the cowering scientist high above his deformed head and then slammed his slight frame down onto the gurney.

The spitting copper wires were still connected to the capacitor array on the great temple. Bright tongues of galvanic energy arced across Victor's thrashing body as it closed the circuit. Between shuddering spasms he screeched, "I...just...want...to...be..loved... .."

The glass disks shattered out of their wire frames, and smoke poured from the empty eye sockets which had been hidden behind them. Victor was dead. Finally.

The Necro-scientist's zombie puppets froze in place. Some sagged to the floor of the chamber. Arnold clambered out from under a pile of cadavers. He reached in with a gleaming metal arm and dragged Rick O'Mortis out from the heap. "Come with me. If you want to live." Rick nodded his potato head vigorously and the pair left the chamber.

Rychek was left alone with the sobbing creature and the sound of water plinking into the spawning pool.

"I have destroyed my creator. What is my purpose?"

Rychek gently turned Silverbolt away from the smoking body. "He did not create you. You were brought to life in the name and power of the Old Ones. Your purpose is their Great Plan."

"But... I don't know what that is!"

"Neither do we," Rychek grinned, "But that has never held us back. Brother."

"I must.... consider this." Silverbolt held his head high for the first time, towering over the skink. He turned and strode confidently outside.

"A little help? Please?" Rychek peered into the spawning pool to find the owner of this new voice. He saw a skink vigorously treading water and struggling to keep the nostrils of a white helmet wearing saurus warrior from going under. Bob, for his part, was thrashing his limbs ineffectually and threatening to drown both himself and Scalenex at any moment.

Rychek dived into the water, and together the pair of skinks dragged the waterlogged, but otherwise hale, saurus warrior out.

As Bob coughed and spluttered, Scalenex and Rychek launched into a curious ritual. They stood a few paces apart. Each in turn raised a claw in a circular motion. Next, they thudded their tails, audibly, on the cavern floor. They raised their head crests and flushed blood through the layers of chromatophores which occupied the skin flap, creating moving bands of colour. They did not glance away from each other for an instant.

Bob had recovered sufficiently to stagger back out into the lost temple city.

"Is everyone gone?" Scalenex muttered through clenched teeth.

"I think so," Rychek replied, risking a quick look around. "Yep."

The pair hugged shyly.

"Should we put that back?" Rychek pointed to the mystic cube which was half buried in the detritus surrounding them.

"You mean, reconsecrate the spawning pool to the Old Ones?"

"Yeah."

"Okay."

A few minutes later the pair stood gazing at their handiwork.

"I really don't know very much about spawning pools" Rychek said. "Do you think it will work again?"

"After thousands of years of distilling nutrients from the earth, and then having all that lightning channeled into it from a storm of magic? Probably not." The water started to bubble vigorously. "Well... Maybe."

A mighty reptilian figure burst from the water and loomed over them. He was large for a saurus warrior, and the scales on his breast were marked with an unusual pattern of vertical lines.

"Brillinat! Thnaks gyus!" He grabbed each skink in turn by the claw and shook vigorously until their teeth chattered. His eyes lit up when he saw the discarded orc weapon. He snatched it, and a second later he was gone. From the temple concourse Rychek and Scalenex heard an illegible warcry and the sounds of battle. Distant voices were raised in protest. The exchange ended with a sickening thud.

Not long after, Joe entered the spawning chamber with Mahtis, who was dragging the unconscious spawnling by his tail.

Joe jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the mysterious saurus. "This guy just came out and started chopping up zombies. But they were already dead. Again. I couldn't understand him, so Mahtis had to calm him down. Wait...are you two holding hands?"

"No!" The two skinks hurriedly stepped apart. "We were just....oh good! He is coming round."

The marked saurus groaned as the light in his eyes returned. "Waht hpapende?"

"I've got this," rumbled Mahtis. "I speak dyslexic. Woh aer yuo?"



The saurus grinned. "I ma Neatne, ehgit hnuderd nad tnhet fo ym swapning."

"He said, "I am Naeten, eight hundred and tenth of my spawning." "

Mahtis asked, "Wyh era yuo hree bferoe yrou sapwnkni?

Naeten proudly thumped the blessed markings on his breast. "Alwyas Stirkes Frist!"

[pic] [/pic]

Before long, others of Naeten's spawning began to emerge. They all had unusual vigour and enthusiasm, and soon set the lost temple city to rights. Teams of kroxigors toppled the lightning farm from the sacred heights and skink masons immortalized the heroism of Silverbolt and Rychek in stone. Unfortunately, no future scholars would ever be able to interpret the meaning of the garbled glyphs.

Once the defilement had been removed from the great temple, a gap in the heavy clouds appeared. A column of noonday sun shone down on Bessie and her riders. The sloar engine flared to life once more.

"Chotec blesses you." Scalenex lowered his crest in respect. (By this time the crest lowering had been used to represent respect, grief, regret, thoughtfulness and constipation. The discovery of a vault full of dried ixti grubs had been met with delight, but was not without consequences.

"May the Old Ones keep you in their path and in their Great Plan. Whatever that might be. Brother." Silverbolt bowed with his hands clenched over his heart.

"Freawlle!" Naeten waved enthusiastically, "Tkae crea wthi teh Orges!"

Bessie passed through the eastern gate flanked by an honour guard of gleaming saurus warriors.

"Goodbye, Scalenex! Goodbye Silverbolt, Arnold and Rick! Godobey Nteane!" Mahtis called.

Rychek, kept his eyes fixed on the murky eastern horizon. He could not prevent a tear from rolling down his scaly cheek.

"Hey! Rychek!" whispered Joe, "I think Scalenex just blew a kiss at you..."

(image)

Many days of hard travel lay between the reestablished Temple City of Dyslexia and the Mountains of Mourn. Joe sat with Bob in their customary position at the back of the howdah. He tried to engage Bob in their usual kind of discussion.

"Surely the tastiest snack is dried ixti grubs." Joe was sure he was onto a winner here.

Bob turned slowly to stare into Joe's eyes. "No." he murmured. "It's Brainz."

Joe spent the rest of this leg of their journey perched beside Rychek on Bessie's shoulder plate. He spent most of his time looking anxiously back, rather than at the drab tundra that separated the adventurers from their goal.

Stay Tooned for..... The Next Chapter!

 

Re: Spawning of Bob - The Legions of Los'tmabo'tl - Ch15.1 v

*REDACTED*


Edit: in an effort to not further spoil Bob's story, I have self moderated my post.

 

Re: Spawning of Bob - The Legions of Los'tmabo'tl - Ch15.1 v

Man Rychek! You sure know how to spoil a cliffhanger!

 

Re: Spawning of Bob - The Legions of Los'tmabo'tl - Ch15.1 v

Yeah, I probably should have thought about that a bit more before posting.

 

Re: Spawning of Bob - The Legions of Los'tmabo'tl - Ch15.1 v

Thanks for ruining it for me Rycheck.

Man, I didn't see that coming at all.

 

Re: Spawning of Bob - The Legions of Los'tmabo'tl - Ch15.1 v

Problem solved.

 

Re: Spawning of Bob - The Legions of Los'tmabo'tl - Ch15.1 v

Secrets of the Poor Lizard's Graphic Novel: Number 328

No matter how forced, If there is a cartoon that already exists, twist the plot of the story so you can use it.

You didn't see that coming either, did you Len.


Fun Fact: Number 2

I had to remove a finger from my original Zombie Grave Bursting Bob image because number of fingers is plot relevant, and because I pay much more attention to detail than that sloppy ZaGreekie.

SoB

 

Re: Spawning of Bob - The Legions of Los'tmabo'tl - Ch15.1 v

Bob, Bob, Bob....

What have you done?

 

Re: Spawning of Bob - The Legions of Los'tmabo'tl - Ch15.1 v

Nothing that a little bit of superglue and a recoat of paint can't fix.

Full step by step instructional in "Lizardmen Painting and Converting"


The Dark Lands part 2 is ready for your viewing pleasure.

Rychek, don't worry, anyone who didn't know Bob was eventually going to be a zombie hasn'r been paying enough attention since April or so.

Spoilers are welcome. I'm ornery enough to change the story just to prove you wrong anyway!

 

Re: Spawning of Bob - The Legions of Los'tmabo'tl -Ch15.2 Br

Reuse of images??? Say it isn't so!

Now is a potato really a vegetable? Hmmm. Need to research that, if it is true then I will eat lots of fries for my servings of veggies!

 

Re: Spawning of Bob - The Legions of Los'tmabo'tl -Ch15.2 Br

Technically the potatoe is a root vegetable, as long as you aren't talking to a nutritionalist. Though the potatoe in question may not be most nutritional specimen in the Old World.

 

Re: Spawning of Bob - The Legions of Los'tmabo'tl -Ch15.2 Br

Bob, Bob, Bob...



Too funny...