Post by MagusKariusPrelune on Sept 25, 2004 9:33:07 GMT -5
Originally posted by Charax
"Why do we do this?"
"It's tradition."
"It's a fething stupid myth."
"hehe, calm down buddy, or the AllSeer'll get you."
"Shut up. Here we are, it's been fifty years since anyone touched the Spire, and yet we still stand here, staring at a half-built spire, waiting for some 'god' to come and take the souls of the dead to the afterlife. It's stupid."
A heavy rain was falling, and yet thousands of people stood, staring at the steel latticework structure. ornate plasteel curves and a carefully-constructed series of holes allowed the incomplete structure to be immensely strong and yet equally viewable from all angles.
Up until half a century before they had believed that the Allseer, a being of mythical power, came to the world every three thousand years and released the souls of all the people who had died since his last coming to the rapture of the afterlife - the catch being that the inhabitants had only that time to construct the Spire of light - it's connection to the myth was unclear, and incomplete plans for i had been found merely five hundred years ago, putting the populace in a mad rush (roughly a century later, when the discovery was widely accepted) to complete the design and construct the spire.
Fifty years ago construction stopped as belief in the old myth started failing - rival religions existed, with tales of great world-ships carrying a dying race through the stars or of a dead leader whose sons were armoured titans twice as tall as a man, as well as other, more believable ones, and sheer, relentless apathy, and with a change of power into the hands of a non-believer, the Spire project stopped.
Now, rain hammered down upon the believers as they looked upon the decrepid structure with hope - several texts, visions of madmen and prophesies pointed to tonight being the start of Allseer's Night, and humans have an insatiable hunger for the knowledge that they're right.
The rain grew stronger, armoured cars patrolled the streets for any sign of disturbances brought on by the tensions surrounding the event - a few battletanks had been enlisted just in case and everyone stared intently - it had been taken as a curiosity that the entire planet would be engulfed in rainclouds this night. no weather patterns, no swirling images from orbital devices, just the rain.
Suddenly something shifted - as if a filter had been removed from over peoples eyes they saw little glowing balls of energy all around them, tiny, white, dancing things that seemed to gravitate towards each other, spinning and whirling in trios before being disrupted by the movements of another set of globes. beautiful three-dimensional shapes were carved in the air by the trails of millions...no, billions - trillions of little dancing lights, all making their way to the base of the spire, the crowds smiled and cheered, and over the world other believers smiled and cheered as telecommunications networks broadcast the event to the billions inhabiting the planet, who were soon joined by the same lights.
They were right.
it took a few minutes for the first of the masses of light to accumulate in the structure, spilling out over the incomplete top - a few minutes for them to realise their mistake, and the logical conclusion to their eagerly-awaited vindication of faith
We didn't complete it.
At that moment, the screaming began - a young woman had fallen to the floor, clutching her face, a gobbet of translucent green multi-hued ichor was on her face, sticking to her hands, and through the green tint the onlookers saw... her skull! A man watching her was hit in the spine and collapsed to the floor as the middle of his back was eaten away - more gobbets of acidic ichor flew and a mighty thunder was heard throughout the planet - the rain was flowly replaced by the new substance and hundreds of fleeing former onlookers were cut down, stripped to the bone in mere seconds. the lucky ones bought enough time to find shelter, but slowly the ichor burned into the ceramite roats, the plascrete roofs, the adamantine vehicles - scenes of devastation were scattered about the land - two intwined skeletons marked the spot where two lovers would forever share a final embrace - twinned dancing lights having emerged from their backs, another cluster from the exploding riot vehicle whose engine block had been breached, killing all inside - a large gathering of globes emerging above the library where hundreds of people had gathered, not noticing the rain eating into the roof's supports.
Dead sockets looked at the figure emerging from the Spire, a massive armoured beast with wings spanning the width of a building. thirty feet of armoured behemoth, tusked head topped with a crown of horns, whose bone-white armour held the trapped, leering faces of the damned. The rain pattered off its body and etched great furrows into the earth as it ran off its colossal wings. It hefted a great scythe in one arm while a black blade emerged from the forearm of the other. the white lights gravitated towards it, leaving small sections of bubbling flesh and armour that quickly reformed. hundreds of lights streamed into the creature every second, silently it stalked the empty, dead streets.
Wrecked riot patrol vehicles and MBTs crewed by skeletons stood by as he walked intently forwards, melted flesh, blood and green ichor cloying around his feet. He stopped and looked into a building on the verge of collapsing. the rain stopped and he idly threw the top three stories of the building to one side, into a wall where it crumbled. the massive creature saw a small family shivering and peering out from their basement, spared the fate of the others by sheer numbers of floors above them. Numb with shock, they stood silent, probably hoping the gargantuan being hadnt noticed them - an ever-futile hope.
"I am the AllSeer, collect together the survivors and rebuild your world. You now have five hundred years until I return. Do not allow them to forget. Complete a new spire and your planet may yet see a new millennium." With that, the creature extended its massive wings, waited a moment for the last of the globes to enter him, and rose high into the air with a mighty flap, a few more bringing him further up and out of sight.
Landing in the transport vessal's loading ramp Charax folded his wings and walked inside, vaguely aware of the hatch closing behind him.
"How did it go?" one of the champions asked
"As well as can be expected, such worlds are useful from time to time, but are ultimately little more then soul farms. Order the flagship to destroy the spire and we'll be on our way."
A thin beam of white light struck the centre of the spire, illuminating it in the darkness. A few seconds later a pulse of blue energy travelled down the beam and blasted the structure to dust, the shockwave causing several weakened buildings nearby to collapse. Four centuries of work obliterated in an instant.
The people of this world would not forget their tribute next time.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Impressive display, but did you ever stop to consider why I am known as the Eternal? - Charax to Mentirius at Secret's Hold
Visit the Conclave at www.geocities.com/Inquisitor_conclave/Index.html
Every time you twist the background Charax twists the head off a poor defenceless Imperial Fist. Powergaming Kills.
"Why do we do this?"
"It's tradition."
"It's a fething stupid myth."
"hehe, calm down buddy, or the AllSeer'll get you."
"Shut up. Here we are, it's been fifty years since anyone touched the Spire, and yet we still stand here, staring at a half-built spire, waiting for some 'god' to come and take the souls of the dead to the afterlife. It's stupid."
A heavy rain was falling, and yet thousands of people stood, staring at the steel latticework structure. ornate plasteel curves and a carefully-constructed series of holes allowed the incomplete structure to be immensely strong and yet equally viewable from all angles.
Up until half a century before they had believed that the Allseer, a being of mythical power, came to the world every three thousand years and released the souls of all the people who had died since his last coming to the rapture of the afterlife - the catch being that the inhabitants had only that time to construct the Spire of light - it's connection to the myth was unclear, and incomplete plans for i had been found merely five hundred years ago, putting the populace in a mad rush (roughly a century later, when the discovery was widely accepted) to complete the design and construct the spire.
Fifty years ago construction stopped as belief in the old myth started failing - rival religions existed, with tales of great world-ships carrying a dying race through the stars or of a dead leader whose sons were armoured titans twice as tall as a man, as well as other, more believable ones, and sheer, relentless apathy, and with a change of power into the hands of a non-believer, the Spire project stopped.
Now, rain hammered down upon the believers as they looked upon the decrepid structure with hope - several texts, visions of madmen and prophesies pointed to tonight being the start of Allseer's Night, and humans have an insatiable hunger for the knowledge that they're right.
The rain grew stronger, armoured cars patrolled the streets for any sign of disturbances brought on by the tensions surrounding the event - a few battletanks had been enlisted just in case and everyone stared intently - it had been taken as a curiosity that the entire planet would be engulfed in rainclouds this night. no weather patterns, no swirling images from orbital devices, just the rain.
Suddenly something shifted - as if a filter had been removed from over peoples eyes they saw little glowing balls of energy all around them, tiny, white, dancing things that seemed to gravitate towards each other, spinning and whirling in trios before being disrupted by the movements of another set of globes. beautiful three-dimensional shapes were carved in the air by the trails of millions...no, billions - trillions of little dancing lights, all making their way to the base of the spire, the crowds smiled and cheered, and over the world other believers smiled and cheered as telecommunications networks broadcast the event to the billions inhabiting the planet, who were soon joined by the same lights.
They were right.
it took a few minutes for the first of the masses of light to accumulate in the structure, spilling out over the incomplete top - a few minutes for them to realise their mistake, and the logical conclusion to their eagerly-awaited vindication of faith
We didn't complete it.
At that moment, the screaming began - a young woman had fallen to the floor, clutching her face, a gobbet of translucent green multi-hued ichor was on her face, sticking to her hands, and through the green tint the onlookers saw... her skull! A man watching her was hit in the spine and collapsed to the floor as the middle of his back was eaten away - more gobbets of acidic ichor flew and a mighty thunder was heard throughout the planet - the rain was flowly replaced by the new substance and hundreds of fleeing former onlookers were cut down, stripped to the bone in mere seconds. the lucky ones bought enough time to find shelter, but slowly the ichor burned into the ceramite roats, the plascrete roofs, the adamantine vehicles - scenes of devastation were scattered about the land - two intwined skeletons marked the spot where two lovers would forever share a final embrace - twinned dancing lights having emerged from their backs, another cluster from the exploding riot vehicle whose engine block had been breached, killing all inside - a large gathering of globes emerging above the library where hundreds of people had gathered, not noticing the rain eating into the roof's supports.
Dead sockets looked at the figure emerging from the Spire, a massive armoured beast with wings spanning the width of a building. thirty feet of armoured behemoth, tusked head topped with a crown of horns, whose bone-white armour held the trapped, leering faces of the damned. The rain pattered off its body and etched great furrows into the earth as it ran off its colossal wings. It hefted a great scythe in one arm while a black blade emerged from the forearm of the other. the white lights gravitated towards it, leaving small sections of bubbling flesh and armour that quickly reformed. hundreds of lights streamed into the creature every second, silently it stalked the empty, dead streets.
Wrecked riot patrol vehicles and MBTs crewed by skeletons stood by as he walked intently forwards, melted flesh, blood and green ichor cloying around his feet. He stopped and looked into a building on the verge of collapsing. the rain stopped and he idly threw the top three stories of the building to one side, into a wall where it crumbled. the massive creature saw a small family shivering and peering out from their basement, spared the fate of the others by sheer numbers of floors above them. Numb with shock, they stood silent, probably hoping the gargantuan being hadnt noticed them - an ever-futile hope.
"I am the AllSeer, collect together the survivors and rebuild your world. You now have five hundred years until I return. Do not allow them to forget. Complete a new spire and your planet may yet see a new millennium." With that, the creature extended its massive wings, waited a moment for the last of the globes to enter him, and rose high into the air with a mighty flap, a few more bringing him further up and out of sight.
Landing in the transport vessal's loading ramp Charax folded his wings and walked inside, vaguely aware of the hatch closing behind him.
"How did it go?" one of the champions asked
"As well as can be expected, such worlds are useful from time to time, but are ultimately little more then soul farms. Order the flagship to destroy the spire and we'll be on our way."
A thin beam of white light struck the centre of the spire, illuminating it in the darkness. A few seconds later a pulse of blue energy travelled down the beam and blasted the structure to dust, the shockwave causing several weakened buildings nearby to collapse. Four centuries of work obliterated in an instant.
The people of this world would not forget their tribute next time.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Impressive display, but did you ever stop to consider why I am known as the Eternal? - Charax to Mentirius at Secret's Hold
Visit the Conclave at www.geocities.com/Inquisitor_conclave/Index.html
Every time you twist the background Charax twists the head off a poor defenceless Imperial Fist. Powergaming Kills.